Listen to their world
Ask your partner what they would like to achieve, and listen below the words. What is this person's world made of?
- Their goal, stated in the positive: what they want, not what they want to stop.
- The images and words they already use: "stuck", "running on empty", "not ready yet".
- Their strongest sense: do they see it, hear it or feel it?
- What they love: nature, a hobby, their work, a place.
See the dragonfly example
Goal: to feel ready to take the next step, in their own time. Their words: "I'm not ready yet, I'm still learning." Sense: feeling. World: water, nature, quiet places.
Choose the image
Find a character and a setting from the client's own world. The story is about someone else, never the client: a woman by a pond, an old man, a little girl, a squirrel, a tree.
If the client didn't plant the seed, you don't get to grow it.
- Grow it from an image they gave you, even a small one.
- Keep one step of distance: close enough to feel, far enough that the conscious mind stays quiet.
- Erickson called this utilization: use whatever the client brings, their words, their work, their hobbies, even their resistance.
See the dragonfly example
A young dragonfly, still living at the bottom of a quiet pond.
The match
The story mirrors the client's situation in some way: structurally parallel, not identical. The client doesn't need to recognize it. The subconscious will.
- What in the character's life is like the client's situation right now?
- Describe it in the client's strongest sense: what it looks like, sounds like, feels like.
David Gordon's method: map each part of the client's situation onto the story, one to one.
| In the client's life | In the story |
|---|---|
| The client | |
| The people around them | |
| Where they are stuck, and how it keeps repeating | |
| A resource they already have but don't use yet |
See the dragonfly example
The client becomes a young dragonfly. The people around them become the other creatures of the pond, some already rising to the surface. Stuck: years underwater, in the cool, quiet dark, growing slowly. The resource: its wings, already folded inside, waiting.
It mirrors feeling stuck, or not yet ready, or still learning.
The resolution
Something changes in the story. The character finds its way, in its own time, and the change is felt through the senses.
- Tell the growth, not the obstacle. Keep it positive, even inside the story.
- Let the change happen gently, step by step, with time to feel it.
- The character doesn't get rescued. It discovers a resource it already had: Erickson believed the answer is within the client.
- Gordon calls this the connecting strategy: the new way the character finds, which the client can use too.
See the dragonfly example
One morning it climbs slowly up a reed, out of the water and into the air, and waits as its wings dry in the warm sun… until they are strong enough to fly.
The bridge
Link the story back to everyday life, so the change keeps working after the session. Never say what the story means. The listener finds their own meaning.
- An anchor in the client's world: something they will see, hear or touch again.
- An open line that reaches the listener, without explaining.
See the dragonfly example
And whenever you see a dragonfly, some part of you remembers this calm.
Weave in the language
Erickson's stories carried their suggestions quietly, inside the story. Choose two or three of these and write them into your draft.
Going further: stories within stories
Stephen and Carol Lankton developed multiple embedded metaphors: begin story one, open story two inside it, tell the core story three in full, then close two and finally one. The middle story carries the work, and the frame around it helps the conscious mind let go. Try it once you are comfortable with a single story.
Your metaphor
Bring your notes together here, then write the story in your own words. About 250 to 350 words, three minutes read aloud. Mark your embedded suggestions with *stars*, so you remember to soften your voice there.