A Quick Primer

Transformational Processing is a system of helping people change their minds, handle aspects of their lives that aren't working, and get more of what they do want in their lives.

It is done mostly as a conversation between a facilitator and a client. The facilitator is trained in certain principles and techniques. That is what you find in this manual. The client doesn't need to know anything in advance. She just needs to be desirous of some kind of change.

The work takes place in a session. That is a period of time, usually around an hour where the facilitator works with this specific client. Typically there will be some kind of theme for the session, based on what the client asks for, or what the facilitator picks to work on. Normally there will be some kind of result or improvement accomplished in each session.

Facilitator and client sits across from each other and talk. It is by no means small talk. The facilitator has clear purposes in mind, and is very aware of what we are working on at the moment. First she probably will gather information to find out what is going on with the client.

Once the facilitator has an idea of what the situation is with the client she will pick a more precise technique for working on the issue at hand. The technique will still be done as a dialogue between the two people, but there will be a definite method to it and definite starting and ending criteria.

If the client simply needs to get more clarity in a certain area then they will simply engage in a dialogue with that purpose. We call that Dialoguing. The facilitator will steer the client towards finding out as much as possible about the subject discussed, systematically examining it from all angles. The main tool for doing that is the facilitator asking questions and being interested.

If the client brings up feelings she has that are unpleasant or unwanted, then we would often want to transform them into something else. We have a technique called Re-Experiencing which consists mainly of contacting past incidents containing the unwanted feelings and examining them in a new way.

If the client seems to have fixed ideas in the area addressed, and she can't quite think logically in it, then we might want to find the precise fixed ideas. And once we find them we probably would want to free them up and make the client more flexible in that area. We have a technique called Unfixing which is intended for just that. It consists of exploring the boundaries of the fixed idea.

If the client appears to be missing something, like an ability and a quality, then we might want to go and look for it. Often the person had the desired ability or quality at some point, but lost it. We have a technique called Soul Retrieval which is about locating missing parts of the person and getting them back to her.

If the client appears polarized, having her behavior split up in an either/or kind of way, then we might want to reconcile different parts of her with each other. We have a technique called Polarity Integration which is intended for getting apparently opposite parts of the person to get closer to each other and to work together.

The facilitator will use a certain technique as long as it produces some kind of result, or until another technique appears to be more appropriate. But the facilitator doesn't give up. She stays with the subject until we have gotten somewhere with it.

We are taking the client through processes. That means that whatever the facilitator says or does is intended to activate a process of change in the client and to help it continue. The facilitator's expertise is in knowing when there is an opportunity to start a process, knowing how to help it along, and knowing the signs of when something is complete.

Common for the way we do our sessions is that we address the client as being the cause of her own reality. We pretend, whether it is true or not, that she is in a position of being able to do something about her situation. We furthermore expect that things will change in her life simply by her changing her mind about what is going on.

Transformational Processing is a person-centered approach. We don't go out trying to change the world for the client. We get the client to change and then expect that her external circumstances are going to follow along.

The techniques in this manual are mostly what we could call Semantic Processing. "Semantic" refers to meaning, and how people make sense of the world. We mostly work with people's thoughts, emotions, ideas, perceptions, reactions and so forth, as opposed to going out and changing the physical environment. Semantic Processing is one angle of Transformational Processing, the one that is focusing on people's response to the world, working on shifting their model of the world into a more useful direction. That is generally where we will start working with people. There are other perspectives we can address after that.




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