[Neurons] 2009 Meta Reflections #52

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Meta Reflections #52

November 30, 2009

 

 

MISUNDERSTANDINGS

ABOUT WHAT NLP IS

 

 

In recent Meta Reflections I've written about the field of NLP which has
brought lots of responses and with them a number of misunderstandings about
what this field is all about.  So what is it all about?   For anyone who has
read the original documents and followed it from the beginning, there really
should not be any question.  But many have not.   So to offer some
correction and clarity, here are some misunderstandings about what NLP is
about.

 

1) "NLP is too cognitive, it lacks sufficient emotional and spiritual
dimensions.

This one comes primarily from Europe and reflects mostly on the way that
some trainers present NLP.  This misunderstanding does not seem to arise
anywhere else in the world.  Everywhere else NLP is presented as not
cognitive enough!

 

This statement also indicates a misunderstanding of the systemic nature of
NLP about human nature.  Modeled from the systems thinking of Korzybski and
the Family Systems of Virginia Satir, NLP inherently involves a holistic
approach.  NLP is cognitive to the extent that we recognize that our mapping
drives our emoting.  "We operate on the world (the territory) by means of
our mental maps."  And our mapping is primarily a function of our mind- our
understanding, perceiving, and meaning-making.  And it then inevitably
affects our emotions.

 

To say that something is cognitive is simply to say that it involves thought
and that you have to use your thinking skills.  So what would "too
cognitive" mean?  Does it mean "too academic?" Does it mean that it involves
concepts and that it requires some abstract understanding of something?
Does it mean that it involves some complexity?  Does it mean that someone
presents NLP by lecturing?  By talking and talking and not using
experiential learning methods?  Effective NLP training always involves
experiential learning that increases your emotional intelligence as well as
your spiritual intelligence.

 

2) "Everything is NLP."

Well, no, everything is not NLP.  Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) as a
communication model is about how we communicate-first to ourselves and then
to others.  It is a model of that identifies and uses the components of
thought-the sensory representational systems (visual, auditory, kinesthetic)
and then words and language as the meta-representation system.  Then through
communication we induce ourselves and others into states- mind-body-emotion
states.

 

And this Communication Model, in turn, gives us a set of modeling tools.
With it, we can break down the neuro-linguistic communication structure and
so model any and every human experience.  Now NLP can do that.  We can use
NLP to detect and create a structural format (or map) of any experience.
Yet that's not the same as saying that "everything is NLP."  Yes, using NLP
we can take just about everything in human experience and replicate it.  But
to say that anyone in previous centuries or decades were actually "doing
NLP" because they were identifying some aspect of some experience is to
extend this line of thinking too far.  They were doing something, but not
NLP.  What we do today, using NLP, may recognize that they were doing
something similar.  Similar, but not the same.

 

NLP arose from two movement.  The first was the Cognitive Psychology and
revolution of 1956.  Historians use that date for Noam Chomsky's original
work in creating Transformational Grammar (the particular grammar that John
Grinder used to sort out the language patterns of Perls and Satir and then
later Erickson).    That was the year also that George Miller publishes his
famous 7 plus-or-minus 2 paper about human consciousness.  After that he
along with his associates, Carl Pribram and Eugene Galanter wrote Plans and
the Structure of Behavior (1960) and that was the basis for "strategies" in
NLP.

 

The second movement was the Human Potential Movement which was spearheaded
by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.  And that goes back to the 1930s and
1940s when both were doing their original work.  The movement blossomed in
the 1950s and 1960s with the launching of the first human potential movement
in California.  It was primarily Maslow who created the paradigm shift in
psychology from the sick side of human nature to the healthy side.  It was
he who put forth the idea that people are not innately sick, broken, or evil
but have all the potentials for becoming fully alive and actualizing their
best.  And that's where Perls, Satir, and Bateson got their ideas about
human resourcefulness.

 

3) NLP is hypnosis.

Well, no, not really.  Now, true enough, the founders of NLP, Richard and
John modeled Milton H. Erickson who founded modern medical hypnosis as a
form of communication and so added the Ericksonian language patterns to the
distinctions of NLP.  NLP is not hypnosis, but NLP has modeled the structure
of the hypnosis as a communication phenomena.  It is called "the Milton
Model" as well as the "reverse use of the Meta-Model of language."

 

Yes, many in NLP have wandered far away from the original modeling emphasis
in NLP and sadly, most training programs in NLP do not even present the
process of modeling- strategies, elicitation of structure, pattern
detection, etc.  But that's more to the core of NLP than hypnosis or trance.
All of the work in using trance states for developing new resources or
applying in certain contexts is but one application of NLP.

 

4) NLP is therapy.

Well, not exactly.  True enough, the first models of NLP came from
therapists -frm world class psychotherapists who did "magic" in healing
traumas and enabling people to get over the past and get ready for the
future.  But NLP is not a psychology of therapy although we have many
patterns in NLP that deals with traumas, hurts,  and limitations.  Instead
NLP is a psychology nad set of procedures about the structure and process-it
is a meta-position of how things work.  And this is true for things of
excellence and things of disaster.

 

Experiences of heaven and of hell can be modeled and understood in terms of
a person's meanings, communications, and neurology.  The content of NLP is
about the workings of neurology, linguistics, and semantics in the
mind-body-emoting system.

 

5) NLP is new age.

Ah, another misunderstanding!   And certainly one of the biggest.  No, NLP
is not "new age," even if it is used by people who believe in and practice
various New Age things.  Using that logic, we could also say that NLP is
Christian, or Moslem, or Buddhist, or Hindu, or Jewish because it is also
used by Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews.  Yet obviously, who uses it
does not determine what it is.

 

As a cognitive-behavioral model, NLP is concerned about the structure of
experience- as the sub-title of Robert Dilt's classical work,
"Neuro-Linguistic Programming: The Study of the Structure of Subjective
Experience" (1980).   In itself, NLP is not a new age phenomena although
some NLP trainers have (knowingly or unknowingly) contaminate their
presentation of NLP so as to wed the two and totally confuse themselves and
others.   As a result, they don't even know what NLP is at its essence-at
its sources-or the foundational groundwork of NLP in General Semantics,
cognitive psychology, and the first Human Potential Movement.

 

The Heart of NLP

What I loved about NLP when I first encountered it was that it provided a
way to find and work with the structure of an experience.  And why?  Because
every experience has a structure.  Every experience comes together within a
person's mind-body-emotion system through the way a person thinks, emotes,
speaks, and behaves.  And when you know that, you have in your hands some
very powerful tools for change and renewal.  And it is from this foundation
that Neuro-Semantics arises.  In fact, Neuro-Semantics specifically builds
on this as it has contributed additional modeling tools to the NLP field
-the Meta-States Model and the Matrix Model primarily.  But also
Neuro-Semantics has expanded the Framing model (Frame Games, Winning the
Inner Game and Mind-Lines), created the Self-Actualization Quadrants (the
Meaning-Performance Axes), and formulated the Benchmarking Model. 

                                    

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unleashing Leadership Workshop

 

The latest book in the Self-Actualization Series and in the Meta-Coach
series is Unleashing Leadership: Self-Actualizing Leaders and Companies
(2009).   As a leadership development workshop, discover how to identify
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or leadership in an opportunity that awaits you.

 

Dec. 11-13, Imola, Italy

            Sponsored by Bless You --- Nicola Riva and Lucia Giovannini

            Nicola at blessyou.it 

            Special gathering on Dec. 14 for Meta-Coaches and NS trainers 

at the home of Nicola and Lucia.

 

 

 

 

--- Meta-Coach Trainings coming 2009 - 2010

                        

1) Australia

       November 19, 20-27 - Coaching Mastery.  Sydney, Australia

      Sponsors: Laureli Blyth and Heidi Heron                  

      Heidi at nlpworldwide.com              Laureli at nlpworldwide.com 

 

 

2) China --- 2010

      Meta-Coaching in two parts --   January 17-22 and May 9-14  (6 days
each time): 

Includes also Module II (Coaching Genius).  

            Guangzhou, China:  Sponsor: Team Huang --- supported by
Neuro-Semantic Trainers: 

Mandy Chai and Wilkie Choi   For Chinese---   yeshow at 163.net .  For English
speakers: 

Mandy Chai: chaimansun at yahoo.com.hk 

 

 

3) Mexico --- 2010

     In two parts --- March 4-7 (March 3 for Team Leaders) and April 15-18
(April 14 for Team Leaders). 

     Sponsor: Salom Change Dynamics-  www.salomchd.com  (55) 30930687 ---
emilia at salomchd.com

 

Trainers Training --- in NLP and NS --- NSTT

1)    January and June --- Hong Kong:  January 25-31 and June 4-11.
Contact Mandy Chai: chaimansun at yahoo.com.uk 




2)    June --- Grand Junction Colorado:  June 19-July 3.  Contact Dr. Hall:
meta at acsol.net 

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

(ISNS) International Society of Neuro-Semantics

The International Meta-Coach System

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

      <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com 

       <http://www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com/>
www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com 

       <http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org

       <http://www.meta-coaching.org/> www.meta-coaching.org

       <http://www.ns-video.com/> www.ns-video.com 

 

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Hall are sent out every Monday and meta-Coach Reflections sent out every
Wednesdday to the Meta-Coaches egroup.  Contact Dr. Hall at  meta@ acsol.net


 

 

 

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