ACCESSING AND RE-ACCESSING REPRESENTATIONS

When it is important to control the content of a representational system, as when you are working with a decision point in a strategy, you will need a way to assure easy access and re-access to the particular representation associated with that decision point. This is accomplished through a procedure we call anchoring.

Most of you have had the experience, in communicating with a client, friend or associate, of reaching a certain level of rapport and understanding that was a very positive resource for both of you. Later on in that communication, however, the flow of the conversation, discussion or negotiation changes. The interaction becomes more tense, strained or difficult, and you wish you had a way of re-accessing the positive experience you shared before. Anchoring is a process that allows you to do this with precision.

An anchor is, in essence, any representation (internally or externally generated) which triggers another representation, 4-tuple or series of representations or 4-tuples (i.e., a strategy). A basic assumption behind anchoring is that all experiences are represented as gestalts of sensory information -- 4-tuples. Whenever any portion of a particular experience or 4-tuple is reintroduced, other portions of that experience will be reproduced to some degree. Any portion of a particular experience, then, may be used as an anchor to access another portion of that experience.

SOME IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT ANCHORING ARE:

1. Anchors don't need to be conditioned over long periods of time in order to become established, though repeated stimuli can reinforce an anchor. Anchors tend to promote the use of single trial learning.
2. Anchors will become established without direct rewards or reinforcement for the association. Repetition and conditioning can lead to the establishment of an anchor, though they are not necessary.
3. Internal experience (i.e., cognitive behavior) is considered to be as significant, behaviorally, as the overt measurable responses. In other words, NLP asserts that an internal dialogue, picture, or feeling is just as much of a response as the salivation of Pavlov's dog.
4. The more intense the experience that the individual is having at the time the anchor is "set" (i.e., the trigger stimulus is applied), the stronger the response will be when the anchor is "fired off" (reintroduced) at a later time. Phobias are an example of powerful anchors that, in most cases, are established in a single very brief and intense learning experience.
5. In creating an anchor, timing the application or the trigger stimulus precisely to associate it with the state you want is critical. The diagram below illustrates the ideal timing which corresponds to the final increase, and peaking, of the intensity of the state you are capturing with the anchor. As with other NLP techniques, anchoring the state as it is increasing in intensity sets a direction for the brain to follow.
6. The more unique the stimulus, the more accurate it will be in re-accessing the desired state. In essence, the anchor will be less likely to bring with it any unwanted representations which had similar associations.
7. The more accurately the stimulus is replicated, the quicker and more accurately it will re-access what it was associated with originally.
8. Anchors can be established in all the representational systems, as well as the component parts: i.e., external, internal, sights, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes.
9. Anchors can be set and fired off overtly or covertly, depending on the practitioner's outcome. The fact of every day living is that people are constantly creating and utilizing powerful anchors covertly, and most of the time it is completely unconscious behavior. In fact, language itself is one of the most complex anchors in both the auditory and visual modalities. For most people, there are single words that can elicit very strong negative or positive responses.