Hello, Sarah. You wrote, " I know that Robert Dilts has mentioned psychological phenomena which seem to parallel what physicts witness in non-locality.  He has experienced many occasions in which after working with somebody (using 2nd position systemic frames) on an issue he will find out that the client goes home and receives contact from another member of the 'infected' system, healing contact- that the person who was not in the therapy room, but who was deeply indentified with and 'resourced', will express that they have gone through some type of prfound reevaluation or whatever.... I know that I have experienced this to a degree which suggests I look outside the realm of pure coincidence.  And, this phenomena isn't any more bizarre than what is going on with the research in Non-Locality." Whatever conclusions an argument that finds likeness between non-locality in physics and healing of family systems allows you to conclude, there may be explanations of the simultaneous healing of members in infected systems other than what you proposed.  A truly nonlocal change, one that involves a therapee, a therapist, and another member of the therapee's infected system (the significant other), is one that is: (1) a change in which, during the time that a therapee was in therapy, the significant other in the therapee's system, changed as if he had undergone therapy. A strictly local change, then, for the client, is: (2)any change in the significant other's behavior that is causally dependent on some post-therapy interaction between the therapee and the significant other, or dependent on coincidence. Here are four ways in which nonlocal changes may be mistaken to occur : (3) the therapee (unconsciously) learned rapport skills from her therapist during her therapy, and led her significant other, by her nonverbals or vocals during the first few seconds (or longer) of a post-therapy conversation regarding the problem issue, to change his stance on the problem issue. (4) the therapee, with whatever positive self-fulfilling prophecy she acquired during therapy, about her significant other's suddenly positive response to her changes, established during her therapy, led her significant other to volunteer that he also changed his attitude during the therapee's time in therapy. (5) the therapee saw changes in her significant other's behavior that confirmed for her that her significant other had also changed, and the significant other volunteered that he had changed, when the therapee asked him, maybe because that was easier for him than saying, "No, I haven't, what should I do?". (6) the significant other changed, by coincidence, sometime before the therapee's first post-therapy encounter with him. If event (3) was the cause of the significant other's change, then so long as the therapee did not know what she had done, her experience of the significant other's behavior would mystify and worry her (and possibly dilute the therapeutic results she's enjoying), unless she had a ready explanation.  Systemic NLP, that would produce results by creating events of type (3), seems like it would really work. Event (4) differs from event (3) by what the therapist provided the therapee.  In event (3), the therapist taught the client rapport skills.  In event (4), the therapist changed the therapee's attitude toward her significant other, and the therapee used her own rapport skills.  Event (5) could be, like event (4), an event in which the therapist established a self-fulfilling prophecy for the therapee, but the behaviors that the self-fulfilling prophecy facilitated are very different, since in event (5), it’s the therapees perception of her significant other that is changed, rather than her external behaviors toward him.  In all events, (3),(4),(5), and (6), the report from the therapee could be the same: "My significant other really changed WHILE I was in therapy.  Great!" It's seems like a therapeutic deception of the therapee occurs, in the case of systemic NLP, as purportedly practiced by Robert Dilts.  He leads his therapee to believe in a positive outcome of a one-sided change in a many-sided relationship that the therapee will reenter after therapy.  Didn't Milton Erickson do this with some of his clients?  Not invoking subatomic physics, but leading his therapee, through parables, metaphor, or hypnotic suggestion, to expect surprising changes in his therapee's significant other post-therapy?  I think so. That Dr. Dilt's rationalization for his therapee draws on the laws of subatomic physics is unsurprising.  Subatomic physics is popularly invoked to rationalize lots of phenomena of which people are skeptical, including the existence of the spirit, ghosts, whathaveyou.  And now the changing behavior of significant others.  In using this rationalization, Dr. Dilts is performing an Ericksonian move with his clients, while preaching an element of modern religious philosophy.  Whether he actually believes what he hints at, when he compares physics to therapy, is open to doubt. -nj