Nick Kemp Blog

The Provocative Change Works™ approach was developed from working with thousands of clients in my private practice, and from my 26 weeks of consecutive guest appearances on BBC Radio working with different phobics live “on the air”.  This work was inspired by my interactions with Frank Farrelly and his generosity and assistance in studying his Provocative Therapy for many years. Studies of Milton Erickson’s work also form the basis of the hypnosis aspect of this approach.

Provocative Change Works™ combines three specific approaches to shift clients from “a stuck state” to a more fluid state, allowing for greater freedom and choice. This is a conversational way of working and requires the practitioner to pay excellent attention to the client responses, whilst simultaneously maintaining excellent state control. 

These three elements that underpin this method are

• Provoking or stimulating client responses by verbal and non verbal interactions
• Using non-specific or indirect Hypnosis – to create “fluid states” for the client
• Time Framing - Promoting new ways of moving through time and space

The practitioner deliberately provokes (calls forth responses from) the client by adopting different discrete perceptual positions, which stimulate the client into new ways of thinking and feeling.  The practitioner seeks out resistances in the client and then approaches most what the client seeks to avoid in the discussion, and identifies the client’s “blind spots”, using a great deal of humour and by working in an improvised manner. Great use is made of “sensory rich language”, and the full expression of this, to engage the client, and thus take them on a journey outside their existing beliefs and experience, to a new sense of freedom. The practitioner works in a multi layered way without the limitations of some conventions found in many talk therapy approaches,(such as removing the therapist as much as possible from the interaction) and crucially always with an attitude of warmth as if chatting to an old friend. This apparent freedom is of course underpinned by all the ethical and professional principles of good clinical practice. The benefit of this is that one can have warm caring and human interactions, which enables the client to find their own solutions from a new and useful state.

I created “The Provocative Icon System™ to help train others in this art of provocation after studying extensively with Frank Farrelly the creator of Provocative Therapy. Each icon card represents a different perceptual position that the practitioner can adopt to provoke changes in client thinking.

There are currently 36 provocative cards, cards which are inspired by Frank’s work but Provocative Change Works™ crucially differs greatly from classic Provocative Therapy in that in this approach I deliberately include elements of hypnosis alongside the “provocative conversation” Some of these perceptual positions include the following – blame the client, encourage the client to do even more of the same problem behaviour, give bad advice, mimic the client, ignore the client, interrupt the client, pause and blame everything else for the client’s “problem”  These communications take place “as if talking to an old friend with a twinkle in the eye and warmth in the heart”.  Often these interactions can seem somewhat surreal, but to use a musical analogy the practitioner is aware of the central musical theme and even though he or she may play outside the main tune, they are fully aware of where they are heading to create a dynamic and memorable experience for the listener.

Provocative Change Works™ also includes a number of specific bespoke exercises which incorporate hypnosis and provocative communication to help shift client “stuck states”. Many of these are excellent for working with anxiety states, which I specialize in when working in private practice. These exercises include “The Voice Tempo Exercise” that was published In Steve Andreas’s book “Help with Negative Self Talk Volume 1” To date I have used this approach with over 1800 clients with complete success .This is one of the exercises used on the recent 4 DVD “Provocative Change Works™ for Anxiety set, which also includes real client sessions and includes step by step video narration from myself.

All client sessions are recorded on CD and the client is given a copy of the session to listen back to as a key part of the session. When working with clients I deliberately frame the communication so that when the client listens’s back to the recording it’s as if they are listening in “the here and now.” A typical example of how aspects of the hypnosis are framed in these sessions is “As you are now listening back to this, you can continue to discover…”  Another example showing the time framing element is “As you are now listening notice which single smallest step comes to mind that will be useful for you to move through time and space with greater ease” As well as running a very busy private practice I am delighted to be running Provocative Change Works™ trainings in London, Warsaw, New York, San Francisco, Denver and India throughout 2010 and 2011.

Nick Kemp – Creator of Provocative Change Works™ and Frank Farrelly approved Provocative Therapy Trainer

www.nickkemp.com