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MP: All right, welcome to the Teleclass.

This is Mark Peysha with the RobbinsMadanes Training, Cloe Madanes from the Robbins & Madanes Training and were very
excited to get started. This week has been an intense process for all of us and were very
happy that you made it here. Its a great class. Weve had communications with so many
of you a very diverse, very interesting people from all over the world, of different types
of professions, professional backgrounds, from people who have a lot of training
experience as a coach and to people who have no training experience as a coach but who
want to become coaches or want to implement this in your professional life or in other
areas of your life. So, were just so happy to have you here. We have some new
countries on board that we never had before. Its a very international group. And so,
Cloe, if theres anything youd like to say, I will then go on to it may it takes a few
minutes to be very clear about with whats ahead for us in the training.
C: Yes. Go ahead and if I have something to add, Ill interrupt.
MP: Great! Okay. So, I just want to be very clear about what the sequence is for the
training. Were right now in the first five weeks, were going to be more intensive and
its going to be were going to be releasing one module and one call per week for five
weeks, and then it will shift down to once every ten days and the reason is 'cause were
all very excited and its great to get this fundamental concepts under our belts.
So, the sequence you want to follow is: 1. You will watch the video of any module. So,
youll go to the modules you have in your membership site and you can watch the video.
2. Complete the homework and as youll see the homework gets emailed to us
immediately where we read it and it gets placed in your personal homework archives.
So, to see that no one else gets to read her homework, you can be completely confidential
about it. Its only going to be seen by Cloe and myself and yourself. 3. You attend the
teleclass with us and this is an intercession right now where we will be sharing with you
some of the foundational strategy and the strategic intervention which we call mega
strategies and well talk about them in greater depth in a few minutes.
And so those are the first three steps, the teleclass will be recorded
C: Mark, let me interrupt just for a moment. And my little lecture that comes before the
sale, how do they get that?
MP: Yes. Im sorry.
C: The little lecture that comes before the sale, am I right? Its for the module. Where is
that?
MP: Thats right next to the homework.
C: Okay.

MP: So basically the video, the little lecture and the home work all of one piece and
those who actually, those that record parts of the training requirements, is to watch the
film, read the little lecture and do the homework. And so then the teleclasses are a
bonus that we feel a very important bonus in the training because in that Cloe now will be
giving you a whole another way of looking at the films in the intervention. So even if
you have had experience watching the Ultimate Relationship Program films, or if youve
seen this film, or youre familiar with them, youre about to open up a whole another
level of understanding and how those strategic, how those interventions work, exactly
what Tony did.
Inside the films, we created the films to help people who are in a relationship trouble not
necessarily for coaches or for people who want to understand exactly how Tony
unlocked, you know, that persons problem and solved it. And so, in our sessions we will
really be going into the detail. And so, after those three steps, watching the video,
reading the lecture and completing the homework and then attending the Teleclass, the
additional activities are for you to join the forum where you get to interact with each
other, share ideas, master mind, ask for advice, we have incredibly talented and goodhearted people on board. People are generating new ideas about core concepts like the
Six Human Needs, doing their own analysis of Tonys interventions. Its fascinating. Its
amazing, their expertise. You can contact there so spend sometime there.
The study buddy program is the next piece and so if you need to be hooked up with a
buddy, look for an email from me later this week. This applies to anyone in the training,
whatever your membership, you can get a buddy. So, well pair you with someone. You
will receive a series of study buddy assignments, and exercise that you can do together.
This is short. The two of you can work at the logistics but assignments take maybe 30
minutes and each person takes it 15 minutes or so. And you can schedule this however
you like if you work it out between the two of you, once a week, once every two weeks
and so forth.
And if you want two buddies or three, you know, thats fine. We can help you put as
many people and we also recommend that time to time people switch buddies. So people
need to switch as often if they just want to get a little more variety, interaction with more
people, experience with a little more different type of people. So Id say it is a kind of
thing where people you know, makes friends with the buddy and then they can get
another buddy as well, and thats totally cool with us.
C: Let me add something to that, its not mandatory to have a buddy however.
MP: Thats right.
C: Some people prefer not doing that kind.
MP: Yes. So, we want to be, we want to be clear with that. The mandatory parts are to
watch the films.

C: And do the homework. Just that.


MP: Read the homeworks and do the little lecture that is associated with the home work.
That is the mandatory part. The other parts are just for engaging more deeply and more
thoroughly and spending more time.
So the next piece to know about is the private podcast so everyone can be getting the
films and audios on their private podcast in your iTunes account. So, if you dont have
an iTunes account yet, thats fine. If you have a computer, it takes a few minutes to set it
up and well help you with that. And iTunes means that you will get your stack of videos
and audios delivered to your computer in a way that is easy to transfer to your cell phone,
or iPod or other device. Ill be sending out information on how to do that later this week
or possibly Monday.
And we need to have our text support ready for you to make sure that everyone if you
have any problems, well be right there with you. Hopefully get everybody resolved from
then the next week. And this is also great. It makes it very portable. So if you spend a lot
of time in transit, or you travel on the plane you could just open up your laptop or your
device and watch all your films and do another module of training. And also why
sometimes you hear from people who have sometimes spent time in places with internet
is very poor so this is the place where you could load up on all your materials and even if
youre traveling in, in the hour you know the northwest or the mountains or wherever the
signal is not very strong you can continue with the training.
So the next piece is the acceleration program, thats the program where you can basically
people who dont want to go the modules they want to go there more quickly Ill
talk to you later this week about how to open your questionnaire and you can request that
option. And just a quick overview, the other bonus that we mentioned the marketing
module, the workplace intensive will start around in September when people are back
from summer vacation. I think well all be more present and to dig our teeth into into
those topics. Well have the syllabus and schedules are free by Monday and youll get the
big view of whats ahead.
The basic summary though is that well be going five weekly teleclasses, five
Wednesdays and for the foundational concepts of strategic intervention that were moving
to another area called Mastery units. And the Mastery unit is a cluster of four to six
modules focusing on a specific topic that you could have mastered. And the mastery unit
focus on understanding the different phases of life or some mastery units focus on areas
of life which is health.
In each case, the purpose of mastery unit is to deliver the most useful strategies that you
could contribute to someone in that area. You may not become an expert with this but if
someone is having a problem in that area, as an interventionist you going to understand
the key points, the key progress that can be made. And so if you happen to be working
with a client whos frustrated about their weight youll have ways to understand and help.
Or if youre working with someone whos have career performance issues and you

learned that its because they have little kids and they are fighting with their spouse, well
youll know how to make a difference in a very elegant and effective way.
And finally, the big picture our goal here is to equip you guys to be awesome, strategic
intervention coaches. So, wherever in society you happen to be operating we think its
time that professionals and people in general had a higher standard for knowing how to
make others, help other people make changes and were really looking forward to the
develop ourselves and take this mission forward. So, whether youre going to be a full
time coach or work in another profession, or help people around you, wherever you are
youre going to be able to change some lives and so with that wish that we start this
program. So one last thing, practicality about 45 minutes at the end of this call we will be
answering questions. So if you have any questions at any point feel free to press star-two
and raise your hand and get in line. Also I can see you guys on the webcast so feel free to
enter your questions a well. Okay. So, Cloe, shall we start?
C: Yeah. So Im going to talk a little bit about whats strategic intervention and coaching
are and what is strategic coaching.
MP: What weve done is that we took the best of the coaching field and the best of
strategic intervention and integrated the two. So what that means, is that if this is the best
of Tony Robbins combined with the best of my work and we built on the contribution of
important people in the field such as Milton Erickson. Ericsson originated three main
schools of therapy and that will be strategic brief therapy and strategic family therapy.
And if so in that sense Tony comes from an NLP background and I come from a strategic
therapy background but we both it comes from the work of Milton Erickson that
influenced Tony greatly through the work of Grinder, one of the creators of NLP.
So we also took the best of Gestalt therapy and the best of social psychology,
organizational psychology and integrated with the work of the Harvard School in terms of
mediation and negotiation. So what is characteristic of this approach is that whether
youre working with an individual, a couple or a group, this is an interaction of view. So
we never have the narrow perspective of just an individual that were trying to influence.
We are always influencing relationships, we are always thinking of the larger social
context, the social structure, the interactions between people. And we are very aware of
hierarchy and cross-generation of relationship. And all of this will come through to you
in the next few modules.
So what weve done with Tonys footage is that weve taken the most important concepts
and put a narration and explanation to with and added a short lecture like by me like
Mark was explaining. Actually, Tony has been asking us to do this for 5 years at least.
And I kept thinking that it was too difficult but finally, we did it and were very happy to
have done it because this is the best training anywhere and its my work definitely at the
highest level and the same for Mark. So
MP: Great. So this is truly an inter-disciplinary project. We think of it as something as
somewhat open ended, we think of it as very compatible with other forms of work. So

if you come from a different field, we have people who are educators, mediators,
managers, CEOs, best-selling authors as part of this training. We also have people who
are trainers, coaches and therapists. And we basically want your ideas, we want to use
what you need to learn and use what you know how to do and make it open ended so you
can apply it but you can also bring something to strategic intervention.
C: Yeah. What is wonderful about strategic intervention is that you can always develop
new strategies. So this approach is not an orthodox. So far theres only one way of doing
things. Anything, we take anything that works. The test for an intervention is that it
works or not. And whatever you can contribute, if it works, it will be wonderful to
incorporate and to develop new strategies.
MP: Absolutely, we really believe that it is important to be creative and the way to keep
this tradition alive is for people to be innovating and applying it to different areas. So
were really gang ho about that.
And were getting some great stories from people, also. We have every week we get
stories from different professions with their ideas. Okay. So lets start on the mega
strategies. The next five weeks well be focusing on the mega strategies and these are
large scale strategies that were responsible for probably around 80% of your success in
intervention and then the conversation. And our mega strategies are extremely simple
and powerful; its something that you can use in any conversation in life and if you want
to use a core strategy this week, you do not have to go looking for a coaching client. You
can do it anywhere.
And our goal is to describe the mega strategy; show how it works. And then invite you to
introduce it into your communications, in your normal life or in your practice. Just
become aware of that level of communication. You can do with your buddy as well. And
mega strategy is, its one of those things someone looks at whats something that Tonys
doing then say, Wow! They did this great job and they did this. You know, went to
these three steps and then someone else says, Why I can do these three steps. Well, we
are able to do them that well. Well, its kind of like a you know the Michael Jordan who
is the basketball player and what people used to say about him is, Hes incredibly
talented but he also spends tremendous amount of hours just shooting the hoops. It was
like a fundamental right? But being focused on the fundamentals that you need to have.
Well, I believe that any person who is a master in any area has got certain fundamentals
of him if hed just put in the time. And so the mega strategies are the areas of intervention
that were picking out better something like, Hey! These are the five things. If you
practice these five things, youre going to have an amazing muscle and amazing ability to
make interventions work even if you dont have to know all the other steps.
So, lets start talking about the mega strategy in the Lindsey film. The first one is a
strategy of metaphor in communication. Right, Cloe?

C: Right. So everybody has watched the Lindsey film. So do you remember that she
talks about the heavy bag that she is carrying and the heavy bag is her debt and she has to
repay this debt and it brings her down and its so heavy and Tony very skillfully, through
metaphorical communication helps her to get rid of that bag? If you remember, first he
asked her to put it down. When she puts it down, she shows in her physiology that shes
actually experiencing putting down that bag. Its very interesting to watch her body
movement then.
And ultimately Tony has her shoot it into the air and it disappears. And Lindsey responds
to that and is obviously immediately relieved. It was so interesting to me that right after
that, where in the beginning of the conversation she was referring to her work as a
terrible pain for her, difficult thing, no joy in it at all but she had to work to pay the debt.
When she has rid of that metaphorical bag, she explains she actually loves her work and
shes very happy about it. And its as if she cant even remember the way that she talked
about her work at the beginning which was completely disparaging kind of a reference.
So this is the power of metaphor. Metaphors are extremely powerful when you are able
to change a metaphor, you change the meaning and you change a persons behavior.
So, let me explain a couple of things about metaphor. Metaphor can be simply a
communication. For example, this heavy bag that I carry around as high as a kite. So, it
can be a phrase, but it can also be an image. For example, the cross, which is a very
powerful metaphor. But a metaphor and this is really my contribution to the fields of
metaphors a metaphor can also be an interaction. For example, you can have an
interaction between two people that is a metaphor for an interaction between two other
people sounds complicated but its really very simple. For example, a brother and sister
might fight with each other in a way that is metaphorical of the arguments between the
mother and the father. So, what happens with the interaction on metaphors is that often
the metaphor in the interaction replaces the original interaction. So, for example, mother
and father might be arguing, fighting with each other when the brother and sister begin to
fight and their fight reaches a certain point. The mother and father are not arguing with
each other anymore. Theyre focused on the children. For example, they are talking
about how could these children be so bad, how can we stop them from being violent?
That kind of thing. But the fact is, that the fighting of the children replaced the fighting
of the parents and it replaced the unpleasant or disturbing interaction between the parents.
So Im sure that some of you are wondering whether children can actually do something
like this deliberately. Yes, sometimes they do it deliberately, sometimes they do it
unwittingly or unconsciously. But children can plan behaviors much more complicated
than this. Just look at the kinds of things that they do in the computer games and so on.
So, its no surprise that children might say, Oh, when we fight with each other then mom
and dad stop fighting so lets do more of that. And in this way, they are protecting their
parents and to the point where their father might be even have been at the point of
pushing the mother or hitting her and that negative interaction was interrupted by the
childrens fighting.
MP: Yeah. The protective instinct of children is extremely ingenious. And children may
not consciously realize that theyre doing something for that reason except that they feel

it releases some tension in the family and children kind of lived in the space of the family.
They feel it; its as if its their own body. So if it takes the tension off for the parents
tension, the little boy or little girl know that they can ask certain annoying questions at
certain times to get the people in the family to shift the focus to absolutely do that. And
so
C: But adults also do that to a great extent. So when youre talking with someone or
coaching an adult, its important to think, Who is this person trying to protect? What are
they protecting from what? Who? How are they are doing it? And in Lindseys case, of
course, she was being very protective of her children because her children had such a
serious problem that she was in doing that, she was neglecting her husband who was
her greatest strength and her greatest resource.
MP: Yeah. And so often with metaphors thats also the language of experience. What
seems to make it so effective? Its that when people are usually in the point where
theyre feeling upset overwhelmed. You know, I meant it usually comes out with a
metaphor. I am at the end of my rope. I am feeling like Im shut out here. You cant
stop me. These are metaphors and that is how people experience them. And so when
Tony gives her another metaphor or just brings her to the consciousness of basically use
that metaphor and does something with the metaphor he actually does something in her.
There is something strange in the human body. And I believe the husband had to deal
with the fact that when we were children, we learn, we program our nervous system. We
learned through play and play is imaginative. And when people are having imaginative
play, they are inhabiting the space of metaphor. So, youre being, Im going to be a dog
and you are going to be a cat. I am going to be the fireman and you will be my friend
fireman and we are going to go fight that fire. Its all the scenarios that you put in
your body are metaphors. I have a four year old boy and hes definitely runs into a lot
of situations where he just does not want to do something. So, he wanted to get in the car
and he says, I want to go in the car. I want to go, you know. I will stay home. And
then, but I found that you know, it can be as simple as this, but I used a metaphor and
said, But youre not getting in the car. We have to get you a new vehicle because were
going to the moon. And he goes, Whoa! Yes, we got to go get some of those moon
jeeps. And whatever it is, you can use metaphors and so you know adults respond the
same way. It was weird, isnt it? And so often youll see in the intervention, when youre
watching Tony youll see that he is working with someone with a bit of little resistance
and the kind of not accepting it and usually people arent accepting it. They either
dont feel understood or they feel like its the wrong metaphor you are asking of them.
So you shift the metaphor into left. Shift like a glove and they can do that thing. So
C: Okay. So, I want to point out also that the behavior of an individual can also be a
metaphor for another persons behavior. I wanted to tell you a story of this case and its
very interesting because the words several different levels of metaphor. And this was a
little boy that the family consulted because he had terrible headache and the doctors could
not find any physiological cause for this headaches. And when we began to interview the
family, we discovered that the father had terrible problems at work. He didnt get along
with his boss and he got a very stressful job. He actually worked for a newspaper and he

had terrible deadlines. And so he was afraid of losing his job and he came home with a
metaphorical headache which was the headache that his job was. Now, he would come
home eager to pick a fight with his wife and as a way of letting off the scene. And
typically, he would come home and say something and then rush to the wife. And at that
moment, the little boy would complain that he had a headache and he had terrible pain.
And so the father would focus off his attention on the boy trying to distract and help him
and at that moment was disconnected from his grouchiness towards the wife. And so, it
is interesting because the child provided a temporary solution but ultimately he only
added to the fathers problems and it is always like that, when people are trying to protect
someone in an indirect way.
So, it was interesting because there were more metaphors in them and other metaphorical
interaction between the children. It was that they would fight with each other. And in
that way replace the parents fighting with each other.
MP: Thats right. Its almost like in an unhealthful immune response in the sense that it
prevents the primary problem from becoming severe but he creates a side problem and
you know that is very, very common that if youre working with a family, youre
understanding a child like their teacher for instance, and the child has got issues, then
often that is the result of the metaphorical kind of use of attention in the family or more
metaphorical acting out that is protecting the family, protecting the parents from
experiencing another level of problem. Well then, it is very confusing, if sometimes
when you work with the child directly and its confusing but we know how to deal with
it. When you work with the child directly and for instance you work with the boy, too
with the headache and he gets better, then often the real problem will resurface. And
then
C: Thats one one of the ways of solving this is that you focus on the original problem.
And so you help the father to deal better with his work, to deal better with his wife, to be
more explicit about what he needs to have to change that work and then the childs
headache disappear. And thats exactly what we did in that case.
MP: Great! So basically, there is one way you can look at something that you dont
understand the behavior, you dont understand the symptom. It doesnt have any
physiological basis. And so you think, Hmm, this could be a metaphorical expression
without the problem. Work on the primary problem and the metaphorical one looks
stops being useful and stops being triggered. Does that make sense?
C: It makes sense to me.
MP: Great.
C: So, only first dealt with the metaphor of the heavy bag with Lindsey and then when
she began to look at things in her life and did it more brightly and began to consider that
she actually enjoyed her work, then Tony led her to be able to enjoy her husband and to
see him as the greatest resource. And I know that some of you are thinking, How did

Tony know that the husband was the greatest resource? And when you think about it,
its completely obvious. This man stayed with Lindsey in spite of her drinking,
gambling, incurring bad huge debt. He stayed with her even though they had two
children who were so sick. Many husbands cannot stand the pain of seeing their children
with so many problems and they leave. But he stayed through everything and he
obviously was tolerant and compassionate. And even though Lindsey complained that he
didnt do enough to obtain what had to be done for the girls and so on, probably Lindsey
blocking him from doing those things because Lindsey was the great expert who knew
exactly what had to be done about the daughters. So, it was obvious to me from the
beginning of the intervention that the husband had to be a great asset and a great resource
and Tony immediately caught on to that and have Lindsey in the best possible way that he
could which was to get her to appreciate her greatest resource.
MP: Exactly. So in this case, well have some if this sound complex to you well
break it down for you. So dont worry but were just basically trying to open up the
discussion here that there are many different ways that you can work with metaphors as a
mega strategy once you develop this instinct. And so, in these case, Tony worked with the
metaphor first and then after the metaphors, he was able to work on the primary problem.
Other times, you might see that there is a metaphorical symptom say of you can work
with the primary problem first and the metaphor goes away. So its just kind of two ways
of understanding how things happen and if youre thinking about this, you might think
about people that you know that someone has got a problem thats hard to explain like
something that has a physiological basis or something where the person is not acting to
their capacity. And you can think about it, like well, so who is the metaphor for someone
would? What is he actually doing in that group? Whose attention is he getting? How
was it diverting the attention and the actions of all the people? What are they not doing
because that person has gone bad? And its just the way of thinking interactively and
where creatively gets you a lot more flexibility and you understand some of the
interactive patterns in groups. So that you can even think about in work places where
there is someone who has some certain types of complaints that seems thats not quite as
substantiated or some kind of experience. So I just want to put that out there. Cloe has
some great stories about ways to be a better person.
C: Yeah. I want to tell the story that is related to how to change a metaphor. Sometimes
some metaphors are so ingrained in the culture that the meaning is taken for granted and
never questioned and sometime the metaphor can be an unfortunate metaphor. So let me
tell you the story.
A friend of mine asked me to do a consultation with a man that he was friendly with and
that he was very worried about because this man had actually moved to San Diego and
certain that he was going to find a job here and the job had not materialized. And he had
been out of work for quite awhile and he couldnt get any job and he was very depressed
and talking about suicide. So my friend asked me if I would see him once. So he came
into my office looking very sad and overweight, middle-aged man and he sat down
heavily in front of me and I said that I hear that you have been concerned and sad and

troubled because you cant find a job and he said, Yes, its been nine months now that
Im looking for a job and Im completely discouraged that I have even thought about
committing suicide. And I said, Isnt the thought about committing suicide of over not
having a job over not working? And he said, Yeah, I am very depressed about the
situation. And I said, Wait a minute. Youre going to have to explain this to me more
clearly. Whats quite so sad about not having work? He looked at me like he could have
said that I was coming from another planet. He said, A work is very important for a
person not only to be able to making a living but a mans self-esteem is tied to his work.
I have no self-esteem right now. And I said, You know, I dont get it. Im quite older
than you. Im really from the 60s generation and we didnt want to work and none of
my friends worked and we were very proud of that. We called work the rat race. We
wanted to turn on, tune in and drop out. Were not going to be a part of that rat race. And
here you are about to kill yourself because you dont have work, I do not get. And so at
this point, he was smiling a little bit. And I said to him, By the way, what kind of work
do you do? And he said, Im an engineer and I have always worked in plants that
manufacture weapons. And I said, Oh great! So the world is a better place because
youre not working.
At this point, he was laughing. So I said, Anyway, do you have a girlfriend? And he
said, No. I cant have a girlfriend. I dont have any money. And I said, Since when
money and love are connected? There is no connection there. You know what? I said,
You should be enjoying the time that you have now to spend in any way you wish
because you are not working. Because eventually youre going to have to go to work and
thats inevitable. And then you will be sorry for all this things that you didnt do while
you didnt have work. For example, I said, Go to the mountains, go the beach, go to
the zoo.
So he laughs then later on he left in a much better mood than he had come in. And the
next morning, I had my work in my office and the phone rings and its him. And he says,
I just wanted to tell you that its a beautiful day. And I said looking out the window,
Yes, it is. Its a really beautiful day. And he said, And Im at the zoo. He paused
and then he added, With a woman. So, he had followed my advice and a couple of
months later he wrote to me saying how much I have helped him and that he had gotten a
job eventually and then everything was okay.
MP: I think so. You know, you were in danger of permanently turning him off from
work.
C: I know.
MP: But it is something that you didnt corrupt him.
C: No, I wouldnt have minded doing that.
MP: Cloe Madenas is here at Medical Society, if youre making people here
encouraging people not to work thats hilarious. But in a short term, it sounds like he was
at the mercy of an unfortunate metaphor. If you feel that way.

C: Exactly.
MP: And that metaphor was actually instrumental
C: I shifted that metaphor. Its difficult to go back so he was completely into the
Protestant ethic culture and he couldnt see beyond it. Work was the most important
thing. Work was like Godliness and when you open the door to the idea that theres
another way of living, you dont have to be like that, its difficult to move back to that
restricted way of thinking.
MP: Yeah. And metaphor has it when its unconscious when someone has it, it has a
certain charge to it and just by making a conscious questioning it or tweaking it or asking
the person to try it or change a little bit, it removes the charge that kind of the
unconscious charge from it that causes the suffering.
C: And then youll free her restrictions of the particular culture. So this is where a factor
another factor of strategic intervention that is very important is that our goal is to
expand these assumptions to make more options available. There are many different
ways of living. So what I made available to this man was that he could be happy without
having work and before talking to me that was for him was unthinkable.
MP: Yep. And sometimes specially in your work, the people are in suffering because
they feel like that there are options and there are actually other options but the person has
shut them down inside themselves. So, even if they it maybe something thats frowned
upon by the society like the idea that a man wont work, that he is unemployed, he is
going to go have fun.
C: In my day, it wasnt frowned. We all did. That was the truth.
MP: But Im - I am saying that you found the option of that hed been shutting off from
himself. You opened it up. Truly, the metaphor.
C: Thats right. And the same that Tony did with Lindsey having the image of the bad
being blasted into the sun and she also have the image of the husband not preventing her
from gambling and drinking and getting into debts is something bad that the husband had
done when Tony in fact pointed out to her that that were acts of love, that the husband
love her so much, that he would do anything to see her happy even for a moment. Once
she knows that her husband was like that, she couldnt go back to thinking of the
husband as someone unhelpful.
MP: Whats great about metaphor is that people accept it because its an image and its a
feeling. People accept it so you can flip, you can change. If youre keyed-in to what
metaphor someone is using, you can shift that metaphor without even you dont have to
announce it, you dont have to say, Hey, youre in a metaphor. Im going to shift it.
You just do it. You can just give him a different metaphor, offer a little change it or

poke fun at the money metaphor. You know, say, This has been the simplest thing in
the world. Hey, nice today. Yeah I know, but my you know, I dont know what Im
going to do with my umbrella today. Thats a silly thing but if youre shifting your
metaphor you know what Im saying?
C: Yeah.
MP: So, this is one of the things that you can use anywhere, anytime and if youre aware
of the metaphor, basically, most times that someone is in a height of emotional state;
theyre experiencing a metaphor of some sort.
C: Right.
MP: If youre aware of that, then you can know how you can shift that metaphor towards
one that might be more helpful. Again, this is an advance thing, that just being aware of
the metaphor, thinking about it, watching it, its very useful at this point.
C: The least [Inaudible] of expanding the unit.
MP: Yeah. So this is the next mega strategy which we call expanding the unit. And so,
there is also an evidence in the Lindsey film and in this situation where Lindsey
originally presented her situation with symptoms of helplessness and she presented a
problem that was very isolating. And people in our culture tend to take upon themselves
their problems and make them individualistic. So, it was, you know for Lindsey was
something that she had done in the past that she cant change. She was dealing with the
consequence of what she had done. It was the debt. No one is going to change the debt;
no one is going to change the money. It was very difficult that someone will present a
problem like that without presenting the larger relationships in their life. And so for
instance Lindsey did not mention that she had daughters who were ill. Or she did not
mention her husband until they came into the case. So, until Tony brought it up, right.
And so, you know the idea behind expanding the unit is that if youre working with
someone and theyve got a problem, theres a whole dimension that you can bring it to by
bringing in the relationships becoming aware of them. So the relationships do more than
just help you understand the problem. For instance, the problem is a metaphor for
something else. You can learn these by interviewing and speaking to people in the
persons life or just by learning about the relationships.
C: But you can also you can also, instead of bringing people physically into the
situation when you cannot do that, you can bring them into a telephone call or you can
even just ask the individual with whom youre working for, What would your wife say?
What would your husband say? What would your father say? What would your
grandmother say? And its a way of bringing those people into the room.
MP: Exactly. And often youll find, if you ask the person what was your wife saying
youll see the person shifts, their mood shifts. Oh. She wouldnt like that. Well, then

you know whats youre working with. You know youre expanding the unit enough to
understand that.
C: So I want to tell a story and disregarded it. This is interesting. This was a workrelated problem. A woman came to consult. She was in her late thirties and she had a
very good job selling medical products to pharmacies. So, she had to drive around to the
various pharmacies and all of a sudden she had developed terrible panic attack to the
point that she couldnt do her job anymore because she was afraid of having a panic
attack on the highway which had happened several times and she had almost had a couple
of very bad crush and this was a situation that I was supervising a therapist talking to her
and this woman had no explanation of why the panic attack.
Whatever questions were asked about her life, everything was okay. Nothing much
related to this. And she had a mother who was sick, but it was okay. She had a sister but
she had never been close to the sister and its just that we could not figure out what this
was. So, after struggling like this for a while, I said to the therapist, You know youve
got to convince her that you need to speak with her mother; that you want to call her
mother on the phone because the mother might give us a totally different perspective on
this. And its a serious problem. We need to understand it.
And so the therapist spent an entire hour trying to convince this woman to let her call the
mother on the phone and she always had an excuse. Now its the time when my mother
is taking a nap, I dont want to wake her up or shes too sick to really talk with you.
Finally, I suggested to the therapist to just ask the woman to call the mother herself right
there and the therapist would just observe how they talk to each other. So it was very
funny because she accepted to do this and the moment that she dialed the phone and the
mother picked up is she said, Mom, Im here talking to a therapist and the therapist
needs to speak with you so I put her on. She passed the phone through there. And the
therapist said to the mother, I am talking to your daughter because I dont know if she
really knows that she had some anxiety problems that had become quite severe and I
want your opinion about what might be the cause of these. And the mother immediately
told her, this woman had been very close to her sister, was her only sister and to her
sisters children; that the woman was single, she had never been married and she didnt
have children so she had taken on her niece and her nephew as her own and loved them
deeply.
Now the two sisters have had some disagreement about money and the sister refused to
let her see the children again so she was cut off from her most important relationships.
All these were explained by the mother. And we knew exactly what had to be done. We
have to reconcile the sisters and we did that. And actually, the woman was right about the
money issue. The sister was not right. But we just have to understand that sometimes its
more important to keep your love, your connections, your relationship than to be right
and to be a little more flexible then reconnect with the sister so she could have the
children again. So she did that and the whole problem was solved. So basically, it was
solved only because we were able to talk to her mother.

MP: Yes. And you know in our culture, its a little weird in that people suppress that.
They suppress that relationship relational aspect or you can think of that panic attack as
a metaphorical expression of something that was happening in the relationship where the
key problem was between her and her sister. Right. And then repression that was
happening in their family. So, its one of the things where if you were working with her
and this individual as a coach and youre working on panic attacks and breathing in all
that stuff, youre not getting to the key source. The source was the relationship and its
much more effective and quick and long-lasting if you go out and you find that relational
you expand the unit, you find out the other source of conflict that was happening and
the solution was actually pretty simple. It was basically asking you know telling her,
Look. I think you should prioritize it. You should put this money issue behind you and
focus on solidarity with your sister and be able to spend time with those nieces of yours.
C: Thats right. And I want to tell another story because I want to make another point.
And this story is going to be both about the importance of metaphors and the importance
of expanding the unit. In terms of metaphor, what is important to understand is that the
intensity of the metaphor that you choose to use has to be comparable to the intensity of
the problem that youre trying to solve. So, if its a minor problem, youll use a minor
metaphor. If its a very serious problem, youll use a very intense serious metaphor.
So, this was a situation of a family that I saw myself when I was living in Washington
D.C. There is a hospital. They are, that is famous for working with anorexics and its at
Georgetown University Hospital and from time to time they would send me their worst
cases when a girl was basically dying, I would get the referral. And of course, in the
hospital they had an individual point of view so they just tried to get her to eat and she
would gain some weight in the hospital and then she would come home and again. And
this girl had been in and out of the hospital for about a year and a half. It was very
serious. She came in looking like a horrible skeleton. She had been expelled from her
school because she was too scary to look at by the other children and obviously she
couldnt do the work because she was so weak. And of course, she was delusional and
thinking that she thought there was nothing wrong with her.
The father is a famous lawyer, a Washington prosecutor, and the story, his story was that
he had married this girls mother well call her Amy. Three months after his own father
had died, he married Amys mother and he said that he was just acting out because of his
grief over his fathers death. He really never got along well with this woman and they
divorced while she was pregnant with Amy. And they live just two blocks from each
other so ever since Amy was an infant; she was shot off from one house to the other. The
father, it was so horrible, divorced her even though the father provided for mother and
daughter well and so on, he had told a contempt for Amys mother. She hated him and
took me awhile to find this out because she was a society type of person and she didnt
even come to see me. The father and daughter came the first time, the mother had some
charity travels some trip with her charity. So, I had to get her on the phone and
convince her that she absolutely have to speak with me because her daughter was
basically near death.

And so I found out that the mother was the only child of holocaust survivor. Her parents
were dead now. She had had an aunt who had died of anorexia. She had no other relative
only her daughter. And quickly I realized that for this little fifteen-year-old girl, she
said that she was never going to be able to leave her mother. The mother had nobody else
to help her, to take care of her. And I thought she, that Amy would be thinking, Im never
going to be able to leave for college, Im never going to be able to get married. I have to
say with my mother especially because of the contempt and the constant attacks by the
father. I could see that Amy felt that she had to be in a protective position towards the
mother and this was a daunting task for a little girl of that age because the father was a
famous prosecutor so when he began to verbally attack the mother, he was extremely
skillful at doing that and his attacks were devastating.
So, when I realized the extent of the antagonism between them and how alone in the
world the mother was, and how Amy felt that she would never be able to grow up and do
normal things like other girls, I said to the father, I need to see you alone. So, I sat
down with him and I said look, I know that youre a very intelligent person and youre a
very busy person and I dont want to waste your time. Im a very busy person also and I
dont want to waste my time so Im going to tell you what you have to do to save your
daughters life. If you want to save her life, youll do it. If you dont do it, shes going to
die. He said, Well, of course, I want to save her life. What do you want me to do? So
I said, The war between you and your ex-wife must stop because your daughter is taking
all the bullets. So this is the metaphor I introduce the war and bullets to the daughter.
This is a powerful metaphor.
So I said, What you have to do is that you have to tell your ex-wife that youre always
going to take care of her no matter what, that she will never be lacking in anything, that
you will always be there with your strength to support her and to help her in every way
and you have to tell her this not once. You have to tell her this every day, two or three
times a day, every single day. You call her on the phone and you ask her if she needs
anything and whatever she needs, you provide it. If you need to hire another assistant to
help you with this, to provide things for her, you hire another assistant and you do this
three times a day.
Now, I knew that he saw his daughter three times a day so I said when you see your
daughter because he will take her to school, pick her up from school, take her to the
organic market where she would buy the little vegetables and feeds that she ate. I said
that three times a day when you see your daughter, I want you to tell her that you will
always love her mother and protect her and take care of her. Not as your wife. Shes not
your wife anymore. But as the mother of your daughter who you adore and so she has
nothing to worry about because you will always take care of her mother and they can
count on you.
Then he looked at me from feeling incredulous and said, And then she will eat? And I
said, Yes, then she will eat. And he was a very intelligent man. He did exactly what I
told him to do and in a matter of weeks, Amy was out of danger. In about three months,
she has gained enough weight and she wants to go back to her school. I had to call the

principal and explain that there was no danger, that she would relapse into anorexia and
she went on with her normal life. I just saw them a few times just to see how Amy was
looking but I really didnt need to do any other interaction, intervention after speaking
with the father and I knew that he was going to do exactly what I had asked him to do.
And this was a man who previous to the intervention, he was so overwhelmed by the
near-death situation of his daughter that he was completely paralyzed. He adored this girl
and he couldnt do his work. He couldnt do anything because of the problem with the
girl.
MP: Wow. So you have this girl whose basically the hospitals are passing her on cause
shes weeks or months from death. No one wants to deal with her because no one wants
to have her death on their hands. And what changed it was the metaphor.
C: Thats right. When I said, The war with your ex-wife has to stop because your
daughter is taking the bullets, that was the powerful metaphor.
MP: And it was very powerful. I mean its a very strong metaphor.
C: And the wife and his daughter didnt even have to know that this is what I have said
to the father. And all it took was for the father to intervene in this way and it was all
solved.
MP: Yeah. So whats interesting is this is not what people often think about as therapy or
as being some, you know, people wonder with this kind of work, is it so complicated?
Its not. There are simple ways that you can work strategically. And this situation where
you found the person needed to make the change in the system. Right? This could be
C: And this is as an illustration of coaching and the intervention coaching, I could have
this situation when working as a coach with the father because he was so troubled that he
wasnt doing his job and he might have come and consulted with me because he was
distracted or too depressed to do his work. And but as soon as we have found out about
his family and his daughters illness, I would have focused on that and with this
intervention; this situation would have been solved. So, what Im saying is that you can
approach it from the angle different family members.
MP: And it could have been, you could have I mean this situation where youre dealing
with three people in a certain type of conflict then you introduce a metaphor and assign it
to one of them that shifted the dynamic between the three, that can be applied to different
situations as well and there could be a work situation. We have a work team and people
having certain conflicts and then maybe at the mercy of certain metaphors or a metaphor
will shift the way that they interact. Its definitely without having to deal with the
directly, you know with all three people. You can work with one person that shift all
three and that all three theyre related to three people each so shifting nine peoples lives
very quickly.
C: Uh-hmm.

MP: Great. And so the other thing thats very interesting about this
C: Heres where well take some questions now?
MP: Okay. Great. So, guys I have a bunch of questions here in the Q & A and if you are
on the phone, just press star-two and we will line you up for some questions. Okay. Here
are some questions from Becky. Those are some great questions. I think youre asking
about the questions that I mentioned earlier. Yes. Will we have learned more about what
to ask? Yes, we will give you questions. Right now, were outlining some of the mega
strategies so you understand how strategic intervention works. Youll get [Inaudible]
[55.42.8] and the power of some of these mega strategies. Later on, well give you a very
step by step way of understanding someone in terms of their relationships and the
different dimensions so that you can take action.
Another question here: How did Tony know that Lindseys husband was such a source of
strength? He might have had a low sense of self-esteem. Cloe, would you like to take
that one?
C: Yes. We will just discuss it so probably that question came from before and when
Ill repeat it briefly when you think about the husband, putting up with Lindseys
drinking and gambling and the debt and so on we knew he was a good man. And just the
fact that he stuck with her and stayed in the marriage with the two sick daughters and
with all of Lindseys problems, tells you that he was away a very strong, very
compassionate, very tolerant person and in that sense, he was strong.
MP: Also the way that Tony worked with him also, you have got in this case, he was
working with a family of four Tonys working with only one person. He gave her an
assignment in relation to the husband and the assignment he gave her remember? It was
to be sexually generous.
C: Mainly sexual.
MP: Yes, its very sexual and that was enough to raise his self-esteem, I guess. You
know you will give the person the right directive, the right assignment and that will the
other person will rise to the occasion.
So, weve got a great question here from John. He says, Personally, I love using
metaphors but in my profession, I work with mentally-ill patients, I find that there is a
thought process that is so concrete when they simply dont get it. Any suggestions to
make this principle more effective to those who think concretely.
C: Yes, I worked some patients its very difficult to use metaphors either because they
think very concretely or because theyre so skillful at metaphors that they twisted around
you since when you dont know anymore what youre talking about. So, I think that with
the concrete patients, you can do very simple metaphors like: when youre happy, you

feel like youre tall and when youre sad makes you feel small, the things like that with
very simple words that you can use but I know because its not metaphor, its not
universal, in some extreme times of a disturbed behavior you cannot use metaphors.
MP: Yes, but we will have other ways that you can work with people and metaphor is
just one of the strategies. So expanding the unit is another strategy and people of your
youre working with people and their relationships and understanding their relationships.
For instance, anyone that theyve ever had affection with, and talking about someone
theyve loved in the past, thats going to create a shift. So that our
C: Youre right and definitely with those concrete thinking patients, expanding the unit is
the strategy of choice because you have to help them to have better relationship.
MP: Great. So we have a question from the 313 area code? Hello. Hi, there!
Caller: Hello.
C: Hi.
Caller: Hello, just at the other [Inaudible] [59.10.8] center, I was just wondering how you
can know which person you have to make the shift with. So, youll find the system, you
have a lot of people and then how do you know which person you need to switch to be
more effectively?
C: Yeah. Good question, Alexandra. Very good question. Thank you. So, well, in the
case of Tony and Lindsey, he only had Lindsey there. So, he didnt have a choice but
when you have access to several people, one way of choosing the person is to choose the
strongest person. And so in this story that I just described that I choose the father because
he definitely was the most together person of these three and the most competent person
of the three. In the case, of the little boy with headaches, actually I also chose the father
because he was the one that had to change not because he was necessarily drawn but
because I felt that if he changed, that would initiate the change in the others. So, this is
making me think actually. So you can
MP: Well, I think that you chose them Sorry. Go ahead.
C: You can choose the strongest person or the person who should change first.
Sometimes I choose the better communicator, the kindest, most tolerant, most
compassionate person who communicates better with everybody else and just have the
change go through that person. Sometimes I choose the person that is like the elder in the
family that will get everybodys attention or that might get everybodys respect like a
grandparent. So what did you want to say, Mark?
MP: Well, well talk more in depth about the different ways of looking at these and what
kind of assignments or you know what kind of metaphors and assignments should be
associated. But also Cloe often its the leader in the unit and the leader is blocking it.
Theyve had some misguided attitude that they have taken.

C: Right. Yes.
MP: So if the person who is threatening to leave, the person is criticizing the other
people, often they feel like theyre a leader and theyre frustrated in the situation they
find themselves in cause they dont have the tools. So you turn that person around, give
him a metaphor, give him an assignment, and suddenly the person whose energy was
creating all the blockage, and all the criticism becomes the person whos suddenly
motivated to create change. And thats
C: Right. Yeah. Exactly. And its interesting how people dont think about the most
obvious things. For example, the father who was such an intelligent lawyer, it had never
crossed his mind that it was not good to verbally attack his ex-wife in front of his
daughter. He never thought of that. That it wasnt good for the girl, then he would have
done anything to help his daughter. It just had never occurred to him. Okay. Thank you
for the question, Alexandra. Thats been answered?
Caller: Yeah. Its okay. Yes.
C: Okay. All right.
Caller: Thank you:
MP: Okay. We have another question here from I dont see your entire phone number
so I guess we should just say hello and see who are here? Hello?
C: Anybody there? Hello. Yes. Hi.
Caller: I guess that could be me.
MP: Yes.
Caller: So, what if the other person like you worked with the leader and the person, their
wife for example is refusing to pretty much just give him up? How do you like if you
only have contact with the husband, how do you get through you know the rest of the
family if the wife would just like not want to do anything? Is that just like Im kind of
stuck right there.
C: Yes. Well. You can coach their husband for example if youre talking about the
husband-wife situation, you can coach the husband as to how to better understand the
wife, better understand her needs, be able to fulfill her needs in a better way and the same
with the children. For relationships to change basically you have to change only one
person and therere repercussions and everything changes. Does that make sense?
Caller: Okay. Yeah. Absolutely.

C: Okay.
MP: And theres a way that people are locked in to certain limitations in the way they
communicate so even if you coach one person to disrupt the limitations of the way
communicate, they start doing things. You can figure out from them what the person the
relationship with is actually looking for that theyre not doing then you can give that
person exactly the most powerful actions to do and that will create a shift. The wife will
be saying, Wow. Hes been talking about this all this time and now hes doing
something different. Ive noticed the difference. Yeah.
Caller: Okay. Thank you.
C: Thank you.
MP: Great. We have a question here from great question saying, Im an IT project
manager. How can this training help me become a greater project manager? I did say
that the insights of these types of strategic approach, theses interactive approach is
essential to teams. Basically, we treat families like teams so in this case, there is a
leadership problem and there is a problem in communication, and you can apply these
strategies to any team of three to five to ten people where any leadership issue where
there is leader whos getting stuck with a certain pattern a certain communication
pattern and understanding how by the leader can shift to one thing. You will often IT or
any kind of technology, you have teams of four to six people and theres dynamics
between those people and so if you understand how like a metaphor can come up in a
group and limit people for instance. Well get more in detail but Im just saying that
these patterns can be applied to any kind of team or group.
C: And in the next few modules, were going to go quite deeply into the Six Human
Needs and both of the tools that you can use to understand the needs that are behind the
behaviors of people.
MP: Great. Okay. We have a question here from the 702 area code.
Caller: Hello.
C: Hello.
Caller: Oh, you can hear me?
C: Yes.
Caller: Yes. My name is George Sinatra and I have a question regarding the two stories
that were related about the anorexic girl and the boy with the panic attacks. I noticed that
in Tonys videos, theres some element of provocation through the process in which the
subject understands what its what his reactions were, his reactions are in a way I dont
see them reverting to these because they understood. Do you think that [Inaudible]

[1.06.32.7] would be an element of reversion on both cases that were related because I
understand that it was so pretty cool to fix the problem right away but in the future if the
anorexic girl will have another situation, do you think that she will revert because the
element of education on the problem that she was experiencing was not there?
C: No, I dont think so. No. I think that Tony is very successful using an educational
method and the enormous and thats what Ive integrated with my work because the huge
advantage of the frame work that he brings with the Six Human Needs and youll get
more of that later, is that its a very compassionate tolerant non-judgmental way of
looking at things. People are just trying to satisfy their needs in the best way they can
and that educational aspect is present in the works that I do and in the examples that I
gave. The lesson to that father is to not be aggressive within the family was huge. He
was never going to behave like a prosecutor inside his family again. The girls lesson
was to understand that the father actually loved her mother even though sometimes he
was so nasty and that he could stop being nasty, that he could change that behavior and
that was hugely educational by example. Does that make sense? Sometimes the
education happens by modeling not necessarily by teaching. Now, because Tony, doing
these interventions in the context of the seminar, he has to teach. Does that make sense?
Caller: Yeah. Thank you.
MP: And each case, it was a crucial distinction that you gave the person. And you gave
it to him in a powerful way.
C: Right.
MP: And you didnt lay out those principles. Also the Six Human Needs, someone was
asking what questions do you ask when you want to understand people. The Six Human
Needs which well go into a detail is an extremely efficient way to understand
relationships and not only understand relationships but to help people evaluate the way
they are doing in a relationship. So if you ask someone in a relationship, well, how are
you meeting you know how are your six needs being met in the relationship. Then you
ask how are you meeting your partners needs? Well, then you ask the partner, how their
needs are being met by the person youre speaking with? And that brings out a
dimension of reality and objectivity in a relationship where people can really say, Wow.
Im really meeting my partners needs in threes and fours. No wonder theres a
problem. And thats a huge way to shut things. So, we have another question here.
C: Thanks, Roger. Great question.
MP: Great question.
Caller: Thank you.
MP: Great question. Absolutely. We have a question. When youre helping someone,
do you warn them you may be using shocking or strong language? Im always concerned
that they maybe taken the wrong way which will result in lost client.

C: I never use strong language. Thats Tony. Although the worst thing that I can that I
sometimes say is the word stupid or silly. If I would look ridiculous using that kind of
strong language so you dont have to. I use strong language for example talking about an
attack or a war or bullets but not strong language in the sense of foul language.
MP: Often that you know, everything has got its place and so sometimes the languages
are used to shock people but you can shock someone just by talking about a relationship
if theyre not prepared to talk about it. You know you can bring up a love in their life or a
conflict that they have and if youre looking to create a for that person to have an
emotional shift so that they be more receptive to talk about different things, you know
that can be it. And Cloe is extremely clever in the way she finds ways to shift the
situation without using strong language. So theres a if you have any other questions,
star-two. I have another written one here.
As a self-growth tool, how do I know if the situations or patterns I see around me are
metaphors or reflections of myself at an area of my life? Okay. So, the metaphor
Cloe, do you want to start with this one or?
C: This is a difficult one. Let me see if I understand the question. How do I know if
whether I see around me is a metaphor or reflection of myself at an area of my life? Let
me see how I can understand that?
MP: Let me give it a shot here.
C: Yes.
MP: The metaphors that were talking about we all have metaphors inside of us, thats
how we operate as human beings. So, if youre having a really good day or especially if
youre stressed, Tony told a story about a man who said he was so stressed out that he
was at the end of his rope. And Tony says, Well, then put the rope down and come over
here. Right? And so metaphors are the way that we experience things. So thats the
way that we think about metaphors. Sometimes a metaphor is good you give someone
a new metaphor. If you find out what their metaphor is, you can modify their metaphor
or give them a new way, a new metaphor and that would help the person create the
change in himself. So that the example of that was in the Lindsey film where Tony gives
her, he says you know, drop the bag or and shoot it into the sky, and then later or into
the sun, or later Lindsey herself said ditched the bag. That was her metaphor. She said
ditch the bag, thats what she could do. Okay. So thats one way to think of an individual
metaphor where people have a certain metaphor that they inhabit for instance and then
you give them another one to inhabit and that creates a change.
The second type of metaphor we talked about is when someones experience in a group is
a metaphor for something else thats happening so the little boy with the headache, his
headache was a metaphor. He was arising in metaphor meaning that in relation to the
conflict between the parents. Right?

C: And the fathers word. Yeah.


MP: So, you would look at someone whos had a problem that you cant quite
understand. For instance, the story of the panic attack where the lady is panicking. She
doesnt know why everything seems fine, she doesnt know what the big deal is but she
had the panic attacks and you realize, Oh, those panic attacks are a metaphor or
expression of another problem. So, you find the source problem which was her conflict
with the sister and then metaphorical problem, the panic attack, goes away. Does that
make sense? So those are two ways of looking at metaphor in yourself and everyone has
them. Personally, as a way of living and then you have ways that people have them in
relation to other people and its usually we think of this as when its becoming a problem
is when we worry about it. So, the headache, panic attack, de-motivation, people cant
find direction, people whos talented and intelligent cant move forward, people like the
man who cant find a job and hes feeling suicidally depressed because he needs to work
thats a metaphor. Does that make sense, Cloe? Is there?
C: Yes. Very much. Very good.
MP: Great. Okay. So, well ask the other questions here. Can we ask so, I think that
guys today, I think that weve answered that. Lets see. Oh, we do have another question
here. What do we do when people shut down when talking sensitive issues? I think
were going to go get into that a little bit more deeply. Dont worry. This is just one
teleclass. We have a teleclass
C: Let me add something to that.
MP: Yes.
C: When people shut up about talking oh head down, Im sorry, when talking about the
sensitive issues. I like to say to the person, You dont have to tell me anything that you
dont want to tell me. So be careful and think about what you really want to tell her. And
make sure you dont tell me if you dont want to tell me. This is an Ericksonian
technique and its wonderful to be specific. Get teenagers to talk?
MP: Oh, well.
C: And its typical of the teenager where they dont want to say anything and so you just
emphasize the distinction between what you really want to tell me and what you dont
want to tell me. And it was the person in sort of a trance where they begin to tell you a
whole bunch of things that they have not really planned to tell you. And that another
thing that I do is that I would say, I really dont need to know any details. If youd just
give me the general picture of what youre talking about, I probably can imagine the
details. You dont have to tell me the details. And thats true. There are many things that
you dont need to know the details. So, for example, sexual issues, intimate conflicts.
You just just what the general idea of what this is about, you can think of an
intervention. Does that make sense, Mark?

MP: Oh, thats brilliant. So it means basically, what happens is when youre doing it
youre telling me the part of that person thats afraid because they dont want to
communicate about certain things or theyre too upset about certain things. You just give
them the permission not to communicate fully.
C: Exactly.
MP: And when you give someone permission not to communicate fully, youre also
giving them permission to communicate partially.
C: Thats right. Then it freezes them.
MP: Uh-huh. Thats brilliant. Thats amazing. Do we have another question? Is there a
risk of using the wrong metaphor? Thats a good question.
C: Yes. There is always a risk but if you dont do anything, you dont help anyone, and
you dont change anything so you just have to take the risk. But you know its like with
everything you get practice at it and metaphors repeat and you will develop certain
metaphors that you like to use, certain stories that you tell or certain images that you
come up with and as you see that they work, you will repeat them.
MP: I think I agree. And I think also this is going to be one of the tools in your tool kit
so if you present a metaphor, its really nice to work with a metaphor someones already
has in many cases. And I would argue that even with Cloe with the metaphor that you
used in the story of the anorectic girl that there was already a war going on. So, when
you said the war has to stop
C: Oh, yeah. I said instead of calling it a fight with the ex-wife, I called it a war but a
fight was what they were doing all the time.
MP: Metaphors are really very good if you tap in to whats already happening, whats
already being the modus operandi of the person. So you dont have to invent a metaphor
that comes straight from your brain and youre pointing it to the person. You can elicit the
metaphor that theyre already using. You often hear it and you get them to refer to that.
And if the person gets very upset about the metaphor that you proposed, just say
[Inaudible] [1.18.57.4] its just a picture. Thats stupid.
C: No, you apologize and come up with something else.
MP: Uh-huh. Yeah. You can dismiss them because they are just imaginary you know
they are kind of ideas. They are just images. Right?
C: Sometimes in order to bring about change, the metaphor that you come up with is
absolutely the opposite of the way that person is thinking like I did with the depressed
man who couldnt find work. I thought you know some people are so happy when they

dont have to work and I came up with the idea of turn on, tune in and drop out and the
rat race.
MP: Because theyre good, it was a good opposite.
C: So just by hitting you know what has made this man miserable is what would make
somebody else happy.
MP: Yeah. And so you used a metaphor as a counter-example?
C: Exactly.
MP: Great. And it is so much more effective than trying to do some verbal thing. The
metaphor works so efficiently, so quickly.
C: Thats right.
MP: Okay. So we do have a couple more we have a couple more minutes. So how do
we get enough information for an effective intervention and not get caught in the story?
Well get in, you know some of these things these are just our first teleclass of many
and so well be layering on all these tools and I think you understand why its good to
wait a week between one of these classes.
C: Yeah. But still let me give an answer to that.
MP: Yes.
C: You dont get caught in this story because the strategic approach is that every problem
is solvable. Only death is unsolvable. And even that depends on your spiritual
orientation. And so when you are presented with a story that is particularly sad or
traumatic and you feel a lot of compassion for the person, still this is strategic
intervention is you have to think, Well, I still have to turn this persons this life around
so that they are not stuck in being the victim of that story so what can I do to bring them
out to see that that story is in the past and now theres a future ahead of them and a
present and that all we can really change is the present and the future. Of course, you
have to understand the past because even though you cannot change the past, you can
change the understanding of the past and in many cases, its really important to listen to
the story because you can change the understanding of that story. Who did what to
whom? Who was the victim? Who was the victimized? Why did that happen? And
thats very important so you can change the understanding of the story and then you can
move the person into the future. Sometimes the person has the correct understanding and
you dont have to change that. Does that make sense, Mark?
MP: Well, thats great, thats a great answer. And when you catch on to something like a
story like that thats what you want to understand. You want to understand what this

person feels their story is. And then you know stories can be written, they can be revised
and they can be looked at in a different way. So, we have another question. What kind of
metaphor might you use for someone who really wants things not to get better and resist
all your ideas?
C: That is so difficult. Yes. There are some people like that and so one of the things that
Erickson used to do was that he would say to the person, I want you to think very
carefully about what part of the problem you want to keep, what you dont want to
change because I want to make very sure that I let you keep that, that I dont change that.
So think about what is the part that you want to change and what it is it that you want to
keep? That is very effective. Its similar to the idea of think about what you dont want
to tell me and be sure to not tell me that.
I actually did an intervention and a demonstration recently with a young couple. And this
was Mark, at the Evolution Conference where he had temper tantrums where he basically
got grouchy with the wife and he said that he didnt like the idea that I had said in the
lecture that its important to reassure a person that one can change any problem and then
one can solve any problem. This young man was a therapist himself that I was working
with and so I said to him, Oh, I see. So, you mean that want to keep the right to be
grouchy and you want to be grouchy sometimes and of course, you have the right to be
grouchy. Im not going to change that. The only thing that I suggest, because this
conference was actually in Disney Land, as Ive said, You need to buy the hat of the
grouchy little dwarf from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and when you want to be
grouchy you put on the hat so your wife knows that youre deliberately grouchy because
you want to be and you have the right to be.
MP: Thats great.
C: Yeah.
MP: Once you when you have these skills then any response can be used by you.
C: Yes.
MP: So, when someone gives a strong resistance, its like Umm, thats a good response.
Thats some strong energy that we can use here.
C: Yes. And you know sometimes that happens also with students. I have live
supervision most of my life where I have been behind a two-way mirror or sometimes
called the one-way mirror observing at therapists working with people or through video
observing the work of people and sometimes you get a student who doesnt want to
follow your directives and doesnt want to change what theyre doing. And I just say,
Well, Ill be curious to see how you solve this case. Im just going to watch and wait for
you to solve it.
MP: Exactly.

C: And thats a good answer. Instead of fighting it, you just go along with it. All right.
Any other question?
MP: And so we have another question. We do have one more question here. This one is
very specific. My father calls my mother Miss Piggy and picks at her for overeating.
She has a lot of weight to lose and he doesnt understand how she cant lose it. How can
I help my father to switch his approach?
C: Well, you could tell him that calling her Miss Piggy has not worked so maybe
something completely different could work. Maybe understanding her needs and
fulfilling them better, maybe being more kind or more compassionate or more loving to
her but its difficult to change your parent while youre in there although Ill tell you
weve had some students in this training that did amazing jobs of changing their parents
behavior so I suggest that a heart to heart talk with your father explaining that that kind of
mocking remarks sometimes humor is used as a weapon and could be experienced by
your mother as a very painful thing that probably provokes her to overeat more instead of
the opposite. Well, he should never continue to do if it doesnt work.
MP: Yeah. First step is to make sure that you have a I mean you can think of this this
is something that youd like to work on. As Cloe said, its very difficult to work with
parents. They are at their most resistant. Parents and children are the most resistant
clients you could have. And so
C: For instance, your own children. Other peoples children are okay.
MP: Yeah. So the general advice for working with any family members is I think as a
multi week process and start with making sure there is plenty of respect given to you
given by you to them. So, think about how you can respect them, how you can meet their
needs. There are things that [Inaudible] [1.27.32.9] done that no one that people tend
not to do for them. Do that. Build up your relationship with your father first. Then,
when we talk about the Six Human Needs which is coming up you will have a way that
you can you can share with him what you learned about the Six Human Needs and
maybe enlighten him on how the Six Human Needs can work in a relationship that he
might actually think about you know theres a stuff that people need to take that if they
realize that theyre in the relationship where they have to take accountability for their part
in whatevers happening.
C: Yes. By the way, I want to say to everyone for those of you who likes to read. Read
my latest book, Relationship Breakthrough and that has a lot of interesting exercises and
interesting material I think will complement the training for you very well.
MP: Yeah. You can just get that on Amazon. Okay, were up at just about 2:30 so lets
demute everyone and we can were going to see you guys next week so lets say goodbye. You can all hear each other now?

C: Yeah. Thank you very much for coming.


MP: Good-bye, everyone.
C: Take care.

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