I just completed the two day Provocative Change Works training for David Key’s Auspicium NLP Master Prac group. This was an interesting two days because 33% of the attendees had come specifically to see a PCW event and the rest of the group had little or no experience of this provocative approach which is of course very different to traditional NLP! It was a good group and I was especially impressed by the number of people who volunteered to be demo subjects and special thanks to the five delegates who I worked with. During the two days I covered the fundamentals of the PCW approach, including some of the key provocative stances.

It’s always fascinating for me to see responses from NLP groups. When I first saw Frank Farrelly I had already spent many years training with Richard Bandler and was already running my own certificated trainings. Despite this background the provocative style was quite a shock and although I noticed an amazing number of similarities between what Frank was doing and what Richard does, the PT approach was so different, I was totally confused for at least the first day. This is nearly always the case when I run such events for an NLP audience. Usually the group divides into those who begin to love the flexibility of PCW and those who find it a tough task to move from a very structured way of working to an approach that demands a great deal of improvisation and working on the fly. In my view PCW requires a great deal of sensory awareness and a willingness to step outside the usual step by step techniques often used in therapy.
David Key has clearly created a good business with Auspicium and both he and his assistants were terrific to work with great attention to detail and good personal communication skills. Day one of an introductory PCW event is always about demonstrating and discussing the provocative stances and deliberately provoking the group into new ways of thinking. I think of day one as “taking everything apart” and day two as “putting everything back together” I’m always fascinated to see how a group has changed from day one to day two. Usually on day one there’s enough provocation to create enough state changes so the group is very different by day two. When I started to create the PCW approach in 2005, I taught some of this material on my NLP Master Prac events and always found that it really stretched the attendees in a great way. It was a great way for the Master Practitioner students to really learn how to work on the fly so they could not only use all the useful NLP skills they had acquired but also incorporate many more layers to how they interacted with clients.

The second day of the PCW training focusses on the hypnosis language patterns and metaphor exploration used in this approach. Those who have trained extensively in Ericksonian hypnosis appreciate how the combination of Farrelly and Milton’s work can produce some quite profound changes. Although there was a lot of talk about metaphors in the NLP trainings I attended in days gone by there is very little useful exploration. There are few people who teach about metaphors and I recommend Andrew T Austin’s Metaphors of Movement for this. Day two also includes teaching many of the bespoke exercises that I use with a wide range of client issues, including “the voice tempo exercise” Every day is divided into four 90 minute parts and each 90 minute section includes explanations, demonstrations and usually a group exercise. This format works really well in communicating this approach regardless of whether it’s for an English speaking audience or overseas with translators.

I’m currently working on longer PCW trainings as there’s a lot to communicate. The 36 stances, hypnosis patterns, metaphor elicitation and time framing require a lot of practice. In recent years PCW has moved far beyond what I learned in NLP, but that learning curve has been really useful in being able to formulate and sequence a great deal of what occurs in PCW. In 2012 most PCW events will be hosted overseas and I’m looking forward to training with audiences in the USA, Europe and Asia. I’m also teaching the introduction to PCW on another NLP Master Practitioner course this time hosted by an SNLP trainer. I can’t wait!