Phoenix: Therapeutic Patterns of Milton H. Erickson by David Gordon; Maribeth Meyers-Anderson; Maribeth Meers-Anderson

Author:David Gordon; Maribeth Meyers-Anderson; Maribeth Meers-Anderson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780916990107
Publisher: META Publications
Published: 1981-05-31T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5: The Snowball

Behavioral Interventions

The Patterns of Behavior

Now human beings being human tend to react in patterns and to be governed by patterns of behavior. And once you've started a pattern of behavior they tend to follow it. You don't realize how very rigidly patterned all of us really are. In Fort Benning, Georgia I was there training the advanced marksmanship team for the events of the rifle team in the International Shoot. And I was dining in the mess hall with two lieutenants and several people came in and I watched one girl pick up her tray and look around the mess room for a suitable table. She walked past several tables where there were the possibility of her sitting down . . . and she sat down at a table where she could sit on the west side of it. I told the lieutenants, "That girl is an only child." They said, "How do you know?" "I'll tell you after you verify the fact." They went out, asked her if she were an only child . . . and she said, "yes". She wanted to know why? They said, "That doctor over there said you were." "Who is he?" They gave her my name. "I never heard of him." Came back . . . how did I know she was an only child?

She was looking around the restaurant looking for a table where she could sit down and she had to find a table where the west side of the table was available. So at home papa sat here, mama sat here, she had to sit here. People have many patterns in their behavior—don't try to formulate what those patterns are. Wait and see how they disclose themselves.

When you see a person extend his right hand towards you with the plane of the hand perpendicular to the ground, it initiates in you a symmetrical sequence, or "pattern," of behaviors in which you extend your own right hand, grasp the other person's right hand, and begin shaking it up and down. Now, shaking hands is certainly not an example of particularly profound or complex behavior, but it IS an example of patterned behavior. By patterned behavior we mean that the shaking of hands has the quality of consistently producing a certain kind of outcome (ie. the establishment of a certain kind of rapport). Extending your hand, as described above, to anyone in our culture will almost always result in the elicitation of a certain set of symmetrical responses on the part of the other person, that of shaking your hand. We can say, then, that this is an example of a (cultural) pattern of behavior in that it predictably describes the outcome of a certain behavioral sequence.

The range of experiences encompassed by patterned behavior is really much broader and subtler than such obviously programmed behavior as shaking hands, lighting a cigarette, braking for a red light, and so on. Behaviors involving extensive cognitive processing and awareness as well as

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