Transcendence: Healing Our Collective Story

Part Three: Rituals of Social Transformation

© Richard Bolstad

Preframing Training Exercises as Community Healing Rituals

In 2010, in Singapore, Xiuping Li and colleagues had 80 students write about a recent decision they regretted and felt emotionally distressed thinking about. Half of them were then told to seal their written recollection in an envelope, and all the students were then interviewed to check how they felt about their decision. They thought that what was being studied was their response to writing down their story. Actually, what was being studied was their response to placing that story in an envelope. Although students who had sealed the envelopes did not know that other students had not, those students (the envelope group) consistently felt less negative about the event than the control students who just handed in their recollections without an envelope. In follow up research, the change did not occur with students who sealed an empty paper in the envelope, and nor did it occur with those who simply paper-clipped the pages with the problem on – so it’s not just the mere act of doing something to a written recollection, or sealing anything in an envelope: it is specifically enclosing the emotionally laden material in the envelope that is beneficial.

Li, Wei and Soman conclude “Our results show that the process of alleviating negative emotions can be facilitated by physically sealing emotionally laden materials. The experiments demonstrate that abstract mental states, such as psychological closure over a negative event, appear to rely on the sensorimotor experiences brought about by the simple act of enclosing. Moreover, we have shown that the metaphorical act of enclosing and sealing influences the memory, in the sense that the recollection of the emotional details of an event becomes weaker. This seems to suggest that physical experiences interfere with cognitive entities such as memory and retrieval. Finally, the experiments provide scientific evidence of the effectiveness of metaphor therapy for emotional healing.” (Li, Wei and Soman, 2010) Every student of Milton Erickson’s work knows that he focused on metaphorical acts as solutions to many of his clients’ problems.

Charles Laughlin and colleagues have postulated that such processes, which are the core of ancient rituals in every culture, engage the body actively enough to distract conscious processing of a traumatic event and to allow more direct processing of the symbols presented. Rituals include marriages, funerals, penances, prayers, fasting, lighting candles and fires, pilgrimages, sacramental meals, ritual washing and anointing with oils, gift giving, award giving, singing, watching plays and movies that tell symbolic stories, and many other activities which you may well have indulged in. At the extreme, these rituals are even designed to change people’s state of mind: even 60 years after I stopped singing them or agreeing with their words, Christmas Carols create a sense of inspiration and dare I say “devotion” when I hear them. Such rituals are designed to “reframe” otherwise mundane events and signal their psychological and social significance.

Laughlin says “Ritual drama involves the expression of a society’s cosmology via enactment of elements and relations making up the cosmology (Eliade, 1963:19). Participation in the drama commonly induces alternate phases of consciousness (so-called ecstatic states, trances, visions and the like) in which experiences arise that are later interpreted as verification of the cosmology. The role of the mystical adept or shaman in guiding, enacting and interpreting the ritual, and later in interpreting transpersonal experiences, is crucial…. Participation in full-blown ritual dramas, as in the ancient Greek mystery plays, is an encounter with esoteric mysteries, with a developmental sequence of experiences that gradually unfold, mature and become more global in significance…. The shamanic principle may be further understood structurally as the intersection of two subsidiary principles. First, inherent in biological systems appears to be a drive toward wholeness (“health,” “healiological,” “holy,” and “whole” having essentially the same root meaning). This holistic imperative may be reflected in experience as levels of successively more integrated consciousness (Maslow, 1968, 1969) and may well progress as an alternation between differentiation and reorganization of neural structures in ontogeny (Piaget, 1971a, 1977; Jung, 1971).” (Laughlin, McManus, Rubinstein, and Shearer 1986).

I am suggesting that we could intentionally design our trainings in personal development, specifically our NLP trainings, to create this effect, which they are undoubtedly already triggering, and which expert psychotherapists such as Milton Erickson and Virginia Satir already utilized. Michael Winkelman (2010, p. 227) suggests that the effect of such rituals is biologically similar to the process elicited in the brain by OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), and that compulsive behaviours may indeed be an attempt at triggering such emotional healing, mediated in the hypothalamus. Further evidence for the biological basis of such ritual is its presence in our nearest biological relatives, the chimpanzees, who perform the same “quasi-religious” ceremony each time a rainstorm occurs. “Lawick-Goodall (1971, 52-54) used the term “rain dance” to characterize the behavioral dynamics of wild chimpanzees in response to a thunderstorm. Following a loud thunder burst, the alpha male began to stagger rhythmically, swaying from foot to foot and vocalizing (pant-hooting). He then ran up and down the hill, followed by other males, who flailed branches as the females, and young watched the display.” (Winkelman, 2010, p. 233).

Once we understand the way that symbolism links into our brain’s natural way of operating, then all the universal elements of earlier “shamanic” cultures kind of make neuroscientific sense. Winkelman explains “Although well-being is related to development of attachment, this can create a false self that involves identifications to please caretakers, producing dissociation from aspects of self that they disapprove of. This begins a psychological abandonment of the true self that manifests later in life in anger, frustration, and loss of access to one’s own creative potentials (Gagan 1998). Shamanic journeying can heal these developmental mental traumas and re-establish contact with one’s true self through “power animals” that represent dissociated aspects of the self. These power animal relations can nurture the traumatized aspects of the self and provide important substitute attachment experiences. Journeying allows a reframing of early traumas, particularly those that are still dissociated. Power animals encountered in shamanic journeying may be recovered as manifestations of “lost souls,” reactivating lost potentials and dissociated aspects of self.” (Winkelman, 2010, p. 219). Winkelman is suggesting that people may be intuitively drawn to animals who symbolise the qualities that they want to enhance more in their lives. Look at the pictures and music you surround yourself with, and you may well see the same process at work.

However, in all cultures, this use of healing ritual has a social component. Winkelman says “A core aspect of shamanism emphasized by Eliade was that ritual, which was on behalf of the community and that the entire community was expected to attend. The effects of community rituals on social life and individual physiological and psychological states are key aspects of shamanic healing. This healing dynamic reflects the primary social psychological functions of religion-meeting needs for belonging and comfort and shaping individual psychodynamics and psychophysiological logical responses in bonding the individual with others in society. Shamanism is a primordial form of group bonding, one with roots in the collective rituals of our ancient hominid ancestors (Winkelman 2009; Winkelman and Baker 2008; also see Chapter 6).” (Winkelman, 2010, p. 223) … and … “The therapies of shamanistic healers are typically realized in collective ceremonies involving the participation of the local residential group (e.g., the entire band in hunting-gathering societies). Collective social integration produced by shamanistic healing practices through the participation of the local community strengthens group identity, exerting an influence on well-being by enhancing community cohesion through reintegrating patients into the social group. The relationship of social support to morbidity, mortality, and recovery indicates that social relations can have prophylactic and therapeutic effects.” (Winkelman, 2010, p. 225)

We can see that modern cultures have often done away with many of the social arrangements for collective healing rituals, with the notable exception of charismatic religious groups, religious retreats, and … personal growth workshops. The vestiges of social celebrations in military parades, Christmas speeches, and Valentines day gift-giving, for example, are sad echoes of a greater tradition of festivals. When I go to Japan in the summer and see whole communities, all ages, dancing and singing together at Obon festivals, to the sound of loud rhythmic (shamanic) drumming, I am reminded what we have lost.

The way that people describe profound experiences on personal growth groups and alternative healing training courses, suggests that these are already fulfilling this missing function. Andrew Newberg and researchers at The Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at Thomas Jefferson University show there are changes in the dopamine and serotonin systems in the brains of retreat participants following standard Christian retreat procedures. (Newberg et alia. 2017). The study, funded by the Fetzer Institute, included 14 Christian participants ranging in age from 24 to 76. They attended an Ignatian retreat based on the spiritual exercises developed by St. Ignatius Loyola who founded the Jesuits. Following a morning mass, participants spent most of the day in silent contemplation, prayer and reflection and attended a daily meeting with a spiritual director for guidance and insights. After returning, study subjects also completed a number of surveys which showed marked improvements in their perceived physical health, tension and fatigue. They also reported increased feelings of self-transcendence which correlated to the change in dopamine binding. The post-retreat scans revealed decreases in dopamine transporter (5-8 percent) and serotonin transporter (6.5 percent) binding, which could make more of the neurotransmitters available to the brain.

The following exercises are group exercises which enable participants to explore cultural experience and reframe or reconsolidate traumatic and unhelpful social responses. They are, in effect, modern versions of Shamanic group healing, of Greek drama events, of Charismatic healing experiences, and of Religious retreats, restructured for secular groups in order to access the same neurological shifts, with the same age-old themes of truth-telling, atonement, forgiveness, and dreaming a better future into being. Some of them are day long workshop designs, and some are ten minute group experiences. You may, if you run training, recognize that you already use many such devices. This is an invitation to make the process more explicit. Clearly, the facilitation of most of these events is a process which requires considerable experience running training groups. You can read my previous book on this (Bolstad, 2012), but ultimately I urge you to complete our first 9 day section of NLP Trainer Training before attempting this.

Stuart Kaufman, Professor of Political Science at the University of Delaware, examines the most insoluble type of community conflicts, which he points out are not so much rational arguments about sharing of resources (what our Transforming Communication course calls “Conflicts of Needs” and what relationship researcher John Gottman calls “Solvable Conflicts” – Bolstad, 2015). They are instead irrational arguments based on amygdala activation in the brain – on fear and anger (what Transforming Communication calls “Conflicts of Values” and what John Gottman calls “Insoluble conflicts”). He says “My previous (Kaufman, 2001) application of symbolic politics theory explores the sources of these emotions and how they can be used politically. I show that hostile emotions such as hatred and resentment tend to have roots in pre-existing ethnic myths justifying hostility against the ethnic out-group – that is, in the very ‘myth-symbol complex’ that defines an ethnic group’s identity. These myths often involve what Volkan (1996) calls ‘chosen traumas . . . the collective memory of a calamity that once befell a group’s ancestors’, defining the group as a victim which must seek security or revenge.” (Kaufman, 2006, p. 204-205).

Kaufman advocates the creation of workshops which replace the old myths and symbols with new symbols of reconciliation, including practical projects which are co-developed during a workshop. “There is more evidence for the proposition that problem-solving workshops can change the attitudes of their participants, sometimes (but not always) enduringly. In the Northern Ghana case, for example, some participants in problem-solving workshops were activists in the youth organizations that were responsible for most of the violence, who reportedly changed their views and began working for peace as a result of the workshops (Assefa, 2001). Similar evidence exists for the effectiveness of Tajikistan’s elite level workshops (Saunders, 1999), and for the ‘Seeds of Peace’ program’s success in encouraging peace activism among some of its alumni (Wallach, 2000). The questions about the effectiveness of such programs concern not whether well-designed ones can help change individual attitudes, but whether the re-entry problem can be overcome to allow workshop alumni to maintain moderate views and promote that moderation more widely? or whether larger social forces block such effects.” (Kaufman, 2006, p. 213).

In referring to such workshops, Kaufman echoes the experience of “Future Search” as run by SearchNet (Weisbord and Janoff, 1995). SearchNet supports and runs 2 ½ day Future Search conferences, where 60-70 representatives from whole organisations, or whole communities meet together to reach agreement and plan co-operative futures. Its methods were first developed from a British industrial crisis in 1960. Two large British aircraft firms (Armstrong-Siddeley and Bristol Aero) were combined by law. The two former competitors had incompatible organisational structures and were contemptuous of each other. Yet over the days of the Search Conference, they developed a totally unexpected co-operative plan for the new company, and even initiated the design of a new and highly successful aircraft, the BA 146. SearchNet has worked with such diverse organisations as Alcan Smelters, AT&T, the School District of Philadelphia, the Inuit homeland Nunavut which runs 1/5 the land in Canada, The National Conservation Strategy of Pakistan, and with hospitals, universities and government agencies. Imagine the apparent complexity of this task.

Rita Schweitz, for example, was the co-ordinator of a 1991 search conference on the use and quality of water from the upper Colorado river basin. This issue concerned local, municipal, state and national government organisations, water provider companies, agricultural and industrial water user companies, conservationists, indigenous American organisations and recreational user groups. Decades of bitter argument lay behind the issue. The issue was so hot that no one group could even be seen to be organising the conference. State agencies were involved in taking private firms to court over their use of water at the time. Eventually, one group planned the conference, another footed the bill, another hosted it, and so on. Enormous care needed to be taken to build rapport safely and set groundrules on the first day of the conference, when several members arrived with their lawyers in tow! Rita Schweitz and the other organisers were very careful to structure the process so that arguments didn’t erupt and get out of hand at the meeting of 48 people. On the second day, when each “stakeholder group” presented its own perspective and the others listened, only reflective listening and clarifying questions were permitted. The atmosphere in the first part of the conference process was described by the organisers as one of pessimism and challenge.

One big thing Rita Schweitz learned from the upper Colorado Search conference was the power of listening. Many people said that when they presented their perspective at the conference it was the first time they had actually felt heard by the other groups present.  Another learning was about the importance of individual and personal issues in an organisational conflict. In one exercise, for example, people were asked to list their values. A dramatic list of shared values emerged, including an attraction to the mountains, the outdoors and enjoyment of the quality of life in Colorado. Talking about these values, one participant said it was “time to change our ways”, and the whole conference seemed to nod together. The rapport built by this apparently irrelevant personal sharing inspired major changes in attitude. On the morning of the third day, as participants breakfasted together, one remarked to Schweitz, “This must be the paradigm shift people talk about.” A collaborative decisionmaking structure was set up for future planning, progress was made towards legislative reform proposals, and a second conference was set for a year later. The new group is called the Colorado River Headwaters Forum. Future Search creates new metaphors for cooperation, rather than focusing on the actual past conflict.

Where Do The Exercises Come From?

I have been a trainer facilitating personal growth groups for over 50 years. My own experience in working with whole communities occurred in 1978-1981 when I worked as a Public Health Nurse at the Christchurch branch of the New Zealand Department of Health. I had the opportunity to facilitate several open community meetings at this time, usually to find solutions to community health problems such as outbreaks of infectious disease. I later taught these community work skills to nurses as part of my trainings run in the Department of Nursing at Christchurch Polytechnic 1985-1993, and I ran anti-racism training over the 1990s, and continue to do so. I trained other trainers to run community anti-racism training with Robert Consedine of “Network Waitangi” in 1992-1993 (Consedine and Consedine, 2001). I have also worked running trauma recovery and resilience workshops with healers from communities that have faced war, terrorism and natural disasters, beginning with my work in Bosnia-Herzegoveina in 1998, and culminating, for example, in our work with Psychologists in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, this year. In those trainings I always comment that what we are doing by gathering together is an intrinsically healing event, and in this writing I wish to emphasise that function.

Some of the exercises that follow are structured community exercises such as I had the opportunity to facilitate at this time, some are exercises which we used in Network Waitangi to help people change their values and actions in response to Indigenous Maori calls for self-determination and honouring of the Treaty of Waitangi, and some are group exercises which I have developed since beginning my work as a trainer of NLP in 1992 (either individually or with my previous partner Margot Hamblett or with my wife Julia Kurusheva). The successful results of the Network Waitangi trainings (essentially anti-racism trainings) were studied by Ruth Millar (1995), and are described in more detail in Robert and Joanna Consedine’s book “Healing our History” (2001) which mentions many excellent examples of the processes I am discussing here. Robert explains the thinking underlying these workshops and its sources such as Jacob Moreno’s Sociodrama model (Consedine and Consedine, 2001, p. 153-154), and I will also talk a little about that, following this section. In some ways we don’t have time to wait for all facilitators to get extensive training in Psychodrama and NLP before using these skills … and in other ways it is also important that in offering these experiences to people we do more good than harm. Robert talks in his book, for example, about how he watched many times as combined Maori and non-Maori anti-racism training groups erupted into violence or walk-outs as people without the skills to express their pain and listen to others were confronted inelegantly with the reality (or the fear) of how others really thought of them. As a result, eventually he decided that the first level workshops were best to be separated by cultural identification: Maori in one workshop and non-Maori in the other. Similar decisions have been made by Women’s consciousness raising groups, and even Mahatma Gandhi asked that British Independence sympathisers step out of their organizational meetings over the crucial time when the Indian Congress was establishing its separate identity.

It takes considerable skill to run workshops with both the group that feels aggrieved and the group that denies the grievance and feels “cancelled”. None-the-less, joint workshops can also be done by skilled facilitators in some situations. Robert Fulghum tells a story of that happening on Crete, in the workshops run by Alexander Papaderos, who invited Germans to study with Cretan people soon after World War Two. During the War, Papaderos’ hometown, Lividas, was destroyed by the Nazis and Alexander, still a child, was interned in a concentration camp. After the war he was determined to be a force for peace and forgiveness. He studied theology in the Orthodox church and in 1965 opened an institute designed to promote peace and reconciliation. He located it at Maleme, the site where German paratroopers landed and one of the wars worst atrocities was unleashed. The paratroopers met resistance from islanders bearing nothing other than kitchen knives and hay scythes. The consequences of resistance were devastating. The residents of entire villages were lined up and shot. Papaderos’ workshops were indeed a success and have been immortalized by the question which writer Robert Fulghum asked him at the end of one such workshop: “What is the meaning of life?” (Fulgum, 1989). Papaderos held up a small rounded mirror. During the war, he said he found a wrecked German motorcycle. Picking up a piece of broken mirror, he smoothed down the sharp edges and began playing a game—angling the mirror just so in an attempt to shine sunlight into dark places. As he grew up, he realized this game was a metaphor for what he could do with his life. “I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of the light,” said Papaderos to Fulghum. “But light—truth, understanding, knowledge—is there, and it will only shine in dark places if I reflect it…. And for me, that is the meaning of life.”

The risk of doing this process inappropriately is big. Tim Urban, in his book “What’s Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies” warns about the dangers of “Social Justice Fundamentalism” by which people interested in social justice actually end up alienating the groups they want to convince, by forced moralizing. He says (Urban, 2023, p.541-542) “Unfortunately, a robust and ever-growing body of empirical literature suggests that diversity-related training typically fails at its stated objectives…. Al-Gharbi points to mountains of research that suggest ways to make diversity trainings more effective and less damaging. Rather than focus trainings on the broader problems in American society and American history, or on often controversial progressive stances like equality of outcome or the myth of meritocracy, “training should instead be tightly connected to specific organizational objectives and the specific tasks different team members are responsible for.” Rather than discuss bias and prejudice exclusively in the context of how privileged groups perceive oppressed groups, he says, discuss these phenomena as what they really are: general cognitive tendencies that all people are susceptible to. Rather than training people to avoid conflict—by teaching members of minority groups to be extra sensitive to perceived slights and leaving members of privileged groups walking on eggshells—trainings should teach people how to manage conflict. While conflict can bring people together and drive innovation when managed constructively, trying to rid the workplace of conflict is not only futile, it stifles creativity.”

To summarise again then:

• Find ways to make diversity training a socially desirable choice, not a forced experience.
• Connect training to the specific tasks people are trying to do (such as coaching, in my trainings).
• Discuss bias and prejudice as general human tendencies, not specific to one type of person.
• Train people to accept and resolve conflict, not suppress it.

Embodying Experience in Action

The following exercises frequently involve action. If you are using these in a group, I urge you to consider the action as absolutely essential. In his book modelling Virginia Satir, NLP trainer Steve Andreas discusses the fact that Satir did not merely talk with her clients. She engaged them in action. He identifies two key aims of this action. Firstly, it helped associate clients into experiences: “Another powerful element of Virginia’s effectiveness was her insistence on action. She understood that people change only if they fully experience the events or perceptions that words can only point to.” Secondly, it helped “futurepace” new strategies. “After helping one or more family members make changes, she would ask them to re-engage in live interaction, so that she could evaluate and test what she had done… Virginia used action to translate hopes and yearnings into behaviours that satisfied them…” (Andreas, 1991, p 12-14)

“Family sculpture,” Andreas notes “was one of Virginia’s well-known ways of transforming words into action… She would position family members in a still tableau or sculpture that displayed their typical ways of interacting -their supporting, clinging, blaming, placating, including, excluding, their distance and closeness, power and contact relationships etc.” (Andreas, 1991, p 15). This method is taken further in the work of Bert Hellinger, modelled by NLP trainer Lucas Derks. Derks’ own work explores how people create an internal “social panorama” mentally positioning people they know around them and using location as a key clue to indicate psychological significance. He says “Hellinger developed a dramatic way of making panoramas visible. It is a far better show than most NLP demonstrations, where sometimes 50 people sit around and watch how someone has closed his eyes and ‘thinks’…The client is asked to choose people that may have some resemblance to the original family member… Hellinger explains to a client: “Now you take the chosen persons one by one with both hands, and put them on their spot in relation to the others, just like you experience them right now.”” (Derks, 1998, p 139-140).

Both Satir and Hellinger would recognise the inspiration for their work in the psychodrama model. John Grinder and Richard Bandler recommend in one of their earliest books (Grinder and Bandler, 1976, p 67) the use of “psychodramatic sorting” for internal “parts conflicts”, where part of the person wants one thing, and another part of the person seems to act in ways opposed to that. They say “Here the therapist has the client select two members of the group to play his polarities… The therapist will direct the client to play first one and then the other of the polarities.” In this way, the polarities are initially enacted by the client themselves and can then be modelled and played back by the selected group members.

The use of action has re-emerged through the history of NLP in numerous places. Robert Dilts uses “spatial anchors” (marking out set spaces in the room as “anchors” or stimuli which recreate emotional states) and explains why he uses action to do both “Re-imprinting on the time line” and to sort the different sensory components of a belief: “I like making a physical time line because it helps to organise the elements of the system in the same way as putting the senses into their accessing cues helps organise them and keep them separate.” (Dilts, 1990, p 116). Michael Hall’s “Mind-To-Muscle” pattern involves using active expression so that a highly valued principle delivers real learnings and “the learnings become incorporated into the very fabric of the muscles themselves.” (Hall, 2001, p42).

The most well-known model for use of action in psychotherapy is the psychodrama model of Jacob Moreno (1892-1974). In the early twentieth century, Moreno evolved a model of psychotherapy which took its metaphor from the theatre. Noting that children developed new behaviours after role-playing them in “games”, he assisted first troubled children and then adults to explore in role-play their internal and interpersonal dilemmas. Moreno described Psychodrama as “a therapeutic controlled acting out taking place within the treatment setting.” (Moreno, 1977, pX). He believed that this process of exploring experiences in action would increase clients’ “spontaneity”. This word has a specific meaning in Psychodrama. An action, in Moreno’s terms, is spontaneous if it enables the person to “…respond with some degree of adequacy to a new situation or with some degree of novelty to an old situation.” (Moreno, 1977, p XII). Spontaneity is thus the equivalent of adaptive response to crises, or what I have previous referred to as “Resilience”.

To create an adequate response to a situation requires developing a “role” for that situation. By “role”, Moreno refers to “the functioning form the individual assumes in the specific moment he reacts to the specific situation in which other persons or objects are involved.” (Moreno, 1977, p IV). Moreno points out that the role evolves directly from the individual’s interaction with the world, even before the person has a unifying sense of “self”. “Role playing is prior to the emergence of the self. Roles do not emerge from the self, but the self may emerge from roles.” (Moreno, 1977, p 153). In some ways, the concept of role and role relationships corresponds to the concept of strategy in NLP. In other ways, a role is similar to a “part” in NLP terminology. One key difference is that roles are, by Moreno’s above definition, interactional. Psychodrama presents a systemic model of therapy in which a person’s “strategies” or “parts” (to use NLP terms) cannot be understood in isolation, but are related to other persons or objects. As a result, psychodrama is generally done in a group setting, where the roles of others can be played by other group members (who thus become auxiliary actors).The term role is taken, of course, from the theatre. While Moreno emphasised that he used the term in a different way to the way it was used in drama, the metaphor of the theatre is also used to describe the process of therapy in psychodrama and Moreno’s related “action methods”.

There are three basic phases in a psychodrama enactment, called by Adam Blatner: (Blatner, 1988, p 42-101):

• Warm-up (The director or therapist warms up to their own role, then the group warms up to each other and to the task, then a protagonist/client is selected and warms up to their role and contract with the director)
• Action (the problem is presented, auxiliary actors are engaged, resistances are dealt with, action explores the protagonist’s issues, often leading to catharsis, and finally, surplus reality enables the exploration of other possibilities in the drama)
• Sharing/Integration (the protagonist explores how they want to act in real life, they and the group share their responses to the psychodrama, and the session is closed by dealing with “re-entry” to real life, checking what support is needed and what unfinished business is left, and saying goodbye)

Change in psychodrama is considered to occur through the development of spontaneity and role expansion. By role expansion, the development of more adequate new roles is described. Both these goals of psychodrama imply action, rather than just visualisation.

Action, to use a psychodramatic expression, can “warm the client up to psychosomatic roles” faster than talk. The body delivers information and memories, stored deeper in the brain, long before the conscious mind has access to them. This is also understood in Ericksonian therapy and is the basis for the use of what Milton Erickson called ideomotor signals (unconsciously directed bodily responses by the therapy subject, such as unconscious head nods or finger movements). Ernest Rossi and David Cheek (1988, p 20-21 and 26) explain “Careful observation of many old-fashioned efforts at total age regression indicated that the significant memories could be accessed rapidly within a moment or two at this initial emotional and physiological level. We speculated that this affective response accessed the limbic-hypothalamic and reticular activating systems [in the brain]. It took longer for such memories to be expressed by action potentials moving skeletal muscles at the ideodynamic finger signalling level. Finally, at the highest integrative, cortical level, the memory could be expressed within cognitive frames of reference as a verbal communication. Talking depends on associative pathways within the cortex of the brain. This ability to report verbally on visual, auditory, olfactory, tactual and positional stimuli depends on the highest levels of cortical activity.”

We don’t need to use the Psychodrama “theatre” metaphor of course. Virtual reality provides us with a metaphorical situation which I believe is even more isomorphic with NLP than the psychodramatic and ancient Greek metaphor of the theatre. In virtual reality, a computer projects the illusion of a real world, in which you as the experiencer are immersed. The sensory qualities of this virtual world (such as the loudness of sounds, or the colour of objects) can be altered from within the computer. Although the experience you are having has some correlation to a “real” world around you, it’s experienced significance is a function of your computer’s embellishments. Nonetheless, when you move around and interact in this embellished virtual world, “things happen” in the real world. Michael Hall uses a similar analogy when he describes “personality” as an “energised holographic force field” (Hall, Bodenhamer, Bolstad and Hamblett, 2001, p 67-90). He says that we “embody” our internal world, projecting it outward into space like a hologram. An example is our sense of time as having direction in relation to our body (creating what Hall calls “time lining”). A person talking about the future may gesture towards the front as if that future existed there. Indeed, in their virtual world, it does. Similarly, we project other “metaprograms”, or personality characteristics, into space. A person who likes to get the “big picture” on life, Hall notes, may step back so they can see the whole thing. People code their beliefs, their values and even their sense of who they are with the symbolism of location.

In psychodrama, experiences which have not occurred in “real life” but can be created and enacted in the “drama” are often referred to as “surplus reality”. Moreno says “There are certain invisible dimensions in the reality of living, not fully experienced or expressed… and for those who failed to experience them, life is incomplete… that is why we have to use surplus operations and surplus instruments to bring them out in our therapeutic settings.” (Moreno, 1966, p 151). Lucas Derks, as mentioned above, has used the term “social panorama” to refer to the projected social world in which we live our lives, peoples by virtual humans, by nature, by dead and spiritual beings and by our own self-image. Emphasising the virtual nature of all experience, Derks begins his book with the statement “Even when you make love, it is your own visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gustatory image of the other person you embrace.” (Derks, 1998, p 5).

The application of these action methods to wider social issues is called Sociodrama. Peter Felix Kellerman, in his book “Sociodrama and Collective Trauma” has written an extraordinary book on the processes that I touch on in this section of my writing. Kellerman was the Executive Director of AMCHA – a treatment centre for Holocaust survivors and their families in Israel. He explains, “Sociodrama is an experiential group-as-a-whole procedure for social exploration and intergroup conflict transformation. J. L. Moreno, the founder of psychodrama and sociometry, developed this method during and after the Second World War to improve the delicate fabric of coexistence between various groups of postwar society. In contrast to psychodrama, which focuses on individual dynamics, and sociometry, the method for studying interpersonal relations, sociodrama was developed as a deep action method for dealing with intergroup relations and collective ideologies (Moreno 1943/1972). According to Moreno and Moreno (1969): The difference between psychodrama and sociodrama is one of structure and objective. Psychodrama deals with a problem in which a single individual or a group of individuals are privately involved. Whereas sociodrama deals with problems in which the collective aspect of the problem is put in the foreground, the individual’s private relation is put in the background. The two cannot, of course, be neatly separated. (p.270) Sociodrama may be simply defined as a group method in which common experiences are shared in action. It is the application of psychodrama techniques to social situations in the community. “As soon as the individuals are treated as collective representations of community roles and role relations and not as to their private roles and role relations, the psychodrama turns into a ‘socio-psychodrama’ or short sociodrama” (Moreno 1972, p.325).” (Kellerman, 2007, p 15-16)

I believe this is a pretty precise description of my intent with this essay, and makes it clear that the Sociodrama/Psychodrama model has a lot to contribute to this project. Kellerman is also clear that effective use of Sociodrama in its full form requires extensive training. He notes its use in all the most extraordinary socially traumatic events of our time, including the war between Russia and Ukraine, and various conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. Like me, he is frustrated with the maladaptive responses of Israeli society to the reality of their occupation of Palestine. My aim is not to teach you how to do Sociodrama, but to deliver some Sociodramatic and related action-methods exercises to trainers who want to focus on this aspect of training (Collective Trauma Recovery). I also have a different model of how psychotherapy work to Moreno and Kellerman. Their belief is that emotional catharsis is intrinsically healing. I think we can see, with the recent research on NLP processes such as the Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories (RTM) that there are more elegant and more certain ways to help people heal from trauma. Furthermore, it avoids the risk, which Kellerman discusses (2007, p. 78-79) of Retraumatization.

That said, let me introduce you to the exercises. The exercises I have chosen to list here simply give you examples to begin from. They are not intended to be a complete listing of choices, and they certainly cannot simply be clustered together to form a “training event”. When I am running an anti-racism (Anti-Colonialism, or Treaty Education) training day, for example, I use several sociodramatic exercises, interspersed with giving background information. The plan of the day (which will make much more sense for those who have attended) is following, with experiential pieces marked bold. Some of these experiential processes are described in a more generalized form in the following pages. Note that “information giving” on our Treaty Education training alternates with “sociodramatic experiences” to make sense of the information at an emotional level, through the day. Robert Consedine, who trained me in this particular application of the methodology, always emphasised that if you only give information, all you get is “more well-informed racists”.

Treaty Education Single Day Plan

• Introduce Treaty education. My role as consultant, invitation to hold onto own values, explain origins of course, TC (Transforming Communication) approach seeks win-win solutions. Why learn Treaty Education: a real life social issue as a TC example, demographic change, world-wide post-colonialism, required eg by New Zealand government agencies, previous Master Practitioners say one of the most valuable days. Explain that I cannot speak for Maori.
• Collect a list of questions they’d like to have answers. Provoke “racist” questions so they are spoken.
• Why learn history: reflective listening the other person’s story – give examples such as suppression of Tohunga Act. Parihaka (begin this story as an NLP “nested loop”)
• Brainstorm Differences in culture: Maori – European settlers, using examples of Land, Family. Relate to neurological levels, NLP model of “metaprograms”
• Pre-treaty history and Maori prosperity. Moves towards treaty from both sides; why the treaty happened
• Two treaty versions roleplay. Divide group in half, each half read one version of treaty. Discuss each section and check would they agree to it?
• Discussion of post-treaty laws, wars and protest. Recent history; last 50 years 
• Two chairs: moving sculpture of the Treaty history 
• Maori statistics currently.
• Roleplay of a Maori hui about Maori negative statistics. Groups of 2-3 people discussing each aspect – criminality, health, income, education. small groups and interviews by me acting as a racist TV presenter.
• Lunchtime. “Ngā Tohu” metaphorical video (50 minutes) at lunchtime
• Explain types of racism: individual, cultural, structural
• Moving in together exercise. Roleplay of moving in together.
• Explain Models for partnership from Maori community.
• Mason Durie video: counselling and Te Whare Tapa Whā Model (60 minutes). Discuss relevant practice for specific NLP applications esp business, training, therapy
• Vision of future: guided visualisation.
• Complete the loop – story – Parihaka; the world’s heritage

After our last Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi) education day, for example, NLP Trainer and coach Jaki George-Tunnicliffe said:

As a trainer and coach I’m continuously upskilling, extending my thinking and considering how I can use this knowledge, or these tools or models to help my clients achieve more, with less stress. How can i help make the world a little better for all those I have the privilege to work with…

One of the more recent courses I did was on The Treaty of Waitangi and the process and impact of colonisation… particularly as colonisation relates here in Aotearoa. It is such a powerful, confronting and important topic, and I believe its central to understanding possible ways for our nation to heal and move forward in ways that honour the needs and values of all.

My thoughts from this experience: Its often easier to stick with what we think we know, but is there integrity in that? Until we consider what we dont know, and how others (including us) may see things differently, our thinking on the topic stays stagnant and this leads to continued division. And growth and joy gain no purchase, can have no traction when mired in muddy, stuck, blaming or ill informed thought patterns.

Just as we can’t change the literal past, we often cant directly change the outside world to be the way we want it. In those times its powerful to be able to reset and reconsider what we know and believe so we can make better sense of and feel more ease with that.

This also positions us better to focus on what we can do now and going forward to shape a more positive, empowered future here in Aotearoa. I am truly grateful for this educational, thought provoking program from Dr Richard Bolstad. My next steps are completing my certificate in He Papa Tikanga and working on becoming conversant in Te reo Māori. Its an exciting journey tapping into my heritage and finding my place and way in Te Ao Māori. We are all part of the solution. Together more is possible and thats the future I want for my tamariki.

– Jaki George-Tunnicliffe, coach, NLP Trainer, 2023

Cautions and Hopes

Once again, before presenting these 20 or so choices for sociodramatic exercises, I want to restate a couple of key cautions. Although I am making this material available publically, having read these descriptions does not qualify you to use these processes safely, and I urge you to get appropriate training, such as we offer here (https://transformations.org.nz/next-nlp-trainings/). Training and running groups is a skilled process, and running roleplays and sociodramatic processes is even more skilled than general training. One of the keys is to ask people beforehand not to “overact”: this isn’t meant to be a soap opera or a TV talk show with guests who argue in public. Secondly it is important to ask people after each roleplay to come back fully to being themselves, and to monitor, as they share in discussion afterwards, that they are indeed “out of role” and back to “being themselves”.

Having repeated these cautions, it is also important to realize that even without the inner NLP processes that we will introduce in the next section of this writing, this collection of group processes is precious, and its skilled use could make a profound difference in the real world we live in. I know that because of the powerful positive feedback I get each time I use these processes. A story from Russia demonstrates how crucial roleplay can be. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born in 1931 in a little village in the Caucasus Mountains, in the Soviet Union. In March 1985 he became General Secretary of the Communist Party and de facto leader of the world’s second most powerful nation. It quickly became apparent that he was a new kind of Soviet leader. At one early meeting with the French President Mitterrand, Gorbachev arrived late and apologised saying he had been sorting out a problem in the Soviet agricultural sector. Surprised, the French team asked when the problem had arisen. Without blinking, Gorbachev answered: 1917. Gorbachev’s first real test came on April 26, 1986, when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor melted down. rocketing a hot plume of radioactive particles a mile into the sky. For three weeks the fire spread out of control, sprinkling iodine-131 and other nuclides as far as Scandinavia, Italy, and Britain. The Chernobyl meltdown released 10 times the amount of radioactive substances as was released by the bombing of Hiroshima! An estimated 125,000 people in Ukraine have died because of the Chernobyl disaster, and more than 3 million acres of farmland is considered lost for a century. Gorbachev’s first response was to do what Soviet leaders had always done in such circumstances: to say nothing. Of course, clouds of radiation swept across Europe and so within a week he needed to acknowledge the disaster. Seeing the huge loss of life changed his view of the world.

Shortly after the Chernobyl disaster, Mikhail Gorbachev was taking part in a simulated war games exercise in a Kremlin bunker. He was going through a standard roleplay designed to prepare him for the worst case scenario of a nuclear war. Military leaders realised that in such situations their leader had to react quickly, and they designed a very convincing roleplay. It came to the point where a Soviet response was required to a supposed American attack. As Gorbachev told one of his officials later “From a central control panel came the signal: missiles are flying towards our country, make a decision. Several minutes passed. Information poured in about the destruction of the Soviet Union. I have to give the command for a strike of retaliation.” The generals could see that this decision was enormously stressful to Gorbachev. He was perspiring; he was trembling. He himself says that after Chernobyl, he had no illusions about what was about to happen in the roleplay. But he didn’t press the button. Until this day, every Soviet leader had performed correctly in the roleplay and pressed the button to retaliate. Finally, the generals told him; look it’s just a roleplay. Press the button sir. Gorbachev said “No, I will not press the button…. even for training purposes.” That roleplay changed the world. (Sebestyen, 2009, p. 183)

1. Choices for Creating a Space to Meet In (10 Minutes)

Most cultures have some symbolic method of creating a “space” for work together. The symbolic starting and ending ritual signals people’s brains to put aside other thoughts and activities for the time they are together (just as, sometimes when you go out of the room you were working in, to get something, you may find you forget what you were looking for, because your brain “closed the file” when you went through the door). In Māori culture, for example, a karakia (chant) is often said by the leader at the start and end of a session, and the last line of the chant may be said collectively by the group, to synchronize (creating what NLP would call “rapport”. This beginning chant appears in many government documents in Aotearoa / New Zealand (for example this)

Karakia Timatanga (Starting)

Whakataka te hau ki te uru, Whakataka te hau ki te tonga.
Kia mākinakina ki uta, Kia mātaratara ki tai.
E hī ake ana te atākura he tio, he huka, he hauhunga.
Haumi e! Hui e! Tāiki e!

Get ready for the westerly, be prepared for the southerly.
It will be icy cold inland, and icy cold on the shore.
May the dawn rise red-tipped on ice, on snow, on frost.
Join! Gather! Intertwine!

Karakia Whakamutunga (Closing)

Kua mutu a mātou mahi,
Mō tēnei wā,
Manaakitia mai mātou katoa,
O mātou hoa,
O mātou whānau,
Āio ki te aorangi

Our tasks have finished,
For this time,
Blessings to us all,
Our friends,
Our families,
Peace to the universe

In Shamanic cultures, people often begin by greeting the energies of the universe in the four cardinal directions (East, South, West, North) and above and below. The four directions in Māori are called “Ngā hau e wha” (the four winds). In Taoist and Native American ceremonies, the four directions each have a guardian animal, and quality to remind us of, as in the following invocation by Alberto Villoldo and the Four Winds Society, who offer training in Shamanic Energy Medicine (https://thefourwinds.com/prayer-for-opening-sacred-space/). The group would stand in a circle while the leader says this chant to each of the directions.

Invocation of a Sacred Circle

South
To the winds of the South
Great Serpent
Wrap your coils of light around us
Teach us to shed the past the way you shed your skin
To walk softly on the Earth
Teach us the Beauty Way

West
To the winds of the West
Mother Jaguar
Protect our medicine space
Teach us the way of peace, to live impeccably
Show us the way beyond death

North
To the winds of the North
Hummingbird, Grandmothers and Grandfathers
Ancient Ones
Come and warm your hands by our fires
Whisper to us in the wind
We honor you who have come before us
And you who will come after us, our children’s children

East
To the winds of the East
Great Eagle, Condor
Come to us from the place of the rising Sun
Keep us under your wing
Show us the mountains we only dare to dream of
Teach us to fly wing to wing with the Great Spirit

Mother Earth
We’ve gathered for the honoring of all of your children
The Stone People, the Plant People
The four-legged, the two-legged, the creepy crawlers
The finned, the furred, and the winged ones
All our relations

Father Sun
Father Sun, Grandmother Moon, to the Star Nations
Great Spirit, you who are known by a thousand names
And you who are the unnamable One
Thank you for bringing us together
And allowing us to sing the Song of Life

Taoist and Occult Protective Circle (Bagua)

Following is a diagram of the Taoist protective circle which serves the same purpose. In this case there are 8 directions and four animal spirits. The sequence of the aspects of the circle is the same as that in the “Wheel of Change” model, which is reviewed later in this writing. In the European occult tradition, this ritual opening and closing of the circle was done with a ritual called the “Lesser Banishing Ritual of the pentagram, where archangels are imagined at each of the four directions, each of which represents one of the four basic “elements”, each of which has a “name of God” associated with it, and in each of which pentagram symbols are drawn in the air in a particular way. A Hexagram is visualized above and below. 

2. The Sociodramatic Two Step (One Hour)

This exercise requires understanding two base skills from the Transforming Communication course: I Messages and Reflective Listening. The Two Step shows, using sociometry, how to integrate these and why that is important. Distance from the other person is used as a metaphor for being in/out of “rapport” or synchronization with them. The process begins with the two people facing each other and one person delivering a I message that explains that when the other person does something, they don’t like it or it creates a “problem” for them. As they do so, even though they do it carefully, a psychological distance is created (they step out of rapport). They do that by taking a step to the side of the position they began in. Whatever the other person says, they now reflective listen to that (They restate what they understand the other person to have meant, to check their understanding). If they have adequately understood the other person, the other person will then nod, and this signals that the other person can step up to being close, facing them again. The reflective listening process brings the other person back into rapport so they are more able to consider the I message. This process may need to be repeated two or three times until a clear result is obtained. TheTwo Step Process is run until one of four results is obtained (that is to say, the process in itself is designed to open a dialogue but not, in itself, to resolve the issue). It may resolve the issue, or three other things may happen.

Of course, the success of the process depends entirely on the learned skills of I Message and Reflective Listening. An I Message says “When this event happened, the concrete effects on me were these and I felt like this.” For example, “When the dishes weren’t done, I had to clean the bench before cooking the meal, and it was frustrating.” The I Message needs to avoid:

• Claiming to know what the other person is thinking and feeling (e.g. “When you deliberately left the dishes undone…” “When you didn’t consider my needs”)
• Judging the other person’s behaviour as “bad” (e.g. “When you were so selfish…” “When you broke your promise…”)
• Exaggerating (e.g. “When you never ever do the dishes…” “When the dishes weren’t done it spoiled my whole day.”)
• Telling the person what they should do before even finding out what their response is (e.g. “When the dishes weren’t done, I had to clean the bench before cooking the meal, and I really need you to do what you said.”)
• Claiming the other person “made” you do or feel something (e.g. “When the dishes weren’t done it made me have to punish you.” “When the dishes weren’t done you made me feel so disappointed in you.”

Reflective listening respectfully checks what the other person meant in what they said so far. For example, if the person replied to the above I Message by saying “I just forgot. I really have a lot to do after school!” then I might say “So it sounds like you had a really busy time, and didn’t remember.” Reflective listening needs to avoid:

• Asking questions (e.g. “So how are you going to remember?”)
• Giving advice (e.g. “So sounds like you need to set an alarm on your phone or something.”)
• Assuming the person has bad intentions (e.g. “So you just don’t think it’s important.”)

Here are the four possible results. Consider this parent-child situation. Jack explains that when his daughter Jane gets up ½ an hour later than they arranged, he ends up rushing to make sure she can get to school on time. Firstly, just telling her might solve it. But there are 3 other possibilities.

1. Jane agrees congruently to change to solve Jack’s problem.

2. Jane and Jack identify that they both have “a problem”. While Jane can understand that their behaviour concretely affects Jack, she is not willing to change because it would cause her a problem. (Conflict of Needs).

3. Jane considers this matter to be “none of Jack’s business”. Jane is thus not willing to negotiate the issue. (Conflict of Values).

4. In some cultures (Japan and New Zealand are examples) conflict is avoided and the other person may not be willing to explain their problem, and will hide their situation. This is far less common in European cultures. While the other can understand that their behaviour concretely affects you, they are not willing to change because change would create a challenge for them, and also they are not comfortable explaining this. The result is that the other superficially agrees, but fails to change their behaviour. This needs a little more care to find out what the other person’s needs actually are so you can begin to think up solutions that will meet them and motivate the person to cooperate. (Hidden Conflict of Needs).

Each of these different results requires a different approach, and on the Transforming Communication course we teach how to respond to each. However, simply roleplaying the Two Step often helps people learn a lot that they didn’t expect to learn about the situation. Firstly they learn that in order to create an actual “I Message” they need to put aside a lot of their “theorising” about how bad the other person was inside, and that often helps clarify that what they are upset about is not so much what happened, as what they were thinking about the other person (a process called paranoia). Secondly they learn that the other person responds very differently when they actually listen to them respectfully.

To help people learn from this exercise, we ask them to reverse roles, giving a written copy of their I Message to another person. The other person then says the I Message and they get to imagine what it would feel like to receive that I Message, and get a sense of what the recipient of the message is likely to say in response., as well as how it will feel for the recipient to be listened to. Usually people then discover that they calm down when they are listened to, and that a person who is listened to is more likely to cooperate.

Sociodramatic Use of The Two Step

To use this  sociodramatically, we can have the person write a “generic I Message” they’d like to say to people in the other group (For example, what would you love to be able to tell “men” in general?). They can then roleplay this through, also reversing the roles to imagine what it would be like to hear that message and be listened to. It’s important to remind people that this is “surplus reality”, which is to say, we aren’t recommending that they go out and actually “say” that to men. We are just establishing a communication with the part inside them that has stored the trauma of repeated challenges of this sort. As Virginia Satir said in an example of her work with a woman who was angry at her mother, “All right. Now, are you aware that you really don’t have this to say to your mother, but you have this to say to your image of your mother?” (Andreas, 1991, p. 100).

3. Create a Moving Sociometric Sculpture (30 minutes)

• Identify some historical series of events (for example colonization, postcolonial interactions). Design a series of “group sculptures” to tell the story. They need to be plausible representations of what actually happened (so as to minimize disputes about their relevance).
• Have the group move into each “sculpture” and invite people to discuss what it feels like as they imagine themselves in that situation. Be careful as the process focuses emotions, so may produce strong responses. Listen and process in the group.

For example, here is a series of 4 sculptures telling the story of Maori and European interaction with the Treaty of Waitangi after colonization.

4. Different Versions (30 Minutes)

• Have two entirely opposed sources of information about a historical event (e.g. a print out of two contradictory news reports, two versions of a treaty that don’t actually match, two memes from Facebook presenting alternative facts).
• Divide the group into two sections. Each group has only one of the source documents. Have each group separately discuss the document as if it was real, and decide what actions they want to take as a result of seeing it.
• Then have the two groups report back to the main group. After finding out what actions they are thinking of, provide both groups with both source documents.
• Discuss, and generalize the learning to hundreds of such documents to get a sense of what is happening with polarization of communities.

5. List Cultural Differences and Speculate on Results (30 Minutes)

1. Preparation. This exercise is especially useful in cross-cultural situations. First, ensure that people have some basic ideas about their own cultural presuppositions and the cultural presuppositions of the minority or other group that they are learning about relations with. A useful model to explain this (and subtly educate them about the process they are about to do) is this version of the Culture Iceberg model, adapted to Robert Dilts Neurological levels model: see below.
2. Brainstorm. Take at least two examples of contexts: for example “Family”, “Land”, “Learning”. Have a flip-chart or whiteboard with the two cultures listed in columns and sequentially brainstorm what different beliefs, values, presuppositions and behaviours they each might have about this area of life.
3. Process. Discuss what is likely to happen if two such groups try to co-exist.

6. Moving In Together (30 minutes)

• Have people get into pairs with someone they don’t know so well. Tell them to imagine that for some strange reason they have decided to move their two households in together. They will live in the same house/apartment, maybe one of their current houses/apartments or maybe buying a new house/apartment. They will be moving in with any people that the other person currently lives with as well. Their mission now is to work out “What issues do you need agreements about, in order for this to work?” Have them write a list. They do not need to reach all the decisions right now (they only have 15 minutes), but simply to list the areas they need agreements about.
• After 15 minutes collect in examples of the areas they said they need agreements about – write them on a flip-chart or whiteboard.
• Discuss, particularly noting that in almost all cases they will have:
  • Decided to have space that is shared and space that is separate and not to be intruded on.
  • Decided to create agreements that work for everyone rather than just vote on every issue (because voting would entrench one group as always wining).
• Point out the relevance of this for resolving the social issues they are learning about. (as a side effect, when I do this process with younger people, they frequently have “ah-hah” experiences about why their shared apartments are so challenging.

7. Brainstorm solutions at a Hui / Community Meeting (30 minutes)

• First, provide information about a minority group or an outsider group that they would benefit from more compassion for, their history and the possible process by which that group were marginalized and traumatized (present this factually rather than trying to engage compassion at this point).
• Have participants imagine they are from that community themselves. They are at a community meeting discussing the various problems that that community faces (in small groups brainstorming issues such as health outcomes, crime levels, income levels, unemployment, education levels). Ask them to think: why are the statistics so bad and what can be done about it? Emphasise that if they find themselves “blaming” either this group or another group, they are simply to apply the NLP principle that the behaviour must have some positive intention, and check back further to find “How did that happen to this group?”
• Pretend you are from a TV news agency (Fox News in USA, for example). Interview each group (use a microphone as a prop) and ask them to explain why these statistics are so bad and what they could do. Raise all the usual stereotypes (e.g. “So you’re just a bunch of criminals, is that right?” “And now you want us to feel sorry for you when you did the crimes?”). Provoke enough to get a response, but not so much the group erupts!
• Discuss their experience. The aim, of course, is to have them experience empathically what the other group’s experience is like and how blame adds “insult to injury”.
• This methodology uses a version of inoculation theory (developed by Bill McGuire in the 1960s) aimed at preparing people to counter false information when they experience it, and often done by having the participants themselves actually generate the false information and then refute it. “First, players are directly forewarned about the threat of fake news, representing the threat element of inoculation theory. Second, through being placed in the shoes of misinformation producers, players are exposed and asked to use weakened doses of six commonly used misinformation strategies (i.e., weak attempts at persuasion): impersonation, polarization, the use of emotions such as moral outrage, conspiracy theories, trolling, and discrediting. The active participation in the generation of misinformation encourages a critical reflection on the tactics used to influence, triggering the generation of internal refutations.” (Traberg et alia, 2022)

8. Satir Body Language Patterns (One Hour)

In her work with families and other groups, Virginia Satir (Satir and Baldwin, 1983) noticed that under stress, people tended to adopt one of five key communication styles or “stances”. The stances can be described in terms of the ability to experience the relationship from first, second and third perceptual position (self, other person and observer).

• The Blamer stance is adopted by a person who is only able to take first position (experiencing the world from their own point of view). Their belief that they are “not appreciated” and not succeeding leads them to blame others, disagree and put others down. They gesture with forward leaning, finger pointing, and speak loudly and angrily.
• The Placator stance is adopted by a person who is only able to take second position (experiencing the world from the “other” person’s point of view). Their belief that they are “worthless” leads them to agree with other’s ideas even where their own needs are harmed by this. They gesture with their palms up in an apologetic manner, and speak in a quiet, pleading voice.
• The Computer stance is adopted by a person who is only able to take third position (experiencing the world from an objective observer point of view). Their belief that stepping into the experience would make them “vulnerable” leads them to analyse and talk ultra-reasonably. They move very little, and use “auditory digital” gestures such as placing the hand on the chin. Their voice is flat in tone.
• The Distracter stance is adopted by a person who is unable to effectively take first, second or third position. Their belief that “nobody cares anyway” leads them to act and talk irrelevantly, making off the wall comments and jokes. Their movements are uncoordinated, and their voice varies constantly in tone and volume.
• The Leveller is able to step into first, second or third position. Their belief that they and other human beings are intrinsically worthwhile leads them to respond directly by sharing their own feelings and listening to others’. They stand balanced and make symmetrical body gestures, including gesturing with their hands down flat and to the sides in front, as if placing their hands on a table.

The Satir stances are literally “stances” which you can take and are anchors which have been set culturally. When you point and lean forward, speaking in a louder voice (Blamer), it “anchors” people into the sense of your “telling them off”. This is a gesture which you may make occasionally to insist on some behaviour. You could soften it by shifting then to Placator gestures which apologise, and ask for “forgiveness”, or suggest that you were “just doing your job”. At times you will want to convey a dissociated expertise, by using the Computer stance, and at other times you will want to “fool around” by joking and entertaining people in the Distractor mode. The following exercise is designed to be done in a group of 4, to assist awareness of these stances.

1. Blamer/Placater/Computer/Distracter/Leveller Sentences (Warmup)
2. In your group, the group choose a short (about 7 word) sentence.
3. Say the same sentence 5 times, using each of the Satir stances and voice tonalities.
4. Notice what feels easy for you and what is less familiar.
5. Discuss learnings

• Family roleplay
• You are now going to use the positions in a family roleplay. Choose who is mother, father and two children.
• Begin with one of the parents being the blamer, another the placater, and the two children computer and distracter.  The blamer begins. Roleplay an imaginary situation (for example a conflict about which TV program to watch) for 4 minutes.
• Rotate the Satir roles (keep the same people as mother, as father and as children). The blamer begins. Roleplay an imaginary situation for 4 minutes.
• If time, do this 4 times so each person gets to play each role.
• Discuss. Do you recognize this kind of situation? Does it feel familiar? Are you sometimes “stuck” in one of the Satir positions?

9. Family Reconstruction (One Hour)

This is a model from Virginia Satir’s work (Satir and Baldwin, 1983). It is done with one person being the focus, and utilizing the group.

• The “Star” lists all the people in their family of origin, including siblings, parents, any other parents’ partners (step-parents), aunts and uncles who were significant, and grandparents. Write down 3 words describing each of these people.
• The guide takes the “Star” through an imaginary reconstruction of the story of their family. The guide asks the following questions and encourages the “Star” to learn from them. The “Star” makes up any details of events they are not sure about (their imaginary story is as relevant as any “real” story).
• The four grandparents arrive. Where do they come from? What beliefs do they have? What challenges do they have? What do they tell their children (the Star’s parents) about parenthood? How do they treat their children (the Star’s parents)?
• The parents meet. How do they meet each other? What do they each hope will happen in their relationship? How do they feel about being parents? What is their early relationship like?
• Childhood. The “Star” is born. What do the parents feel about their new life as parents? How does this child change things? What happens when the child is a toddler? What happens at primary school age? How do the parents manage all these changes? What ways of coping do they bring from their own families of origin? What do they not know how to do?
• What has the “Star” learned from all this? In what way do these stories make sense of their own ways of coping and not coping?

10. Parts Party (One Hour)

This is a model from Virginia Satir’s work (Satir and Baldwin, 1983). It is done with one person being the focus, and utilizing the group.

• The guide has the “Host” of the party choose names of people from public life who may either attract or repel the “Host”, but would all be interesting enough to invite to a party. The guide makes a list, which should be as many as there are people in the group (or not more than ten).
• The guide has the host give an adjective to each person and explain how they feel about that person. The host chooses which group members play which roles, but each of the group members must play the role using the adjective that the host chooses, and even exaggerating it somewhat.
• Meeting the hosts. The host meets the guests as if they have just come to a party, invites them to meet the other guests, and notices how they interact with each other. Gradually, the guide refers to the parts by their adjective (e.g. the “angry” part) rather than their original public name (e.g. Darth Vader). The guide can “freeze” the action at any time and point out which guest has made a connection with which other guest.
• Witnessing conflict. If there is a conflict between parts, the guide can ask all other participants to freeze, while the host listens to the conflict. The guide can check if this conflict seems familiar (i.e. does it actually happen inside the person who is playing the host, at times). The guide can encourage the guests to try to get what they want to happen with the other guests. Once conflicts are clear, then the guide asks each part what they need to happen in order for them to feel comfortable.
• Transforming the parts. The parts are now encouraged to be aware that they need help from each other in order to achieve their own intentions. The guide asks them to work out how they can help each other so they can be more effective as a team. Each part is asked to think how their energy could be made more useful to the whole. At times, another part may need to be added (e.g. “Wisdom”), and this may represent a part missing in the person’s actual life.
• Integrating the parts. Once agreements have been reached, the parts all gather and face the host. Each then announces their function in a positive way (e.g. anger may say “I am your ability to protect yourself.” The host is asked to accept these transformed parts into their being so that all are connected into one system.

11. Double Handshake – From Robert Dilts (15 Minutes)

Stand in a pair and look at the person in front of you. Realise that you could recognise this person as different, compared to any of the 7 billion people of the planet. They are different to all humans who have ever lived, and different to all who ever will live. There is no-one else who has exactly the same appearance, life experiences and opinions as this person. Meeting them is a unique moment in your life. As you realise this, reach out and hold their right hand with your right hand (not to shake it, just to hold it).

Look at them again, and realise that the shape of their face, the colour of their eyes and the type of hair they have has been inherited from their parents. When you look at them, you see into their family of origin. The way they speak and even their gestures are learned in a social context. Looking at them, you are looking at their culture and their social group. Their DNA is mostly the same as that of every other human being on the planet, including you. Looking into their eyes you look into the eyes of all humanity, and your brain recognises your common ancestry with them. As they breathe, notice that they breathe in air that is produced by the plants on this planet, and as they breathe out they nourish those plants. They have co-evolved with all the other living things on this planet and could not have emerged outside it. When you look at this person, you look at one of the fruits of the ecosystem of the whole planet. Their body is made of atoms from the sun, and looking into their eyes, you see the structure of the universe revealed. As you understand their inseparability from all that exists, reach out and hold their left hand with your right hand.

Now, without needing to think of any particular meaning, reach out and take their right hand in your right hand, and reach out over the top of this and take their left hand in your left hand. Allow your body to understand them as simultaneously unique in all history, and one with all that exists.

12. Aligning Neurological Levels – From Robert Dilts (30 Minutes)

Robert Dilts’ Neurological Levels Model. When a client says “I can’t seem to create the right state of mind to manage the pressure in my job.” NLP trainer Robert Dilts points out that you could assist change at a number of different levels depending on which phrase in the sentence you attend to. Here are examples of choices for change at each level:

1. The final phrase “…in my job.” refers to the Environment where the problem happens. e.g. find a new job.
2. The phrase “…manage the pressure…” refers to the specific Behaviours which the client is unable to do. e.g. show the client specific behaviours which will reduce the sense of pressure.
3. The phrase “…create the right state of mind…” refers to the Capabilities which the client would need in order to solve the problem. e.g. show the client new strategies for creating useful states of mind anywhere.
4. The phrase “…can’t seem to…” refers to the level of Beliefs and Values. e.g. change their beliefs about what is possible or why this is important.
5. The deepest level in the statement is the level of the word “I…”, the level of Identity. e.g. help the person create a new sense of themselves as a confident and successful person.
6. There is a level before the person says anything, though. This level is the level Dilts calls Spirit, and involves the person’s connection with greater systems of which they are a part (communities, the universe etc). eg offer a powerful experience which changes the person’s sense of their life’s meaning in the world.

The following process helps a person realign all these levels in a particular situation.

1. Choose a problem you’ve had, and would like to change in a fundamental way.
2. Stand somewhere with plenty of space in front of you (enough to step forward six times). Think of the environment where the problem (that you want to move away from) occurs. Notice what you see, and listen to the sounds there. 
3. Take a step forward. Consider what you actually do and say in the problem situation. Just run a movie of what happens with that problem.
4. Take another step forward. When you do those things, what capabilities, what skills are you using (perhaps habits that you wish you didn’t use, but that happen automatically, or skills that don’t seem to work for you)? And what skills are you not using?
5. Take another step forward. Consider what beliefs you are acting on in that situation. What is important to you when you are in that situation (it may be just changing the situation)? What do you find yourself believing about your potential or lack of it, and about the situation that you want to change?
6. Take another step forward. Who are “you” in this situation? What kind of person are you in this situation and what would you like to change about that?
7. Take another step forward, and remember that you are here for a reason. You only got yourself into that situation because, in a wider sense, you’re here on earth for a reason. You may not know in words what that reason is, but notice it now. Realise that this “reason” connects you to something vast. You may think of it as God, as the universe and the laws of nature, as consciousness or beingness, or just as humanity. But it is a vast source of energy, in front of you now.
8. Take another step forward, into that source of energy. Feel its power.
9. As you feel that power, take a step back and notice how that power gives renewed strength to your mission, your reason. Take another step back and feel how that power transforms your sense of who you are. Take another step back and feel how that power changes what you believe about that situation you were considering; changes what seems important there. Take another step back and notice how it changes what skills you can use there, gives you new choices. Take another step back and be aware of how using those skills, with that vast power, changes what you will do and say there. Take another step back and be aware how those actions, done with that power, will change the situation itself.
10. Thank that power.

13. Shamanic Journey to Meet Animal Spirit Guide in the Lower World (One Hour)

This exercise is adapted from Steven D. Farmer, 2006. Usually it is done as a guided visualization, while participants lie on the floor with eyes closed, and a guide plays or actually drums rhythmic drumming music, followed by a “call-back” signal. The aim is to communicate with some energy which would be helpful to be added to your current life, and which is represented by an animal species.

(1)   Before you begin, think of a place in the earth that leads downward like an opening. It can be a place you are familiar with or one in your imagination like a knothole in a tree, a rabbit hole, the bottom of a lake, a cave, or anything else that will lead you downward. Identify this location and keep it in mind.

(2)   Invoke your spirit guides, if you have them, and if not, just relax, as we invoke guardian spirits while taking you through the journey and they will serve to protect you.

(3)   As the drumming begins, see yourself going toward the opening you identified. Once there, jump in. Find yourself going down a hollow tunnel until you’ll see light in the distance like “light at the end of the tunnel”.

(4)   This light is your exit from the tunnel and your entry into the lower world. As you step through the opening, you’ll find yourself in a natural setting like some part of the natural world. Step into this setting, walk, explore and observe whatever comes your way. Be open and receptive to whatever happens. Allow any messages, images, feelings or thoughts to come through to your awareness, to your heart or to your mind. You can try and establish dialogue with the spirit animal while you are in this energised, receptive state.  Usually an animal that is your “guide” can be expected to appear more than once, or stay with you. You can ask the animal if it is your guide, and if not it can take you to your guide. An animal spirit may have a symbolic gift for you, or may tell you or show you something. Be open and curious. When you are complete, thank your spirit guides and teachers.

(5)   When you hear the call back signal and about 1 min of rapid drumming, it’s time for you to make your way back to where you entered the lower world, and go up the tunnel to the place you started, and return to ordinary reality.

(6)   Slowly move various parts of your body. When you are ready, slowly open your eyes and look around to re-orient yourself to the present moment. Get up slowly when you’re ready, and notice how you feel. It could be useful to write in your journal what you experienced during your Journey.

Before your Journey, remember:

Breathing -helps you relax, focus your attention and stay open for contact with non‑ordinary reality. Do Piko Piko breathing several times.
Clear Intention -state what you want to happen: “Energy that is most helpful for me now, please come out and be with me, and reveal to me what I need to know now”.
Receptive Attention – shift into an altered state of consciousness in which you are alert and relaxed at the same time. This trance-like state can be achieved through mediation, dancing, singing, chanting, drumming, rattling, sitting in silence.
Commitment and Trust – keep your heart open and grateful, your mind clear, and your body relaxed.

After Your Journey, process the experience:

Write down what you recall. You don’t need to “believe” in the experience: if it is just imagination, it is after all your imagination, so it still tells you interesting information about your unconscious experience. Consider what associations you have with the animal/animals you met, before checking what “archetypical” associations shamanic cultures have found. Be alert over the next days for reminders of the animal, and for other insights that may occur later. Check this page for further ideas (www.spiritanimal.info/animal-meanings/).

14. Equilateral Triangles (30 Minutes)

Since learning this activity from Joseph O’Connor, I’ve used it with groups ranging in size from 10 to 130. It takes about ten minutes to do and process. Do not attempt it with less than 9 people. It demonstrates a number of important things about working in groups, and about the nature of systems. First, have the group stand in a circle and invite each person to silently choose any two other people at random from the circle, not including you. Explain that there are two key rules to this game. Firstly there is to be no talking at all. Secondly, the aim is for each person to be standing in an equilateral triangle with the two people they have chosen. They will be the same distance from each of those people that those two people are from each other. Demonstrate this with two people from the group. Then point out that as they go to do that, the two people may of course also start moving. In that case, they should continue adjusting until they are able to stay in the equilateral triangle. Once you have set up the game, step back and time the result. Chaotic waves of movement will rise and fall for between 3 and 20 minutes. Eventually, providing people do not talk, the situation will resolve.

Once the movement has stopped, ask how many people were convinced that it would never stop. Point out that you set up a system, like any organization or group. Each person in a system acts to meet their own individual needs (in this case represented by the need to be in a triangle). Unfortunately, as they try to meet their needs inside the system, every other person is also trying to meet their individual needs. It is easy for people to become convinced that “If only so-and-so would stop moving around we’d be able to sort this out.” People become quite frustrated with individuals, not realizing that they are only acting to meet their needs, and that the changes that prompt them to keep moving in this annoying way may even be linked to the movements that you yourself have made recently. Actually, the adjustments are systemic, and not caused merely by individual needs; they result from an interaction of individual needs and system rules. Amusingly, the temptation in an organization is for the person in charge to think that they can sort things out better. They take over and start telling each other person where to go. But in a large system this will take far longer than allowing the system to self-organise. In fact, in a large enough system, it is quite impossible. This game demonstrates how challenging it is to trust the system, and yet how effective the group itself can be. It also demonstrates the importance of basic expectations in a system. If this game was played on an open playing field, it would be almost insoluble because people would be tempted to move further and further out to meet their needs. The room in which the game is played acts like the ground rules or “culture” of a system in real life.

15. Colours In The Room (10 Minutes)

This is another great demonstration which is used by Tony Robbins. It can be used with any number of people, and it takes about 10 minutes. It shows very clearly the power of expectations, or of metaprograms, or of values, or of the core questions we ask ourselves. Have the group look around the room while asking themselves the question “What in this room is red?” Wait for a minute. Now have everyone close their eyes. Once you are sure everyone has their eyes closed, ask them to check “How many red things can you remember from this room?”. Wait 15 seconds. Now emphasise that they need to keep their eyes closed because you have a couple of other questions for them. Ask “How many blue things can you remember from this room?” and then “How many brown things can you remember from this room?”. After 15 seconds, have them open their eyes.

Point out that the core question they ask as they experience life, the way they filter their sensory experiences, or the things they expect from life are powerfully determining which things they will find, and which things they will learn.

16. Social Systems Analysis (3 Hours)

1. Individually invite people to list:

1. All the groups I belong to (formal groups and friendship groups)
2. All the social categories I belong to (eg., men, women. older people, teenagers, Maori, Christian, Hindu)
3. All the social institutions I’m involved with (eg., the education system, hospitals, Social Welfare)
4. All the interests I have that other people may share (eg., hobbies, person values)

2. Have people identify and list on paper:

1. In which of the above areas do I have strong social connections (eg., belonging to a close group) and in which do I have weaker or no connections (eg., not knowing anyone who shares my hobby)?
2. Which connections would I like to strengthen or weaken?
3. Which systems am I connected to?  (see above for meaning of a “system”)
4. How would I like those systems to change?

3. Have people choose one system they’d like to change and discuss in a pair:

1. What is the system like?  What subsystems does it have?
2. What inputs to this system could be altered to affect it (e.g. Does this system depend on certain written or verbal information being delivered to it, and could that information be altered in form or content?, Does this system use the results of other systems’ work, and can those other systems be convinced to change their results? Does this system use goods or services that can be altered or not delivered to it?)
3. What outputs from this system could be used to deliver feedback to it? (e.g. Does this system send written correspondence to other people, that can be replied to?, Does this system produce goods that can be sent back to it or not purchased?, Does this system have former clients or members who could make public comments about it?)
4. How could I use the process of rapport to connect more effectively with this system?
5. How could my behaviour be more flexible and so have more ability to change this system?

4. Discuss in the full group.

17. Drawing and Walking Time lines (One Hour) 

• Each person takes a large sheet of paper and some coloured pens, and draws a line representing their life.  Next draw on it symbols, pictures or words for significant events.  Take 15 minutes.  Then collect back into a circle and take turns sharing whatever you’re comfortable sharing from your picture.
• Choose one Time Line to create on the floor and have the person walk through their life discussing the places they have noted on paper, and how it feels to revisit them from inside and from outside.
• Share in the group, seeking common themes and learnings about time.

18. The Ah-Hah Seminar (One Day)

1. Planning.

This process is a simplified version of the community development process developed by GATT-Fly (1986), originally a Canadian churches project which has worked with indigenous American groups, trade union groups, women’s groups and others.  It’s designed for any group who have some sense of connection (eg., are friends, work together, share some common social characteristics or values), and would like to take action to transform their situation.  Ah-Hah! is based on the educational principles of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire.  You’ll need:

a) A group of less than 30 people with some degree of rapport.

b) A 1 x 3 metre whiteboard or sheet of newsprint which can be printed on the wall (double or triple thickness to protect the wall).  Some felt pens, of varying colours.

c) A focus which the group agrees on. The focus may be “What to do about a specific problem which involves the whole group”, or simply “Planning action to enhance our quality of life in a specific area -say health, education, employment” You may take the first half hour of the group time to clarify what the focus is, or it may be decided before. The remaining time can be divided into 3 sections    

1. Constructing the Picture.                           
2. Analysing the Picture. 
3. Developing Action Plans.

d) A person who does the drawing for the group and is an “animator” (encourager of open discussion).  This person may give their own opinions,  but needs to listen well to each person’s comments and check for the group agreement before drawing.  This person may be a group member, or an outside person who is familiar with the issues. This is a skilled process and the animator may want to spend some time, before the day, practising drawing symbols (see examples below).

e) A person who keeps a record of the drawing (e.g. by photographing drawings and posting them online), if it’s on a whiteboard, and of any decisions.  This person may also act as an observer, offering feedback on how the agenda is being kept and how it’s going.

2. Beginning.

At the beginning of the process, each person in the group briefly introduces themselves.  The animator explains the process emphasising that the group has within itself the information it needs and is in charge of the seminar.  The timing of the 3 phases is set, as well as at least two times to do a brief evaluation of how the process is going.  This is an “agenda” – for example:

• 9.00  – 9.30       Introduction
• 9.30  – 9.45       Morning tea
• 10.00 – 12.00    Constructing the Picture
• 12.00 – 1.00      Lunch
• 1.00 – 1.15        Evaluation
• 1.15  – 2.30       Analysing the Picture
• 2.30  – 2.45       Afternoon Tea
• 2.45  – 4.00       Developing Action Plans
• 4.00  – 4.30       Evaluation

Any changes to this agenda should be agreed on by the group.

3. Constructing the Picture. 

The animator begins by asking open questions such as:

• “Tell me about where you live?”
• “What kind of work do you do?”
• “What is your community like?”
• “What do the rest of your family do?”

As answers are given, the animator acknowledges them and draws them on the board/ paper. Always place the diagrams of things such as workplace, home, and other personally central things central in the picture.  Draw simply, using symbols such as those below, and placing things on the picture as suggested by the group, labelling as needed.

The animator draws arrows and connections where the group identifies these, writing beside the arrow what the connection is, as in the example on the last page. The animator expands the picture by asking questions about where money/resources  and influence comes from, who else is involved, who is benefiting and losing out from processes etc.  The larger picture needs to include government agencies, social and cultural institutions, the role of the media, community organisations, churches, workers, organisations, banks and corporate centers (business), to be complete.  Also check for multinational organisations and international influences, to create a global model. Gradually, a picture of the social world centred on the group is developed.

1. Analysis of the Picture

If new elements are thought of during this phase they can be added to the picture.  Otherwise the animator assists the group to identify further connections, with questions such as:

• “Who benefits from this?” “Who loses from this?”
• “Who decides?  “Who influences these decisions?”
• “What is changing in this process at this time in history?”
• “What values and cultural processes are affecting this?”
• “Who else is in the same kind of situation?”

The animator encourages people explaining and thinking through their answers and questioning others’ answers to check them out.

5. Developing Action Plans

Here the animator asks:

• “What kind of changes do we want in this picture?”
• “What intermediate steps would lead to these goals?”
• “Which changes would actually hinder us reaching our longer term goals?”
• “What actions have been tried before?”
• “What obstacles are there and how do we overcome/integrate these?”
• “Which groups are potential allies in our goals?”

Before the conclusion of the process it’s important to reach agreement on at least one specific activity the group could undertake.

6. Evaluation

Finally, the questions may include:

• “What did we achieve?  Did we get through the agenda?”
• “How did we work together as a group?  Did we enjoy it?”
• “What did we learn about ourselves/the world?”

19. Future Search (One Day)

1. This process is a simplified, one day version of the process used by SearchNet (Weisbord and Janoff, 1995). The original three day version has been used with indigenous American groups, trade union and management groups, women’s groups, health and education agencies and so on. Its aim is to develop a shared vision of the future. The original process is a three day process and typically involves 60-70 people. For this modified version you’ll need:

a) A group of less than 30 people with some degree of rapport, committed to attendance. Everyone who is concerned with the issue to be discussed needs to be in the group or be represented in the group.

b) A plentiful supply of sheets of newsprint which can be printed on the wall (double or triple thickness to protect the wall).  Some felt pens, of varying colours.

c) A focus which the group agrees on. The focus may be “What to do about a specific problem which involves the whole group”, or simply “Planning action to enhance our quality of life in a specific area -say health, education, employment”  The focus is a co-operative one, rather than clarifying “differences”. This is important. The aim of FutureSearch is to expose the hidden agreement at deeper values levels, rather than to focus on resolving the surface disagreements. You may take the first half hour of the group time to clarify what the focus is, or it may be decided before.  The remaining time can be divided into 5 sections     

1. Review the Past.                            
2. Explore The Present. 
3. Create Ideal Future Scenarios.
4. Identify Common Ground
5. Action Planning

d) A person who does writing for the group (though participants are also welcome to write) and is a “facilitator” (encourager of open discussion).  This person may give their own opinions, but needs to listen well to each person’s comments and check for the group agreement before writing.  This person may be a group member, or an outside person who is familiar with the issues.

e) A person who keeps a record of the writing, if it’s on a whiteboard, and of any decisions.  This person may also act as an observer, offering feedback on how the agenda is being kept and how it’s going.

2. At the beginning of the process, each person in the group briefly introduces themselves.  The facilitator explains the process emphasising that the group has within itself the information it needs and is in charge of the seminar.  The timing of the 5 phases is set, as well as at least two times to do a brief evaluation of how the process is going.  This is an “agenda” – for example:

• 9.00  –  9.30      Introduction
• 9.30  – 9.45       Morning tea
• 10.00 – 11.00    Focus on the past
• 11.00 – 12.00    Focus on the present
• 12.00 – 1.00      Lunch
• 1.00  – 1.15       Prouds and Sorrys
• 1.15  – 2.00       Ideal Future Scenarios
• 2.00  – 3.00       Common Ground
• 3.00  – 3.15       Afternoon Tea
• 3.15  – 4.30       Action Planning
• 4.30  – 5.00       Evaluation

Any changes to this agenda should be agreed on by the group. Explain that the process requires accepting that each phase can only be explored briefly. Since we are not trying to “resolve” all conflicts, we can accept that we are beginning to define our future, rather than setting it in stone.

1. Review of the Past

Collect on three sheets of paper, with timelines dated at 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago:

1. Personal milestones you’ve experienced
2. Key world events
3. Key events in the history of the issue under consideration

Discuss how these three timelines relate to each other. ie:

• What is the general trend of the stories of the people in this room? How does that story connect to the other two timelines?
• What is the general trend of global history over this time? How does that story connect to the other two timelines?
• What is the general trend of the story of this issue? How does that story connect to the other two timelines?

2. Focus on the Present

a) The first aim of this stage is to mind-map all the external trends that are impacting on the topic/issue under discussion, at the present time. Write the conference task in the centre of a large sheet of paper. Invite someone to “name a trend”, and then write that trend with a line connecting it to the central concept. Then ask ‘What are concrete examples of this trend?’ Collect a couple of examples, drawing lines out from the trend to the examples. After the first trend is written up, as people suggest trends, check for each one “Is that a new issue, or does it branch off from something already there?” Accept all suggestions, including writing up opposing trends if different people suggest them. If someone suggests a future solution, ask “What trend is that a solution to?” If someone describes a past problem, ask “What current trend does that problem reflect?”

b) The second aim of this stage is to prioritise this mind map. Firstly, each person present is given a collection of four sticky dots (they can be colour matched with others in the room who come from their own “stakeholder group” if there are different groups). Each person places a sticky dot on the issues they think are most important for today’s conference. Note which trends are most popular.

c) The final step here is to have individuals or stakeholder groups think through the map over lunchtime, possibly drafting their own individual versions. They also ask themselves “What am I proud of and what am I sorry for in my own actions in relation to the main trends listed?” Briefly report back after lunch.

3. Focus on the Future

Organise people into smaller groups (mixed groups if there are different factions). Ask the groups to put themselves 5, 10 or 20 years into the future, imagine they have made their dreams come true, and list on charts:

1. Concrete images and examples of what has happened
2. Barriers they had to overcome on the way

Have each group briefly report back.

4. Common Future

The same smaller groups now compile three lists:

1. The common future that we all agree that we want (usually this will be a generalized list of values).
2. The possible projects, programs and policies which we could use to express those agreed on values (but which we don’t need to have agreed on yet).
3. The unresolved differences we have about all this.

5. Action Planning

Report back in the large group, and ask the following question: “What are we ready, willing and able to do now without negotiation or checking for permission from anyone else? “Stakeholder groups” or “factions” may need to meet together to discuss this issue briefly. Make sure the question is put clearly in this form though. Once possible steps are identified, invite people to meet with people who share a willingness to actually act on a task together, and have them decide what their next step will be, to ensure that this action is taken.

6. Evaluation

Finally, the questions may include:

• “What did we achieve?  Did we get through the agenda?”
• “How did we work together as a group?  Did we enjoy it?”
• “What did we learn about ourselves/the world?”

20. The NLP Activist: Creating a Campaign (One Day)

Bill Moyer works with organisations seeking social changes. Moyer has proposed that “There are four different roles activists and social movements need to play in order to successfully create social change; the citizen, rebel, change agent, and reformer. Each role has different purposes styles, skills and needs, and can be played effectively or ineffectively. (Moyer, 2001, p. 21). The above sequence is the sequence in which the change styles are required, as a person, organisation or society shifts from their old state to their new state. This sequence is what I am calling “The Wheel of Change”. Different stages of the change process require different relationship styles. As a result, some social activists are good at the start of this process of change, some are good at finishing the process, and others are good at working in the chaos at the centre of the process. If you understand this whole change cycle, you can recognise the strengths of your own helping style, and develop the skills you have previously found difficult. These change styles differ in their relationship to two personality continua (“metaprograms”) described in NLP (see Charvet, 1997):

• Preference for Sameness (Matching) vs Preference for Difference (Mismatching)
• Towards Motivation vs Away-From Motivation

Citizens frame a new idea for social change as a necessary way to more fully express the true, underlying values that their society has already committed itself to. They feel part of their society and want it to be even more true to its own ideals. They describe their activism as being a way to be a good citizen and support the true needs of their society. They urge society to move away from those things that don’t really fit with its own highest ideals. For example, the African American activist Martin Luther King described his aim as to “fulfil the American dream, not to destroy it.” (Quoted in Moyer, 2001, p. 11). This is important at the start of a social change process. It raises issues in a way that those who fear change may find more acceptable, by suggesting that change will actually help stability. Citizens match their society and move away from its inconsistencies.

Rebels take action to get away from harmful social systems. They directly challenge society as it is. They describe their activism as a way to eliminate injustice and suffering. Often critical both of established society and utopian or reformist plans for a new society, they urge society first to confront and give up what is wrong. Rebuilding is for later. The Anarchist revolutionary Michael Bakunin stated a core Rebel value when he said “The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.” This is important to give energy to the change process once it has begun, to ensure that things don’t just settle down as they were. When successful, this rebel style provokes such a strong response that it becomes impossible to go back to the old order. Rebels mismatch their society and move away from its failures.

Change Agents organise and participate in community actions which are an alternative or a vocal opposition movement opposed to the established social systems. They urge society to create a new social order and see their movement as the kernel of this order. The creators of collective industries in the Spanish revolution were Change Agents, as were the creators of the first women’s refuges, alternative schools, and eco-villages. This creation is an essential antidote to the rebel style, and it gives the first expression to positive action in the change process. It provides and tests real life models of what the future could be like. Change Agents mismatch old systems and move towards new possibilities.

Reformers work within mainstream systems to get the movement’s aims expressed in concrete terms and installed into accepted practice. They see social change as a process of convincing governments, community agencies and corporations to put new schemes into practice. They cooperate with existing agencies to build the new society. New Zealand suffragette Kate Sheppard described her work to get women the vote in these terms. Reform is essential to ensure that the new practices become universally accepted and incorporated into every facet of daily life. Reformers match their social systems and match the new ideas, and move towards a successful blending of these.

Moyer gives several examples of effective integration of these four roles in social change campaigns. One is the campaign to end apartheid style rules about where black people sat on southern USA buses in the mid twentieth century. On December 1^st, 1955, African American Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat on the bus for a white person. For 381 days, the 50,000 strong black population of Montgomery boycotted the buses, until the United States supreme court overturned the Alabama segregation laws. Bill Moyer points out that in such a campaign all four of his MAP (Movement Action Plan) roles come into play. “The boycott effectively used all four MAP roles. The citizens kept the campaign grounded in the nation’s widely held values of democracy and freedom, and their demands were based on the civil rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Many of the citizens were based in the Christian church, which was revered by the large majority of whites in Montgomery and within mainstream America. The rebels brought attention to the movement with the non-violent bus boycott campaign. The entire black community of Montgomery filled the social change agent role by its involvement in the boycott, mass meetings, and car-pooling. Finally, the reformers ultimately won the day through the court case, which was decided favourably by the U. S. Supreme Court.” (Moyer, 2001, p. 120)

A cause of disempowering pessimism in social change movements is the all-or-nothing obsession with the “ultimate goal”, the “end of history”, the “great revolution”. Introducing his MAP model, Bill Moyer restates “Social movements do not win overnight. Successful social movements typically progress through a series of eight clearly definable stages, in a process that often takes years or decades. The Movement Action Plan’s Eight Stages Model enables activists to identify the particular stage their social movement has reached, celebrate successes achieved by completing previous stages, and create effective strategies, tactics, and programs for completing the current stage and moving to the next. As they follow this process, activists are able to develop strategies to achieve short-term goals that are part of the long-term evolution to their ultimate objective.” (Moyer et alia, 2001, p. 42). The stages Moyer lists are:

1. The public is completely unaware of the contradiction between widely held positive values and the damaging results of the present system.
2. Opposition groups emerge and begin research to prove a problem exists, as well as attempting to use accepted channels of change to solve it.
3. Public recognition and concern about the problem grows and perhaps ¼ of the public understands the negative effects of current structures or policies.
4. Trigger events lead to dramatic non-violent campaigns that increasingly expose the injustice of present situations.
5. Numbers involved in the campaign drop as goals are not yet achieved. Frustration at failure provokes more destructive protests as well as the ongoing non-violent ones.
6. Retriggering events create majority support for the movement. Power structures present the movement’s proposed solutions as dangerous for social stability.
7. Splits appear in the ranks of the powerholders about how to respond. Minimal reforms are rejected as the movement gains overwhelming support and new laws and institutions emerge.
8. The movement deals with backlash hostility by old powerholders, and new issues emerge from the new situation.

In this following exercise, we assume you have an issue you want to provoke change about. How do you decide what to do? Here is an overview, regardless of whether you are aiming at change in an organization, community, nation, or planet. Instead of merely reacting to events initiated by power holders, thinking through all these issues will ensure you focus your energy effectively, do not sidetrack or burn out, and have the maximum effect with the least effort. Obviously, if you are in a group, meeting for a one day planning session with this kind of checklist would be valuable.

Assessment

A. The Four Roles and the Stages of Change

• What other groups are already active dealing with this issue? Is their approach primarily as Citizens/Rebels/Change-Agents/Reformers?
• Which roles are currently under-expressed, or not positively expressed and which you can most effectively take on yourself?
  •  Is someone speaking out about the agreed on shared value that is violated by this social issue (Citizens do this)?
  •  Is someone pointing out that the system itself depends on and protects this violation, so it requires wider change (Rebels do this)?
  •  Is some group creating a model of the ideal activity that you would like to be available, and documenting it as an alternative (Change Agents do this)?
  •  Is someone in a position of power already attempting to create formalised change about this (Reformers do this)?

• Do people in these various roles conflict or do they understand the value of working together?
• What has happened in the history of this issue already?
• Where are you in the 8 step life cycle of a change process?
• What previous setbacks need to be reframed?

B. Choosing a specific goal

• What do you want to happen in 1 year, in 2 years, in 5 years, in 10 years?
• How will you measure the goal being achieved?
• Who in power would need to do what exactly to have it achieved (eg what government agency would need to pass what law) ?
• Does focusing on this goal maximise the image you want to project publically and help feed energy into the next goal if it succeeds?
• How long do you expect to be involved, what time each week do you expect to use, and what money do you expect to use?
• What sources of funding, and sources of information do you need and what do you have access to already?
• What is inspiring about this goal? Can you enjoy the campaign regardless of how long the result takes?

C. Allies

• Who are potential allies once your campaign begins? How can you help them become your allies?
• Under what circumstances would you walk away from the campaign as too difficult for now?
• How will you involve people who become interested in your goal and how will you sustain their support and interest?
• Can you define the issue and goal in a way that is acceptable to everyone you want to be your ally
• How will you handle conflict within your group e.g. about offers of compromise.

D. Adversaries

• Who benefits from this problem and is likely to try to stop your progress, and what could they do?
• What are your “adversary’s” key strengths and weaknesses? What are yours?
• How does your adversary explain to themselves that they are “the good guy”? How can you help them still feel like “the good guy” while changing so you reach your goal?
• Whose cooperation does the current system depend on, and how can that be withdrawn?

E. Tactics

• Which tactics do you have experience of or feel ready to use? (eg online petitions, social media campaigns, vigils, marches, letter writing campaigns, media events, creating media such as videos, magazines, leafleting, door to door canvassing)

Action Stages

1. Citizen Tasks.

• If the issue is new, identify an accepted value or goal in mainstream society that the issue violates and prepare publicity that defends that value and raises the issue as a violation of that value.
• Have clear documented stories of what happens that needs to change to meet that shared value.
• Rehearse consulting statements & prepare reflective listening responses for resistance.

2. Rebel Tasks.

• Begin collecting evidence that the problem is actually deeper than this presenting issue, especially evidence of the way the system, far from fixing the problem, actively defends it.
• Look for trigger events that demonstrate this and confront them, even provoking such events by attempting to stop the problem behaviour or to have people practice non-cooperation with it.
• Prepare for stigmatising of the movement and false flag attacks being blamed on you, as well as actual unhealthy rebel acts by misguided sympathisers.
• Create support systems and positive anchors that can sustain the movement in the “political wilderness”.

3. Change Agent Tasks

• Build both a public support movement with powerholders who may be sympathetic, and also a core of activists willing to spend time and take risks exposing the issue publically.
• Find or create structures or groups that can be models of alternative ways of acting that demonstrate the positivity of your goal, and sustain the movement as public interest wanes in the face of slow progress.
• Publicize these models, and build stories of individual examples of successes that can be used as metaphors to inspire society-wide change.
• Plan reframes for the ongoing challenges of the movement and lack of full success.

4. Reformer Tasks

• Get clear as to why minimalist reforms need to be rejected, and what are your bottom lines for compromises and transitional agreements that go some way to meeting the aims without compromising the ongoing movement.
• Identify which people in positions of power can be your voice in advocating reforms that embody your proposal.

21. Envelope (30 Minutes)

Have students write the story of their family’s traumatic event as if they were observing it from far away, on a single sheet of paper. Have them fold the paper in 3 and seal it in an envelope, and then hand in the envelope to be stored. Hand out a separate sheet of paper. Have them write a single positive learning about what they will be able to use in the future as a result of letting go of the distress those event may have caused, and keep that paper.

Examples of wordings for positive learnings: In the future I can …

• Accept that it is OK if …
• Realise I have the choice to …
• Notice …
• Develop the ability to …
• Take care to …
• Help others who …
• Minimise such challenges by …

Key Points:

• Indigenous communities usually deal with collective trauma by creating social community rituals, and these access the symbolic, metaphorical thinking which our brains are good at.
• These rituals are not merely celebrations of trauma, but also problem-solving events comparable to modern workshops such as future-search, which seeks to find common ground for a split community to move forward.
• Such community conflict-resolution and conflict-transcending events require considerable skill to run safely. They work best when connected to specific daily tasks, when they are freely chosen, when bias and prejudice are seen as human rather than the pathology of one group, and when people are trained to accept and resolve differences.
• The model of sociodrama suggests that community rolepays have a 3 step structure that involves warm-up, enactment, and sharing and integration. Such events allow the projection of “surplus reality” into roleplays that can be seen, heard and felt by group participants.
• Collective ritual events can go from ten minute processes to day long conferences, including:

1. Ritual creation of a “sacred” space for work,
2. Using the 2-step metaphor for exploration and resolution of conflicts,
3. Creating moving sculptures as Virginia Satir did with families,
4. Listing cultural differences or experiencing two versions of a story to consider how polarization happens,
5. Metaphorically planning to Move In Together,
6. Imagining being an oppressed minority and planning to solve various problems,
7. Creating Satir body-language roleplays (Blamer-Placator-Distractor-Computer-Leveller),
8. Doing a Family reconstruction,Aligning Neurological Levels in a group,
9. The Double Handshake metaphor,
10. The Equilateral Triangles metaphor,
11. Shamanic journeying,
12. Colours in the Room exercise,
13. Social Systems analysis,
14. Drawing and Walking Time Lines,
15. The Ah-Hah seminar,
16. Future-search,
17. Planning an NLP Activist program

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