3) In her past experience with Fred (and others), the tonality she presently hears and the body posture and gestures are associated with demands he has made on her.

4) Mary's decision in step (2) above, plus her past experience with the part of Fred's incongruent communication to which she is attending and responding, lead her to the generalization that Fred is demanding something from her.

5) In the past, these demands, for Mary, have been connected with feelings of helplessness and anger at the unfairness of being imposed upon. Her response to Fred, then, is based more on these past feelings of anger and helplessness than on the present time-place situation.

The therapist needs to be aware that surface communication often contains deeper messages which, if uncovered, can help to establish feedback. This process of generalization constitutes another transition point at which calibration can be broken. For example:

Therapist: Mary, as Fred just asked you a question, I was wondering what this was like for you. How did you feel as Fred just asked for you to be loving?

Mary: Well, I felt like he was scolding me, telling me what I should do.

Therapist: Could you say what made you feel that way?

Mary: Well, he looked disgusted and he sounded angry.

Therapist: How did you feel as he did this?

Mary: I guess I felt defensive, pushed.

Therapist: Mary, when you see Fred looking disgusted and sounding mad, as you described he just did, does that mean he is criticizing you and pushing you?

Mary: Of course; he does that kind of thing a lot.

Therapist: Oh, so that's it. Mary, have you ever had the experience of being disgusted with yourself, or mad at yourself, and so when you spoke to someone else, it didn't come off quite the way you meant?

Mary: Well, yes; but this is different — he does this a lot.

Therapist: You're so very sure? Is it possible that this big, strong guy over here maybe doesn't feel that strong on the inside, so, when he talks to you about something which is important to him, it doesn't come out quite right? Is that a possibility?

Mary: Well, I guess so.

Therapist: Would you like to find out? I have a hunch that when Fred feels low and looks and sounds like he just did, you take one look at him and go, "Oh, my God; what have I done now?"

Breaking calibrated communication at the transition point of generalization requires that the therapist have access to some experience which the family member has had which contradicts the generalization. Or the therapist can simply create one by checking out the generalization with the other family members. Generalization can also be broken linguistically by exaggeration. For example, the therapist could say:

Therapist: Mary, if you believe this, both you and Fred are in a real bind. Do you mean that Fred has to wear a perpetual smile and always sound happy or you're being criticized and demands put upon you? That sounds like a terrible burden for both of you. Is that what you're telling me?

Fixed generalizations from the past is the next transition point in calibration loops and is also another juncture at which the therapist can intervene. Mary can be helped to build a program which, for the most part, will be outside of awareness, and which has the following steps:

When Mary thinks that someone is angry at her, she feels bad in a certain way. At some other point in time, when Fred is communicating with her, but he is not angry at her, if she feels bad in that same way, then she has a fixed generalization which says, "If I feel bad in this specific way, then Fred must be angry at me."

Mary has come to experience her world in a certain way, and she has learned to move in that world by paying attention exclusively to certain clues from outside of herself, while, at the same time, ignoring all of the other messages she is receiving. This limits what is possible for her to experience. By making it possible for Mary to accept and act on the other, presently unnoticed, clues, the therapist helps her to break the fixed generalization that has held her in bondage. In other words, when Fred is angry and demanding, he presents a whole set of messages. When he communicates incongruently, he presents a small part of the messages which he uses when he is angry. Mary is calibrated by fixed generalization to interpret any of the analogue communications which occur when Fred is angry to mean that he is angry. So, by her calibration, she responds to only a part of Fred's total message. One choice the therapist has here is to make the Complex Equivalence explicit — to label it — and then to demonstrate that it is not necessary and, in fact, distorts the communication process.

Mary: Yes, I know what he was saying: That I'm not good enough and he is tired of it and that I don't give enough.

Therapist: That isn't what I heard. What makes you think he means you're not good enough and that he is tired of it?

Mary: Well, look at him.

Therapist: What is it about the way he looks that makes you think he is tired of you and that you're not being good enough?

Mary: He always looks that way when he is tired of my making the same mistake, even when it is just not balancing my check book.

Therapist: So, if Fred makes that particular face, then anything he says means he is tired of your making

some mistake?

Mary: Yeah; well, it sounds kinda . . .

Therapist: What if he makes that face and tells you he has to go to the bathroom, is that your fault, too?

Mary: Well, no.

Therapist: Then it's not always?

Mary: No.

Therapist: Is it possible that Fred could mean something else and maybe you're just using that face as a way to be hard on yourself? Is that a possibility, maybe? (She nods "yes.") Let's find out, shall we?

Here the therapist has a chance to give new meaning and, therefore, new choices for responding to familiar behavior.

Breaking calibration loops in this way not only teaches that, just as family members are not mediums who can read minds, neither are they such good logicians, either. Most importantly, the therapist provides a model for family members to use when they have been — or suspect they have been — misunderstood. They learn that feedback works two ways, that uncovering the process beneath a response can be a tool to understanding as well as to being understood. The success of the therapist in breaking calibrated loops will be the model for family members later on, and the experience will also be an incentive for further change, especially when it is done lightly, gracefully, and without blame.

Once one of the calibrations is firmly enough established in the patterns of interaction of a family, the responses may be so programmed that, if one member does X, then another member automatically responds with Y. For example, the dialogue which occurs when one family member begins to speak and another member says, "I know what you're thinking; you don't have to tell me," is typical of what we term Mind Reading. At this point, the therapist has the choice of cutting into the Mind Reading just long enough to break the calibration. This simply may require repetitiously interrupting the pattern until the interruption itself becomes part of the process, so that intervention toward breaking the calibration can occur. For example, every time Amy begins to speak, her husband, Bill, starts to shake his head back and forth "no" before she has uttered more than half a word. Amy immediately flies into a rage, which is just what Bill claims he knew was going to happen. At this point, Amy tries to reply, stating that it is making her mad, but, as she begins to speak, Bill again starts to shake his head. In order to change this pattern, the therapist needs to interrupt long enough to gain the attention of the family members. For the therapist to make the same criticism as Amy offers would only serve to set up the same system for Bill with the therapist as he has with Amy. Here is where humor and pattern-interruption become powerful tools. The therapist tells both of them to stop.