[Neurons] 2013 Meta Reflections #10

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2013  #10

March 4, 2013

Modeling Excellence Series #5

 

 

THE KEY NLP MODELING TOOL

The Meta-Model of Language

 

 

In the last post on Neurons I concluded the article on modeling by talking
about the NLP Communication Model and noting that it is a tool for modeling.
Now the interesting about it is that it arose from modeling.  It arose from
modeling the language patterns of Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir and while
it used Transformational Grammar (TG) to do so, the new model, "The
Meta-Model of Language" soon jettisoned Transformational Grammar.  That's
why, while you will find a summary of TG at the end of the book The
Structure of Magic, Volume I, you will not find it in any of the other books
by the NLP originators or any of those who came later.

 

Why?  Why did that happen?  How is it that the model or tool that created
the Meta-Model was made redundant immediately thereafter so that it was no
longer used?  The reason is that NLP did not need Transformational Grammar.
The Meta-Model didn't need it.  In the book about the 25th year anniversary
of the Meta-Model, Communication Magic (2001), I described this as resulting
from two sources:

First, Noam Chomsky who created Transformation Grammar himself gave it up
and tossed it out in 1976.  He gave up on that model because too many holes
and inconsistencies had been discovered about it.

Second, what NLP took from TG was the idea of the levels of information
processing and while TG has that (surface and deep structure) so does
Koryzbski (levels of abstraction) and Bateson (levels of learning).

 

Question: How is the Meta-Model a modeling tool?  We know that it is a
communication tool and that by using the linguistic distinguishing of the
Meta-Model and the questions or challenges, a person can effectively invite
a speaker to create a well-formed and precise description of an experience.
But how does one use it to model the structure of experience?

 

Answer:  The answer goes to the fact that experience is coded and driven by
language.  When it comes to experiences, especially the key experiences that
we humans value or disvalue, want to want to avoid-they are labeled, named,
and given meaning by the words that we use to describe and evaluate them.
And if this is so, then no wonder the Meta-Model becomes a powerful tool to
unpack an experience and given that the Meta-Model enables a person to take
vague and indefinite descriptions and make them empirical and sensory-based,
it becomes a wonderful tool for precision.

 

So, no wonder from the beginning of NLP, the Meta-Model has been used as a
tool for modeling the linguistic facets of an experience.  Now I did not
know this when I first learned NLP.  In fact, I read, studied, and trained
in NLP all the way through Practitioner training before I discovered this.
I had even read those two original NLP books that are so unreadable, The
Structure of Magic, and while I liked them, I still did not get it.  Then
one day during the beginning of my Master Practitioner Training, Richard
Bandler said, almost in an off-handed way, that "everything we've created in
NLP was based on the Meta-Model."

 

I was stunned.  "What?  Everything in NLP is based on the Meta-Model?  How
could that be?"  I could not figure it out.  So I went back and re-read the
original books very slowly and very deliberately and that was actually the
beginning of my own experience in modeling.

 

"What did I find?" you ask?  I found that when it comes to human
experiences, almost all of our most valuable experiences involve language,
and that by meta-modeling the language, a modeler can identify a great deal
of the structure of the experience.  He or she can put together how the
person got him or herself into that state and experience.  And so if it is
an experience to take onto oneself, then the linguistic model gives a person
a step-by-step process for replicating it.  And if the experience represents
a painful, dysfunctional, and toxic experience, then modeling it gives one
numerous ways to undo it, pull it apart, and prevent it from being
operational.

 

I thought that was great!  So when I began to play around with my first
attempts at modeling, I was absolutely fascinated by how much one can
discover in a person's language.  I was astonished with how much I could
learn by listening to the words of people, especially experts, and how much
of how they have constructed their sense of reality and how much it suggests
the steps for stepping into that same experience.

 

Now at the time I was doing psycho-therapeutic work as a therapist and so I
began creating a model for each client.  How did this person create this or
that experience?  What do this person's words indicate or imply in terms of
the processes involved- the generalizations, the deletions, and the
distortions?  It was in this way that my own phenomenological studies began,
first of single experiences and later of combining different models that
people used to experience a similar category of experience and after that
when I left the domain of therapy, to apply the same thing for such
experiences as wealth creation, selling, negotiating, being an entrepreneur,
leadership, etc. 

 

As linguistic beings, we live in the house of language.  This explains why
and also how we can use language for modeling experience:

"The limits of my language are the limits of my world." (Wittgenstein,
1922).

"Language is what bewitches, but language is what we must remain within in
order to cure the bewitchment." (Henry Staten)

 

 

 

NSTT --- 2013 

.        Last week I sent out a message about NSTT in 2013 and forgot to
send out the Brochure on it.  So I have now attached the brochure.  For more
information contact --- Ivan Wong,  Asia Professional Training Institute,
Email ivan at apti.com.hk.

 

.        Also, if you would like the Training Manual for NSTT, 2012, I do
have some extras.  They are normally $65 and I did make a special for $50
last year.  Recently the US Post Office raised the postage dramatically ---
so here is the special of the month:

 

o   $25 for the $65 manual and $25 for the postage.

o   To take advantage of this: go to www.neurosemantics.com  click
"Business" then "Pay a Statement." . use the paypal for $50 and put in your
name and mailing address.  If  you have any difficulty, write to me about
it, L. Michael Hall --- meta at acsol.net .

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

                Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

                Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

                1 970-523-7877 

                Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net


     

    

What is Neuro-Semantic NLP?

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<http://newsletter.neurosemantics.com/hich/af31506/dbch/af31505/loch/f31506/
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anyone new to Neuro-Semantics.  Femke Stuut, Editor.

 

Coaching: For world-class Coach Training - The Meta-Coaching System:
www.meta-coaching.org and \
<http://www.metacoachfo/hich/a/hich/af31506/dbch/af31505/loch/f31506%20f3150
6/dbch/af31505/loch/f31506%20undation.org/hich/af31506/dbch/af31505/loch/f31
506/hich/af31506/dbch/af31505/loch/f31506> www.metacoachfoundation.org.
Meta-Coach Reflections sent every Wednesday to the group of Licensed
Meta-Coaches.

 

Self-Actualization: Neuro-Semantics launched the New Human Potential
Movement in 2007, for information about this, see www.self-actualizing.org
<http://www.self-actualizing.org/>   

 

NSP --- Neuro-Semantic Publications: Order books from Neuro-Semantic
website, www.neurosemantics.com  click on Products and Services and then the
Catalogue of books.  Order via paypal.  

 

 

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