NLP: Speech Manipulation Techniques and Paradoxes

Hello everyone, this is Stalilingus! Today, I’d like to share some valuable material with you—just a heads up, it’s not originally mine. Here, you’ll find the main NLP terms that often appear in my articles. Every practitioner should take this material into account.

If you’re new here and find the information below insufficient, I have a few questions for you:

1. Have you read the article on presuppositions? Some of the material is repeated below.
2. Or the one about language patterns or belief-busting techniques?

Still haven’t? Then what are you doing here?..

Speech Manipulation in Communication

Let’s clarify the term “manipulation.” In most contexts, it means something like “skilled handling of objects,” as in “The juggler manipulated knives.” But in psychology, it refers to “covert influence”—skillfully organized, but therefore sneaky and inappropriate. In NLP, “manipulation” also often means covert, that is, unconscious influence. However, the meaning is more neutral—manipulation is simply an effective tool, and whether it’s good or bad depends on the context, purpose, and consequences of its use.

In many intervention cases, manipulation is necessary simply because it’s not worth dealing with the client’s conscious mind—it not only can’t help, but may even get in the way. Of course, manipulations can also be used in everyday communication to make it more effective, successful, or whatever you need it to be.

So, manipulation: the scary, hidden influence. But it’s only hidden from those who don’t understand it. If the influence is obvious, it’s no longer hidden, and not really manipulation. So here’s another reason to learn about all this—if you don’t want someone to unethically manipulate you without your consent.

This article will focus only on verbal methods of influence, leaving nonverbal ones—like anchoring—for another time. So, what counts as speech manipulation in communication?

• Presuppositions – the axioms of the created reality.
• Reframing – managing the meaning of statements.
• Belief-busting patterns – speech patterns that break down beliefs.
• Speech paradoxes – ways to create confusion.
• Embedded messages – hidden commands within text.

Internal Reality

If you see a piece of an image, you automatically fill in the rest. To recognize a person, you only need a photo of their face; to identify a leopard, just a part of its muzzle. And that’s just for a single word. What about imagining a whole situation?

Based on a snippet of information, we build our own understanding. To grasp the meaning of a photo, you need to know what the UK is, who the Queen is, what she usually rides, and so on. We all live in an illusory world—even information seemingly received from our senses is processed by the brain. About 99.9% of it.

When we communicate with words, we don’t even transmit that 0.1%—just references to previous experience.

Think of a “dog”—everyone imagines a dog, but for some it’s a huge Great Dane, for others a dachshund puppy, and for others an abstract mutt. The same goes for situations: “The husband was late for dinner”—everyone imagines something different, from a joke (“the wife has a lover”) to a tragedy (“the wife was sure he was with his mistress, and when he opened the door, she shot him three times”).

When we communicate, we create a certain reality. In this reality, the Queen of the UK exists—if we talk about her; a leopard exists—if we talk about leopards; or “successful behavior”—if we talk about problem-solving. This reality may match a person’s mental map, or it may not. What will a person do if there’s a mismatch? Call you a liar, think it over, adjust their own map? Which will they choose? If we want to influence them, the reality we propose must be “stronger.” But how?

For example, I claim that a client “is capable of handling the problem,” but the client isn’t so sure. I can appeal to their conscious mind with lots of logical arguments, I can try to motivate them to accept this belief, or I can address their unconscious—and it will do the work. In most cases, this is much more effective than convincing the conscious mind. The unconscious just acts—the person simply comes, handles the situation, and buys what they need.

All types of speech manipulation are different ways to influence the unconscious. But the conscious mind stands guard, critically checking incoming information. To instruct the unconscious, you need to “turn off” the conscious mind—distract it, lower its criticality, “put it to sleep.”

One well-known way to lower criticality is rapport (a type of connection between people characterized by mutual positive emotional relations and a certain level of understanding). Almost all speech influence techniques work only in a state of rapport, which distinguishes them from, say, anchoring techniques. But there are other ways too—like pattern interruption.

One more important thing: you can only change a person in the direction they’re ready to change. The change must align with their values. Pure technique without a foundation in values doesn’t work. Of course, interpretations of values can be quite diverse.

Presuppositions

Presuppositions are the axioms of the reality created by speech. For example, for the phrase, “The Queen of the UK rode the train today,” the Queen, the UK, and trains must exist. Otherwise, the phrase makes no sense. So, the existence of the Queen, the UK, and the train are the axioms of this reality—they are presupposed.

It’s easy to identify a presupposition: put a negation in front of the phrase, and whatever remains unchanged is the presupposition.

• When you leave the room, you’ll remember me.
• Even if you don’t leave the room, you’ll remember me—“you’ll remember me” remains, as do the room, you, and me.

How It Works

Presuppositions create a reality where only the desired choices exist.

• Do you realize you can handle the situation?—in this reality, the person is capable of handling the situation, whatever it may be.
• Will you come by tomorrow morning or after lunch?—in this reality, the person will come by no matter what. The only choice is morning or after lunch.

Presuppositions distract the conscious mind, which is procedural and straightforward—using questions, choices, sequential instructions.

• How interested are you in reading this article?
• You can read the article first and then practice presuppositions, or practice as you read.

But these tricks don’t work well on people who understand the process or don’t fall for such things. I ask my five-year-old son:

• Anton, will you brush your teeth before or after the cartoon?
• No, he answers—completely missing the point.

But as he got older, he started falling for similar constructions—though not all of them.

Presuppositions really do work well. But you have to use them correctly. If your entire speech is made up of obvious presuppositions, listeners may get seriously annoyed. Also, improper nonverbal marking—tension, nervousness, etc.—can have a negative effect. Listeners start to tense up, get nervous, their conscious mind kicks in and…

• You can pay by card or cash.
• I wasn’t planning to buy anything at all.

So, stay calm, maintain rapport, and respect your conversation partner.

If a presupposition goes too much against their intentions—say, they’re not planning to buy right now—don’t force such a rigid reality. You can make it softer:

• I see you’ve been looking at sofas for a while, and this one caught your eye. Maybe you should take another look and make a final decision.

Proper use of presuppositions is the foundation of any effective NLP communication. Presuppositions define the communicative reality, and if you control them, reality will be as you intend. If not, reality may not turn out as planned. Sometimes, odd constructions and limiting beliefs pop up, which, while they can help uncover your own issues, create a rather awkward reality.

• Only a loser like me could have done this!
• When you realize you don’t like me, let me know right away.

Why should someone else believe in a new—bright, beautiful, correct (otherwise, what’s the point?)—reality if you don’t believe in it yourself? These are your own limitations coming out in your speech. So, effectiveness starts with yourself, with understanding your goals and the consequences. If someone says you can just learn a couple of tricks and everything will work out: “Just say ‘your place or mine?’ and she’s yours”—they’re lying to you.

Techniques only work if everything else works too. And everything else is, essentially, you. We have no other tool to influence the world but ourselves. If I’m ineffective, how can my communication be effective?

But we know that anyone can improve themselves. And, strangely enough, speech manipulation is one of the tools on this path. We can control our own speech and, through it, manage ourselves. Most communication problems come not from lack of technique, but from our own limitations.

Conversational Reframing and Belief-Busting

The next widely used pattern is conversational reframing—playing with meaning. People don’t react to the situation itself, but to the meaning they assign to it.

• I’m not mean, I’m just honest.
• Greed for knowledge is an important skill. If you know what I mean.

You can change this meaning directly, swapping one meaning for another: hot-tempered—emotional, rude—a real man, cautious—a coward; or by changing what the person considers the situation or context. Anger is usually bad, but in sports, it can be very useful. That’s the whole structure: reframing meaning and context. Or you can just look for another perspective, boldly shifting the frame.

• My husband cheated on me.
• Did he cheat with your best friend?
• No, of course not!
• With your sister?
• No!
• What a considerate man.

For good reframing, you need a creative state (flow, drive) more than understanding structure or having a thousand prepared lines. Drive! That’s what you need. Reframing should create an “aha!” moment, turning the person in a new direction. You say something, and suddenly something changes inside them: “Wow! I never thought of it that way.”

• No one loves me.
• You must be a big shot if six billion people don’t love you.

Of course, you can find tons of arguments “for” and “against” any statement. But you only need one that hits home—and you have to deliver it in a way that hits home. We’re not working with the conscious mind—it wants logical arguments and lots of reasoning—the unconscious is better surprised.

• I eat too much.
• You know, there are plenty of places where you won’t get to eat that much. For example—prison. In our country, it’s very easy to get sent to that “resort.”

Reframing doesn’t have to be smart or correct—it has to be unexpected. In a way, it’s just another form of pattern interruption. Breaking limitations.

• Men don’t like me.
• That’s a great phrase for self-training. Keep up that confidence and it’ll surely help you avoid close relationships.

If we apply reframing to beliefs, we get belief-busting. The rules are the same. There are belief-busting techniques that change the context of a belief, and those that change the belief from within by altering its meaning. Believe it or not, in most cases, that’s all you need to know. Beliefs can be changed. You can move them to another situation—that’s context reframing—or tweak something inside—that’s meaning reframing. Sure, you can list all 14 types, and enthusiasts can look them up. But we’re talking about drive and the big picture. You just have to trust your intuition more. Just change your perspective, think outside the box. This takes constant practice—on yourself. To create successful reframes and belief-busting, you need to be a flexible person. So, once again, it all starts with yourself.

One more important thing: for belief-busting to work, it must be based on what matters to the person.

• You shouldn’t make decisions hastily.
• I think it’s more important to focus on making the right decision than on how quickly you make it.

This will only work if “the right decision” is important to the person. If not, it’ll fall flat.

Speech Paradoxes

Another way to bypass the conscious mind is to break the pattern—with a phrase. Completely. To put your conversation partner into a trance. Deeply. So the person is conscious, but not really. A kind of being-nonbeing.

Speech paradoxes are based on a simple principle—they’re things you can say but can’t imagine: black whiteness, free unfreedom, don’t think about your thinking, angry kindness. The phrases sound linguistically correct, but reality “doesn’t add up.” The person not only goes into a trance, but also steps outside their usual perceptions. Or stepping outside their usual perceptions leads to a trance. The further out, the deeper… No, that’s another story.

Speech paradoxes are just one way to break habitual thinking, to think outside the box. Naturally, this means breaking old beliefs and forming new ones. This is changing stability—stable change.

You’ve probably encountered speech paradoxes—they’re common in both Western and Eastern cultures. For example, an “oxymoron”—a combination of words with opposite meanings (i.e., combining the incompatible)—is a classic example of a speech paradox. Many are so common that we don’t even notice them anymore.

• Manly woman.
• I’ll probably definitely come.
• Living corpse.
• Complete emptiness.

Think of movie titles: “True Lies,” “Ordinary Miracle,” “Eyes Wide Shut.”

In Eastern culture, speech paradoxes appear in Sufi stories and Zen koans: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” And in fairy tales from all over the world, regardless of geography. Like the riddle: “You must come neither naked nor dressed, on foot but not on the ground, not barefoot but not shod…”

Given that speech paradoxes exist in almost every culture, they’re pretty useful—they help us move beyond binary thinking, expand consciousness, and all without strong drugs.

Embedded Messages

And now, the jewel of linguistic influence—what Milton Erickson called his main discovery—embedded messages. It’s a very simple thing: if you highlight certain words in a message and they form a meaningful phrase, that phrase will go straight to the unconscious as a command.

Take the phrase: “You are confident,” and insert it into someone’s monologue.

• You’re thinking right now about whether I’m confident in success? Yes, I am. I promised myself I could do it.

You can highlight with intonation, a hand gesture, bold or different font—whatever you like. Embedded messages aren’t just a pattern—they’re a whole science. Although an easy one. So easy you just need a little practice. But it works.

Come up with a command and insert it into your text. You can use a metaphor or a story. Or anything else. You can even take a newspaper article and practice marking it up.

Stalilingus