The origins of Provocative Therapy
Frank Farrelly, the creator of the field
of Provocative Therapy, was born into an Irish American family as
the ninth of twelve children. During his workshops he often references
his childhood experiences and how these were a key influence on his
work.
"I was raised in a never-ending encounter
group in the country - you were faced with instantaneous feedback
whether you were ready for it or not!"
He had originally intended to become a priest,
but in his words he "flunked obedience" and instead began his clinical
training in the late 1950s, when he worked initially as a social worker
and subsequently at Mendota State Hospital in Madison Wisconsin. During
this time he came into contact with Carl Rogers and was involved in
a substantial project working with schizophrenics.
Dr Graham Dawes comments in his excellent article
"The Bermuda Triangle of the Mind"* on the instance when Frank first
began to move from the traditional client centred therapeutic approach
to what was to eventually evolve into the field of Provocative Therapy.
"The occasion was the 91st interview with
an hospitalised chronic schizophrenic. In all previous interviews
Farrelly concentrated on an attempt to haul this client back from
a dark and doom-laden vision of his future and to connect him to
the standard therapeutic vision: one in which he was to see himself
as a person of worth and potential, someone encompassing an untold
myriad of possibilities for mental health and happiness. In effect,
the client's response was: No Sale! On this occasion, in frustration
at their lack of progress, Farrelly flipped the therapeutic polarities.
Instead of balancing the client's pessimism he sided with the client's
hopeless prognosis, agreeing with his predictions of doom and gloom.
As a result the client was stimulated to create the balance himself.
Within minutes, in the face of Farrelly's weighing in on the side
of despond, the client was protesting that he was not as bad as
all that."
In the late 1970s the Temple University Psychiatric
Department held a conference, 'Analysing the Analyst' where here Frank
subsequently gave a number of demonstrations of his work. It was during
this period that Dr Richard Bandler and John Grinder began to take
great interest in Frank's work My personal view in having seen both
Dr Bandler and Frank up close on a number of occasions, is that provocative
therapy is a significant influence on the creation of NLP.
In 2003 while assisting on one
of Richard Bandler's seminars in London, Richard himself referred
to Frank as one of the key influences on the creation of NLP. Many
of the delegates present were of course familiar with other such well-known
luminaries as Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, Fritz Pearls and Gregory
Bateson, but had not heard of Frank until this point. Richard Bandler
memorably commented
"If you think I'm wild, you should meet Frank".
I made an immediate mental note to seek out as
much information on Frank as possible and after a months extensive
research I had only located the original Provocative Therapy book
and a cassette tape from the 1970s! Apart from this, the only other
published book is 'Frannies Welt: Ein Kindheit In Missouri' which
is the German translation of "Me and God" As someone who doesn't speak
or understand German, I am fortunate enough to have been given a copy
of the original manuscript which of course is in English!
"Me and God" is a fascinating tale of Frank's
upbringing with such wonderful chapter titles as "Never make a real
miracle worker angry" and my personal favourite "How I almost lost
my soul with a protestant heretic girl one night at a drive in movie"
The stories in the book deal with the many complexities of human relationships,
a theme which is also apparent in Frank's one to one interviews which
form the basis of his workshops.
A Master Class in communication
My first personal encounter with Frank was during
a four day Provocative Therapy Master Class. Those of us in attendance
had absolutely no idea of what to expect, and I
was amazed that there were only twenty of us present at this workshop.
Throughout the Master Class Frank would extensively
explore each interviewee's "models and maps of their world" by interacting
with each delegate with a twinkle in the eye and warmth in the heart.
Frank frequently refers to the importance of working from the heart
charka in provocative therapy sessions; describing this process as
"the interaction between two old friends" Frank is a master of building
rapport and almost chameleon like in his ability to engage a wide
and diverse spectrum of individuals. I volunteered for a personal
session, initially with a certain degree of apprehension.
I quickly noticed how Frank works on many levels
with extraordinary speed and precision. During this particular session
I described a work situation, which had been troubling me in which
a business partner had a tendency to procrastinate in making decisions.
I noticed during my interactions with Frank that I became increasingly
defensive about my situation, insisting that my role in the company
afforded me flexibility, which was compensation enough for my other
frustrations. All these sessions were recorded and I recently listed
back to this tape with some amusement noting how the following comments
from Frank, had a profound effect on my perception of the situation.
"OK so while you're paying for flexibility
he gets paid for procrastination I mean I think its just the guy
tell him congratulations from me for finding a sucker like you.
Alright either way the guy sounds like a winner you know as long
as he has you on board, he, sits back and smiles- took me a while
but I've got old Nicky going."
I
have since spoken to many others experienced NLP trainers and therapists
including Andrew Austin, Jamie Smart and Sue Knight, all of whom had
similar experiences in lightening quick resolutions of what they previously
considered to be problems.
The Farrelly Factors by Jaap Hollander
Anyone seeking out a greater insight into Frank's
work should certainly attend one of his seminars as well as reading
Jaap Hollander's excellent Farrelly
Factors**. Jaap describes these as
"39 behaviours, strategic patterns and mental
activities that Frank Farrelly, the founder of Provocative Therapy,
does, feels and thinks when working with a client"
These were originally defined by Jaap Hollander,
Ph.D. with help of Dr. Graham Dawes and René Duba.
These factors are divided into seven main sections
as follows
- Ongoing behaviours (things the provocative
therapist does all the time or most of the time)
- Conditional Behaviours (things with which the
provocative therapist reacts to certain behaviours of the client,
if-then statements: if the client does X, then the therapist does
Y)
- General Provocative Tools (things the provocative
therapist sometimes does)
- Reacting to Problem Statements
- Reacting to Self Concept Statements
- Therapists/Consultant's Internal Processes
(what the provocative therapist does mentally to enable him/her
to do what s/he does)
- Strategic Patterns
General provocative tools include interrupting
the client, mimicking the client, misinterpreting the client's confusion
and ineptly undermining favourable feedback. One of my favourite Farrelly
factors under the category of reacting to the client is suggesting
that the client do more of the same, think more of the same and feel
more of the same! A frequently used question in provocative therapy
is "What's wrong with that?" Such a question can be asked in
situations which may to the external observer seem quite bizarre,
but to the client such a question shifts the client's attention into
re-examining what they imagine to be a problem.
Examples of Ongoing behaviours
This article is a basic introduction to Frank's
work, so there is not really the room to explain and detail all of
Jaap's "Farrelly Factors", but I have detailed below examples of ongoing
behaviours that a provocative therapist would utilise throughout a
client session.
-
Making Physical Contact
Here the therapist maintains both eye contact
and physical contact (repeated touch, stroking, patting, friendly
gentle 'punching', et cetera). He also will have tendency to lean
towards the client.
The therapist will do this most of the time, and especially when the
client seems to want to avoid eye contact because s/he is embarrassed
or in a strongly emotional state.
-
Using a Joking and other voice tones
The therapist speaks in a joking, teasing tone
of voice. He or she also may use these three other voice tones:
- Joking
- Hypnotic
- Quasi frustrated.
1. Joking
Here the therapists speaks in a teasing, joking tone of voice.
2. Hypnotic
Often during PT sessions, clients enter states of great confusion,
discovering an inability to access their previously "perceived problem"
The therapist would often then use a hypnotic tone of voice providing
positive suggestions, while matching the client's breathing
3. Quasi frustrated
This is where the client keeps repeating the same statements, and
the therapist counters by talking in an quasi frustrated tone as if
you were saying: "You are an impossible case for this tired old
therapist".
3) Nonverbal Mirroring
I have noticed that Frank frequently mirrors clients in his sessions
in his body language and is a master of creating rapport through pacing
and leading
4) The Use of Anecdotes
Frank often uses anecdotes in his client sessions and frequently references
movies and songs (usually from the country and western genre!) During
one master class he even broke into song for a few minutes, producing
one of the most profound client state changes I have ever witnessed!
5) Focussing intently
on the Client
The therapist concentrates his or her full attention on the client
as if they were about to explode in some manner. In each PT session
the moment when the client has a profound change of state in relation
to the problem is what Frank describes as "the bingo moment"
6) Not helping the Client!
This is where the therapist makes no effort to assist the client.
Frank has described this as the most difficult behaviour to exhibit
during a session.
7) Not keeping track
of the Session
Here the therapist deliberately makes irrelevant remarks and fails
to keep track of the client's responses
8) Being Easily Distracted.
Be very Dumb
React in a dissociated, distracted manner to statements the client
emphasizes or presents with emotion. You react especially strongly
to statements that seem important to you but that the client offers
in an offhand manner or in a manner that seems to say 'I don't really
want to talk about this now", or "This is not really important".
To statements that the client emphasizes on the other hand, you have
just the opposite response: you repeat them in a listless, bored tone
of voice, you forget them, you ask for irrelevant details (thereby
showing you don't understand them) etcetera. Frank seems to presuppose
that the client cannot learn much from repeating what he already knows.
Don't be too smart or intelligent. The intellectual analysis of the
clients problem is only valuable - according to provocative therapy
- if combined with a strong emotional state.
9) Provoking "Appropriate
Behaviours"
Keep in mind, that 'provocare' is Latin for 'eliciting'. Provocative
therapy is a good example of the old NLP saying, "the meaning
of your communication is the response you elicit".
Provocative Therapy and NLP
Provocative Therapy is an elegant precise and
powerful system of change work that incorporates many approaches that
a NLP practitioner would recognise These include the reframing of
situations, creating deep levels of rapport with clients, pattern
interrupts and timeline work. However Provocative Therapy is very
much stands on its own as a therapeutic approach. It's also important
to remember that Provocative Therapy predates the creation of NLP
by some years!
In a recent NLP practice group I ran an exercise
in which I would work with delegates problems switching between the
approaches of hypnosis, NLP and PT. In all instances attendees reported
that the PT approach had a profound effect in addressing their problem!
I would recommend therapists and NLP practitioners alike to investigate
Frank's work as he is in my opinion on of the most original therapists
and masters of communication. Remarkably after over 50 years of clinical
work, Frank is still running seminars in his 70s and continues to
be what Bandler and Grinder famously described in Frogs into Princes
as "a really exquisite example of requisite variety."
*The Bermuda Triangle of the mind can be read
in full at Frank's official site
www.provocativetherapy.com
** The Farrelly Factors can also be located on
Frank's official website detailed above and on this site here
