[Neurons] 2015 "Neurons" Meta-Reflections #7

Sun Feb 1 21:45:54 EST 2015

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2015  #7

February 2, 2015

Answering the Question: 

What is NLP, Really?  

THE FIVE MODELS OF NLP

What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)?  In spite of the fact that NLP
has been around since 1975 (and 1972 if you count the pre-development days),
the question about what it is and how to define it continues.  So, what is
it?  And why is it so difficult to define?

Imagine that we had asked this question in 1980- five years after the
official beginning of NLP and eight years after Richard and Frank began
their Gestalt Class at the University at Santa Cruz.  If you had asked it
then, you would have heard about five models.  You could also have
discovered this on your own if you simply read the key books of that era.
If you had read The Structure of Magic volumes I and II, read The Hypnotic
Patterns of Milton H. Erickson, volumes I and II.  Read NLP: The Study of
the Structure of Subjective Experience, read Frogs into Princes, Therapeutic
Metaphors, Changing with Families ...  And you will have heard about five
and only five models that comprised the content of NLP:

            1) Meta-Model of Language in Therapy

            2) Milton Model, Hypnotic Language Patterns

            3) The Strategy Model- the Representation System enriched TOTE)

            4) Representational Model including Sub-Modality distinctions

            5) Meta-Programs of perceptual filters

Fast forward a decade to 1990 and the same answer would have also been given
at that time as well.  By 1990 you could have also read Trance-Formation,
Using Your Brain for a Change, Reframing, Introducing NLP, Unlimited Power,
etc.  If in 1990, 15 years after the beginning (or 18) and again ask: What
is NLP?  The answer would be pretty straightforward and clear:

           NLP is a Communication Model.  It is a model derived from
Transformational Grammar (TG) which was the primary tool that the early
developers used to modeled how Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, and Milton H.
Erickson used language (verbal and non-verbal) to facilitate change in
people so that they would become more resourceful, conscious (mindful),
responsible (take charge of their own lives), and able to be effective in
succeeding at reaching and actualizing the goals that they set in life.

           NLP is a Personal Development Model.  By using the internal and
external communication channels, a person could then learn how to "run his
or her own brain," take responsibility to manage one's state, understand the
structure of one's experiences, and frame and reframe the meanings that
inform experience.   All this was part of the original design and purpose of
NLP.  And no wonder, Perls and Satir were second-generation leaders at
Esalen of the first Human Potential Movement, so was Gregory Bateson.  They
learned the presuppositions from the new Humanistic Psychology of Abraham
Maslow and Carl Rogers.

           NLP is a Modeling Process.  Again, using the communication
processes as well as the Strategy Model taken from the Cognitive
Psychologists, George Miller and associates, NLP provided a way to find the
structure of any experience, especially experiences of expertise, and
replicate that structure so it can be transferred to others by training,
teaching, consulting, coaching, and therapy.

What is NLP?  The short answer is that NLP is communication, personal
development, and modeling.  This three-fold definition describes what NLP
was at the beginning and what it was at its foundational stage.  And it is
based on those original five models. 

In the beginning the developers only had two tools-they had mimicking and
Transformational Grammar.  First Richard Bandler copied and mimicked Fritz
Perls' voice and words from audio-tapes that he was transcribing.  Later,
when Richard and Frank Pucelik, as students, taught Gestalt, they realized
that something beyond the theory of Gestalt Therapy was occurring.  So they
invited John Grinder to examine the linguistics using Transformational
Grammar (TG).  From that they created they called "the Meta-Model of
Language in Therapy."

Now the funning thing is that while NLP started with Transformational
Grammar, it quickly disappeared as an NLP tool.  They put it in the first
two books (The Structure of Magic) and then it was never used again.  And
rightly so!  That's because Noam Chomsky, the developer of Transformational
Grammar, also dispensed with it as unworkable.  He did so in 1976.  I noted
this in the book, Communication Magic (1997/2001) and commented that all
that TG really provided NLP was the distinction between two levels of
language: surface and deep level.  They rejected it because they have a
better model for their purposes- The Meta-Model.

NLP also began, and created its own models, as the early developers modeled
"best practices."  It arose first from copying (modeling) what Fritz did and
then what Virginia did.  Wyatt Woodsmall calls this Modeling I- modeling the
products of expertise.  Strange enough, NLP did not do Modeling II at the
beginning.   The early developers were so focused on techniques, on what the
experts were doing, they did not model how they did what they did or how
they learned to do it.  So today we have no model of any of the original
experts regarding their creativity, learning, or development.

This means we have never found out about how Perls, Satir, and Erickson
thought and felt, how they created what they created- their creative
strategies.  What were given to us were a few of their attitudes in the form
of the "NLP Presuppositions," yet these came mostly from Maslow, Rogers, and
Bateson.

Bottom line, what is NLP?  A communication model that incorporates within it
the variables about how human experience works.  And because we create our
experiences via our meanings and linguistics in our embodied state
(neurology)- the "communication model" of NLP enables us to identify how we
create our experiences can be used for so much more- modeling expertise in
the world around us and transferring it to others.  That makes it pretty
important.  It makes NLP a meta-discipline about multiple disciplines and so
is an inter-disciplinary model as well.

Why is it so hard to define NLP?  Because it is a synthesis of three
disciplines!  No wonder it takes a mouthful of words to describe it.  It is
not a singular discipline.  It is inter-disciplinary.

           Linguistics - Chomsky's Transformational Grammar, Bateson's
Communication Theory, Korzybski's General Semantics.

           Cognitive Psychology- Miller's Structure of Behavior and TOTE,
Chomsky's TG.

           Self-Actualization Psychology - Maslow and Rogers, and Human
Potential Movement second-generation leaders Perls, Satir, and Bateson.

NLP Today in Neuro-Semantics

If this is what NLP is, and this is certainly what we present in
Neuro-Semantics, then anyone properly trained in NLP needs a thorough and
robust training in these five models.  For us, a Practitioner in this
inter-disciplinary field needs to know these five models inside-out.  And if
NLP is communication, personal development, and modeling, then this is the
content and focus of what a practitioner should be.

           A professional communicator

           A developer of persons

           A modeler

To that end, we in Neuro-Semantics have used Coaching as the discipline
wherein people can learn to become professional communicators.  Similarly,
we have used Self-Actualization Psychology as the discipline wherein a
person can truly become a developer of persons, and we have made the Master
Practitioner training as the foundation for modeling.

           A professional communicator - Meta-Coaching at multiple levels:
ACMC, PCMC.

           A developer of persons - Self-Actualization Psychology Diploma:
The Unleashing Series.

           A modeler - Master Practitioner training in the tools for
modeling, Meta-States, Matrix, Neuro-Semantic Modeling, Cultural Modeling.

If you're interested in getting a thorough and robust and high quality
experience of the NLP models- then check out Neuro-Semantic NLP.  Contact a
Neuro-Semantic NLP Trainer near you who is training Practitioner and Master
Practitioners.  See  <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com
- if you are a NLP Trainer, join us in Trainers' Training this year (May
16-30) to add Neuro-Semantics to your repertoire. 

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

NSP --- Neuro-Semantic Publications: Order books from Neuro-Semantic
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