Wolfgang You asked, "...the agent of change in both contextual and content reframing usually proposes the reframe and then checks by calibration the response of the client. Would this for you already violate the criteria?" If the agent of change does make such a proposal, they are indulging in content and as Carmen and I argue extensively in Whispering, they are behaving unethically. Besides, practically speaking, what intention would be served by the agent of change making the content proposals? Such proposals would work beautifully for the agent of change if he or she were to apply this counsel to themselves, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that they would have any relevance for the client. Except in extreme cases - for example, a client in a coma) such proposals are a violation of the ethics we proposed in Whispering. You also wrote, " And what about the so-called sleight-of-mouth-patterns, in which semantic reframes are proposed to challenge a cause effect/complex equivalence statement?" This kind of application of so-called sleight of mouth has always troubled me. While it may be amusing to use precisely the pattern of semantically ill-formed statements to blow out a semantically ill-formed statement originated by the client, where does it leave the client? Answer: if effective - that is, making a change in something presumably that they wanted to change AND WITHOUT a clue how to replicate this for themselves. At best, they will conclude that the semantically ill-formed statement are an effective means of change and communication - precisely the opposite of the influence it seems to me that we seek to impart to our clients. This is mystifying to a client and tends to develop a dependency with the agent of change. It is a content move (the agent of change is introducing material not offered by the client and in a form that ultimately if the client is to free herself from this pattern, she will have to change anyway. This is reinforncing exactly what we do not support. BTW, I am reminded of an article (the name of the specific article escapes me at present) in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Bateson) where he and Margaret Mead discuss the problem with getting people to do the right thing for the wrong reasons - your question touches directly on this matter - have a look. All the best, John