[Neurons] 2010 Meta Reflections #35

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2010 - #35

July 26, 2010

 

History of NLP Series #3

 

THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

 

 

NLP began with the surprising effectiveness of certain linguistic patterns
that Richard found in Perls and then Satir.  So John got involved when
fourth-year student Bandler wanted to teach a class on Gestalt.  The
surprise that language itself could facilitate pretty incredible therapeutic
change by two men with no psychology or psychotherapy background sent them
on a wild chase to find out what was going on- so using the tools they had
available, they began modeling the language of magic.

 

That's what they called it, The Structure of Magic.  Why?  Mostly because
what seemed like "magic," what seemed "magical" was not really magic, it had
a structure and that structure could be identified.  So what were the
theoretical foundations of NLP at the beginning?  Mostly and primarily
Transformational Grammar.  That was Grinder's contribution to it all.

 

In fact, my read on things is that John had been looking for some way to use
Transformational Grammar (TG) for some years.  After all, that was his
speciality.  He wrote his dissertation on it.  He even wrote a book in the
early 1970s with Suzette Haden Elgin, A Guide to Transformational Grammar
(1973).   And in Whisperings, John wrote,

"We have stated that Transformational Grammar was the single most pervasive
influence on NLP." (p. 92)

 

So in terms of theory, NLP began with all of the premises and assumptions of
the Cognitive Psychology Models- which are inherent in TG.  This explodes
the myth that Bandler and Grinder propagated in the early NLP books that NLP
is a model and has no theory.  Well, excuse me, but if "TG was the single
most pervasive influence on NLP" and TG was the work of Noam Chomsky who
along with George Miller are credited with being the founders of the
Cognitive Revolution in Psychology in 1956, then NLP does have a theory.  It
does come from a discipline (actually several disciplines) and so does have
premises and presuppositions.

 

It was because Grinder and Bandler had their heads down- buried in the
specifics of Perls' and Satir's language patterns and processes for
facilitating growth, they were blind to the larger context- that Perls and
Satir were leaders in the Human Potential Movement, that they were carrying
out the original vision of Maslow and Rogers.

 

So yes, NLP has a theory.  And that theory involves the premises that any
intelligent reader can find in Cognitive Psychology (Chomsky, Miller, etc.),
in General Semantics, in Humanistic Psychology (Maslow, Rogers, May, etc.),
in Gestalt, Family Systems, Bateson, etc.  And as I have noted in numerous
articles and books, Bandler and Grinder snuck in the theory and hide it in
the form of the "NLP Presuppositions" (User's Manual of the Brain, Volume
I).  In other words, if you want to find the theory, you need to look no
further than the list of NLP Presppositions.

            The map is not the territory.

            People operate from their maps of reality, not reality.

            You cannot not communicate.

            The meaning of your communication is the response you get.

            People are not broken, they work perfectly well given their
representations and strategies.

Behind every behavior is a positive intention.

Etc.

 

And these are the ideas and premises that arose originally from Maslow and
Rogers and that you can find scattered throughout the writings of Perls,
Satir, and others of the Human Potential Movement as well as in Cognitive
Psychology.

 

Now earlier this year, I've been in conversation with some people from the
Grinder camp of NLP and several recommended that I go back and re-read what
Grinder wrote about the history of NLP-at least as he remembers it or after
he's run the Change History Pattern on himself (!).  So I did.  And in doing
so I now understand why Grinder does not understand or like Meta-States, he
no longer likes the original NLP!  In fact, in Whispering in the Wind (2001)
he rejects a lot of what the rest of us call NLP.  I did not fully picked up
on this when I originally read the book.  For example, in that book he
argues against accepting many of the NLP Presuppositions:

"There is no need to subscribe to the so-called presuppositions of NLP in
order to benefit from an effective application of the patterns to some
problem or challenge.  Normally these presuppositions include statements
such as: having choice is better than not having choice.  All resources
necessary to make changes are already available at the unconscious level."
(2001, p. 201)

 

"If the so-called presuppositions are NLP are to be taken seriously this
decidedly odd collection of different logical types and levels are badly in
need of revision and reorganization.  I believe that Robert Dilts played a
strong role in their compilation. ...   Unfortunately, presuppositions, like
beliefs, are ultimately filters that reduce the ongoing experiences of their
possessors.  We personally do not find any value in the enumeration of such
rationalizations (the so-called presuppositions of NLP)." (202)

 

Even some of the presuppositions which Grinder himself introduced, he no
longer accepts.  For example, he no longer accepts the law of requisite
variety.

"I accept responsibility for importing this law of requisite variety - here
argued to be inappropriate for NLP practice." (309)

 

Rather than base NLP on these premises and make them conscious, Grinder
prefers to postulate them upon something much more vague and indescript,
"the unconscious mind."  This, for him is the chief flaw with what he calls
"the Classic Code:"

"There are important decisions and it is unfortunate in the extreme that the
classic code assigns the responsibility for these decisions to the client's
conscious mind- precisely the part of the client least competent to make
such decisions.  (214)

 

"This makes the work shallow and unecological as the conscious mind is
notoriously weak in its ability to appreciate what the function of a
consciously undesired piece of behavior might be in the larger system of the
person's experience.   The critique we offer is that such classic code
patterns are flawed.  They fail to provide for any systematic framing or
access to the enormous potential of the unconscious.  (215)

 

"The unconscious is superior in its competency for accessing the long term
and global effects of some particular change with respect to consequences.
Consciousness with its limitation of 7 -+ 2 chunks of information is
ill-equipped to make such evaluations." (218)

 

So does that mean that "the unconscious mind" is more competent to make
decisions for us?  Does that mean the unconscious mind doesn't make mistakes
(like allergies, false memories, auto-immune system diseases, etc.)?  And
didn't Grinder, quoting Freud, also postulate that there is no time in the
unconscious mind?  Then how does the "unconscious" now have such competency
for accessing the long term and global effects of the consequences of a
change?  All of that strikes me as especially convoluted.

 

Of course, many other problems are also created when we a dichotomy is set
up between the parts of the mind that are conscious and that are not.  So
rather than solving problems, it only creates more problems.

 

Personally I prefer the original NLP model that equally trusted (and
distrusted) both aspects of our mind- what is conscious and what is outside
consciousness.  I like the original design of NLP- to discover how to "run
your own brain" and take charge of your states.   I like the original NLP
that sought to make explicit its theory and then hid them in the form of the
NLP Presuppositions.

 

 

Neuro-Semantic News

.         Unleashing Leadership: New Zealand, August 19-21

Lena at ignition.org.nz 

 

    *  Unleashing Vitality --- Sept in South Africa and Nov. in Italy

 




 

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

       www.meta-coachfoundation.org 

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

 

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