NLP has been described by one of its co-founders as
"an attitude of mind leaving behind it a trail
of techniques".
It is usually this "trail of techniques"
which people have heard of if they have heard of NLP
at all. The "Fast Phobia Relief Process"
that takes only twenty minutes or relieving panic
attacks in ten using "Collapsing Anchors".
Both of these claims are true, by the way, and in
our seminars we have taught hundreds of people these
two processes and much more to very great personal
and professional effect.
However, it is the "attitude of mind" that
interests me more and which I would like to address
in this article. But first, a little history....
Although not exclusively used for therapy and personal
growth, NLP started its development over twenty years
ago when John Grinder, a linguistics professor and
Richard Bandler, a gestalt therapist, modelled the
therapeutic skills of Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson
and Fritz Perls. They became particularly interested
in "how" the great and the good are successful.
This was an immense shift in emphasis in terms of
modelling success in any field.
Even today, most "How To" books merely
tell you "What To". Look at the shelves
of any bookshop and you will see a proliferation of
books on "How To"... relieve stress, recover
from abusive relationships, give up smoking, become
a millionaire. A good look between the covers reveals
lots and lots of "what to do" but very seldom
will you find anything written about "How To"
do it. This is what I believe NLP has added to the
party. And because it is not about "what to do"
there is little if any ideology attached to it. And
this, of course, causes some people problems.
I well remember when I was a student teacher and
later a student social worker liking some parts of
various sociological and psychological theories but
not all. I did not feel comfortable becoming a Freudian
or a Marxist of a Jungian or a Positive Constructionist.
I accepted some of Skinner's assertions and recognised
that they might be useful but could not accept that
we have no mind. I resolved this dilemma when I discovered
NLP in 1989.
At first, I felt a bit like a renegade, a robber
who only took what was best from each field but also
someone who had no real depth because I was so eclectic.
As the years have gone by I have begun to realise
that examination through exploring "structure"
and "process" reveals much more interesting
phenomena. This allows us to more easily dissect the
"ologies" and "isms" and to extract
what is useful, and to integrate it (1).
To reduce it to its simplest elements, NLP has three
"legs": Outcome, Sensory Acuity and Flexibility.
Outcome
In order to achieve any change, in order to resolve
any issues, we need to know what it is that we want.
The people I see in one-to-one sessions and on our
seminars most often start by knowing what they don't
want - "I don't want to be in this relationship",
"I don't want to be smoking", "I don't
want to be fat", "I don't want to be in
this job", "I don't want to have these panic
attacks".
In 1956, George Miller asserted that we can only
consciously concentrate on seven plus or minus two
pieces of information at any one time. If this is
true, then we can easily see that the individual above
has already used up five of those pieces; add in today's
shopping and a reminder to pay the rent and we have
easily filled our capacity to the full. There is literally
no room to even consider what we want and so all of
our concentration, all of our energy, has gone on
to what I don't want.
One of the most liberating things that I help people
achieve is beginning to know what they want. This
in itself can be a huge shift in orientation from
the past and into the future. (And if we can't stay
in the present, then at least it is more fun to be
in the future that in some dreadful past).
Know your outcome - know what it is that you want.
"I want to be living in an environment with
fresh air pumping through my lungs", "I
want to be healthily slender", "I want to
be in a job where I am satisfied and amply rewarded
for my efforts", "I want to be calm and
serene when I want to be".
Sensory Acuity
Sensory Acuity is noticing what is going on inside
and outside your body. Most people are not aware of
the internal bodily sensations that we call feelings,
and then further dissociate from, and call emotions.
Becoming aware of the building blocks of our experiences
- the pictures that we are making, the voices that
we are creating, the inner sensations that we are
producing - is one of the first steps that we need
to take in order to change. Once we are aware of these
building blocks and also that we create themselves,
we can learn how to change them to ones that are more
useful to us.
For example, changing that critical voice telling
us that we "have to do this" or that we
"must do that" is incredibly liberating.
Moving that picture of being humiliated at school
further away and turning it into monochrome takes
a lot of the emotion our of it and allows us to take
some perspective on the experience and on the emotions
- perhaps it isn't the best reference experience to
take into a job interview now that you are in your
thirties.
Once we have a better understanding of what is going
in our own internal experience we can then extend
this to others. I am sure that you have all heard
of the research that 93% of our communication is at
a para-verbal or non-verbal level. Like me, you probably
don't completely agree with these figures. However,
there is a clear message here. In our culture we put
too much emphasis on the content, the words that are
spoken, and we are probably missing a lot of information
that is there before our very eyes and ears. Practising
our sensory acuity skills and calibration skills can
only enhance our relationships as we communicate with
one another.
Sensory acuity at these two levels gives us vital
information about what is going on for us and for
others at any given moment.
Flexibility
We now know what we want and we know what we are
getting. The next step is to have the flexibility
to do something about it. "If you always do what
you've always done, you'll always get what you've
always got. If what you're doing isn't working, do
something else".
Bandler and Grinder went to the world experts in
their field and worked out what they did. Working
on the presupposition that with the same neurology
as others I can do what they can do, they modelled
what these people did, learned it themselves, and
started teaching it to others. They discovered what
external behaviours, internal thought processes, and
internal emotions you would need to have to be able
to replicate the desired behaviour. This is now known
as The Mercedes Model, for reasons which will become
obvious when we examine the diagram below.
External Behaviours
My movements, body gestures, eye movements, and breathing
make up my external behaviours.
Internal Processing
We could also call this processing our internal thoughts
which consist of the pictures and words that we create
internally. These can also start to create our beliefs
about ourselves and about the world.
External Emotions
The sensations and feelings that we have we translate
into emotions. These in turn we use to start to create
our values. Those things that we measure the world
and ourselves against.
The interesting thing about this model is that whenever
we change one aspect we automatically start to alter
the other two.
Try a simple experiment to test this.
Sit in your chair. Lean forward and over. Bring your
shoulders round. Breathe shallowly and look down.
And feel really happy and energised. Difficult or
what?
Shake that feeling off.
Now, sit up. Pull your shoulders back and breathe
deeply. Push your arms out and look upwards. And feel
depressed. Not easy?
Shake that feeling off.
That little experiment shows that all three aspects
of the Mercedes Model are connected. Change one and
the others change. Say more empowering things to yourself
in a strong voice and you will find yourself thinking
differently and walking and breathing differently.
In terms of therapeutic interventions it does not
matter where we enter the system because wherever
we enter there will be change at the other two levels.
In term of elegance, the question becomes which intervention
will have the most leverage and achieve the change
more quickly.
However, to make any change at all, we need to know
what it is that we want, notice what we are getting
now for ourselves and in the world, and to be able
to start to do, think and feel different things -
Outcome, Sensory Acuity, Flexibility.
In this short space I have attempted a general introduction
to NLP - some of the "what" but little of
the "how". I will start to explore more
of the "how" in my next article.
Article written by Peter McNab
Peter is an INLPTA Certified NLP Master Trainer with
a background in social work and education. Peter is
also currently the only authorised Core Transformation
Trainer outside the USA. He is especially interested
in the areas of personal growth and health through
the use of personality models.
We charge £50 per session for NLP
|
