SURVIVAL MECHANISM & SOS TRAINING
Decoding Life
Understand Your Survival Mechanism and the Three SOSs
Why do certain feelings, reactions, expectations, and relationship patterns keep returning—even when the people or circumstances change?
Explore Lawrence V. Fernandes’s framework for understanding the patterns beneath everyday life. Learn about the three SOSs and consider how they relate to your behavior, emotions, beliefs, communication, and decisions.
You May Have Experienced the Work. Now Understand the Framework.
If you have worked with Lawrence, you may already recognize some of your recurring patterns or have explored your SOS during therapy.
A therapy session focuses on your concerns. A course provides space to examine the wider framework: how its ideas connect, how the three SOSs differ, and how these patterns may appear across different areas of life.
You do not need to have attended therapy to participate. The course will introduce the concepts and build understanding through examples, reflection, and discussion.
What Could This Learning Help You Do?
1.
Recognize What Keeps Repeating
Notice familiar patterns across situations that may initially seem unrelated.
2.
Understand Your Responses
Explore why certain experiences feel threatening, reassuring, disappointing, or difficult to let go.
3.
Examine Your Expectations
Reflect on what you expect from yourself and others—and what happens when those expectations are unmet.
4.
Understand Differences in Relationships
Consider why another person may communicate, interpret situations, or respond differently from you.
5.
Recognize Where You Feel Stuck
Identify situations in which your familiar way of responding seems unable to resolve the difficulty.
6.
Bring Awareness Into Everyday Choices
Practice observing your responses and considering whether they fit the circumstances you face today.
What Will You Explore?
Understanding Survival Mechanism
Connect the concepts with familiar situations at home, at work, and in relationships.
Explore:
- Acceptance, approval, expectations, and belonging.
- Responses to uncertainty, mistakes, disagreement, and disappointment.
- Recurring interactions and survival loops.
- How people can interpret the same situation differently.
Recognizing Patterns in Everyday Life
Connect the concepts with familiar situations at home, at work, and in relationships.
Explore:
- Acceptance, approval, expectations, and belonging.
- Responses to uncertainty, mistakes, disagreement, and disappointment.
- Recurring interactions and survival loops.
- How people can interpret the same situation differently.
Awareness and Continuing Reflection
Consider how understanding your patterns can inform the way you engage with present circumstances.
Explore:
- Recognizing the limitations of familiar responses.
- Noticing when circumstances have changed.
- Pausing before responding automatically.
- Continuing to question, reflect, and update your understanding.
One Outcome: Survival. Three Different Ways.
Within Lawrence’s framework, the three SOSs describe different perceived experiences of being wanted and the survival patterns associated with them.
Wanted Child
Explore the perceived experience of being wanted by both parents.
Partly Wanted Child
Explore the perceived experience of being wanted by one parent while sensing disconnection from the other.
Unwanted Child
Explore the perceived experience of not being wanted, even when both parents are present.
The course goes beyond these brief descriptions to explore the distinctions, questions, and everyday examples within the framework.
These names describe perceived messages—not a child’s worth. The illustrations are symbolic, and the descriptions alone are not sufficient to identify someone’s SOS.
Understanding Is the Starting Point
The purpose of this course is to help you recognize core survival patterns and understand your SOS.
Lawrence does not promise to replace or change your Survival Mechanism. The emphasis is on awareness: recognizing how you respond, identifying limitations, and examining whether familiar responses remain useful as circumstances change.
Learning provides a framework for exploration. Applying that awareness is an ongoing personal process.
Learn Through Examples, Reflection, and Discussion
Clear explanations
Concepts introduced in accessible language, with time to build understanding.
Everyday examples
Situations involving relationships, communication, expectations, and decisions.
Guided reflection
Opportunities to consider how the ideas relate to your own experiences.
Questions and discussion
Space to clarify ideas and explore different perspectives.
You will not be required to disclose private therapy discussions or personal experiences to the group.
Before You Express Interest
Do I need to have attended therapy with Lawrence?
No. Existing clients may recognize some of the concepts, but the course is also open to people encountering the framework for the first time.
Do I need a background in psychology, NLP, or Hypnosis?
No prior training is required.
Will the course be online?
The planned format is live online learning, allowing participants to join from different locations. The schedule and joining details will be confirmed before enrollment.
Will I learn about Survival Mechanism and all three SOSs?
Yes. The course will explore the Survival Mechanism and all three SOSs, helping you understand the distinctions described within the framework.
Is this group therapy?
Yes. The course will explore the Survival Mechanism and all three SOSs, helping you understand the distinctions described within the framework.
Would You Like to Understand Your Patterns More Deeply?
Whether you have explored your SOS during therapy or are beginning with curiosity, you are welcome to ask about the course.
Express your interest to receive the proposed course details and information about the introductory session when they are confirmed.
Learn With Lawrence V. Fernandes
Lawrence V. Fernandes has practiced as a therapist since 1998. His work integrates NLP, Clinical Hypnotherapy, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapy with his Survival Mechanism and SOS frameworks.
An author of three books—Stop Surviving Start Living with Freedom, The Self Decoded, and Survival Games People Play—he explores human patterns, identity, expectations, and relationships through therapy, writing, and teaching.
This course brings those ideas together in a structured setting for learning and reflection.
Certified NLP Practitioner & Master Practitioner
Clinical Hypnotherapist · Ericksonian Hypnotherapist
Looking for Personal Support?
If you would prefer to explore your concerns individually, Lawrence offers integrative therapy drawing on SOS, NLP, Clinical Hypnotherapy, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapy.
Survival Mechanism and SOS are Lawrence Fernandes’s conceptual frameworks for reflection. This course is educational and does not provide a medical, psychological, or psychiatric diagnosis or a professional therapy qualification.