NEURO-SEMANTIC FRAMING

Since we have levels in our “thinking” (“I Caught a Thought,” Meta Reflection #45), the levels that we layer, one upon another, create our meanings—our meaning frames. I often am asked about the term “frame” and what we mean by that. Actually, it is very simple. Your frame refers to the way you interpret things. It refers to how you interpret and understand something. It is your frame of reference.

Now your frame of reference can take a great many forms. We have 100 different forms in Neuro-Semantics. This expands what Robert Dilts began with his 5 “logical levels” (beliefs, values, identity, vision and mission, spirit). His other distinctions are not meta-distinctions, but primary level distinctions (behavior, environment, capability).

So your frame of reference may take the form of a belief, a decision, an intention, a permission, a prohibition, a rule, a memory, an imagination, an understanding, a plan, a strategy, a meaning, and on and on. (You can find lists of these meta-levels of frames in the list of Meta-Questions in Coaching Change, Coaching Conversations and many of the training manuals.) This means that a belief is a belief frame, a decision is a decision frame, and so on.

And where do they come from? Again, simple. When a person begins speaking about anything, if we don’t know the context of the conversation, we naturally and intuitively ask,“What are you talking about? What are you referring to?”

“That’s just not the way to do that! I’m really upset about this. And I’m not going to just roll over and not protest!”

“Bill, What are you talking about? What are you referring to?”

“The new rules of the softball team in our neighborhood, of course! What did you think? Haven’t you been listening to me?”

“That’s a relief, I thought you were talking about your marriage ...” Or, your job, the city counsel’s new decisions, your study habits, etc.

Without a context we don’t know what a person is referring to—that person’s point of reference. It is the person’s reference that we can then keep in mind as their frame of reference which then allows us to understand them. Without their frame of reference or “frame” for short, we really don’t know how to understand their words. Even the words, “How are you?” are not self-evident. It all depends upon the reference point as the context and frame. “How are you?” is understood very differently when a friend says it as a greeting, a therapists asks it as a session begins, a close personal friend asks when you come out of surgery, a doctors on a return visit, or a counter-person asks when you order coffee.

The point of reference locates the external context and the frame of reference identifies a person’s internal thinking (an internal context) that sets one’s understanding context “held in mind” as a lens through which to process the information. Accordingly, our down questions seeks to find the grounding point of reference in the real world “out there,” whereas our up questions enables us to explore the layers of internal frames for interpreting the words (see Meta Reflections #33 on Up and Down questions).

Down Questions:

• What are you talking about? What are you referring to?
• When did that happen? Where did that occur at? Who was there and involved?
• What was said and what did you say in response?

Up Questions:

• How do you interpret that? How do you understand that?
• What do you believe about that? What does that mean to you?
• What’s your intention in believing that?

Up Questions are meta-questions that takes us up into a person’s mapping about things, into a person’s Matrix of all the beliefs-within-beliefs that make up the person’s interpretative style and structure. First we find and identify the frames that a person is using to see, perceive, understand, and emote about things. Then we quality control those frames by asking about how useful, productive, enhancing, empowering, and ecological are they. Then we can decide whether to keep them, lose them, suspend them, change them, or refine them. And that thought— that frame itself— puts us at choice point. Now the semantic structure that forms our mapping and experiencing and responding can be changed! Now we are but one step away from transformation.

You have now entered into [hear the sound and tune of Twilight Zone playing ... do do, do do...] the world of Neuro-Semantic Framing! It is the world that emerges when you take the Red Pill and escape the Matrix. Now you are ready for training for taking charge of your Matrix and changing it at will—with your mind. Now you are ready for the magic of framing and deframing, for reframing, for outframing, pre-framing, post-framing, analogous framing (see Mind-Lines: Lines for Changing Minds). Now you are beginning to operate as a Neuro-Semantic Framer!