Pattern… A presupposition is an assumption of something that hasn’t yet been validated as true, and is apparent in our typical language patterns every day. In order for the sentence to make sense, you must assume that was has been
mentioned is true, when in fact, it may not be at all. This may come in the form of a sentence such as, “If men knew how much of a great cook I am, they would all
be lining up at the door to marry me.” This statement has a few presuppositions:
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[1] The person is a single, [2] they are heterosexual, [3] they know how to cook,
[4] men would be interested in them if they knew how well they could cook, [5]
they are interested in getting married.
Response… There are so many presuppositions in that sentence that it would be easy to ask a question to challenge any of those presuppositions to create an
instant shift in their thinking. When challenging presuppositions that are likely to be true, such as [1], [2] and [3] it is more unlikely that any major shift in their thinking will come as a result. Instead, you’ll find that questioning the least likely presuppositions such as [4] and [5] will result in a much stronger shift in thinking.
A response to those could be: [4] “How do you know men would line up at your
door if they knew you could cook?” [5] “How do you know men would want to
marry you?”
Outcome… The great thing about addressing presuppositions that are least likely to be true, is that when the listener begins to dig deep inside, they usually create rather large shifts very quickly from their new realizations and understandings.
Generalizations: Universal Qualifiers
Pattern… Universal Qualifiers are responses that tend to generalize just about everything and use words such as ‘every’, ‘forever’, ‘everyone’, ‘never’. When
someone uses these words, they tend to feel as though there is no other option,
and that is what they are sharing with you when they express themselves in this
way. You may have heard expressions such as, “Everyone wants to be skinny.”
This denies the possibility that someone out of everyone might not want to be
skinny, and may already be happy as they are. Here’s another one, “I never look
good enough.” The speaker is closed to the idea that they can always look good
enough, no matter what (because the word ‘enough’ is subjective, therefore it is
based upon what you or someone else thinks of the way you look – change the
way you look at yourself, and you yourself will change).
Response… These particular statements are best responded in a way that allows the other person to re-evaluate what they have said. This can easily be done in
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most instances by simply asking a repeating Universal Qualifier question back to
them, such as, “Everyone?” Or you could also ask them to find examples of where
the possibility of the Universal Qualifier may not apply. That may come in the
form of, “have you ever met anyone who doesn’t want to be skinny?” or “have
you ever looked good enough?”
Outcome… Here, you’ll be searching for a response from the client that
invalidates their initial universal qualifier by finding examples in their lives where this has not been the case. There will be a few cases where a client will give you a universal qualifier that is true, but in most cases this will help the client to notice that their problem is not present all the time, and this will help them to loosen their hold on the problem.