People’s words reflect their thoughts and their thoughts reflect their reality. How your clients represent the world to themselves can be detected in the words they use. Your client will choose words to describe their experience and paying attention to what they say gives us an insight into what is happening inside their minds so that we can communicate most effectively with them.
The Meta Model is a diagnostic and therapeutic technique that helps you and your clients to understand their problems, their current situation and their model of the world. The Meta Model gives you a set of questions to help you gather high-quality information from your clients about their experiences. You can use the Meta Model to find out what people actually mean by their communication, not what you think they are saying.
This is a powerful exercise for helping your clients to build rapport with a colleague, family member or anyone they’d like to have a better relationship with. By guiding them through a series of questions (and using meta-model questions and reframing techniques in between) you’ll help them (and you) to gain an insight into the current relationship and the ways it can be transformed.