Six Blind Elephants

Book excerpt: In this book, the fundamental understandings of scope, category, and logical levels established in Volume I are applied to understanding a variety of more complex and troublesome communication patterns, showing how these understandings can be used for positive personal change. This book applies the fundamental understandings to additional communication patterns that are more subtle, obscure, and complex: Implication, Negation, Judgment, Modes of Operating, Self-reference, Self-contradiction, Paradox, Certainty, Double-binds, and Metaphor, An annotated verbatim transcript of a session in which a client reaches forgiveness shows how these patterns can be used in a systematic way to achieve a client's outcome. All these patterns often exist in the painful and confusing communication traps that people often find themselves in, yet most people are unaware of them, and usually respond to them or use them unconsciously. Understanding how these patterns work makes it possible to recognize them, and use them in positive ways to help yourself and others out of these communication dead-ends, enhancing your life and the lives of others. Specific examples show how many of these patterns were essential elements in the work of Milton Erickson and other effective therapists. (Best read along with Volume I.)