Fred tells his wife, Mary: "I want you to be more loving with me." His tone of voice is harsh and demanding, his eyebrows are raised, and his head bobs up and down as he finishes with a sigh, as though he is scolding a child for the hundredth time about not doing his chores. Mary tightens up and moves back slightly in her chair. (The therapist recognizes this pattern from earlier discussions.) Mary, if the therapist permits it, will repeat her part of the calibration loops. She will respond to Fred's tone of voice and his body gestures by Mind Reading specifically that he is trying to "put her in her place." At this point, the therapist chooses to intervene at the transition point of Fred's incongruity. Since both Fred and Mary are calibrated in this content area, the task will be to break that calibrated loop for both of them. This has two steps: First, to teach Fred that the way he looks and sounds does not match his intent and his words — that his outsides do not match his insides — and to try to teach Fred to communicate both sets of messages congruently, one at a time, instead of incongruently, both at once. This teaches Fred a new way to communicate, and, at the same time, presents Mary with communication which doesn't have two conflicting messages from which she must choose.

Therapist: I heard you say in words that you wanted Mary to be more loving. I also heard a tone of voice and saw you move and gesture in a way which didn't look like you were loving when you said it to her. (The therapist demonstrates Fred's communication, exaggerating the analogue tones and gestures.) Could you put in words what you were feeling when you did this?

Fred: (sighing, as he recognizes the analogue communication) Yeah, well, it is like I've been through this before, and, well, I ask and she just pulls away from me anyway.

Therapist: So you're feeling kind of helpless, but at the same time you do want more loving actions from Mary?

Fred: Yeah, I guess I do feel kind of helpless (sounding and looking helpless).

The therapist at this point can make it even more of a learning experience for the family by presenting Fred with two examples of the same communication. For example:

Therapist: Fred, I understand now that you do feel sort of helpless when you try to communicate your desire for connection with Mary, and I would like to help you. When you ask for contact with Mary, for her to be more loving, you said she seems to just pull away more. Is that right?

Fred: Yes.

Therapist: Well, Fred, I am going to be you and you be Mary. I am going to ask you for contact for loving twice, once like I experienced you doing it, and once in another way. Would you just sit and watch and listen, and see if you can understand Mary's pulling away?

Fred: Sure.

The therapist then presents Fred with two models or examples of communication, one incongruent, the other congruent with matching tones, gestures and words. Then, the therapist asks Fred to try it in this new way. When he does this, Mary's response is to take his hand.

The point is that people are not aware of their incongruity, and intervention at this transition point provides an opportunity for learnings which can permeate any areas, independent of the specific content. The person who learns of his incongruity, as well as those who watch and listen to this process, discovers that there is more going on than he ever realized. This leads us to the second transition point at which a therapist can intervene to break calibrated loops.

When Fred initially made his first incongruent communication, Mary responded by tightening up — she was calibrated (operating on a fixed generalization from the past) to respond only to his analogue communication. As she observed the process of the therapist's teaching Fred about the difference between his intended message and the outside result, she was also learning about how she was calibrated to ignore other messages from Fred. She did not acknowledge his words, only his tone of voice and his gestures. In essence, she decided that the analogue message was the real message and responded only to it. The therapist could have chosen to intervene at this transition point first; for example:

Therapist: Mary, as I heard Fred ask for you to be more loving, I saw you flinch, and I'm wondering what you saw, heard, and felt as he said this.

Mary: Oh, he was just criticizing me again. I never am sensual enough for him.

Therapist: I heard him ask for something for himself. I wonder if you could say what made you feel as though he were criticizing you. Was it his tone of voice or the way he looked? Did you not believe what he was asking?

Mary: It was like he was yelling at me for making a mistake. Hummmm ... I guess I don't believe he was asking but that he was telling me.

Therapist: Would you like to check that out? I have a guess at this point in time that Fred has some trouble asking directly for things for himself, that maybe he believes he won't get it anyway, so he asks in a very clumsy way. I think that maybe you don't know how to understand any better than he knows how to ask. I think that there is something here for both of you to learn, if you would be willing. I would like to check it out with him and try to find some way through this block.

From this point, the therapist can teach Mary that both sets of messages she receives are valid, and that she has been responding only to one of them — to a gesture and tone which she doesn't understand. By asking, she can get helpful feedback; by continuing with the calibrated communication, she will only feel bad. At the same time, this teaches Fred that his message was clumsy, and that Mary's response was to his non-verbal message. Furthermore, his understanding of her response was a misinterpretation of her non-verbal message.

The therapist may also choose to break the calibration at the transition point of generalization. When Mary heard Fred's incongruent communication, she made a decision to pay attention only to the non-verbal part of that communication. Just as Fred didn't understand that his output did not match his intent, so, too, Mary did not understand that her response did not match Fred's intent. His gestures and his tone of voice were not congruent for Mary with asking — they were congruent with her experience of demanding. She had the feeling that he was criticizing her, telling her that she felt a certain way, the way she feels when she is being criticized, and was demanding something, so she generalized.

Let's examine the process of generalization more closely.

1) Fred is incongruent in his communication, presenting Mary with sets of messages which do not match. Specifically, he consciously intends to ask her for more loving, and his words match his conscious intent; he also feels helpless, and this feeling (largely outside of awareness) is reflected in his tonality, body posture and gestures. . ..

2) Mary must now respond. She sees Fred's body posture and gestures and hears his tone of voice, and she responds to that set of messages rather than to his words.