Hypnotic Language Patterns – Handling Resistance

By Rintu Basu NLP Business, NLP Sales, NLP Therapy, NLP Training 2 Comments 5th October 2011

---

• Tweet

• Tweet

This is an extract from The Persuasion Skills Black Book.

I have recently been sent an email from a guy I will refer to as Dr Tom. Dr Tom is a chiropractor and hypnotist and talks about certain types of resistance he gets from his clients.

Objection Handling using Hypnotic Persuasion Techinques

This gives me the opportunity to demonstrate some NLP Language patterns that you can use to bypass resistance and refocus your client in the right direction.

Hi Rintu,

I am very impressed with the first two lessons. I did notice in the first lesson you used the word “but” in a certain way, then in the second lesson you made specific instructions to use “and” instead of “but”. I have not had a real good chance to study and contrast the reason and understand why this is so, but I will.

I am a chiropractor and certified hypnotist trying after 10 years in business how to talk to people in a way that gets the importance of the adjustment across, and deliver a better understanding of what I do so that people will come in for healthcare instead of “bandaid” care, only when they are hurting. Unfortunately, that is what I instructed/taught people to do ever since I opened my office.

I am working out scripts based on lesson #2 to answer the question/comment I have gotten quite often in the past which is:

“Once you go to a chiropractor, you have to go forever, I just want the pain gone and come back when it hurts.”

Or

“Why should I bring my kids in, there’re not old? They don’t have back pain, why do you crack a kid’s back?”

Most people don’t have any idea of how important chiropractic care is, and I have not done a very good idea of educating them. I have read dozens of books on hypnosis, NLP, Zig Zigler (way ahead of his time by the way, he talks about all of these principles before they called it NLP) and am reading blogs and talking to chiropractic coaches.

Your information is very much appreciated and I will let you know how it works. I want a win/win relationship with my patients. I know people will get more of of what I do if I can explain it better and have sincere and convincing answers to questions like these.

Thank you, your information is better than most.

Dr. Tom

NLP Resources

I agree with Dr Tom about Zig Ziglerand think he is definitely worth a read particularly if you are interested in sales. There are a few good books on Hypnotic Sales and NLP Sales Technqiues but below is an edited version of the email I sent back to Dr Tom with a few ideas for reframing the resistance.

Hypnotic Objection Handling

Hi Tom,           

Thanks for emailing. Your email sets up a lot of good questions and I would like to use it as the basis of an article for the techniques section of the website. In the mean time some short answers for you:

Wrt to ‘but’ vs. ‘and’ the way you can start to latch on to what I do with them is to notice the phrase before the but/and. When I want people to forget the first bit and focus on the second I will tend to use ‘but’ and when I want them to connect the two phrases together I will use ‘and’…for example:

“I have some bad news about your current health situation, but the good news is that it is all repairable.”

“The good news is that you can have a great healthy spine and you will have to put some attention on maintaining that level once you have reached it.”

Obviously these are just a couple of things off I just thought of but I hope you get the idea and can think of a few for yourself based on your experience.

I won’t give you everything that your email got me thinking about because I would like to leave some motivation for you to agree to have it posted on the website but if you go back to the agreement frame and redefine patterns you might find some answers such as this one below. And if you look through it you might find a whole lot of other patterns as well.

“I agree your kids are not old and the issue is not their age but their ongoing health and wellbeing as they grow up. Having good chiropractic care would mean they reduce the chances of ever having a bad back…I think most good parents have some worry about the health of their children, but the best are forward thinking to put preventative measures in place and that might give you more peace of mind. When would be a good time to book your son in for an initial examination?”

Tom, just remember this is for illustration only. I would not though this much out as a monologue and in such an adversarial way. My message would be the same patterns but delivered interactively as part of a conversation. Hopefully this will give you a couple of ideas of your own.

Anyway this and a couple of other thoughts I have are what I would like to put up as a post. Would you be willing to let me publish your email?

Cheers

Rintu

Covert Hypnosis in the Real World

Obviously Dr Tom has agreed to me publishing his email, so I am duty bound to add in some thing extra for him so below is the Master Key to Hypnotic Persuasion.

The issue in these situations is not the resistance but the focus your client has in something that is not useful for them. In the case of Dr Tom’s clients they are only focused on cure not prevention.

By widening the focus through such things as redefine patterns you are opening your client’s mind to different opportunities. The issue is not their presenting problem but what would be the best solution.

The Key Secret to Hypnotic Persuasion

Before I give you another example of reframing the issue here is the key to all persuasive language.

Rapport

Without rapport this none of the ideas I am suggesting will work. And remember my version of rapport is not the basic NLP matching and mirroring thing, you need to pace your clients current experience and then lead them to a new way of thinking about the issue. A good place to find out more about rapport in the real world is the Advanced Persuasion Patterns Programme and it will  take you to a level that is far beyond this simplistic matching and mirroring concept.

Anyway assuming you have a level of rapport here is another example of the things I might say to Dr Tom’s clients.

“The issue is not your bad back but are you prepared to allow your son to suffer the same problems as you in later life. Good preventative treatment now will mean his back, posture and general health will make him less likely to suffer the problem you are currently having.”

And if I really wanted the parent nailed down about this issue before the statement above I might say something like, “Are you already aware that children learn their adult behaviour by unconsciously modelling their parents? How much have you taught your son about how to have a bad back?”

Practicing NLP Language Patterns

My personal thanks go to Dr Tom for writing in and allowing me to share his email on the site and in the book. Having live and real examples to play with make a big difference is demonstrating how these patterns go together and I hope you are seeing different ways of applying these things to your own lives. There are many examples of persuasion techniques and how to use them in The Persuasion Skills Black Book.

 

Tags: Case Studies, Hypnosis, Influence, Persuasion, Persuasion Skills Black Book