Anchoring Techniques

Anchoring refers to the deliberate creation of an association between a feeling and a sensory experience: a touch, a sound, a taste, a place. All of us form associations between feelings and external events every day. And every day we all experience feelings triggered by anchors. For example a smell may instantly transport you back to a particular time, a song may bring back memories of a person long gone, and entering a school room may trigger feelings of dread or happiness. Everyone has the ability to create links like these, and you create them whether you intend to or not. Very often the 'trigger' for these linked experiences is outside of awareness, and we are baffled as to why we suddenly feel sad, or scared, or even sexy.

 

 

Everyday Anchoring

Unintentional Anchoring is the result of an unconscious learning experience. You go on holiday, have a great time and the same song is playing everywhere you go. In years to come, hearing that song played brings back the experience of that holiday. You didn't do anything to make it happen, and you can't stop it happening. However, anchors can get overwritten. If you hear that same song in many different contexts, then the instant automatic association with that holiday experience is lost.

Unintentional anchoring usually occurs when you are in a particular emotional state that is unique in some way. Then something occurs during that state and your mind forms an instant association between the two. For example phobias such as fear of spiders can be caused by a young person without a phobia picking up on fear from people around them, even before they see the spider. The young person goes into a state of fear, and then sees the spider and the mind forms the association: spider = fear. The fear state is then permanently anchored onto the sight of a spider. Equally, people who were unhappy as children often got comforted by their mothers giving them food. They then anchor the idea food = feeling good.

Anchors are everywhere in our lives. The more times an anchor gets reinforced, the stronger it becomes. Pleasure can get associated with all sorts of irrelevant things. Smokers cannot enjoy a coffee without a cigarette, and a coffee automatically triggers the need for a cigarette in a reinforcing pattern. People who got their first intense sexual feeling in a certain situation may find themselves anchored on to shoes, or wearing restrictive clothing, or almost anything else and then develop a reinforcing fetish about it. Some people change personality when they get behind the wheel of a car, or put on a uniform, or sit behind a desk: a specific behaviour pattern is anchored to each situation. Some people have one personality at home for their family but present a totally different face to people outside. The switch over is automatic and the person is often unaware that they are doing it.

 

How to create Physical Anchors

Recall the target state

Ask the person to recall a time when they felt 'in control', or 'powerful' or 'in charge' or some other positive state of mind. Ask the person to really associate into the feeling that they felt at that time, to not just think about it, but to experience it, to 'be there' and notice the feeling in their body, how they felt, how they stood, how they experienced it physically.

Intensify the target state

Then ask them to intensify that feeling, to double it and double it again. Get them to become immersed in the emotion, in the feeling. When a person goes into an emotional state you should be able to see a physical change in them, either in how their face looks, or how they hold themselves or in changed breathing patterns.

Anchor the target state

When they appear to be experiencing the state you want, attach the anchor. This can be be something you do, or something they do. A common anchor is to press firmly on the person's shoulder or knee for at least five seconds. This gives their body time to associate the peak emotional experience and the physical stimulus. Alternatively you can tell the person to create their own anchor, by pressing their own hand on a part of their body, or squeezing some fingers together. Whatever the anchor is, it should be something not normally encountered. Familiar things like a handshake already have thousands of associations so it is better to create a unique anchor, such as pressing the index fingernail against the thin skin at the top of the thumbnail on the same hand. This is not something people normally do, so the next time it is encountered the mind will associate it with the feeling that the person had at the time.

Test the anchor

It is often necessary to reinforce an anchor before it is strong enough to be used. The process as described would be used, and then the client would be asked to clear their mind, or asked to describe some other non-emotional event like how they got to the office. The procedure of establishing the original anchor would then be repeated in exactly the same way, anchoring the same feeling to exactly the same spot.

When the therapist is happy that this has been done sufficiently, the client will again be asked to talk about some non-emotional event such as a favourite shop and the therapist will unexpectedly apply the anchor or tell the client to apply it instantly. The client will then be able to tell whether or not the anchor successfully brings back the feeling it is supposed to.

 

NOTE: It has to be noted that not everyone can actually recall and physicalize past emotions, particularly people with depression. It is therefore usually not possible to create therapeutic anchors with that type of person. This does not mean that they cannot form anchors, only that they cannot successfully create physical anchors to past feelings on demand.

 

How to use a physical anchor

Physical anchors are used to 'wipe out' negative emotional states. For example suppose a person is dreading an upcoming speech they have to deliver. The therapist would create an anchor for a feeling of positive competence by getting the person to re-experience the emotion of some time when they felt outstandingly confident. The person would then be asked to think about the upcoming speech, to imagine what it will be like, to feel the feelings they are dreading. When the client is clearly in the state, usually observable by signs of distress, the therapist applies the positive anchor or instructs the client to do so. The positive anchor will neutralise the negative feelings by causing the client to experience positive feelings while thinking about the feared situation. The anchor can be strengthened and reapplied as many times as needed. Eventually the person will report that only positive feelings are generated when thinking about delivering the speech.

Multiplying anchors

The principle of applying an anchor can be made more powerful by applying more than one positive anchor. The client can be asked to recall several good experiences of different kinds, and to create a different anchor for each one. Then, when the feared event is imagined, the therapist applies each anchor one after the other, almost simultaneously, flooding the client with positive memories while thinking about the event.

 

How to create Verbal anchors

Suggestions can be anchored verbally in various ways. There is no right or wrong way to do it, as long as marking is consistent and non-obvious. This is known as analogical marking. The basic idea is to get your words to trigger the creation of some state or feeling in the listener.

Voice tone

Voice tone is the most useful way of marking out specific words. Humans recognise that the tone of voice implies something over and above the actual words used. Saying a word with a descending, deepening tone of voice turns it into a command, or at least something you should be paying attention to. On the other hand, saying a word with the voice rising at the end turns it into a question.

When talking to a client to perform a conversational induction, the hypnotist can speak the command words more loudly, or with a particular stress, or in a different accent, or by turning their head either towards or away from the client. All of these are easy to do and many people already do it naturally and unconsciously. The listener will unconsciously notice that some words and phrases are different from others and will focus on them in order to categorise them.

Another way of using the voice is to mispronounce, stutter or hesitate over particular words or phrases. If the speaker says something like "there's no smoke without.... By the way that reminds me...." The listener will try to fill in the missing word, and will say it in their head, will think about it, be aware of it, all without any instruction from the speaker.

Key Words

If the object is simply to put ideas in to the other person's mind without them being aware of it, then the speaker can use other ways of marking the 'key' words. If you are in sales then the 'suggestions' will consist of the same few 'key' words repeated at different points in the conversation, possibly separated by long intervals of time. The speaker can mark the key words by touching the listener gently on the hand or arm. On television you regularly see television presenters and politicians smiling broadly every time the key word or phrase is said, or making a specific gesture to mark it.

Gesture Marking

The speaker can subtly mark their conversation with consistent gestures. For example, in a job evaluation interview, the employee might be describing job performance over the past year. In describing those targets that were not met the employee would gesture only with the left hand, and use a motion implying backwards. The employee would preface every positive achievement with a gesture by the right hand, and use a subtle movement that implies 'forwards'. The employee would finish by marking all points supporting promotion or salary increase by first making gestures with the right hand, and then stating the point. The boss would have unconsciously associated movements of the right hand with positive future events and be more receptive to the idea.

Priming

Another related way of influencing pe0ple unconsciously is to use 'priming'. This is a very powerful but subtle technique used often in therapy. Before the hypnosis session even begins, as the client is being led into the office, the first words they hear can contain concepts and ideas that the therapist wants to implant. Specific ideas and concepts can be delivered in a casual off-hand way and will register with the client's unconscious totally unnoticed, but will influence their actions and behaviour later on.

Shaping

Anchoring is sometimes indistinguishable from shaping. Shaping is a behavioural technique used in training animals. No dolphin in the wild ever jumps through hoops. Trainers get them to do that in gradual steps, by rewarding any behaviour that leads in the right direction. In a sales situation, shaping and anchoring can be used to 'train' the customer in how to behave. Big ticket items like furniture are usually bought after a lengthy inspection process. The astute salesperson can use this time to look for anything that might lead to a firm order and reward that by a smile and verbal and body language approval, and punish any non-buying behaviour by not smiling or looking disappointed. The customer will quickly learn what generates a smile, and do more of it.

 

HOW TO CREATE POST HYPNOTIC ANCHORS

The principle behind post hypnotic anchors is simple: you suggest that the client will enter a particular state whenever a particular event occurs. In hypnosis you get the client to experience the state of 'confidence' or 'non-smoking' or whatever it is by suggesting it directly or getting them to re-experience a past event that included that state. Then you suggest that that same state will automatically be recalled whenever the trigger event or situation occurs. The trigger needs to be something that the client will definitely encounter. It can be some situation that the client normally has problems with or it can be something that inevitably happens to everyone.

 

Examples:

Whenever you see the colour red, you will immediately recall your goal and think about what you can do today to achieve it.

 

Any time the idea of a cigarette comes into your mind you will feel that feeling of supreme confidence arise in you, and how determined you are to be a non-smoker.

 

Every time you look in the mirror you will see a tiny change, a change that lets you know that it is working the way you want it to.

 

 

The trigger itself is not important, what matters is that the client gets to re-experience the state and so reinforces it many times.

 

 

 

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