I don't know if you begin to hear a pattern in this. Every experience in the world, and every behavior is appropriate, given some context, some frame.

There are two kinds of content reframing. I've given you an example of each. Can you tell the difference between them? Can you hear an essential difference between the two examples I just gave you?

Man: One changed the context, and one changed the meaning.

Yes, exactly. In the last example, Virginia changed the context. Being stubborn is judged to be bad in the context of the family. It becomes good in the context of banking and in the context of a man trying to take advantage of the daughter on a date.

Bill: So you're really changing the context that the father uses to evaluate the daughter's behavior.

Right. Her behavior of being stubborn with him will no longer be seen as her fighting with him. It will be seen as a personal achievement: he has taught her to protect herself from men with bad intentions.

Bill: So you switch contexts in imagination and get a different response «there," and then bring that response back to the present context. You get him to respond to what is not going on.

Well, he's already responding to «what is not going on.» You get him to respond to something different which is not going on. Most of the behavior that puzzles you about your clients is a demonstration that the majority of their context is internal, and you don't have access to it yet. When a husband says to his wife «I love you," and she says «You son of a bitch," that's a pretty good sign that she's operating out of a unique internal context.