There’s existing work on frame control, it’s not a term that Aella came up with herself. Without having traced the history too much I think it’s an NLP term that then got picked up by pick up artists.
Pretty much. The relevance for NLP is that if you’re trying to help someone out of say, a self-defeating mindset or victim state, then you need to be able to (at minimum) control your own frame so as not to get pulled into whatever role the person’s problems try to assign you (e.g. rescuer or persecutor).
The main thing I dislike about this post’s framing of frame control is that the original meaning of “frame control” is maintaining your own frame—i.e. the antidote to the abusive and manipulative behaviors described in this post. Not allowing yourself to be sucked in or trapped by the frames that other people attempt to establish, intentionally or not.
I’m not suggesting she came up with the term “frame control”—I’m suggesting she wrote several thousand words about gaslighting and didn’t mention the word “gaslighting.” It goes without saying that she didn’t engage at all with the vast commentary on the topic of gaslighting, which covers almost everything she said. I agree with the top comment from Anna Salamon that this post is clearly preliminary work and a few steps away still from good scholarship. A post integrating frame control, gaslighting, and the deployment of language in the exercise of power could get there; a post mentioning those things would be a significant improvement.
Im almost certain Aella purposely did not mention the fact that Frame Control is a well developed NLP/PUA/Power Sales term, because it would detract from their point. The problem of course, is that Frame Control is a googlable term.
There is plenty to be argued against malicious FC, but this post is akin to suddenly discovering that entropy exists, and warning LW about it.
If I punch you and say “I am only doing this for your own good; someone needs to punish your sins to make you stronger; you will thank me later”, that is frame control.
If I punch you and five minutes later say “no, I have never punched you; what made you make this horrible accusation”, that is gaslighting.
So perhaps “gaslighting” is a special case of “frame control”, but the main difference seems to be whether unambiguous sensory perceptions are denied (as oppposed to e.g. denying motivation).
If I punch you and say “I am only doing this for your own good; someone needs to punish your sins to make you stronger; you will thank me later”, that is frame control.
If I punch you and five minutes later say “no, I have never punched you; what made you make this horrible accusation”, that is gaslighting.
They sound the same to me. In both cases, the intent is to undermine the target’s perception of events in a way that supports continuing exploitation—i.e. gaslighting.
So perhaps “gaslighting” is a special case of “frame control”, but the main difference seems to be whether unambiguous sensory perceptions are denied (as oppposed to e.g. denying motivation).
Frame control is a general term that actually mostly refers to refusing to allow other people’s frames to be treated as common knowledge. You need frame control in order to gaslight, but frame control is also a defense against gaslighting, in the sense that one is vulnerable to gaslighting to the extent one is unable to control one’s own frame in response to provocative or manipulative communication.
I’ve never heard frame control used that way despite being fairly familiar with the modern NLP literature. First page of Google search also seems to mostly talk about controling other people’s frames.
There’s some sense in the PUA literature (and what comes up at SEO optimized blog posts) that they are written for an audience who’s insecure and seeks to learn techniques to gain power over other people. In reality, dealing with one’s own issues is often more important for the outcomes that are sought.
Frame control in the NLP sense is about things like not letting anything that the other person says trigger you. That’s useful in a coaching context for not letting the emotional problems of the coach interfere with the coaching intervention.
I have a few times heard stories of therapists getting angry at their patients for something that the patient said. That’s behavior I wouldn’t expect from anyone I know that’s skilled in NLP. Those people are generally in control of their own emotionals well enough to not switch into a state of anger because something triggers them.
For using principles such as pacing&leading it’s also necessary to have control over the state that you want to apply this towards.
That’s odd. When I googled “frame control” (prior to my comment) the first result was about programming, the second was this post, and the third was a 14-point article in which most of the illustrative examples were about ways of responding to social bullying, dominance displays, or manipulation of various sorts. That is, frame control as reaction to social maneuvering by others.
That’s also fairly consistent with things I’ve previously read, that establish the very first rule of frame control as not letting others trick, trap, or threaten you out of your intended frame for an interaction. And while some works do treat frame control as a zero sum game, the core message of most things I’ve read have been about internal frame defense and non-zero sum games.
For example, one book (literally entitled “Frame Control”) notes many times that “basing the strength of your frame on the weakness of others is not a good strategy” and provides quite a lot of exercises that are aimed at changing one’s internal beliefs and interpretation of situations, with frequent examples roughly of the form, “don’t try to argue, fight, trick, persuade, etc. people—instead just accept what people say and hold to your opinion, instead of being emotionally dependent on others agreeing with you”.
The type of “frame control” described in this post seems rather the opposite of that!
To connect the concepts here with some existing work: the special case of “frame control” where the result is self-doubt is also called “gaslighting.”
There’s existing work on frame control, it’s not a term that Aella came up with herself. Without having traced the history too much I think it’s an NLP term that then got picked up by pick up artists.
Pretty much. The relevance for NLP is that if you’re trying to help someone out of say, a self-defeating mindset or victim state, then you need to be able to (at minimum) control your own frame so as not to get pulled into whatever role the person’s problems try to assign you (e.g. rescuer or persecutor).
The main thing I dislike about this post’s framing of frame control is that the original meaning of “frame control” is maintaining your own frame—i.e. the antidote to the abusive and manipulative behaviors described in this post. Not allowing yourself to be sucked in or trapped by the frames that other people attempt to establish, intentionally or not.
I’m not suggesting she came up with the term “frame control”—I’m suggesting she wrote several thousand words about gaslighting and didn’t mention the word “gaslighting.” It goes without saying that she didn’t engage at all with the vast commentary on the topic of gaslighting, which covers almost everything she said. I agree with the top comment from Anna Salamon that this post is clearly preliminary work and a few steps away still from good scholarship. A post integrating frame control, gaslighting, and the deployment of language in the exercise of power could get there; a post mentioning those things would be a significant improvement.
Im almost certain Aella purposely did not mention the fact that Frame Control is a well developed NLP/PUA/Power Sales term, because it would detract from their point. The problem of course, is that Frame Control is a googlable term.
There is plenty to be argued against malicious FC, but this post is akin to suddenly discovering that entropy exists, and warning LW about it.
If I punch you and say “I am only doing this for your own good; someone needs to punish your sins to make you stronger; you will thank me later”, that is frame control.
If I punch you and five minutes later say “no, I have never punched you; what made you make this horrible accusation”, that is gaslighting.
So perhaps “gaslighting” is a special case of “frame control”, but the main difference seems to be whether unambiguous sensory perceptions are denied (as oppposed to e.g. denying motivation).
They sound the same to me. In both cases, the intent is to undermine the target’s perception of events in a way that supports continuing exploitation—i.e. gaslighting.
Frame control is a general term that actually mostly refers to refusing to allow other people’s frames to be treated as common knowledge. You need frame control in order to gaslight, but frame control is also a defense against gaslighting, in the sense that one is vulnerable to gaslighting to the extent one is unable to control one’s own frame in response to provocative or manipulative communication.
Yes. It would be better to write about this topic into two parts.
Frames, and frame control in general.
How (some) abusers use frame control, and how to defend yourself against it.
So that we do not immediately associate the new (neutral) concept with abuse.
I’ve never heard frame control used that way despite being fairly familiar with the modern NLP literature. First page of Google search also seems to mostly talk about controling other people’s frames.
There’s some sense in the PUA literature (and what comes up at SEO optimized blog posts) that they are written for an audience who’s insecure and seeks to learn techniques to gain power over other people. In reality, dealing with one’s own issues is often more important for the outcomes that are sought.
Frame control in the NLP sense is about things like not letting anything that the other person says trigger you. That’s useful in a coaching context for not letting the emotional problems of the coach interfere with the coaching intervention.
I have a few times heard stories of therapists getting angry at their patients for something that the patient said. That’s behavior I wouldn’t expect from anyone I know that’s skilled in NLP. Those people are generally in control of their own emotionals well enough to not switch into a state of anger because something triggers them.
For using principles such as pacing&leading it’s also necessary to have control over the state that you want to apply this towards.
That’s odd. When I googled “frame control” (prior to my comment) the first result was about programming, the second was this post, and the third was a 14-point article in which most of the illustrative examples were about ways of responding to social bullying, dominance displays, or manipulation of various sorts. That is, frame control as reaction to social maneuvering by others.
That’s also fairly consistent with things I’ve previously read, that establish the very first rule of frame control as not letting others trick, trap, or threaten you out of your intended frame for an interaction. And while some works do treat frame control as a zero sum game, the core message of most things I’ve read have been about internal frame defense and non-zero sum games.
For example, one book (literally entitled “Frame Control”) notes many times that “basing the strength of your frame on the weakness of others is not a good strategy” and provides quite a lot of exercises that are aimed at changing one’s internal beliefs and interpretation of situations, with frequent examples roughly of the form, “don’t try to argue, fight, trick, persuade, etc. people—instead just accept what people say and hold to your opinion, instead of being emotionally dependent on others agreeing with you”.
The type of “frame control” described in this post seems rather the opposite of that!