What Exactly Are 'sliding Anchors' As Opposed to 'ordinary' Anchors

Could someone please explain to me what sliding anchors are. I did my Master Prac back in 1992 and these weren't around then.

Are they better than typical anchoring formats.

Pro's and cons??

thank you

silverfox

Hi Silverfox

A sliding anchor is an anchor that can be used to increase or decrease a state. If you think of it like a graphic equaliser. You can move the lever up or down to increase or decrease the base. You have another one that does the same to the treble or the balance. A sliding anchor works in the same way. You move the anchor up to increase the sensations or down to decrease them.

You can anchor the state to a glass. Then move the glass towards the person as you elicit more association or intensify the state by talking about the association or the feelings they have when they are in that state. Move the glass away and begin to bring them back to start position and then move the glass away from them as you talk down the state and then back to the neutral position. Once you do this a few times they should associate the position of the glass to the state.

If you wanted to anchor laughter to the glass as moves closer to themthe more they should be laughing and vice versa with moving it away.

You are only limited by your imagination of what you can use as an anchor, using a glass or a cup or sugar satchels at a café.


Hope this helps

Frederic

Thanks for that reply, how could you use this therapeutically.


thanks

silverfox

Sliding anchors are super useful to do as processes with clients who want more flexibility of behavior (actually many of my posts end up being a spatial sliding anchor...) between two poles. eg Extroverted Behavior versus Introverted see a detailed post HERE.

It's also a really good way to slow down some automatic processes to allow the client to calibrate, slow down and really find out what is happening inside in certain contexts. I posted this in response to someone who was having trouble eliciting their own SMD's the other day...

So therapeutically I use it for building flexibility and self awareness/self modelling. It's also quite a fun process and with sufficiently strong states can make an enjoyable and impressive convincer experience (my first exposure to it was having water at one endand fire at the other - and it made quite an impression!)

You can also create a Kinaesthetic sliding anchor - something a little like a linear vollume control slider, so just like a regular K anchor you can fire this off, and then you can adjust the level of intensity. This is made more useful/interesting by stacking several states onto the same sliding anchor and then allowing whichever states are needed to hit the right mix on their own - a way of doing an old code type process with a newish code spin.

OK, I'm with it now. thanks Mog. Could I then for example move my hand from one side of my body to another, as fast or as slow as necessary, to create a sliding anchor visually

regards


silverfox

Hi Lee


Think about it like this the base of a anchor is to connect two or more things together- so if you was to assign one task or stimulus to another task or response- then a whole new world opens up to how you can connect things together-

J

Hi Lee,

"I did my Master Prac back in 1992 and these weren't around then."

Richard Bandler first started teaching sliding anchors 1989. Whoever taught your Master track just wasn't keeping up.

If I may, this is what I posted in a previous reply to the same Q:

The classic 'static' kinesthetic anchor is where you applied a touch or a squeeze to some pre-selected spot for one to two seconds just before the peak of intensity of the client's response (presupposing you had seen enough of the 'response curve' to know when the peak is, or had seen it enough times to know when the peak is - and both requiring some sensory acuity).

The sliding anchor - wot Richard Bandler discovered in late 1988/ early 1989 - is moving as opposed to static. And typically, for a kinesthetic anchor, you pick a part of the body where you can do a long enough and continuous and uninterrripted 'stroke' - say, the upper arm, or the thigh. Then, you put your finger, there, at the start of the stroke ready for the start of the response curve - and then as the client begins to respond, you move your finger exactly in time to the change in intensity of response that you can see or detect - but again, usually in under one to two seconds.

The slide matches the increase. The 'slide' takes as long as the 'zero to peak' does. (You take your finger off at the peak.)

The interesting thing is that, if having previously set the anchor, you now repeat it, with the client no longer in the original experience. and you slide the finger past the point where your 'setting' move ended, the client's feeling, the intensity, is greater than what they experienced on their own. They somehow 'understand' what the analog 'scale' means. They 'surpass themselves'.

When you first do it, you will probably do it with touch, as just described, but if you think about it, you can also do it with a rising tone, and/or with a 'rising' visual signal, say a hand moving up in the air.

Sensory acuity makes it possible. Practice makes it mo' better.

Eric.

What some people fail to realize is that anchors work due to the way we build concepts and is one of the ways we come to understand each others body language. They are not push-button triggers like many think. They are a recognition pattern that links to 'meaning'. This is why sliding anchors work. You have taught a concept that my finger up the arm means more of this state, down means less of it etc. Much of the brain is a pattern matching organ.

Of course, you don't really know which parts of the 'pattern' the persons brain will choose to link to the concept (or even what meaning they will give it). They may generalize to any parts of what is going on such as your own state and body language, where you are etc. To avoid over generalization you can use direct suggestion at the time of setting it to make the anchor more specific. Literally tell them this means that. Being specific and syncing well with the effect you want to create makes it much more reliable. Of course, it is hard to be that specific covertly! To be reliable covertly you need to recreate as much of the original pattern as possible so it helps to go into the same state you were when setting the anchor.

You can use you own state and body language as anchors too if you have good control of your own state and learn your own body language. For instance getting more excited and using your own body language for excitement to follow the other persons building excitement. That way later you just have to get a little excited yourself to start the anchor rolling. I think this is the reason we enjoy watching people being expressive with their body language. There's tons of anchors going off.

You could also notice people's natural anchors and body language and mimic those. They will already 'understand' these rather than having to learn yours first.

You can anchor all sorts of things because they link to concepts or 'meaning'. What is a time line if not a sliding spacial anchor where this direction means past, that future etc.?

They are a very basic mechanism the brain uses to link 'communication' with 'meaning'.

Hi John,

If I haven't said so before, I like the general quality of your posts. And when you say:

"They may generalize to any parts of what is going on such as your own state and body language, where you are, etc."

I agree. That is why, if you are really being "impeccable", when you set the anchor - whatever it is - the rest of you should be perfectly "still"/ unchanging/ invariant for that moment - so that the only thing that changes/ that the client perceives as changing is the thing you want the anchor to be.

Now, just to take the thread a step further on - IMO, only some anchors go via the concept-building circuits, while others go straight or primarily to the mid-brain. (See Ledoux, fo example, for more on this.)

To put it another way, if there is a meaning attached, as you say, how much later does the meaning get formed/ attached?

Eric.

Hi John,

If I haven't said so before, I like the general quality of your posts. And when you say:

"They may generalize to any parts of what is going on such as your own state and body language, where you are, etc."

I agree. That is why, if you are really being "impeccable", when you set the anchor - whatever it is - the rest of you should be perfectly "still"/ unchanging/ invariant for that moment - so that the only thing that changes/ that the client perceives as changing is the thing you want the anchor to be.

Now, just to take the thread a step further on - IMO, only some anchors go via the concept-building circuits, while others go straight or primarily to the mid-brain. (See Ledoux, fo example, for more on this.)

To put it another way, if there is a meaning attached, as you say, how much later does the meaning get formed/ attached?

Eric.

Thanks Eric for the compliment. I am interested in finding out more about Ledoux - Have you got any interesting links or book titles? A quick google turned up lots of noise such as sports stuff..

I have to go now so can't write much until later but I often think in very basic terms about the interaction between perception/conception when trying to "get" what is going on with mind/body. People often misunderstand conceiving because culturally we often use the word "conceptual" as a metaphor for intellectual/logical activities. This is a mistake as conception is not really to do with intellectual processes but concepts can of course be expressed via the mechanisms of thought. Conceiving to me is more about giving birth to a new organisation of perception which is not an logical/intellectual process as such. We can express our concepts in many ways such as thought, feeling, movement, language, mathematics, music and many others. Because we also perceive the expression of our own concepts this is a recursive loop. Interestingly, this is why it is difficult to change thought with thought. When you conceive of something in a new way, the new concepts will naturally be expressed in thought differently. This I think, is what happens during an "ah ha" moment - we have given birth to a new organization (concept). Our thinking changes as a natural result. The pleasant form of confusion or "not knowing" is a precursor to concept formation. Concepts then are temporarily on hold - they are more loosely organized. This is why during therapy confusing someone about their problem first can be a useful step towards reorganizing their perceptions.

Thanks guys for all the clarification on sliding anchors. Much appreciated


slverfox