Association and Dissociation

The “dissociated” state is usually defined as a state of “separation from” or “non-association with” a specific experience. In NLP, an “associated” state refers to experiencing a situation or event as if you are living through what is happening: you see everything through your own eyes, feel your body and emotions, hear with your own ears, and sense the smells and tastes present at the time. A “dissociated” experience involves observing yourself from the perspective of an outside observer, as if you are watching your own behavior on a movie or video screen.

Robert Dilts, Judith DeLozier. “The Evolution of Perceptual Positions”

Understanding Association and Dissociation

Our perception of the world is a complex process. For example, you look at a chair and “know” it has four legs, even if you only see two. The brain, relying on sensory information, fills in the gaps based on previous experience. In fact, 99% of our perception is the work of the brain.

But the trick with knowing about the invisible legs of a chair isn’t the most interesting part. For instance, we can perceive a situation as a participant, “through our own eyes,” or we can observe it “from the outside.” The first way is called associated perception, the second — dissociated. In many cases, these differences in perception can be quite significant.

• Association: I see the situation through my own eyes.
• Dissociation: I see myself from the outside.

You can see yourself dissociated in many ways: from above, behind, to the right, to the left, etc.

With associated perception, we participate in the situation and experience it from the inside. With dissociated perception, we evaluate what’s happening as an outside observer. For example, playing soccer and feeling excitement, muscle tension, and the wind on your face (association), versus watching a movie about yourself playing soccer and evaluating your performance as a spectator (dissociation). In the first case, you have access to internal (muscle tension, chest tightness), tactile (wind on your face), and meta-feelings (joy, anger, irritation, happiness). In the second case, you only access meta-feelings, which reflect your evaluation of “my behavior in the situation”: like/dislike, good/bad, irritating, inspiring, etc.

Dissociation allows you to “disconnect” from a situation and evaluate it more calmly. Association lets you “be in the situation.” For example, in most cases, dissociating from unpleasant situations can sharply reduce the intensity of your feelings. But dissociating from pleasant situations is an effective way to make your life feel “gray.”

I once had a client who was dissociated during sex. She described it like this: “I see two people having sex. But what does that have to do with me?”

When Is Dissociation or Association Useful?

Dissociation gives you the ability to perceive a situation more objectively, which can be helpful when dealing with unpleasant situations or when you need to assess a situation with high emotional involvement. For example: remembering a difficult conversation with your boss, or falling off a bike. Dissociation can also be useful when you need to evaluate your behavior or appearance, such as choosing clothes or in ballroom dancing.

Association, on the other hand, allows you to access the emotions within a situation. This can be helpful when recalling pleasant experiences or for greater emotional involvement in the present moment. For example: enjoying a delicious meal, a pleasant conversation with friends, or sex.

Are Feelings Always Weaker in a Dissociated State?

Not always. Sometimes, feelings in a dissociated state can be even stronger than in an associated state — they’re just different. For example, a person might see themselves “from the outside” speaking calmly and confidently at a conference and feel a surge of pride. This pride “here” can be much stronger than the calmness “there.” Sometimes, in a dissociated state, a person may feel much stronger negative emotions than when associated: “When I imagine how silly I looked with that smile…”

Is Dissociation Always Visualization?

In most cases, yes. Dissociation is always a form of mental construction, and it’s much easier to do visually. You imagine how you look “from the outside.” You can also dissociate auditorily: imagine hearing your own voice “from the outside,” like on a recording. But this is a bit harder, at least for people in our culture.

In principle, if you think of dissociation as emotional detachment from a situation, then switching to a digital (thinking) channel is also a form of dissociation: “I think about what happened.” Another simple way to dissociate from a situation is to describe the process using nominalizations:

• “I talked to Anna today.”
• “I had a conversation with Anna today.”

What If My Dissociated Image Is Very Vague? Is That Bad?

It’s whatever works for you. Dissociation is a construction. In fact, it’s often useful to make constructed images different from real ones. One way is to make them more blurry. But there can be other submodal shifts. The main thing is ecological fit, convenience, and effectiveness. If your constructed images become too “real,” problems can arise. Imagine someone who can’t distinguish between situations from their past and those they only imagined. Others might not understand them.

Is There a Connection Between Personality Types and Association/Dissociation?

If you mean types based on preferred sensory channels, then yes. Visual types are more prone to dissociation, kinesthetic types to association. But this is just a tendency.

If I See a Picture Without Myself in It, Is That Dissociation?

No. Dissociation means “seeing yourself from the outside.” If you’re not in the picture, it’s not dissociation.

Summary Table

• Association
  • Experience the situation as a participant
  • See through your own eyes
  • Speak for yourself
  • Only one possible perspective
  • Access to internal, tactile, and meta-feelings
  • First-person language: “I think that…”
• Dissociation
  • Experience the situation as an observer
  • See yourself from the outside
  • Hear yourself from the outside
  • Multiple possible perspectives
  • Only meta-feelings
  • Third-person language: “He thinks that…”, “Ivan Petrovich thinks that…”

Exercise: “View from the Outside”

In pairs: Operator — Client. The operator names a “point of view” (either associated or dissociated): view from the ceiling, from behind the ear, through your own eyes, from behind. The client describes a (current) situation from this point of view. The operator also calibrates the differences between the states. 10 minutes.

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