Mirroring

Something to think about ....... MIRRORING!

There have been a lot of theories as to why Mirroring someone develops rapport. Some have said it makes the person feel like they are looking at a subconscious mirror of themselves. Recent studies may help explain why Mirroring someone physically makes them feel comfortable. When you look at the human brain, there is an area, the ventral pre-motor area, that houses neurons that are called mirror neurons, or "monkey see, monkey do" neurons. Dr. Giacomo Rizzolatti of the University of Parma found in his research that any cell in this area will fire when a test monkey performs a single, highly specific action with his hand, like pulling, pushing, tugging, picking up, grasping something, etc. It appears, according to Dr. Rizzolatti findings, that different neurons fire in response to different actions. One might be led to think that these are command motor neurons, making certain muscles do certain specific actions. The amazing truth is that any given mirror neuron will also fire when the monkey being watched, observes another monkey, or even the experimenter, performing the same action. Think of the power of this finding. This may be one of the key reasons why when you're in rapport with someone, you have a tendency to perform the same movements. You are firing the same neurons in your brains. With this new knowledge of these neurons and brain actions, we may have the start of the basis for decoding the aspects of the human mind that have thus far eluded us. Things like "mind reading", imitation learning, empathy, and intentionally, maybe even the basis of language. So when it comes to our rapport usage of physically mirroring someone's physical movements, when you watch some else doing something, or even starting to do it, the corresponding mirror neurons fire in your brain. This may allow you to read and understand anther's intentions. So there may be a true physical basis of "stepping into another's movements", which opens up stepping into their mental mindset.

This comes from the work of Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, of the University of California-San Diego, in an article in New Scientist. He studied three patients with Anosognosia. They all denied that their left arms were paralyzed, when it was obviously the case. It was found that two of these three also denied the paralysis of another patient whose arm was clearly visible to them. It is thought that this strange observation can be best understood in terms of damage to Rizzolatti's mirror neurons.

Dr. Ramachandran and Dr. Eric Altschuler have studied brain waves associated with arm movements in normal subjects. These brain waves are normally suppressed when the subject begins any voluntary movement, but they now find they are also surprised when the subject watches another performing actions. This leads to the questions, could these brain waves reflect the activity of the mirror neuron systems?

The next time you are mirroring someone to get into rapport, think about the fact you may be mirroring his or her brain wave patterns! This may explain why when you get into deep rapport, you seem to step into their heads.

Dr. Wil Horton is a long standing certified member of IMDHA and an excellent NLP trainer.
www.nfnlp.com