Mirroring: When NOT to Mirror or Match

There are things that you should not mirror. For example, if someone is getting aggressive and trying to be the alpha dog, you need to be more creative than just acting aggressive. However, if you show an aggressive attitude about something that the other person is judgmental about, this can form a very powerful bond, plus, it can be fun to shout.

If you are comfortable with your aggressive side, you can adopt a posture that reflects that you are basically an aggressive person, yet not display aggression toward the person. Adopt a quality that is more like you are both on the same team. This is a little bit like dealing with people who need attention very badly and don’t have very good emotional control, such as people with borderline personality disorder. 

Mirroring people with very intense needs is much more of an art form and not a good place to start practicing. If you need to, though, you can do mild mirroring of body language without giving the impression that you think your needs are greater than theirs. You can also, on the symbolic level, share the kinds of resentments and other things that the person tends to focus on. By staying within the world that they mentally live in, you do not alienate them by intimidating them with a larger world. 

These individuals can easily collapse into feeling very threatened or inferior, and this can cause them to go out of their way to undermine you. This can include something called triangulation, where they put other people against you. This can even include your boss, or legal authorities. Rapport is very important to use with these individuals, as well as being well-protected against any ways they might try to undermine you.

After you have general rapport-building skills, you will be ready to use them with people who have needs that are more intense than average, if you are so inclined. This is especially the area of psychotherapists, physicians, and other professionals who tend to deal with people in distress. For example, you will learn that once you can gain rapport, you can use this to lead people or alter their state in positive ways. The pattern or mirroring and changing the behavior of others is called pacing and leading.  With people who are suffering, you do not mirror their suffering, you just stick with mirroring the general physical and symbolic items that make them comfortable with you, so that they can feel okay about expressing themselves. If you feel some of the state they are in, that is enough to you to feel more empathy, and for them to know that you do. Some of your listeners, however, are already highly empathic, and can even be overwhelmed by others feelings. 

This can go two ways. You may find that mirroring is technical enough that it helps keep you from being overwhelmed or distracted by the other person’s feelings when they are in distress. On the other hand, if this is not so; if you still feel their emotions too strongly, then you have probably mirrored them so much that you induced their state in you too strongly. In that case, you will actually need to learn how to tone down your mirroring in at least some aspects, especially the physical aspects. Better yet, you can use NLP to find and change your strategy for feeling overwhelmed. You can start with what internal representations you have about the suffering of others. Nurses, therapists and social workers are often people who do a lot of subconscious mirroring without any training in it.

But what if someone catches you mimicking him or her?

If someone feels that you are mimicking him or her, they are probably aware of NLP and mirroring. If they seem uncomfortable or offended, the best response is typically to back off of the physical mirroring, but maintain the symbolic mirroring without getting carried away.