As I read this on the train from Gravesend to Durham the other day, I had to   re-read this sentence several times. Was it saying that the character was beset by dust and as a result considered it his enemy or was it that his enemy had been destroyed and was now dust and that he didn’t need to worry about them any more?

Putting aside the fact that there could well be some poor punctuation in the sentence, much like the classic description of a Panda “Panda: Eats, shoots and leaves”, it got me thinking about the importance of emphasis on our words and how that emphasis can   completely change the meaning of what we’re communicating.

In hypnosis and NLP, this is called “marking” where we deliberately embed suggestions in what we say and write by using things like pauses, punctuation and putting emphasis on specific words of phrases within an otherwise normal piece of speach or text.

In IEMT (see the glossary), one of the sentences I use regularly to help a client elicit a certain feeling is “When is the first time you can remember that feeling?” What I do is “mark” some of the words with emphasis in order to embed a command and what I actually end up saying looks more like “When is the first time you can remember that feeling?”.

Can you   see the difference? In asking a question, I am actually delivering a suggestion or embedded command that the client’s unconscious mind will pick up and act on (in order to make it truly effective I combine this with other subtle communications but that’s the art and science of psychology and one of the reasons I love it).

Returning to my example at the start of the post: “his enemy was dust.”

Now say the sentence out loud with the emphasis on each word in turn:
- HIS enemy was dust
- His ENEMY was dust
- His enemy WAS dust
- His enemy was DUST

Doesn’t the emphasis on the different words completely change the meaning of the sentence!

How much does the emphasis, be it pronunciation, punctuation, tempo, pitch, spelling, font etc. make on the interpretation of YOUR communication? Next time you’re in a public place and you can overhear people talking, why not listen out for those markers and see how you could have changed the meaning of the communication simply by stressing the same words in a different way or in a different place.

IEMT: A structured approach to change

IEMT or Integral Eye Movement Therapy is the brain child of Andrew T Austin (author of The Rainbow Machine) and earlier this year I had to privilege to attend his London course and become certified as an IEMT practitioner.

The course was organised by my friend Alan Whitton of www.WestEssexHypnotherapy.com and run out of Regent’s Park collage in central London and taught by its creator: Andrew (and I will admit to getting my copy of the Rainbow Machine signed at the start of the course).

The course was awesome and Andrew really knows how to deliver training and keep control of the class – NLP practitioners, of which there were lots, have a tendency to start “helping” each other on courses like this: Andrew told us we’d be poked in the face if we started doing this He also said that we could poke our partner in the face if they went beyond the elements of the practical exercises that he was giving us. It was a fun way of making sure we got the point: Stick to the course!

One of the things that really struck me about the course was that Andrew’s years of experience in neurosurgery and clinical neurology means that he really knows what he’s talking about and when he pulled out a model brain and started pointing at parts of the brain and explaining physically what they did and how they worked, I was very impressed. Why don’t more therapy courses include understanding the parts of the brain as a minimum? I had no idea that our olfactory bulbs have such a large and important part to play in memory.

What is Integral Eye Movement Therapy?

Essentially, it a structured interview approach to a complete therapy session (or sessions) involving several techniques, so I will discuss the main technique used here:

When we remember something, whether it be a visual memory, a sound or feeling or even when we have an inner conversation with ourselves, we tend to move our eyes off centre in one of 6 major directions. These are called eye accessing queues and the diagram below (and I apologise for this) shows the typical association for each of these for a typical right handed person (there are exceptions of course and as a general rule, left handed people should switch the sides).

Look up the the left and you're probably remembering something visual. And: Yes that is my mug shot

What you probably aren’t aware of is that the eye accessing stuff isn’t as straight forward as looking diagonally up and to the left when you remember the colour of your front door. How far left do you look? How far “upwards” do you look? How about your focus: is it close or far away? Have a go at it now and choose a couple of different things to recall: If you’ve been to the bottom of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, can you remember what it looked like when you stood at its base? Can you remember what your parents look like? Do you remember your desk at school? Have a go at these and notice how you will probably look up to the left (or right if left handed), but now are you aware of just how differently located these visual memories are in that “up” and “left” quadrant of your vision?

What IEMT is really powerful at is changing the way we feel about something (or in fact many things) and one element of the technique is to re-program the way in which you access a state of mind. For example, when you feel guilty or distressed about something, it is probably associated to a particular memory or series of memories. When you recall the memory, you recall the state and therefore feel bad.

I find this fascinating and by using IEMT, we can change the way in which you access the memories and feelings by changing the locations of your accessing cues.

IEMT is a therapy system

IEMT isn’t all about eye accessing cues – its much much more than that, but I hope it gives you something to think about. As Andrew T Austin says: “This is not the grand unified theory of therapy.” It is however one tool in my toolbox of therapy techniques and it is a very impressive technique for fast and thorough change. I’ve helped alcoholism, depression and even agoraphobia with this technique just to give you a sample of what I can use it with.

Ben White is a certified and insured practitioner of Integral Eye Movement Therapy

You can find me and other practitioners listed on the official IEMT web site, so if you’re not nearby London or Kent and think that it might help you, check out the site and see if one of the other practitioners lives anywhere near you. If you’re thinking of seeing me about some IEMT, you’ll be glad to know that my liability insurance specifically includes IEMT along with Hypnotherapy and NLP.

If you would like to read some more about IEMT, please checkout the page on my website dedicated to it: http://practitioneroftrance.com/Integral_Eye_Movement_Therapy.php