5 Advanced Questioning & Opportunity-Spotting Techniques

The answers we get from our clients are heavily influenced by the questions we ask.

Questions are an essential part of the change process; they are not simply ‘information gathering’.

A great deal of change often occurs at the initial consultation and clients express their gratitude after initial assessment questioning, having at first questioned its value to them (they just want to get on with the change work).

Effective questioning continues to be important throughout each subsequent session. 

Here’s an exploration of 5 very effective questioning skills to add to your tool kit 

1) ‘That’s a very good question!’

You may have experienced, or heard of, this one? Whenever a client says, “That’s a good question”, this should really jump out at you. It is usually a genuine comment expressing some difficulty in answering. This may be because the client has never considered your question before and they need time to think. This is a good sign as it is those novel questions that are most likely to bring insight. Or perhaps, you are asking something the client doesn’t feel comfortable disclosing and they are biding time, wondering how best to respond in such a way that they remain congruent with their other needs, such as avoiding telling untruths.

Less confident practitioners will sometimes hear this exclamation and think they had better back off’ because the client is a bit rattled.

These are precisely the points at which therapy can be most productive, when a client is at the edge of what they are willing to think.

If the therapist can remain silent at these times, they will experience the client doing some important processing.

2) ‘Sorry but I must take your first answer!’

When clients answer a question they will often reflect as they are speaking and change direction. Here is an example:

T: How do you feel about that?

C: I feel really angry, well not angry, but…I don’t know, frustrated.

Sometimes it was just poor word choice but the therapist might spot that the first answer was the intuitive, honest answer. To manage impressions in front of the therapist, and in a world where anger isn’t particularly desirable, the client in this example changed direction. In the latter scenario, the therapist could ask:

T: Did you notice how you mentioned ‘anger’ first? I’m interested to know more about this.

The client might say it was a poor word choice. Or they might reflect on their about-turn, saying, ‘Well, it’s not good to be angry, is it?’ which would highlight the social pressure. This helps the therapist clarify and collate the information in order to appropriately choose and target their interventions.

Here is an example from a TV programme where the people being interviewed were asked about their plans to emigrate: “I wouldn’t say I’m worried about moving, but…” As a therapist, we would be interested in why worry was the first thing that came to mind and why they dismissed it, and why it both mattered enough to mention it but was simultaneously disclaimed. A therapist might need to help them claim it back and take ownership of it.

When clients answer a question they will often reflect as they are speaking and change direction. 

Here is another example of how a hypnotherapist might handle this kind of disclaimer:

C: I mean, it’s not resentment, I just feel he should have treated me better.

T: If it’s not resentment, what might it be? Or, If it was resentment how would that sit with you? 

3) Double-barreled questions

‘Would you like to experience trance today starting with breathing techniques?’

Double-barreled questions are confusional, and as such, have a place in confusional inductions or where the therapist is trying to instigate novel processing.

This question is actually two questions – a double-barreled question. This sort of questioning can pose real problems for clients. The therapist is asking whether the client would like to experience trance today (to which they might think ‘yes’), and also, would they like to do this using breathing techniques (to which they might think ‘no’ because they don’t like this). But they cannot answer either way because a straightforward ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is impossible. The positive is that whilst they are considering this or that, they are not likely to be considering other things which might be inhibiting their ability to enter trance. Whilst they may have an 'away from' breathing, they also have a pull towards experiencing trance. Incongruency and ambivalence are also often instigators and signs of change. 

4) Double negatives

‘Do you not like avoiding lifts?’

Does this mean:

1. Do you not like avoiding lifts (as opposed to liking avoiding lifts)
2. Do you not like avoiding lifts (as opposed to disliking avoiding lifts)
3. Do you not like avoiding lifts (as opposed to avoiding something else)

You can probably think of other permutations as well. This can be confusing for the client and whilst not necessarily always helpful during the early stages of building rapport with your client, can be very effective at inducing trance and smoking out secondary gain (see the non-mirrored reverse quadrant below for more details).

Double-negatives create deliberate confusion to induce trance, be this a ‘mini-trance’, e.g., for increasing doubt before a reframe, or a more substantial trance induction.

5) Cartesian Questioning

The Cartesian grid is based on the following co-ordinates and were used by the philosopher Descartes (‘n‘ means ‘not’): 

Let’s take an example of a client who has a fear of flying. 

A=B

T: What would happen if you did fly?

C: I would feel scared, nauseous and panic

A nB

T: What would happen if you didn’t fly?

C: I would feel safe, happy, comfortable

nA B

T: What wouldn’t happen if you did fly?

C: I wouldn’t be able to stay safe and comfortable

nA nB

T: What wouldn’t happen if you didn’t fly?

C: I wouldn’t have to go to a foreign country and risk eating foreign food

This style of questioning is very good for getting client to see things differently.

The non-mirrored reverse, although difficult to answer due to the double negatives, is most likely to smoke out any secondary gain for your client and instigate change.

In fact, most people enter a trance while they consider the non-mirrored reverse and this is partly why they more freely part with a secondary gain if they have thus far kept it hidden (from themselves or the therapist).

In our example, when the client was asked the non-mirrored reverse question: ‘What wouldn’t happen if you didn’t fly?’, they replied that they 'wouldn’t have to go to a foreign country and risk eating foreign food’. Being someone who doesn’t like foreign food, having a fear of flying served a rather useful purpose i.e. secondary gain.

It is good to ask ourselves Cartesian questions about difficult issues and ethical problems too. Consider the problem of whether religious imagery should be used in therapy:

A=B: If a therapist is religious, should they use religious imagery to help a religious client?

A nB: If a therapist is religious, should they use religious imagery to help a non-religious client?

nA B: If a therapist is non-religious, should they use religious imagery to help a religious client?

nA nB: If a therapist is non-religious, should they use religious imagery to help a non-religious client?

Cartesian questions are used a lot in coaching, for example, working with business executives to examine problems in a more structured way. It gets easier with practice.

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Karen, MSc (health psychology), is a hypnotherapist, principal and trainer at the Academy of Advanced Changework, and published author of 'The Advanced Hypnotherapist'. Her Academy provides attended Diploma courses in Hypnotherapy & NLP in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and on the Sunshine Coast in Australia, and a range of online & distance CPD courses internationally, including an Advanced Diploma in Hypnotherapy course for qualified hypnotherapists and '15 Great Ways to Spice Up Your Post/Hypnotic Suggestions' 

Are you a qualified hypnotherapist ready to take your hypnotherapy know-how to an advanced level? Find out more about our internationally recognised Advanced Diploma in Hypnotherapy for qualified hypnotherapists by downloading a Free copy of ‘The Advanced Hypnotherapist’ https://eepurl.com/c-Bqsn written and published by Karen Bartle MSc, and Dr Paul Peace.