How to Maintain Your Hypnotic Frame

Framing is a powerful thing to master.  When you learn the pros and cons of using frames with in the practices of your Conversational Hypnosis you will be learning skills that will enrich your practices nearly ten fold.  As you learn different ways to maintain, set, reset and diminish frames you will be building a very powerful tool that will aid you in your hypnosis until you retire.

Frames as you have discovered by now are the ways in which people understand things, they are references we use to measure ideas, thoughts and statements by in order to decide whether we are in agreement or disagreement with them.  Without frames and the contexts they are put into there would be only meaningless chatter among us as nothing would really have a meaning.

Because frames revolve around context and meaning to have control of a person’s frame is a very powerful thing.  This means that you can ultimately control the meanings behind the interaction with that person.  You can derive two completely different conclusions from one frame as long as you alter the context in which it sits. 

Another valuable insight into frames is that with changing details you have the power to change frames.  The more information you give a person about an interaction the more likely it is that you will be able to change the frame in one way or another.  If you give them the right type of information you will be able to direct the change of frame to fall in your favor.

You can do this by keeping the same event but adding information to it which will ultimately change the meaning behind what has taken place.  The example of a car speeding down the road and cutting you off is a good example. 

This would irritate most people.  If you were to provide the information that there is a dying child in that car and they are on their way to the hospital, the meaning behind the same action is changed, and so the frame has changed.

The power of frames is based in that they are really a set of assumptions that tend to go unquestioned; they are used to measure the world in which we live within that frame’s context. 

Most frames however have two polar opposites and neither is right or wrong, the truth is usually located somewhere in the middle.  This is why frames are changeable there is not true right or wrong answer to most frames it is simply opinion set in assumption.

Now in learning about frames there are frame wars and frame tests.  A frame war happens nearly constantly somewhere or another.  A frame war is the conflict created between two different sets of frames that meet and disagree.  The war is won when one frame is proven to dominate the other. 

It is a war about who is right in their view of the world.  Prime examples of this that everyone encounters are through politicians and on subjects like religion and abortion.  However these can happen over smaller things as long as two frames are in disagreement and battling for the territory of which is right.

Frame tests are a little more subdued than full on frame wars.  In frame tests, usually when two people meet, they will test one another out to see where each stand and if they are solid in their frames.  This happens both consciously and unconsciously as it is a very natural thing to do.

 This will decided the ways in which these two people look at reality and who is really genuine.  After the initial testing one frame will become dominant and this will be the norm until some new information is presented by or about one of the people in the interaction.

Now in hypnosis you have learned that there are four tactics for frame war success.  It is important that you are successful in your frame wars so you can direct your interactions with others.  In order to do this you must have the dominate frame in most instances. 

The first tactic is the most important one and that is simply to maintain your frame.  You will be unwavering in the ways in which you view the world.  No matter what argument or information is presented you will stand true to your frame and not move an inch in either direction.  This sends the signal that you are confident in your views and makes them assume you must know the right reality to view things from.

The second tactic in fighting frame wars is that of preframing.  This is when you actually tell a person in advance where their attention should be focused.  This will take the focus off of the original frame they would have presented and they will just assume the frames you have set before them are the right ones.   This often goes right along with the maintaining of your frame.

The third tactic is to reframe a frame.  In reframing you will simply put a new spin on it.  You will take the objection of the other person and tell them to look at it in a new way, possibly a more positive way.  This is reminiscent of ‘every cloud has a silver lining’.  You will be pointing out the silver linings in the clouds when you reframe.

The final tactic in framing wars is that of deframing.  In this tactic you use the frame presented and turn the challenge around to offer a new challenge.  You will in essence be getting the other person in the interaction on the defensive justifying their frame while you spoon feed them more of your frame.

Now all of these are useful and will be powerful and valuable skills throughout your career in hypnosis.  But it is important to understand the most beneficial and best way to work in frames is to simply maintain your frame without doing anything at all.  You need to know how to do this as it is the most powerful way to maintain a frame, and that is how to do nothing at all to maintain your frame.

Maintaining your frame simply sub-communicates very thoroughly that you are a secure person in where you view the world from.  There are two important categories of people who maintain their frames and those are people who are slightly psychotic and people who are passionate.

A psychotic person lives there lives by the rules that exist in only their reality.  There is really nothing anyone can do or say to change the frames they function in.  This is the unhealthy way to maintain your frame.

The healthy way to do it is to be a very passionate person.  Passionate people are carried through life on the enthusiasm they feel for the beliefs they have.  They believe that all negativity will pass as things will even out in the end.  Doubts and challenges are looked on as untrue and disprovable.  They are so firmly planted in their convictions that nothing seems to shake them.

Passionate people sub-communicate that all is good and right in their reality and that joining them will give you this reality as well.  As you speak to a passionate person you are bombarded with the thought that what they say is real and over time that will become a part of your reality too. This communication is very appealing to people and will lapse into their reality to cause them to start to think along the same lines.

The bottom line in maintaining your frame is that it is the strongest because if sends the sub-communications that you are right and genuine in what you believe.  Over time this will rub onto those around you and become apart of their reality as well.  This is the strongest way to maintain your frame in that you are doing nothing at all, just believing what it is you believe.

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