How do facilitators calibrate when “it’s working”, and when it’s not? It is not easy for a facilitator to describe the in-the-moment criteria by which they navigate a session. However, even if a facilitator cannot specify how they decide what to do, they have a duty to consider the question: How do you know when what you are doing is (or is not) working?

The first principle of Symbolic Modelling is: Know what you are modelling, i.e. what kind of experience the client is having. This article shows how the REPROCess model enables a facilitator to do that. Published Acuity, Vol.3, Nov 2011.

Based on the work of the grandaddy of modern improvisation, Keith Johnstone, we explore what clean facilitators can learn from the art form of improvisation.

A 45 minute video of a full Symbolic Modelling demonstration on an Xtrema training in October 2010 in Paris. You can listen in English or French, or both. The session starts with the conflict between the client's science and spiritual sides and progresses to a spontaneous denouement.

This paper describe and give examples of the many kinds of written word we have modelled. These include: Single statements/questions; Questionnaires; Letters to staff; Transcripts of 1:1 therapy/coaching; Exemplar Modelling; First-person accounts; Academic research interviews; Processes/Techniques; Shared or Group Reality.

What's going on when you don't get the kind of answer you expect from the question you ask? From the questioner’s point of view, the shift of frame is a kind of mismatch summed up by the feeling “Huh?”. According to the dictionary ‘Huh’ is used to express confusion, surprise or disbelief. We would add that for a modeller it likely indicates something interesting has just happened.

This extensive report describes both the product of Penny Tompkins and James Lawley's modelling of Robert Dilts, and the process by which they arrived at their model. It includes 9 video clips, transcripts and a host of source material.

How do you act from what you know to be true when you haven’t before, or it’s difficult, or you’re frightened of the consequences, or you’re not the kind of person who does? While each person’s process will be individual there seem be a number a characteristics present in most people’s experience.

What is cognitive dissonance? Is it the incompatible cognitions? The unpleasant feelings? The need to reduce those feelings? The action to resolve the conflict? Or all of that? Are cognitive dissonance and creative tension the same or different? Is one a sub-set of the other? If they are different, how are they different? Do they work in conjunction or against one another? And what effect does that have?