We have a different situation than you do. We are modelers. Our job is to test all the patterns we have, so that when we do a workshop, we can offer you patterns that we have already verified are effective with all the presenting problems that we guess you are going to have to cope with.

We trained a group of people who work at a mental health clinic. The director took lots and lots of training with us and they do this kind of work in the clinic. They are supported by the state; they don't make their living from client money. They now average six visits per client and they have almost no returns. Their work lasts.

One of the interesting things is that the guy who directs the clinic also has a part-time private practice. In his private practice he is apt to see a client twelve or fifteen times instead of six times. And it never dawned on him what caused that. The same patterns that you can use to change somebody quickly and unconsciously can be used to hook them and keep them as patients. That's a strange thing about therapy: The more effective you are, the less money you make. Because your clients get what they want and leave and don't pay you anymore.

Woman: I have a patient who can't stand to be touched, because of a rape experience. How should I anchor her?

You can anchor in any system. But I would recommend that you do touch her, because that's a statement about her limitations. You can begin by accessing some really pleasant experience in her and anchoring that, and then expanding your anchor a little bit at a time until she can enjoy being touched. Otherwise she's going to respond like that for the rest of her life. If you respect her limitations, I think you are doing her a huge disservice. That's the very person that you want to be able to be touched without having to recall being raped. And of course your sequencing is important. You start with a positive frame. For example, you can start by talking with her, before therapy begins, about a vacation or something else pleasant, and when you get the response, anchor it. Or you can check to make sure that at least some time in her life she had a pleasant sexual experience, and anchor that.

Man: Do you have to anchor as obviously as you have been demonstrating?

We are being very obvious and exaggerated in our movements as we are anchoring here because we want you to observe the process and learn as the changes occur. If we had brought Linda up here and anchored her auditorily, with voice tonalities, you'd have no idea what we did. The more covert you are, the better off you will be in your private practice. You can be very covert in the way you touch. You can use tones of voice. You can use words like "parent," "child," and "adult," or postures, gestures, expressions. You can't not anchor, but most people aren't systematic.

Anchors are everywhere. Have you ever been in a classroom where there's a blackboard and somebody went up to the blackboard and went—(He pantomimes scraping his fingernails down the blackboard. Most people wince or groan.) What are you doing? You're crazy! There's no blackboard. How's that for an anchor?

We first noticed anchoring as we watched other people do therapy. The client comes in and says "Yeah, man, I've been just down in the dumps for seven years, and ..." The therapist leans over and puts his hand on the client's shoulder and says "I'm going to put the full force of my skills behind the changes that we will work toward together in this session." And then the therapist does some really good work. The client changes, and feels really good. Then the therapist says "That really pleases me" and as he does he leans forward and puts his hand on the client's shoulder again. Whammo, that anchor accesses the depression again.

I've seen a therapist take away a phobia and give it back nine times in a single session, without having the faintest idea what she was doing. At the end of the session she said "Well, we'll have to work more on this next time."

Do yourself a favor. Hide yourself where you can see your clients make the transition from the street to your office. What happens is a miracle. They are walking down the street, smiling, feeling good. As they enter the building, they start accessing all the garbage that they are going to talk about, because the building is an anchor. You can't not anchor. It's only a question of whether you do it in a useful way or not.

We know an old Transylvanian therapist who solved the problem by having two offices. He has one office in which you come in and you tell him all your troubles. And then he says nothing to you; he just stands up and takes you into the next room and does change work. And then pretty soon he just takes you into the other room and you change; you don't have to go through the personal history which has all the pain and suffering.

When couples have been together for a while they usually end up not touching each other much. Do you know how they do that? Let me show you. Come up here, Char. This is a good way to alienate your loved ones. You're in a really bad mood, really depressed. And I'm your loving husband, so I come up and I go "Hey, it's going to be all right," and put my arm around your shoulders. Then all I have to do is wait until you're in a good mood and really happy, and come up and say "Hey, you want to go out?" and put my arm around you again. Boom! Instead of touching each other when they are happy and making all kinds of great anchors, couples usually anchor each other into unpleasant states.

All of you who have done work with couples or families know you can be sitting there and everything is going along nicely and suddenly one of them explodes. If you didn't happen to notice the little sound, or the movement, or the body sway away from the other person, it's baffling. What happened? Nobody knows. The anchors that people are responding to in "maladaptive behavior" are usually outside of their awareness.

There's a great exercise you can do. Get together with a family or a couple, wait until one of those explosions happens, and detect what you think was the cue that initiated the explosion. Then adopt it in your behavior, and find out if you can get them to explode again. If you can get them to explode, you know you've identified exactly the key point in their interaction. Let's say it's a raised eyebrow. Then all you have to do is anchor a pleasant response kinesthetically, and then fire off that anchor and raise your eyebrow at the same time. In the future when someone raises their eyebrow, it won't have that effect any more.