NLP Techniques - State Elicitation and Anchor

State elicitation and anchor enables your client to access a useful state and then re access it at a time of their choosing in the future.

An important additional benefit of the technique is your client is getting experience in exploring their own memories and experience. This is the starting point for many other techniques, and a significant life skill.

State Elicitation and Anchor - What's important

As practitioner go first. To help your client access a particular state 'Act as if' you're already in that state.

For clients that 'live in their heads' this technique can be really challenging. On the other hand it can be the first stage in them reconnecting with their senses (and in a way their life) and can have tremendous long term benefits.

The basis of NLP anchoring is that human memories are built from our five senses. Triggering one will bring back the others.

State Elicitation and Anchor - The technique

Ask your partner where they would be happy having an anchor applied to their arm, hand, shoulder?

Ask your partner what state he/she would like to elicit. Image being in that state first yourself to help lead your partner into that state.

Being able to help your clients elicit strong and powerful states and / or amplify weak ones is one of the most useful skills in NLP.

Ask your partner to remember a time when he/she was in such a state, or ask them to make up a time when he/she was in such a state.

Ask your partner:

What can they see:

How big is the image? How far away? Motion or still? Colour or black and white? Bright or dim? Focused or unfocused? Associated or dissociated? One image or many?

What can they hear:

One point or all around? Loud or soft? Fast or slow? High or low pitch? Clear or muffled?

What can they feel:

Location in body? Breathing rate? Temperature? Weight? Intensity? Movement?

And you can explore taste and smell

Ask your partner to just double what he/she sees, hears and feels and when they go strongly into state, apply the anchor.

Break state, then have your partner imagine experiencing they state strongly as you apply the anchor once more.

Break state, then test the anchor.

See Wikipedia - Anchoring, Wikipedia - Submodalities

Copyright 2007 PPI Business NLP, with thanks to Peter Freeth:

Additional Note

Anchors can be 'stacked' 'chained' or 'collapsed'

To stack anchors anchor similar states to the same trigger, when fired you will get a more powerful 'composite' anchor.

To chain anchors you can (among other ways) anchor different states to different parts of the forearm and then trigger them in sequence by running your fingers across them.

To collapse a negative anchor fire it and a positive anchor at the same time, releasing the negative anchor first.