NLP Techniques: Perceptual Positions

Want to understand someone better? By 'being them' for a short period of time you can learn about them.

The exercise can be done standing or sitting, whatever helps your partner to recall it most easily. A could arrange chairs or other furniture accordingly, just as in the original scenario.

Ask your partner to recall that memory and run through it, recalling every detail as if it were happening right now. Help your partner to fully associate and run the whole sequence through from start to finish. This is 1st position.

Now ask your partner to walk over to where the other person was, and step into their position. In this 2nd position, your partner watches the whole sequence again, watching and hearing themselves as if they are the other person .Ask your partner for any new information or insight they have in this position. Ask your partner how they feel watching and listening to themselves.

Now have your partner walk over to a 3rd position on the other side of the room. If they have difficulty dissociating from the emotional content of the memory, you can ask them to imagine stepping outside of the room and watching through a window, as a casual onlooker. Ask them to watch the whole sequence again, paying attention to the interaction between position 1 and 2. Ask them for any new information or insight they have in this position. Ask how they feel watching and listening to the interaction between the two people in the room, and to note how the other person seems to be responding.

Now have your partner move back to the 1st position, in their own shoes, and run through the whole scene again, integrating everything that they learned in the other two positions.

Ask your partner how they feel differently about the situation or the people, and what they have learned.