My ThinkRightNow!

In NLP terms an anchor is some sort of trigger which reliably and repeatably causes a certain response in our thoughts, behaviour, feelings etc. We are absolutely surrounded by them in our lives, though for the most part they are unconscious. Advertisers use them – when we hear a particular jingle or slogan we automatically think about the associated product. If a parent (or partner) says our name in a certain way we probably know what’s coming.All sorts of things can be anchors. It could be a look that says we’ve displeased someone and that puts us on our guard. It could be the smell of fresh mown grass bringing a special summer experience to mind, or a perfume reminding us of a relative from way back.

Once we know about anchors we start to find them all over the place. Some are useful, some are harmless, but some can be downright troublesome! Suppose you normally send flowers to a partner when you’ve had an argument – whatever you do don’t send them on a whim when everything’s ok or you’ll most likely start one!

Most anchors are learned over a period of time, though some, e.g. phobias, can be “one-shot learning”. However the most important thing is that as we gain an understanding of them we can put them to good use for things like breaking bad habits, improving relationships and preventing arguments.

Anchors play an enormous part in therapy. Take smoking. A single session of hypnotherapy can often remove the desire to smoke, but if the therapist hasn’t “covered all bases” then as soon as the client gets out into the real world the problems begin. They are soon confronted by all the old anchors – the finishing of a meal, having a drink, a hand offering a cigarette – and will likely find themselves automatically taking a cigarette, and perhaps even lighting it, before they consciously realise what’s happening. The resulting internal conflict can undo a lot, if not all, of the good work

Weight loss is similar. In the session the therapist can instil the idea of becoming slimmer, healthier, sexier, fitting into lovely new clothes (or maybe getting back into old ones!), but have they dealt with the smell of the bakery, or the lure of the brightly coloured choc bars by the checkout, or the habitual dessert without which no meal is complete.

Now – there’s good news and there’s bad news. The bad news is that it’s very difficult to remove anchors. The learned trigger will still present itself, and it’s almost impossible to ignore – we tend to feel an acute sense of loss when deprived of our habitual response. The good news is that in therapy we can usually replace the habitual response with another, more acceptable, one.

Some of this may sound pretty obvious, however in NLP terms we have barely scratched the surface in our exploration of anchors. Anchors can be installed by the therapist to bring about all sorts of behaviour modification. They can be “chained” so that they lead from one pattern of behaviour to another by way of easy (well, easier) steps. They can also be “stacked” so that when no single anchor holds sufficient power to produce the required motivation the power is multiplied. And they can be collapsed! If an undesirable state is linked to an anchor, and it’s “desirable opposite” is linked to another, trigger both at the same time and the result will be a sort of middle ground, or neutrality. This is the basis of the “Fast Phobia Cure” which can rid people of nearly all simple phobias, irrespective of how long they’ve had them, in about two minutes!