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"It's what's right with you that fixes what's wrong" ...continued

Teaching young people to follow this formula has the effect of taking their attention away from worrying about "What do I say next?" and "How well am I doing?" The idea is that the formula acts to lower their emotional arousal and enables them to find areas of common ground in order to create a sense of connection and understanding. The process automatically makes them appear more attractive to the person they are talking to, and confidence builds as they receive positive feedback in return. Meg and I took it in turns to run through the sequence until she felt that she could remember how to do it, and I then led her through a guided imagery exercise, where she vividly imagined successfully using the method to begin friendships with certain girls she liked at school. Before she left, I gave her a small laminated pocket card with a summary of the method on it.

Handling insults

When Meg came back to see me again she reported that the conversation skills method had worked, but had led to some unexpected unpleasantness from a girl who, we guessed, was feeling jealous that Meg was trying to muscle in on her friendship group. Despite this, Meg wanted to win her over. I introduced Meg to the idea of 'popping' insults. This involves understanding that a comment is only an insult if it is untrue (or mostly untrue — otherwise it is simply a fact). The power of an insult is in its ability to force the target to react angrily and attempt to prove it wrong. Therefore, the most effective ways of turning the tables on someone using insults are:

1. Agreeing with the insult (without believing it on the inside)

2. Agreeing with the insult and escalating its severity (for example "Yes, you're right, and what's more I'm the biggest ***** in the whole school")

3. Expressing feelings using a tone of voice that isn't congruent with what is being said (for example "What you just said has wounded me deeply" in a flat bored tone)

4. Expressing feelings in an exaggerated, theatrical way (for example "What you just said has wounded me deeply," whilst staggering about clutching chest)

5. Thanking the insulter for the insult and writing it down in front of them to add to the collection — murmuring that it's not the best one but it will do for now

6. Complaining that the insult is not good enough and that you can think of much worse things to be called (and give examples).

The aim of each of these tactics is to sidestep the insult and to communicate the message that insults are futile. I linked these options to The George Thomson's ideas about tactical communication, which he calls 'verbal judo'.[1] Thompson is a consultant to many American police forces, and has developed tried and tested ways of using language that both keeps us calm and prompts voluntary cooperation with someone we may be experiencing difficulties with. In essence, this boils down to using positively phrased language (ie telling the other person what you want them to do, rather than what you don't want them to do).

We went over the Derren Brown tape again and I showed Meg how she could also use subtle suggestion to gently distract and redirect an annoying person without insulting them or escalating the situation into a battle of wills. One solution she liked was to plant suggestions in the other person's mind while appearing to be talking about herself. For example,"I really need to go away now because I want to calm down and find something better to do. I expect you, like me, would agree this is the best way to end this." The other person is compelled to pattern match to the embedded instructions and experience an impulse to do likewise. Again, we took turns practising both insulting and 'popping' each other (with much hilarity) and then I used guided imagery to give Meg an opportunity to rehearse responding in a positive and controlled way with the girl in question. I backed this up with another pocket card that she could refer to, if she needed.

Another young person I worked with on similar issues took the pocket card idea further. She was anxious that she would forget the method in the heat of the moment. The solution we found was to punch a hole in one end of the card so that she could hang it loosely around her neck when she went to school. On the blank side of the card she stuck a piece of scratchy Velcro. The card made its presence known to her continually, by tickling and itching — causing her to touch it regularly through the day and therefore to stay reminded and ready to use the advice on the card. She did not have to look at the card for this to work.

Saying no

Andy is a 16-year-old-young man who has been in care since he was nine years old. Despite knowing that it was impossible for him to live with his mum because of her difficulties with alcohol and drugs, he had not wanted to be parted from her. Despite living half the country away and seeing her only on an infrequent basis, Andy worried about her. This worry was at it worst at bedtime and he was managing just two or three hours of sleep most nights.

He was also running into trouble with his carers for being, as he put it, 'easily led' by his friends. We agreed that, given his experiences of losing touch with people who were important to him, it wasn't surprising that he didn't want to risk losing anyone else by saying no to them.

During the course of our conversation I described to Andy how we can be manipulated into a 'one-down' position by other people when they are able to bring up in us feelings of guilt or fear or uncertainty. "When we feel one-down in this way, it is easier for us to feel that we have to go along with what other people want us to do, because they seem more powerful. The trouble is that your feelings are 'switched on' before you start thinking. There are basically six feelings and humans have had them for a very long time — from way before the time when we had finally come up with weapons to stop lions eating us on a regular basis. There's anger, fear, sadness, guilt, excitement and love.

Anger is a feeling designed to make you act quickly to defend yourself (or someone you love) as fast as possible by fighting, and fear is a feeling designed to make you act quickly to defend yourself (or someone you love) as fast as possible by running away. Sadness is a feeling designed to keep you safe while you get over losing someone or something you loved, because getting over these kinds of things can take a lot of thinking about and you may not be as alert about the dangers around you as you would be normally. So, sad feelings make you want to stay at home and not do very much — increasing the chances of you staying alive until you feel better again. Guilt is a feeling designed to put you off making the same mistake twice (especially if someone else got hurt or upset by what you did). Excitement is a feeling that makes you want to do whatever it is you are doing again, and therefore motivates you to learn things. Love is a feeling that makes us know that we belong to each other and that we will look after each other because we want to.

"Your feelings are part of your 'survival kit'. They are designed to keep you alive. They are not necessarily concerned about whether or not you are happy though. Strong feelings tend to make it hard to think clearly. For instance, when you are angry, it is hard to see the other person's point of view and, when you are excited, it is hard to know when 'enough is enough'. The key to dealing with unwanted or pointless feelings is to learn how to calm down quickly."

Andy liked the idea of using guided imagery to help him to become calm at night and restore his sleep pattern. We agreed to meet again, once he was feeling properly rested and stronger, and look at devising a strategy for being able to say no to his friends in such a way that would not risk his losing them. This would include particular skills that he could use to raise his own awareness of where he was vulnerable to manipulation and tactics he could use to guard against this.

Before he left, I talked Andy through a visualisation called 'the sponge' which involved imagining a bath sponge inside his head that soaked up all of his fears and concerns so that he was free to feel calm, relaxed and untroubled. I got him to see its colour, smell its fragrance and feel its texture so that a vivid image was created. I then talked him through moving the sponge through the whole of his body, finally shrinking away to nothing in his left foot — having taken all the stress and tension with it. Whilst he was in the highly relaxed state that this exercise created, I suggested that he could 'sponge' for himself anytime he needed to, and I led him to imagine successfully

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© Human Givens Publishing Limited and Chris Dyas (2005)

This article first appeared in Volume 12, No, 2 (2005) of the Human Givens journal.

CHRIS DYAS is a human givens therapist working for a children's charity based in Newcastle under Lyme, which provides help for children who have suffered severe abuse, as well as consultation and support for their parents and carers. He also provides training workshops in understanding and communicating with traumatised children, as part of the local authorities' child protection training programme for professionals. He has been applying the human givens approach to his work for the past six years.

> More information can be found in the following book, by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell

Human Givens: A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking

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> More information can be found in the following book, by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell

Human Givens: A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking

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