# Perceptual Positions — Full 4-MAT Presentation Script **Presenter:** Dustin **Total Time:** ~20 minutes (plus ~30 min exercise) **Has Demo:** Yes --- *Last updated: March 21, 2026 at 12:00 PM MT* ## 1. WHY — Motivation (~3-4 min) *Goal: Short motivational opener. Why should the audience care about this? Pull them in emotionally before teaching anything. Don't name the topic until the reveal.* --- Have you ever been stuck in the same fight with someone -- the same conversation, the same frustration, the same dead end -- over and over again? And no matter what you say or how you say it, nothing changes? I know you are probably thinking of someone right now, aren't you? > *[Personal story placeholder: A time you were locked in a recurring conflict or misunderstanding with someone important to you. You kept approaching it the same way. You were certain you were right. But nothing moved. The relationship stayed stuck.]* Here is what I have come to understand. When I am stuck in a conflict, it is almost never because I lack the right words. It is because I am trapped inside a single point of view -- my own. I am looking through my own eyes, feeling my own feelings, running my own story on repeat. And as long as I stay there, I will keep getting the same result. Everyone has experienced this -- all of us have been locked inside our own perspective without even realizing there was another way to look at it. Think about that for a second. How many disagreements in your life -- with a partner, a parent, a client, a colleague -- have stalled out because both people are locked inside their own experience? Each person is absolutely certain they are right. Each person is absolutely certain the other person just does not get it. And nobody moves. Now imagine you had a way to step outside of that. Not just intellectually -- not just "I should try to see their side" -- but actually, experientially, stepping into the other person's body and looking back at yourself through their eyes. Feeling what they feel. Hearing what they hear. Seeing you the way they see you. And then imagine floating above the whole scene, like a fly on the wall, watching both of you from a completely neutral vantage point. No emotional charge. No personal stake. Just pure observation. Can you imagine what that would be like? Because when you discover what that perspective reveals, the blind spots that suddenly become visible, the things you finally understand that you could not access before -- and that is the most important thing -- the conflict begins to dissolve on its own. > "It gives you a chance to get some learnings or another perspective on a problem that you might not have been able to access when you were so associated with your problem." This is one of the most elegant dissociative techniques in NLP. It is called **perceptual positions**. And whether you apply it to your most stuck relationship or to a client who has been going in circles for years, it is going to change the way you handle every difficult conversation from this point forward. --- ## 2. WHAT — Information (~15 min) *Goal: The main teaching block. What perceptual positions ARE -- definition, the three positions, how they work, how association and dissociation drive the whole thing, and what makes this technique so powerful. Pull from Gina's transcripts.* --- ### What Are Perceptual Positions? So what exactly are perceptual positions? > "Perceptual positions involve shifting the viewpoint and viewing a specific internal representation from one or two or three different positions. Simply looking at the picture, looking at the event from a different position and from a different point of view." At its core, this is a submodalities-driven dissociative technique. I am taking a single event -- a memory, a conflict, a conversation -- and I am viewing it from three completely different vantage points. Each position gives me different information, different feelings, and different insights. > "This technique is just designed to give you a new conversation or a new possibility in a conflict in a situation you have with someone where it's like the same old, same old, same old, same old, same old conversation." That is the use case. I have a relationship or a situation where the same pattern keeps repeating. The same argument. The same frustration. The same result. Perceptual positions break that loop by giving me access to perspectives I literally cannot see when I am trapped inside my own experience. --- ### Association vs. Dissociation Before I walk through the three positions, I need to ground this in the concepts of association and dissociation, because that is what drives the entire technique. When I am **associated**, I am inside the experience. I am looking through my own eyes, hearing through my own ears, feeling the feelings in my own body. This is the most intense way to experience anything. When I float down into my body and look through my own eyes, I see what I see, I notice what I notice, and the feeling is strong. > "The looking through your own eyes is obviously the most intense for you when you float down into your body looking through your own eyes and then you see what you see and you notice what you notice and it's pretty strong feeling." When I am **dissociated**, I have stepped outside the experience. I am watching it rather than living it. The emotional intensity drops. I can think more clearly. I can observe patterns I could not see when I was in the middle of them. Dissociative techniques are anything that cause me to change my association with a problem. Looking up at the ceiling is a dissociative technique. Timeline therapy is a dissociative technique. And perceptual positions are one of the most powerful dissociative techniques in the entire NLP toolkit. > "These are techniques that help you dissociate and that is anything that causes you to change your association with the problem." The magic of perceptual positions is that I get to be associated in multiple viewpoints -- first my own, then someone else's -- and then fully dissociated in the third position. Each shift gives me new data. --- ### The Three Positions Now let me walk through each position. **First Position: My Own Eyes** First position is full association. I am in my own body, looking through my own eyes, experiencing the event exactly as I experienced it. I see what I saw. I hear what I heard. I feel what I felt. This is my subjective reality -- my model of the world in that moment. In Gina's demo, when the participant drops into first position, she is at a party with her mother. Friends are complimenting her, and her mother responds dismissively. The participant's experience in first position is disappointment and sadness. > "How are you feeling? Well, I just get sad because I feel like she doesn't think what they're saying is true." First position gives me my truth. My emotional experience. My interpretation of events. This is where most people live when they think about a conflict -- and this is where most people get stuck. There is nothing wrong with first position. It is real and it is valid. But it is only one-third of the picture. **Second Position: The Other Person's Eyes** Second position is where this technique starts to get truly powerful. I float out of my own body and into the other person's body. I am seeing through their eyes. I am feeling what they feel. I am thinking what they think. > "Float out of your body and float into their body and look through their eyes back at you. So this is called perceptual position number two. I bet you it's quite interesting. Notice the feelings that are happening now inside of your body at this time because you're in someone else's perceptual position." This is not an intellectual exercise. I am not sitting in my own chair thinking, "What might they be feeling?" I am literally stepping into their body -- like the movie Avatar, as Gina describes it -- and becoming them. Looking out through their eyes. Back at me. > "Imagine if you could, taking your whole being floating up in that situation, over and dropping like avatar into her actual body." In the demo, when the participant becomes her mother, the experience shifts dramatically. Suddenly, her mother is not dismissive or cold. Her mother wants love from her daughter. Her mother feels disconnected and sad. Her mother sees the participant in a way the participant never expected. > "What do you want more than anything in this situation? ... To love my daughter." And here is the key coaching distinction -- when I am in second position, I have to actually be the other person. Not talk about them from the outside. Be them. > "Be her. Don't be you." That is the instruction. Do not analyze the other person from my perspective. Drop into their body and become them. What do they want? What do they feel? What are they thinking? This is where the blind spots start to dissolve. **Third Position: The Fly on the Wall** Third position is full dissociation. I float out of both bodies and rise up to the ceiling. I am a fly on the wall. I am watching the entire scene from above -- both people, their body language, the space between them -- with no emotional investment. I am a neutral observer. > "Float up like a fly on the wall so that you're looking down from the top of the ceiling way in the corner on the entire scene and notice how you look on the scene, there's a much different feeling there also." Third position strips away the personal stakes. I do not have a mother in this scene. I do not have a daughter. I am watching two people interact and I can see things that neither of them can see from inside the situation. In the demo, the participant in third position immediately notices things that were invisible from first and second position: the awkwardness, the tension, the sadness, the love underneath it all, the lack of physical contact. > "What would you say as a totally neutral observer about these two people? They're uncomfortable. Yeah, it's awkward. There's a lot of sadness. There's tension. There is love." And from this neutral vantage point, solutions start to appear. Because when I remove the emotional charge, I can see what these two people actually need. The participant as the fly on the wall could see that the situation needed lightness, vulnerability, shared memories, and physical closeness -- things she could not access when she was stuck in first position feeling sad and disappointed. > "I bring them closer together." --- ### Why the Shift Matters Here is what makes this technique so elegant. The same event -- the exact same party, the exact same people, the exact same words spoken -- produces completely different experiences depending on which position I am viewing it from. > "It's different and what you notice is different and how you feel is different." In first position, the participant felt sadness and disappointment. In second position, she felt her mother's loneliness and desire for connection. In third position, she saw two people who both wanted the same thing but could not figure out how to get there. Same event. Three completely different experiences. Three completely different sets of information. And when I put all three together, I have a much richer, much more complete understanding of the situation than I could ever get from one position alone. That is the power of perceptual positions. It does not tell me what to do. It opens up new possibilities. > "Did anything open up for you when you did that? Did you have any realizations? Any tweaks? Any a-has? Any blind spots cleaned up?" The participant's realization was profound and simple: > "When you asked me to be my mom looking at me, I kind of got that she sees me kind of a little bit how I see her. Like, I was uncomfortable with me as I am with her. And that opens up some sort of understanding." She was stuck because she could only see one angle. The moment she stepped into her mother's eyes, she realized the discomfort was mutual. The distance was coming from both sides. And from third position, she could see the path forward -- lighter conversation, shared memories, getting closer instead of staying where they are. --- ### When to Use Perceptual Positions This technique works best in recurring interpersonal conflicts -- situations where I keep having the same conversation and getting the same result. A strained relationship with a family member. A difficult dynamic with a colleague. A coaching client who is stuck in a pattern with someone in their life. > "Who's someone that you just kind of have the same old, same old, same old, same old, same old conversation." It also works any time I need perspective on a problem I am too close to. When my emotions are running the show and I cannot think clearly, perceptual positions give me a structured way to step back, gather new information, and re-engage with more options. > "It gives you a chance to get some learnings or another perspective on a problem that you might not have been able to access when you were so associated with your problem." The beauty of this technique is its simplicity. I do not need a detailed personal history. I do not need hours of background work. I just need a situation and a willingness to see it from more than one angle. > "They're the kind of things you can do quickly without really needing a detailed personal history or anything like that and you can just start practicing right away." And notice what perceptual positions does that just talking about a problem cannot do. When I say to someone, "Have you tried seeing it from their perspective?" -- that is an intellectual suggestion. The person stays in first position and thinks about the other person from their own point of view. That is not the same thing. Perceptual positions is experiential. I am not thinking about the other person. I am becoming the other person. I am not analyzing the scene from a distance. I am floating up and watching it unfold below me with no personal stakes. The shift in physiology, the shift in internal representations, the shift in the feelings inside my body -- that is what produces the breakthrough. It is not cognitive. It is somatic and perceptual. And that is why it works when years of talking about the problem have not. --- ### Coaching Notes A few things to keep in mind when running this technique with a client. First, in second position, the client will naturally want to slip back into talking about the other person from their own perspective. My job as a coach is to keep redirecting them back into the other person's body. "Be her. Don't be you." That is the key instruction. Second, in third position, the client may start to get emotionally pulled back in. My job is to keep them dissociated. "Stay in the third position. You're a fly on the wall." If they start using personal language -- "my mom" -- I redirect them to neutral observer language. Third, I am not asking the client to solve the problem. I am asking them to notice. To observe. To let new information emerge. The solutions come from the new perspective, not from me pushing them toward an answer. > "I'm not asking you to solve a problem. I'm just asking you to notice." --- ## 3. HOW — Exercise (placeholder) *Goal: Brief setup for the demo and exercise. Perceptual positions has a demo.* --- Alright, so now you understand what perceptual positions are and how the three positions work. Let me show you what this looks like in practice. I need a volunteer. Think of a recurring conflict or a stuck relationship -- someone you keep having the same conversation with and getting the same result. It does not need to be dramatic. It just needs to be real. **Demo goes here.** Great. So you have seen it in action. Now it is your turn. You are going to get into groups of 2 -- one coach, one client. The client picks a recurring interpersonal situation. The coach walks them through all three positions: first position (your own eyes), second position (the other person's eyes), and third position (fly on the wall). Then you switch. A few reminders as you practice: In second position, keep redirecting your client -- "Be them. Don't be you." In third position, keep them dissociated -- "You're a fly on the wall." And remember, you are not solving the problem. You are opening up new perspectives. You will have about 30 minutes. Exercise instructions are in your handout. **Exercise goes here.** --- ## 4. WHAT IF — Future Pace (placeholder) *Goal: Self-discovery. Three questions.* --- **1. What questions do you have?** **2. What did you learn?** **3. What do I need to know?** --- **Word Count:** 2,862 words | **Estimated Talk Time:** ~20 minutes (at ~140 words/min medium pace)