- The Swish is a technique that uses critical submodality changes. It changes unwanted behavior or habits by establishing a new direction. What used to trigger the old behavior will trigger a move in the new direction. This is more powerful than simply changing the behavior.
The Swish can be used in any representational system. These are the steps for the visual swish.
- Identify the problem.
This may be behavior or a habit that want to change, or any situation where you want to respond more resourcefully.
- Identify the picture that triggers the problem.
Treat this problem as an achievement. How do you know when to do it? What are the specific cues that always precede it? Look for a specific visual trigger for the problem. It may be an internal trigger (something you see in your mind's eye) or an external trigger (something you see in the outside world). See this trigger as an associated picture.
- Identify two critical submodalities of the cue picture that give it an impact.
The most common ones are size and brightness. If increasing the size and the brightness of the image makes it more effective, then these are critical submodalities. If they do not, experiment with other visual submodalities. These two submodalities need to be analogue submodalities like size and brightness that can be increased continuously over a range.
- Break state.
- Create a picture of a desired self-image.
How would you see yourself if you did not have this problem? What sort of person would be easily able to solve this problem or would not even have the problem in the first place? You would have more choices and be more capable. Make this image balanced and believable and not tied to any particular context. Check that it is ecological. It needs to be motivating and very attractive. Make it a dissociated picture.
- Break state.
- Put the pictures in the same frame.
Go back to the problem picture. Make it a big bright image if these are your critical submodalities. Make sure it is an associated image. In one corner of this picture, put your desired self-image in the opposite submodalities - as a small, dark, dissociated picture.
- "Swish" the two pictures.
Very quickly make the small dark image big and bright and expand it to fill the frame. Make the problem picture grow dim and shrink to nothing. Do this very fast. At the same time, imagine some sound that fits with that movement (like s-w-i-s-h!).
- Break state visually.
Open your eyes if you had closed them and make the frame go blank. Look at something else.
- Repeat the swith and break state.
Do this at least three times fast. Be sure to break state between each swish or you risk swishing the problem back again!
- Test and future pace.
Try to access the problem state again. What's different? Sometimes you will not be able to get the cue picture back in the same way. Sometimes you will start to talk about the problem in the past tense.
- Trouble Shooting
If the swish does not work then:
- You may not have the right trigger.
- You may not have the critical submodalities.
- The self-image may not be strong or attractive enough.
- Go back and check the cue critical submodalities and build a self-image that is congruent. The swish can be used in any representational system. The basic pattern is:
- Find the cue.
- Identify the critical submodalities of this cue.
- Create a representation of how you want to be - the sort of person who would not have that problem. Use the same representational system as the problem cue.
- Represent the cue in the critical submodalities and make it associated. Have the desired self-representation dissociated in the opposite submodalities.
- Very quickly substitute the desired self-representation for the cue representation.
- Break state and repeat at least 5 times, breaking state between each swish.
- Test.
