‘If only God would give us a sign’

The Role of Meta-Comments

Penny Tompkins and James Lawley

We define ‘meta comments’ as those verbal and nonverbal expressions which comment on what is being or has just been experienced. These ‘about-the-now’ comments can range from fully conscious and explicit to the completely unconscious and implicit.

Meta-comments are often used to comic effect by Monty Python's Flying Circus when an actor refers to the situation that character is in. For example in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, following Sir Galahad's discovery of the Castle Anthrax, Dingo is telling the sad tale of her life... she turns to the camera:

"Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil Zoot! She is a bad person and must pay the penalty... Do you think this scene should have been cut? We were so worried when the boys were writing it, but now, we're glad. It's better than some of the previous scenes, I think..."

The following examples are only meta-comments when the context suggests they are about a person’s perception, rather than from within or a part of their perception. They likely mark a shift in perspective (and possibly perceiver) from a more descriptive narrative:

This is important.
That’s a new option.
There must be a place that knows.
I realise I need to decide which way to go.
Oh look, there’s no green in the rainbow.
God knows.
No, that’s not what I meant [in reply to a facilitator summarising].
I don’t want to go there.
Not now.
That’s a hard question.
Every question you ask sends her further away.
Does that make sense?
I’ve gone all hot.

From a facilitation viewpoint, meta comments can often be considered as orientation pointers. In broad terms they can be taken as a directive to:

- Go somewhere
- Not go somewhere
- Stay where they or you are
- Do, or do not do, something (e.g. slow down, speed up, etc.)
- Signify significance or insignificance

Often meta comments are about the client’s relationship with their landscape, i.e. they are meta-in-the-moment, and therefore a form of self-reflection.

The key is not to view the words as central, but rather to consider what you have to do with your attention to model the comment — and then by ‘reverse engineering’ what the client is likely doing with their attention or perception to have commented like this in the first place.

The following is taken from the Encyclopedia of Systemic NLP by Robert Dilts and Judith DeLozier, pages 718-720.

The term meta is a Greek word meaning ‘over’, ‘between’ or ‘above’. In English it is also used to mean ‘about’. A ‘meta model’, for example, is a model about other models.

‘Metacognition’ is the awareness of one’s own cognitive processes, i.e. cognition about cognition.

‘Meta messages’ are messages about other messages, which provide frames or context markers that influence the meaning of those messages. Meta messages are typically nonverbal and give emphasis or provide cues for how to interpret a verbal message.

‘Meta communication’ is communication about communication. For instance, a meta communication is often a verbal statement that sets a framework around a communication situation in the form of rules, guidelines and expectations.

It is important to distinguish meta communication from meta messages. Meta communication is a more macro level process from sending a meta message. A meta message operates as a kind of subtext that emphasizes certain aspects of a message. If a person says, “YOU weren’t respecting the rules” it marks the communication as directed to the ‘who’. Saying “You weren’t respecting the RULES” shifts the emphasis of the message to the ‘what’. Meta communication, on the other hand, would be saying something like, “Let’s talk about what the rules are, and why we have them.”

[Note: A study of the communication patterns of effective leaders revealed that almost half of the leaders’ communication was actually meta communication.]

Congruence/Incongruence
Because meta-communication and meta messages operate at different levels they can be perceived as either congruent or incongruent. This provides yet another level of meaning. In particular, incongruence between meta-comment and meta message is likely to indicate that, within the limited context being considered, there are incompatible desires, values and/or beliefs operating within the client’s landscape. (From a systemic perspective if you go to a high enough level a functioning system is always congruent.)

One of the main purposes of Symbolic Modelling is to facilitate a person to raise their level of meta cognition (where ‘cognition’ is the Maturana and Varela definition, meaning all thinking, feeling and behaving responses.)

Categories of Meta-Comments
To model some of the structures related to meta-comments, we took the first 15-20 minutes of 8 verbatim transcripts and picked out all the meta-comments. This resulted in over 120 different examples (excluding repetitions). In an iterative process we categorised these examples into the following broad headings (the actual examples are given later):


[This our first-pass prototype model and so is ‘Today’s weather report’!]

Pattern level comments
There is a category of meta-comments which warrants special attention. These are comments on a pattern-level of organisation:

That’s like my whole life.
I’m back to square one.
I can’t stop running round in circles.
How long am I going to complain about this?
It’s never going to work between us.
Here I go again.
It’s the same problem in a different guise.

Comments like these are important because they mark out that the client is perceiving at a pattern level. With skilful choice of questions a facilitator can help to keep the client attending to the pattern level, thus transcending and including all the lower level components and examples that contribute to the pattern.

High-level process for working with meta-comments:
Mostly, meta-comments are for the facilitator to note. They help keep a modeller attending to what the client is attending to, and they give pointers to the next steps in the process. Occasionally, however, a facilitator may decide to more directly utilise the meta-comment. Below is a simplified framework for doing so:

1. Notice/recognise the meta-comment.

2. Infer meaning in relation to the current organisation of the client’s landscape and context of the session.

3. Consider whether to:

i. Utilise the comment directly
ii. Decide to follow the 'direction’ or ‘flow’ suggested by the meta-comment
iii. Deliberately not following the directional flow.

4. If you decide to do any of the above, you should have a particular purpose which will determine how specifically you do this,

e.g.

Client: I realise I need to decide which way to go.

Facilitator
i:   And what kind of ‘realise’ is that ‘realise’?
ii:  And then what happens?
iii: And where could the ‘need to decide’ come from?

Examples of Meat-Comments:
In the following 120 examples of meta-comments drawn from verbatim transcripts, we have underlined the key words that indicate the meta-comment belongs to a particular category. Many of the sentences fall into multiple categories. Our aim is to provide enough examples that you to get a sense of the pattern of each type of meta-comment, it is not to produce a mapping between particular words and a category.

KNOWING — THINKING PROCESS

1. I suppose I must have psyched myself up.
   
2. I have to — I guess.
   
3. I wonder if it is a fear of ...
   
4. It may be that it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference what I do or don’t do.
   
5. That’s probably why I’m in the mess I’m in.
   
6. On reflection I would think that wasn’t so bad.
   
7. Thinking about it, I am angry.
   
8. I’ve noticed I still feel a bit resentful.
   
9. I’m guessing it must be just a kind of ...
   
10. Considering ...
    
11. On the other hand, ...
    
12. Am I worried? [question to self]
    

KNOWING — WAYS OF PERCEIVING (i.e. sensory-based, VAK, words/metaphors)

1. I can imagine I can ....
   
2. I’m imagining ...
   
3. Let me see ...
   
4. I feel like I’m trying to nail jelly to a tree explaining it.
   
5. I still feel I need something else as well, but I don’t know what.
   
6. Hearing myself
   
7. It sounds like
   
8. I get a sense that ..
   

KNOWING — UNDERSTANDING

1. I know I do that.
   
2. I kind of know that I want something, but I don’t know what I want.
   
3. I realise that ...
   
4. And this is what I really don’t understand.
   
5. I am at a loss to figure out what it is.
   
6. I should be able to sort it out for myself.
   
7. But I believe ...
   
8. It makes perfect sense to me.
   
9. I’m not sure about ...
   
10. I have absolutely no idea.
    
11. That means ...
    
12. The first thing that comes to mind is ...
    
13. it seems they work together.
    
14. So in that sense I am bound to make mistakes.
    

LANGUAGING

1. I would say ...
   
2. Let me rephrase that.
   
3. I can’t verbalise it.
   
4. I get irritated by talking about it.
   
5. I’ve had a fair amount of feedback about it.
   
6. It’s not an answer to just say I’d ...
   
7. The question is ..
   
8. To sum up ...
   
9. I’m being very specific.
   
10. In general, ...
    
11. The word is ‘procrastination’.
    

COMPARISON — SCALE

1. It’s important.
   
2. The most powerful thing is ...
   
3. Obviously there is something significant about the fact that I can’t remember.
   
4. I think the main question
   
5. Then there’s a secondary issue.
   
6. I actually think that’s a lesser problem.
   
7. It’s a big deal for ...
   
8. Predominantly, ...
   
9. That’s calmed me down.
   
10. The whole point is ...
    
11. How good is that?
    

COMPARISON — JUDGEMENTS/PREFERENCES

1. That is good/bad.
   
2. It would be wonderful/terrible.
   
3. I must be stupid/clever.
   
4. That’s all that needs to be done to put it right.
   
5. Well, actually that’s not true.
   
6. If I’m honest.
   
7. Let’s be explicit.
   
8. That would be nice.
   
9. That’s odd.
   

COMPARISON — CHANGE/PERSISTENCE

1. Actually in some ways that’s new.
   
2. It’s changed.
   
3. It’s not a new problem.
   
4. Here we go again.
   
5. I have actually more or less resolved it.
   
6. Here it’s different.
   

TIMEFRAME

1. At the moment they are in the past.
   
2. In future ...
   
3. But at this time it doesn’t ...
   
4. I have never been one to be able to ...
   
5. OK, now I can do it.
   
6. It’s very old.
   
7. When we started talking I though maybe it was something I could do on my own.
   
8. This has happened over time.
   
9. I haven’t had time to ...
   
10. Up 'til now I’ve been trying to ...
    
11. I’m beginning to wonder ...
    
12. This is a relatively recent appreciation of myself.
    
13. I think I’m at the stage where...
    
14. I feel that’s the end of it.
    
15. Then it all starts over.
    
16. When I’m in there I can’t ...
    
17. At this point in time.
    
18. That’s where I always get stuck.
    

CATEGORIES OF EXPERIENCE

1. That’s the pattern.
   
2. So, that’s not the problem
   
3. My outcome is ...
   
4. We’ve got to the real cause.
   
5. I don’t actually have a belief that it will happen.
   
6. I’ve no new ideas
   
7. My motives are ..
   
8. The decision is either to ...
   
9. It’s an option.
   
10. There are different levels to this
    

CONDITIONAL/POTENTIAL CONTEXTS

1. I would like that to be true.
   
2. It would be great to have ...
   
3. That would have been a perfect.
   
4. It will be a place where I can ...
   
5. If I could get some new ...
   
6. Almost anything can happen.
   
7. If only!
   
8. I might ...
   

TO FACILITATOR DIRECTLY

1. Yes, you got it.
   
2. No, that doesn’t actually feel right.
   
3. I’d like to stop for a moment.
   
4. Let me think about that.
   
5. Can you ask me that again?
   
6. Well, you’re certainly very thorough.
   
7. Bear in mind ...
   

NON-VERBAL

1. [Laughter at]
   
2. [Tears about]
   
3. [A sigh]
   

MISCELLANEOUS / UNCATEGORISED

1. What it’s a bit like is ...
   
2. And so it’s as though ...
   
3. This is where it is coming unstuck because I can’t decide.
   
4. I actually need to ...
   
5. We need to go deep.
   

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ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES AFTER THE GROUP PRESENTATION

More Examples


Common Internal signals for meta-comments


Ways Meta-Comments can be utilised:

- Is there a relationship between [Meta-Comment] and [content]?
(e.g. PT’s question to Corah).

Any meta-comment:

Both elements are important

- Make sure that both elements are explored.
- And where does the importance of both those elements come from?

I know this pattern.

- (Don’t explore this pattern as it’s already known information.)

Laugh (which meant I’ve been here before)

- WKO [laugh]?

- What could that [laugh] know?
- What’s that [laugh] all about?
- How come you’re [laughing]?

A meta-comment that suggests something new just happened.

- What just happened?

For other kinds of meta-comments

- What’s happening right now?

Feedback list of all meta-comments

- And is there anything else about (all) those?

Conclusion

The kinds of ways to utilise meta-comments include:

Directing attention to the meta-comment.

Utilising the logic of the meta-comment.

Relating the meta-comment to something else.

Moving time back or forward using the meta-comment as the marker.

© 2007, Penny Tompkins & James Lawley