Generative change is when I learn that if stopping smoking was so easy, then I can probably consistently continue an exercise program. And learn a new language, or two. And change my diet. Then I find out that change can actually be fun, so I try changing my diet every three months. Consistently and impeccably following it in those three months, but thenchanging to another one. Does being a vegetarian make me feel more alive than eating red meat three times a day? I'll test it on the only one that matters -- myself. Does this set of beliefs allow me to enjoy life more than another set? Anchor my old set as a get out clause, install the new set, and away I go.

I think of it much like the difference between distance, speed and acceleration. The basic variable instead of distance is the behavior. Change in behaviour is like speed, and changing the changes is like acceleration. So, if you start to accelerate, it's not only your distance from your starting point that changes, but the rate at which it changes, changes. My internal imagery is of making one 1-dimensional change (a line), and then another along side it (two lines together), and yet another, until you realise you are capable of moving in an orthogonal direction (the lines build to form a square, and perhaps those squares join to form a cube). Eventually you realise that you can write whatever you want in that space. But I'm getting a little fanciful.

If I can change so many fundamental things about my life, I could probably start building new things 'inside' to make everything 'outside' more enjoyable. An internal machine to tell me what my body really needs to eat at a certain time. A machine to start generating completely new beliefs about my own abilities. A machine to give me more accuracy and precision in everything I do.

Now, if I installed generative change in a client, I would expect him or her not just to get around the problem that they came to me with, but realise that they could change so many other things as well. That this was just going to the first of many enjoyable changes.

This is how I saw the difference between remedial and generative change, but I do think it all originally stemmed from Bateson's definitions in 'Steps to an Ecology of Mind', which I haven't read. By the way, I view Bandler, McKenna, Breen trainings as going a long way to installing generative change in their participants.

Ta (still part of my smoking induction),

Robin

Last updated: 25 September 1997