[Neurons] 2025 Neurons #39 THINK --- NLP 3.0

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2025 Neurons #39

September 22, 2025

 

THINK --- NLP 3.0

 

A long time ago (1997), I added Meta-States to the classical NLP training
and suddenly, Meta-NLP was invented.  That became the basic  NLP
practitioner course for the next three decades.  Given that Grinder and
DeLozier upgraded the classic NLP model in 1983 with "new code" and Dilts
updated it further in 1986 with "logical levels," you could think of that as
NLP 2.0.  Considering that, Neuro-Semantics is NLP 3.0.  And that answers
the questions that many have, "Is Neuro-Semantics NLP?"  Yes, of course it
is. 

 

Sometimes that raises the next question, "What is the difference between NLP
and Neuro-Semantics?"  While the difference goes to the heart of what the
Meta-States Model models, namely, self-reflexive consciousness, that opens
up a whole range of things- mostly the meta-levels as a model of the mind
itself.  It expands the Meta-Model introducing linguistic distinctions from
Korzybski.  It enables meta-strategy work as it identifies the hidden
unconscious frames that govern complex states like leadership, self-esteem,
resilience, etc.  (See the article about the Neuro-Semantic differences on
the website.)

 

Others ask, "If I know NLP, what will Neuro-Semantic add to it that makes it
an advanced form of NLP?"  A far more extensive focus on structure,
especially meta-structure, a model of how the 'mind' actually works (e.g.,
thinking), the Meta Place as a model for activating the full mind, an
extended understanding of the unconscious, and much more.

 

Both versions, Meta-NLP and Advanced NLP offer an upgrade of the NLP model
uncontaminated by the myths and manipulations of the first model.  It is an
advanced NLP that has kept developing from the original premises and the
keeps testing its effectiveness in everyday life.  As NLP 2.0 re-introduced
the implications of Bateson's work, NLP 3.0 goes further in giving Bateson's
work far more preeminence with a focus on framing, meta-levels,
epistemology, etc.

 

NLP did not begin as a fully developed model.  In the 1970s it began as
gestalt classes- two dozen college students practicing the processes that
Fritz Perls used in his Gestalt Therapy work.  They copied how he
communicated experiential instructions which had the effect of enabling
people to become real, to transform in their thinking, feeling, and acting,
to take charge of their own lives, to break free of old constraints, etc.
Perls, as one of the second-generation of leaders in the Human Potential
Movement at Esalen, along with Virginia Satir, sought to empower people to
live a self-actualizing life.

 

It was his emphasis on what was important in gestalt that revolutionized the
gestalt classes and turned them into what Frank Pucelik called "the meta
people."  "Meta" was the name of the NLP movement (1972-1975) before the
phrase NLP was invented in 1976.  From the Gestalt book that Richard Bandler
edited from Perls, the following comprised much of Perl's focus:

                       Come into the here-and-now, be present.

                       Realize that all problems exist in the here-and-now.

                       Get out of your chattering head and see-and-see,
hear-and-hear.

                       Learn to come into sensory-awareness; stop
hallucinating.

                       Stop the chattering and clutter in your mind.

                       Stop asking why and learn to ask how.

                       Stop introjecting large chunk of generalizations.

                       Break introjects down into pieces.

                       Refuse the Either/Or split and think of the whole
field, the gestalt.

                       Embrace response-ability.

                       Be aware that everything you do is your expression;
it comes from you.

                       Ask more questions and become aware of the obvious.

                       What you dream, fantasize about, repeat deliberately
to own it.

                       Learn meanings by relating foreground to background.

                       Etc.

                                           

Now because the Meta People on Kresge campus at the University of California
at Santa Cruz

were practicing sensory awareness, being direct, practical, experiential,
interactional, etc., they were the first NLP group before anyone had thought
up the term NLP.  And when NLP was given birth in 1975 by the books, The
Structure of Magic, NLP was a linguistic model (e.g., the Meta-Model) that
governed one's neurological state.  That began the adventure, the
excitement, and the revolutionary approach.

 

"What is NLP?"  The answer depends on when you learned it and from whom did
you learn it.  In the 1970s NLP was mostly a Therapeutic Model for Personal
Development. By the 1980s the NLP model expanded beyond 'practitioner' and
included sub-modalities, meta-programs, time-lines, etc.  NLP was then
focused on Modeling Expertise.  But at the end of the 1980s and throughout
the 1990s, NLP was in Self-Destruct Mode.  It divided into five 'camps' and
the lawsuits by the founders led to its collapse in the United States.  By
the 2000s and 2010s, NLP was thriving around the world (but not in the USA)
and renewing itself in terms of Conferences, Research, and a longing for
unity (i.e., The NLP Leadership Summit).  Then the Pandemic hit (2020) and
with the world-wide shut-down, a great majority of NLP also shut-down.  What
will come next?  Will NLP survive?  Will it experience a resurgence in the
2020s or 2030s?

 

Will it go the way of the Human Potential Movement?  It's hard to say from
this vantage point.  What I can say is that we in Neuro-Semantics have a
clean, fresh, and thorough presentation of NLP- Advanced NLP- which will
continue to be foundational in Neuro-Semantics.

 

 

Neuro-Semantics News---

Now on the Shop :for the first time:




https://www.neurosemantics.com/product/strategic-thinking-becoming-a-skilled
-strategist/

 



L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

meta at acsol.net

 

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