How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 154

Why it works
Davis and Knowles based this approach on a study of hypnotist Milton Erikson's methods whereby he
would deliberately disrupt thinking and behaving and hence destabilize his patients' habitual patterns
and then change that thinking whilst the patient was still unsure what to think next.
This method uses the principle of confusion to unfreeze
the person and then uses reframing in a hurt and rescue
route to closure.
In their 'pennies' example, the use of '300 pennies' is a
disruption of the normal '3 dollars'. Whilst the person is
trying to figure out what this means, the reframe 'which is
a bargain' is slipped in as an explanation, which many
people accept and hence conclude that it is worth
purchasing before they decide that 300 pennies is really
$3, which is not worth paying.
Rather than use standard persuasive pressure, as in
traditional one-off selling, it acts more subtly to create
alternative forms of tension that are literally doubly (as in
Davis and Knowles' experiment) as effective. The aim is
thus to reduce avoidance rather than focus first on
increasing attractiveness.
The persuader thus becomes a trusted supporter rather
than an oppositional enforcer, which supports future
persuasion as in relationship selling or collaborative
negotiation.
Fennis, Das and Pruyn extended this principle to show that this disruption and reframing approach was
applicable across a wider range of settings. Specifically, the Disrupt-Then-Reframe technique reduced
the extent of objections a