SLEIGHT OF MOUTH is a persuasion skill, a vehicle for the reframing of
beliefs. It is a system of 14 different patterns of response to a stated
belief. A system that, once mastered, can allow you to always have a response
that will effectively elucidate your position and help you to persuade rather
than be persuaded. Simply put, it will help you win any argument, be verbally
powerful and powerfully verbal.

SLEIGHT OF MOUTH is a result of the methodology of NLP being applied to NLP,
or, more properly, to Richard Bandler's debate skills. NLP grew out of
Bandler and Grinder analyzing and codifying the methods of Milton Erickson,
Gregory Bateson, Virginia Satir and others. Robert Dilts applied this same
methodology to Bandler's own unique way with people. In his NLP Certification
courses, Bandler would challenge participants to use their newly acquired
skills to persuade him that a belief system adopted for the occasion (eg."I
can't see the curve, therefore the world is flat.") was wrong. As hard as
they tried, Bandler was always able to field an army of responses to turn
their "logical" arguments around. Dilts was impressed with this and then
fascinated to find that he was beginning to discern the patterns Bandler
used. Dilts systemized the patterns into specific categories and developed an
elegant mind map of them which makes it wonderfully easy and fun to use.

EG. WHEN YOUR WIFE SAYS, "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ME!"

As an example, If your lover or spouse were to say to you,"Your being late
means you don't care about me," you would immediately recognize this
syllogism as being perfect for a SLEIGHT OF MOUTH treatment. The syllogism is
A=B, a "complex equivalence." Statement A, "Your being late,""means"(=)
statement B,"You don't care about me." Now that might be true, but it's not
necessarily true. For your reply you could use the SLEIGHT OF MOUTH pattern
called "redefine" and say, "I wasn't late, I was delayed" (redefining the
word "late" in statement A) or "It's not that I don't care, its that I show
my caring differently" (redefining "care" in statement B). Another Pattern
you could use is the one called "Hierarchy of Criteria." Using this pattern
you could ask, "Isn't it more important to fulfill my responsibilities to the
people who are depending on me that to be punctual?"

Part of the power of SLEIGHT OF MOUTH is that it gives you more choices and
flexibility of possible responses. In the above paragraph I offered only two
of fourteen different possibilities. Imagine having that much verbal power at
your fingertips at all times.

While obviously powerful tools for a sales person or lawyer, they're useful
for a hypnotherapist or NLP Practitioner in a variety of ways. As an example,
a client's beliefs about therapy or hypnosis could inhibit their cooperation
in the therapeutic process. Sometimes a negative belief about life or health
is all that is stopping the client from making progress in the first place.
So if the therapist can create in the client's mind sufficient expectation
(ie. belief) of what this hypnosis will mean, then the job is 90% done before
the formal hypnosis even takes place.