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NLP Manual

NLP Manual

Contents

Introduction 1 ....................................................................................................................Presuppositions of NLP 5 ..................................................................................................Rapport 9 ..........................................................................................................................Sensory Acuity 14 .............................................................................................................The Art of State Management 19 ......................................................................................Resourceful States 20 .......................................................................................................

Setting Up Your Resource State 23 ...............................................................................Anchors 24 .....................................................................................................................Milton Model - Artfully Vague language 30 ...................................................................

Metaphors 38 ................................................................................................................Well-Formed Outcomes 41 ...............................................................................................

Setting Well Formed Outcomes 41 ...............................................................................Representational Systems 44 ............................................................................................

Predicates 46 .................................................................................................................Eye Accessing Cues 49 .................................................................................................Submodalities 52 ...........................................................................................................List of submodalities 53 ................................................................................................

Swish 56 .........................................................................................................................The Fast Phobia Cure 59 ...................................................................................................Meta Model 63 ...............................................................................................................

Deletions 63 ..................................................................................................................Distortions 64 ................................................................................................................Generalisations 67 .........................................................................................................

Strategies 70 ......................................................................................................................Strategy Elicitation 73 ..................................................................................................Working out an Effective Strategy 75 ...........................................................................

Timelines 76 ......................................................................................................................Conclusion 77 ...................................................................................................................Resources and Reading List 78.........................................................................................

NLP Manual

Introduction

The question always has been and perhaps always will be:

What exactly is NLP?

!

Each book that you read may vary in the wording of what NLP is. Richard Bandler states that NLP is an attitude, a methodology that leaves behind a trail of techniques.

NLP is all these things and far more. Quite simply it is a way of thinking feeling and behaving that leads us towards more positive behaviours.

To learn about NLP is not only to help others but also to help yourself. Some practitioners may learn NLP, put their certificate on the wall and then forget to apply it for themselves. It becomes of little value if you cannot learn all the techniques and utilise them for your own benefits. There is a story of the practitioner who saw a client who was worried about presenting at work. The client said how awful he felt and exactly what was happening to him during a presentation. He looked hopefully at the practitioner who said; “Yes, it is awful isn’t it, I have that problem myself”. There would have been little chance of making any good changes there I suspect. Now this illustration does not mean that you have to be perfect at everything, but you would hope to work towards making really positive changes for yourself during your training.

This course can help you to understand both yourself and others more easily and use all the methodologies so that you can demonstrate competency and effectiveness.

We like to make this training friendly and informative, easy to use and easy to learn. When we enjoy learning it sinks deeper into the unconscious mind and becomes a part of the memory. Of course there are many academic books out there for you to read if you enjoy that and many to choose from. We hope that your learning becomes inspiring and fun.

NLP Manual © East Anglian Institute of Hypnotherapy ! 1 All rights reserved

NLP Manual

So NLP is described as an attitude and it’s about how you do the things you do. How does one person become anxious and another, who has every reason to be anxious, does not?

NLP can help to influence you and others - with integrity of course. It is a powerful tool and so is a fast sports car! It is what the individual does with this knowledge that is most important. We value people who learn and use NLP with integrity.

NLP has also been defined as the manual for the brain. Haynes manual for cars appeared in the 1960s. They were for the DIY enthusiast, or maybe for the poor sod whose car kept breaking down and who had no money for repairs! The diagrams in the books took you step by step through diagnostics, repairs and maintenance. Now there really is a Haynes Brain Manual which explains how our brains work with a 1

step by step guide. Once we become familiar with how our brain works and how we do what we do, we can discover how to change negative patterns of behaviour.

So what does Neuro Linguistic Programming actually mean?

‘Haynes Brain Manual’, Haynes Publishing1


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!

Neuro

We experience the world through our senses and translate sensory information into thought processes, both consciously and unconsciously. It is these thought processes that activate the neurological system.

Linguistic

This refers to the use of language systems, words, symbols, gestures and postures. When we use this language we are coding and attributing meanings to our internal representations of the world and communicating both internally and externally.

Programming Our own programming consists of internal processes and strategies. We use these programmes to make decisions, solve problems and to learn. For instance, when we think of buying something new or learning something we will automatically take into account what the benefits might be. For example you would like to buy a new car. What are the benefits? It looks nice and new, new style and model, faster engine and maybe even more reliability. Showing off to friends and family perhaps and maybe even being delighted at getting rid of the unreliable car you have at present. By the


NLP Manual

time you are ready to buy, you have probably overcome all the downsides, like having to borrow perhaps and are ready to receive all the benefits.

If we look at NLP, what benefits we may achieve from it and the justification of spending time and money learning something new, it can help to:

• Change the way you think, feel and behave

• Build your own personal confidence

• Enable you to understand others and communicate with them more effectively

• Achieve personal and professional goals

• Change old beliefs and behaviours that limit and hold us back

• Make more choices in life and become more creative.

That was just a shortened list of what NLP can do for you and for others. The only requirement is that you allow yourself to change for the better.


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Presuppositions of NLP

Within NLP there are many presuppositions. Assumptions that presuppose something is true. Here are some presuppositions of NLP. As you become aware of them, let them sink in and have meaning for you.

NLP is a model, not a theory and is not concerned with truth about human behaviour. These are the presuppositions upon which the model is built. You don’t need to believe a presupposition to test its usefulness, simply act as if it were true and notice the results you get.

• ‘The map is not the territory’. People live in their own unique model (map) of the world and this map is not the territory. The manual is not the training. The menu is not the meal.

• ‘People always make the best choices available to them’ with the information and experience they have at the time. They have the resources they need to achieve what they want.

• All distinctions we as human beings are able to make concerning our environment and our behaviour can be usefully represented through visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory senses.

• The ability to change the process by which we experience reality is often more valuable than changing the content of our experience of reality.

• ‘There is no failure only feedback’. Therefore, if what you are doing isn’t working, do something different.

• ‘The positive worth of an individual is held constant’, while the value and appropriateness of internal and/or external behaviour is questioned. There is a distinction between a person’s identity and the behaviours they exhibit.

• ‘There is a positive intention motivating every behaviour’ and a context in which every behaviour has value.

• ‘The meaning of communication is the response it elicits’. The intention behind communication is not its ultimate meaning.

• The person with the most flexibility in thinking and behaviour has the most influence on any interaction.

• Mind and body are part of the same system and anything that occurs in one part of the system will affect the other parts.


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• Knowledge, thought, memory and imagination are the result of sequences and combinations of representational systems. As memory and imagination have the same neurological circuits they potentially have the same impact.

Exercise 1

Discuss the above presuppositions in groups and what you think they mean to you.

The map is not the territory

This means that if we looked at the map of the West End in London it would only be a representation of the area. When we are actually there we may represent it in a different way. One person may think it is noisy and smelly, too many people. Another may think it is lively, bustling and inspiring. Have you ever recommended a restaurant to anyone and later they told you that it was awful and complained about nearly everything that left you feeling nonplussed? You represented the unassuming air and friendly waiters and good value for money. They saw it as unsophisticated and too familiar with the food being ordinary. Their map was different to your map.

There is no such thing as failure only feedback

In 1967 Dr Christian Barnard performed the first human heart transplant in South Africa. The recipient of the heart lived for eighteen days and died of pneumonia due to the immunosuppressive drugs he was taking. Later another transplant recipient lived for nineteen months. Dr Barnard performed ten transplants and each time learned from the previous transplants. He persisted in his efforts, even when other surgeons were disappointed by the results. His feedback each time was that he had not learned enough as yet to allow the patient to survive longer.

What would happen if all children were taught this at an early age? No failure, just feedback.

The meaning of the communication is the response you get

Recall a time when you were arguing or complaining about something and noticed that the person you were talking to became defensive and started shouting back at you, even when they may have really known that they had done something wrong? Now imagine that someone nearly runs into you in your car. They made a mistake and you are justifiably angry. They are speaking to you calmly and telling you to calm down. Would you calm down? Would their meaning of communication cause you to respond in another way?

If you are doing something that does not work, stop doing it and do something different


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What would happen if you ran into a brick wall head first? What would happen if you tried it again and again and again? What would have to happen for you to learn that brick walls and head don’t necessarily go well together at speed?

Choice is better than no choice

The worst case of anxiety and panic attacks is agoraphobia. People get to the point where they would prefer to stay in rather than go into the outside world. It becomes dangerous for them to go out and so they become imprisoned in their own home. No holidays, no job, no seeing what is happening out there, except for seeing it on TV. All choices are being cut off. They begin to feel safer indoors, but at the same time feel depressed because they are missing out on life.

The person with the most flexibility can control the system

Flexibility is about being able to change easily and effortlessly. If we become rigid in our ideas, ideals and behaviours we become inflexible. Notice how well you get on with someone if you are flexible in your arrangements with them. Flexibility gives you more options and less of a ‘my way or no way’ attitude.

People work perfectly

Unless someone is born with brain damage or has been physically injured in some way later in life, we do work perfectly. We are not damaged by our early years or by conditioning or relationships that have ended. It can be said that at these moments we do not run our brain in the right way, but we are certainly not damaged. It is at these times that NLP can help you to find a more useful way of thinking and looking at things from a different perspective.

You cannot not communicate

You meet someone for the first time. They smile, say nothing but look you up and down from head to toe. What are they communicating to you? Much of our language is non verbal. The gestures we use, the postures and facial expressions all tell us something. We are always communicating.

Mind Body and Spirit are all one system

This is a very important presupposition. The mind controls the body and the body controls the mind. Our spirit, higher self or life force is connected to everything. For instance, we cannot have a feeling without a thought, and then feelings can produce more thoughts.

If NLP is an attitude, let’s begin with your attitude. As you learn the skills and techniques of NLP, you may find your attitude begins to change, or becomes even


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better than it was before. If we want to use the skills to help others we must first begin to help ourselves. We can use NLP with integrity towards ourselves and others.

Healthy minds create healthy bodies and what helps the body most is good nutrition and exercise. There are few people who need to be informed about what to eat or how to exercise to remain healthy. Moderation is a good word! If you don’t look after yourself and become tired or lacking in energy, then become anxious, you cannot help others successfully.


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Rapport

‘Rapport is a process of establishing and maintaining a relationship of mutual trust and understanding between two or more parties’. Genie Laborde

One NLP Presupposition is ‘the meaning of your communication is the response you get’. What determines that response? Psychologist, Albert Mehrabian has shown that non-verbal communication affects the recipient much more than what is actually said.

Amount of influence in communication

Content 7% (words only)

Vocal influence 38% (tone, pitch, accent, stress, etc)

Non-verbal influence 55% (posture, gestures, eye movements, facial expressions)

People who are in good rapport (observe people in love) naturally match each other’s voice speed, pitch and tone and mirror one another’s body posture and movements. If we want to know what is going on for someone else we can ‘pace’ them by subtly taking on their body language, attuning our voice and breathing patterns. This must come from a genuine desire to meet them in their own world. If we are out to manipulate them they will sense it and rapport will not be developed. It helps to


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develop an attitude of respectful curiosity about how another person responds to the world.

The late R.D. Laing was asked to try to encourage a catatonic woman to communicate. She was sitting, naked, rocking backwards and forwards. Laing watched her for some time before taking off his clothes and sitting down to rock. After some time she spoke for the first time in ages. By joining her in her reality and thus validating it on one level he had gained rapport with her and change was possible.

To establish rapport we need to be willing to enter someone else’s reality and read the signs or cues which tell us how they are feeling or responding, look for:

VERBAL NON –VERBAL

Use of Language Posture Muscle tone Tone Gestures Skin tone Speed Breathing rate / position Volume Energy level

Right from the moment we are born we begin to learn how to get along with others. Babies smile and a great fuss is made of them, so they do it again and learn how to get more attention by smiling. Small children who smile more often and make regular eye contact with adults and other children find they are more popular. Take a moment to consider how you communicate with new people you meet.

Many of us don’t even have to think consciously about building rapport with others. We just do it naturally and unconsciously because we learned how to do it and we became successful at it and we just run the programme when we meet people. It leads to effective communication, whether we are with friends or family, work colleagues or our boss. We might want to impress or sell something to someone, and without rapport we can easily lose out. When you think about rapport, what do you think of?

We could describe it as a dance with two people moving easily in time, in step and in harmony, and when these things happen, we get a good feeling inside, we feel contented. We also know when we are not in rapport by the feeling we get then.

Rapport building can be learnt in many ways;

In his book ‘The seven habits of highly effective people’, Stephen Covey outlines one habit as ‘Seek first to understand then to be understood’.

The principles of PACING and LEADING correspond with this. If we wish to influence (lead) someone to change their behaviour we must first make the effort to understand and acknowledge their model of the world. Everyone has a different


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perception of their situation and we need to understand a person’s unique view in order to win their trust and influence them effectively.

PACING

Matching

Posture

Movement and gestures

Breathing patterns

Voice tone and quality

Language content – key words

Beliefs

Values

A deeper level of rapport is built when the internal elements such as beliefs and values are matched by the other person. Matching can be showing respect for and acknowledging a person’s beliefs even if we do not share them.

Exercise 2

Sit with a partner and listen while they talk about a minor problem. Match them (subtly) as much as possible and notice what happens if you disrupt this process in some way.

LEADING

This builds on what we have already paced in someone, for example: “I feel nervous about the interview” “They can be nerve-wracking I know, but how would you rather feel?”

Matching and Mirroring

If much of our communication is non verbal, then we can communicate by what we see. We can match

• Posture and angle of their body.

• Gestures that they use and body movements


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• Facial Expressions

• Voice Tonality

• Breathing Patterns

A word to the wise though when matching. If you ape someone, total copying, it will be perceived as mocking them. Subtle ways are far more effective.

Exercise 3

With a partner, create rapport and notice how you feel. Switch around and let the other person create rapport with you. Discuss how you felt. Be honest with your feedback.

Having created rapport, you can now begin to pace and lead. When you created rapport, you stepped into the other person’s model of the world. Now you can begin to subtly change your behaviour and they will follow.

A useful example might be;

Someone sits on the edge of their seat very anxiously, breathing rapidly and speaking quickly. You begin by matching their posture and breathing and the speed of their voice. You can also match tonality, high pitch or low pitch. When you know you have rapport, you can begin to lead and pace. Sit back in your chair, breathe in deeply or sigh, and then wait for them to follow you. If they do not, then go back a few steps and create rapport again. Then repeat the pacing and slow down your voice, and continue pacing and leading. At this level of rapport you can have a better relationship with each other, no matter what it is that you want to achieve. Exercise 4

Now with the same partner - match, pace and lead. As an exercise it may seem a little false to begin with, but the more you practice the more you do this unconsciously.

Keeping the rapport going

Many of us have had the experience of appearing to get along with someone, and then something goes wrong. Maybe they talk about something you don’t agree with. Have you noticed in the past that if this has happened, you become defensive, arguing or just disagreeing with them? You sense that rapport is being lost as your voice changes tone. Suddenly, you or they no longer wish to talk to you. What if you could maintain rapport with someone whilst keeping your own beliefs?


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Exercise 5

With a different partner, allow one person to have an extreme view, something you do not agree with (make it up if it is easier). Person two becomes defensive about their own beliefs and views, and you both notice how it feels to be defensive about your opinions. Break your state by just getting up and then sitting back down, or looking out through a window and making a comment about the weather.

Now start the conversation again, but this time person two stays in rapport with person one. Now notice the difference.


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Sensory Acuity

By closely observing people’s physiology, body positions and movements we can tune in to their states of mind and respond appropriately. This skill is all the more important if the people we are relating to are not able to use language well to express themselves. Diane Fossey became probably the first human to be accepted into a family of gorillas because she took the time and trouble to learn their language of noises, facial expressions and body posture. Each human being and animal has a non- verbal language of their own to express the complexities of their feelings and responses and we can continually refine our observation skills. One of the greatest therapists, Milton Erickson, utilised the time he was bed-ridden with polio to study the people around him with astonishing results.

What can we observe when watching human behaviour?

In groups, write down some things you might be paying attention to when observing others. Elect a spokesperson from each group to report your findings. What do others notice that you do not?

Posture, gestures, breathing, voice tone, volume, pitch, rhythm, skin tone and colour, facial expressions, eye movements.

It can be interesting for you to ‘people watch’ for a while, noticing human behaviour.

Observation is what you notice with all of your senses. Seeing, hearing, feeling, taste and smell.


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Recognising resourceful and non-resourceful states

Observations Resourceful Non-resourceful

Face:

Skin colour/ muscle tone

Eyes:

Expression /direction

Mouth:

Shape/ expression

Shoulders:

Held/ relaxed

Breathing:

Rate/depth/ rhythm

Arms: position/ tension

Legs: position/ tension

Feet: position/ movement

Stance

Gestures


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Exercise 6

In a group of four, person one and two have a discussion about their holidays. Person one asks person two about the experience for about three to four minutes. Person three and person four discuss later what they observed about person one and two. Take it in turns so that all have an experience of talking, and observing the others.

When we are working with clients we would be observing them using our sensory acuity, making some notes perhaps about their behaviour.

Calibrating

When we are observing others we pick up connections. For example, if we noticed someone blushing when they are talking about something, we can also notice they may blush when they don’t speak. Calibration is using sensory acuity to pay great attention to changes in peoples’ states by noticing certain patterns. To calibrate someone’s behaviour we can begin to notice their posture when they are happy or sad relaxed or tense. Do they make gestures as they speak such as tapping their foot or rubbing their hands? Where does their breathing come from? Are they breathing high up in their chest, in the middle or low down in the abdomen?

Does the breathing change when they are talking about different things? How does their state change? How does the voice vary and alter with tone pitch and speed?

You may be surprised to learn that skin tones change significantly. Of course blushing would be an easy one to detect, but when someone feels tense or under stress, you may notice around the cheeks that the skin tone changes. Fear causes paling whilst happiness gives a warm glow.

Exercise 7

By calibrating unconsciously with your partner, do the following: Person A thinks of something they like and something they really dislike – a food or person could be a good choice.

VISUAL - Person A and B sit opposite one another, and Person A demonstrates visually their like and then their dislike which Person B calibrates with. Then Person A does 5 random states, breaking state between each one and Person B must identify whether it is a like or a dislike state via the visual cues. Person A then confirms whether they are right or wrong after each of the 5 states.

AUDITORY -Person A and B then sit back to back without touching, so they cannot see each other. Person A demonstrates the like and dislike by counting from 1-10 whilst thinking of each state. Person B calibrates with this auditory information.


NLP Manual

Person A counts out for 5 random states and Person B says what they think each one is. Person A confirms whether they are right or not.

KINESTHETIC – Person A and B sit opposite. Person B then closes their eyes and holds their hands out, palms up. Person A elicits their like state and places their hands on Person Bs. They break state and repeat for their dislike state. Then Person A does 5 random states and again Person B must state what they think it is like or dislike which Person A will confirm.

Facial Expessions

Paul Ekman developed Micro Expressions that became a useful tool for others to use. 2

He concluded that from thousands of expressions that we use, only a certain number are useful and seven in particular are universal. The Micro Expressions change so quickly that you have to be quick and sensory aware to catch them. They change according to the person’s state.

Exercise 8

Work with a partner and ask them to recall a happy time or memory. Note the expression. Now ask them to recall a sad memory, (nothing too traumatic) and calibrate the difference between the two expressions. Change around.

Exercise 9

Sensory Acuity – Elicit both a resourceful state and a non resourceful state with a client. Comment on the differences between the two in terms of body language and sensory acuity.

Exercise 10

Work with same partner and ask them to answer five questions that will produce a YES answer.

Example:

Is today (whatever day it is)? Does Christmas day fall on the 25th of December? Are there 365 days in the year? Are there four seasons in the year? Is this an NLP course you are on?

Notice how they answer yes and what expressions they use.

Now ask five questions that will produce a NO answer.

Paul Ekman – ‘Emotions Revealed: Understanding Faces and Feelings’, Phoenix2


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Example:

Was Prince Charles married to Lady Jayne Spencer? Is Boxing Day on the 30th of December? Is it Tuesday today (whatever day it is not)? Do chickens have three legs? Do vegetarians eat meat?

Now notice how they answer no. Use your sensory acuity to notice the difference in how they answer yes and now.

Break state

Now ask five random questions and notice if you can spot whether they are answering yes or no correctly.

Example:

Have you been on holiday this year? Do you hate Marmite? Are oranges your favourite fruit? Do you have a middle name? Do you like liver?

These are only examples and it is much better to use your own for obvious reasons. However, if you do get stuck, you can use these questions.


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The Art of State Management

The ability to manage states describes the difference between those who achieve their outcomes and those who fail to achieve their outcomes.

The power is in the control of states – the ability to change - to access the most resourceful characteristics required to be at your best at an unconscious level.

The two main components of states involve: internal representations and physiology. The internal representations describe your habitual patterns of representing things to yourself both in terms of what (content) and how (process/form) you picture and talk in your mind. The coding of the state is made up of the modalities and submodalities. The physiology includes posture, breathing and overall muscle tension. Both of these affect the other.

The next step involves being aware of our current and ongoing states. The problem is that when they become habitual they are not consciously recognised. Certain states empower us to achieve whilst others hold us back – the key is to be aware of this.

States are altering all the time and are often triggered by environmental factors (anchors) therefore they are a flowing stream of change – the key is to be able to access those that are most resourceful – NLP allows these to be broken down in terms of what triggers them and what the coding of resourcefulness is. Each individual is unique therefore it is important to notice the detail of your own.

Finally, the ability to utilise states when you need them is crucial to maximising performance –this often involves linking them to your own anchors and firing them off when required. Then the skill is to amplify the state by increasing the power of submodalities.

People who excel tend to become masters at tapping into their own most resourceful parts.


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Resourceful States

We often refer to what kind of state people are in. ‘Look at the state of him; he was in a right state’. We can move from one state to another easily and quickly. One minute you are sitting there watching the results of the lottery, and then the next you are hysterical with joy as you realise all your numbers have come up. You are at a party enjoying yourself when a row kicks off and people are shouting and swearing. You suddenly go from being happy to being afraid, all in a short space of time.

Exercise 11

With a partner discuss the different states you have been in recently, even when you started this training.

People with long term depression will often be in what could be described as a poor state. They mostly always feel down in the dumps, nothing much worth living for, whilst an optimistic person will often be in a good happy state as they see lots of good things around them.


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The state we are in will often interfere with the behaviour we would like, so for example, if we have just had a row with our partner and in the next few minutes are entertaining people for dinner, we may find it very difficult to show we are happy, so that when the guests arrive, they may lower their state as they don’t know what has happened, or what they may have done to make you look miserable. It is also true that some people are not even aware of the state they are in and how it may be affecting others. Awareness is the key here, and the more aware we become of our own state, the easier it is to change it for the better more often.

Exercise 12

With the same partner, go inside and discuss with your partner how you feel. Close your eyes and notice your breathing, what is on your mind right now? Are you feeling happy or sad? Fearful or optimistic? Change around and ask your partner to go inside and notice how they feel?

If you practice with this it becomes much easier to quickly notice your state.


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Creating New States Exercise 13

Ask your partner to think of something that makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. Associate into it so that you feel the feelings. Now look up to the ceiling and smile a big smile. Sing a silly song in your head whilst doing this and then try to be uncomfortable whilst doing this. You will notice that you cannot be uncomfortable whilst looking up and singing a silly song.

Break state

Now ask your partner to think of something really pleasant. Perhaps a holiday or somewhere really nice where they felt so calm and relaxed. Now ask them to breathe high up in their chest, faster than they did before, and at the same time try to hold on to the relaxed feeling. They will find it very difficult to do so. Change over partners.

Exercise 14

With the same partner ask them to think of a time when they felt really confident. Ask them to mark out on the floor a circle where this confidence is. They begin to notice what it is about this circle that tells them they are confident, and everything in this circle tells them that confidence is there. Now get them to step inside the circle when they are ready and notice as they do that they will feel confident within this circle. As they step in they can allow all the feelings of confidence to rise up. Now step out of the circle again. Change around.


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Setting Up Your Resource State

When you have your experience, your circle and your code word then you are ready to create your resource state. Here is the sequence:

1. Picture a time when you did something very well. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?

2. As soon as the images, sounds and feelings are clear, imagine a circle on the floor. Give the circle a colour.

3. Take a deep breath and step into the circle. 4. Stand inside the circle and intensify the memory of the extraordinary event. 5. Enjoy the feeling that is a natural part of doing something well and knowing it.

Now go through the sequence again, adding your code word.

1. Picture a time of resourcefulness. 2. See a coloured circle. 3. Say your code word. 4. Step into the circle. 5. Intensify the feeling. 6. Stay in the circle for as long as you clearly experience the resource state.

Take the time now to go through these steps two more times. This will set up the pattern so that you can easily access your resource state any time you wish.


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Anchors

Have you ever wondered how when you hear a piece of music, see something or smell or taste something, it transports you back to a time when it really happened? You can see, hear taste and smell just as if you were really there again. Some things make you feel really happy, other things make you feel melancholy. You may have called them triggers, and in NLP we call them anchors. They are learned programmes often through a repeat of what we have seen heard, felt, tasted or smelt. Some of us can recall the Heinz advert; “A million housewives every day, pick up a tin of beans and say - Beanz Meanz Heinz.” We were conditioned through repetitive advertising to remember this. Many anchors begin in childhood and the original experience may be forgotten but the response remains the same. The positive anchors we have are important and we like to keep them and recall them at will. The negative anchors can be disruptive in our lives and limit us or hold us back in some way. An example would be standing up in class and reading out loud and getting it wrong. The anchor could be that the teacher shouts, so you hear the voice, the class laughs at you and you hear that. You feel yourself blushing and maybe an uncomfortable feeling in your chest or stomach, and want to run away. Years later, when you are about to present something to a group, at work, or at a wedding speech, you find yourself blushing, wanting to run away and feeling dreadful.

If you gave a baby a lemon and they had never tasted it, they would put it in their mouth and then wince from the bitterness of the taste. The next time you give it to them they will wince even before they taste it because they have remembered it. The taste of lemon juice will be remembered as something unpleasant. As you are reading this now, and maybe thinking about lemons and how they taste, has your unconscious mind recalled the taste and have your salivary glands started to respond?

Phobias start off with a negative anchor. The big dog comes rushing towards you barking with its mouth open showing it’s big teeth. You feel afraid until the owner takes the dog away. You see another dog the next day just walking along being controlled properly, but you respond by feeling fear and wanting to get away from the dog.

Teachers and trainers use special anchoring. They stand in certain places to deliver different kinds of information. The group gets to know very quickly that when they stand to the left perhaps, then they are going to learn something new. And all of this happens mostly unconsciously.

A practitioner using NLP can create some very positive anchors for the client which can be extremely useful for the future.

To create positive anchors there are some steps to take before the anchor is fired off.


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Uniqueness

The anchor needs to be unique. The quality of the anchored experience is what helps the client to recall it easily and effectively. When we shake hands with someone, we create an anchor, so it is better if we find a unique place for the client, such as two fingers pressed together, somewhere on the hand such as a knuckle, or inside the wrist. If you are creating an anchor for someone you will want to use voice tone to add to the anchored experienced and the client can access this feeling and experience if the anchor is fired off regularly. Remember, any habit takes some time to become a habit, so the more this is done, the more the anchor can be fired off with great success.

In NLP, anchoring refers to the natural process by which any element of an experience can create the entire experience.

An anchor is in essence any representation (internally or externally generated) which triggers another representation or representations. A basic assumption behind anchoring is that all experiences are represented by sensory information. Whenever any portion of a particular experience is reintroduced other portions of that experience will be reproduced to some degree. Any portion of a particular experience, then, may be used as an anchor to access another portion of that experience.

Key Points on Anchoring:

1. Anchors do not need to be conditioned over long periods of time in order to become established, though repeated stimuli can reinforce an anchor. Anchors tend to promote the use of single trial learning.

2. Anchors will become established without direct rewards or reinforcement for the association. Repetition and conditioning can lead to establishment of an anchor, though not necessarily.

3. Internal experience is considered to be as significant behaviourally as overt measurable responses. Therefore an individual dialogue, picture, or feeling is just as much of a response as the salivation of Pavlov’s dog.

4. The more intense the experience that an individual is having at the time the anchor is set (i.e trigger stimulus applied), the stronger the response will be when the anchor is ‘fired off’ at a later time. Phobias are a good example of powerful anchors that in most cases are established in a single very brief and intense learning experience.

5. In creating an anchor, timing the application of the trigger stimulus precisely to associate it with the state you want is critical. Anchoring the state as it is increased in intensity sets a direction for the mind to follow.


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6. The more unique the stimulus, the more accurate it will be in re-accessing the desired state. In essence, the anchor will be less likely to bring with it any unwanted representations which had similar associations.

7. The more accurately the stimulus is replicated, the quicker and more accurately it will re-access what it was associated with originally.

8. Anchors can be established in all representational systems, as well as their component parts; i.e external, internal, sights, sounds, feelings, smells, and tastes.

9. Anchors can be set and fired off overtly or covertly, depending on the practitioner’s outcome. The fact is that people in everyday living are constantly creating and utilising powerful anchors covertly most of the time as completely unconscious behaviour – e.g. advertising. In fact, language itself is one of the most complex anchors in both auditory and visual modalities. For most people, there are single words that can elicit very strong positive or negative responses.

Bandler and Grinder (1979) said that approximately 90% of what is done in therapy involves changing kinaesthetic responses that people have to auditory and visual stimuli.

Intensity

As the client is reaching the highest state of intensity, the anchor is fired off at the peak of intensity. For example, when creating an anchor with a client you could say:


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‘I want you to recall a time when you felt confident, no matter how brief the time was. Go there now and make it as real as can be. Fully associate yourself into the picture feeling all the feelings of being confident, seeing what is around you and hearing what you are saying and noticing how confident you sound’.

Now you can ask the client to press two fingers together or a thumb and finger, or even clasp their hands pr press on the back of the hand. This fires the anchor, and it can be recalled later. If you have noticed the sensory acuity of the client you may have seen the changes happening when they are recalling the time. If there is no change, ask for details until you see, hear and know they are experiencing a good moment from the past.

Purity

It is important that the experience is not contaminated with anything other than the state you are eliciting. The client needs to feel exactly how they felt at the time. If the client experienced confidence at work from a phone call say, and then a few minutes later was called in by the boss who gave them a ticking off because they had forgotten to do something, then the original anchor is contaminated by fear or sadness later on. If this were to happen and you noticed changes in the clients state after they had fired off the anchor or even whilst it was being fired off, you would ask what happened after that event to make sure nothing was contaminating the anchor.

Timing

With practice you can time the anchor to be just right, just a few seconds before the peak state has arrived. Your own sensory awareness will tell you when to fire the anchor off. Calibrate the moment and fire it off, remembering to ask the client to let go of the pressed fingers after it has subsided, as the anchor may change if the client is still holding down the anchor.

Test

It is vital that you test the anchor because it may not have been successful first time. Break state once the client has released the anchor and then ask them to fire off the anchor again and calibrate their state. If they look pleased and state that they feel those feelings once again, you have created the anchor successfully. If they feel nothing, then go back a few steps and do it again. Remember that some people are more visual or auditory so you may want to create a visual anchor, or something that they hear - a word perhaps.

Example:

From now on every time you hear the words ‘Go for it’, you will feel those feelings all over again, and that ‘Go for it’ can become your personal mantra.


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Every time you see the colour blue it reminds you of that peaceful time you recalled, and when you see blue, which you may do more often now, you will feel more peaceful and calm, just that colour blue reminds you to be calm and relaxed.

The steps to successful anchoring are:

1. Create rapport, and ask the client to find a time when they felt happy, or confident, or loved. This is just an example, you may want to choose something else or the client may ask to recall a certain time.

2. Allow the client to find that resourceful time and notice the changes that happen whilst the client elicits the state. Calibrate and ask the client to fire off the anchor just before the peak state.

3. Release the anchor and break state. Now test the anchor.

4. Remember to let the client know they need to fire the anchor off regularly as it will fade if not fired off at regular intervals.

Stacking Anchors

Having created a good strong anchor, you can begin to stack some anchors so that you are building up good feelings and thoughts from past experiences. Often people dwell far more on negative events that have happened and think less of all the good things that have happened. Stacking the anchors enables us to recall easily and quickly, not one event but many events.

Exercise 15

With your partner ask them to create the positive anchor and fire it off again. Break state and then ask for another time they felt either happy or confident, loved or something else. Now elicit that state and fire off the anchor again just before the peak of intensity and this time ask your partner to touch another finger and thumb together. Release the anchor and break state again.

Now ask for another time, when they had the greatest fun of all time. Again calibrate when to fire off the anchor and again ask your partner to touch yet another finger and thumb together. You can continue until you have run out of fingers, each time breaking state and creating another anchor. Break state when you have fired off enough anchors, and then test them again by asking your partner to touch each finger in succession, or rubbing their fingers along each one quickly and calibrate the states they go through.

Collapsing Anchors


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Some people have strong negative anchors that continue to affect their behaviour. By collapsing the negative anchor the positive anchor can take over.

Exercise 16

With another partner, ask them for a negative anchor that bothers them and that they would like to get rid of. Get them to associate into it, feeling the feelings and using their senses to recall the time. Now anchor that for them on the back of the hand perhaps in-between a knuckle. Release the anchor and break state.

Now get them to go back into their very positive anchor and ask them to hold it again when they reach the peak state again. Release the anchor and break state.

Now get them to hold the positive anchor whilst you hold down the negative anchor and notice what happens. Within a short time the negative anchor will disappear. They will state that they can’t find the old memory, it has disappeared, and all they are left with is the positive anchor. When this happens, ask them to hold the positive anchor for a moment longer and then release and break state.

Now hold down the negative anchor again and ask them what they feel. If this has worked will they will not be able to access that old anchor, and all the feeling will have gone from it.


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Milton Model - Artfully Vague language

Richard Bandler and John Grinder studied therapists who were excellent in their field. One therapist, Milton Erickson, was described by Bandler and Grinder as being ‘artfully vague’ in his language patterns with clients. He was creating distortions, deletions and generalisations within the language he used. As many, if not most, people distort, delete and generalise for much of the time, it worked well, fitting in with their belief systems. Because the language was unclear and vague, clients would go into trance; they would go inside and do their best to make sense of what was being said. It also accessed the unconscious part of the mind and from there many changes could take place. We often refer to the conscious and unconscious mind. There are no real separate parts to our mind, it is useful for us to refer to them as such but they are not real, although we do have a left part and right part of our brain. The vague language also allows clients to go on a search in their mind to make sense of what is being said or asked. This is called a Trans-derivational Search or TDS for short. The TDS allows the client go into the part of the memory that can access answers.

Trance states are natural; we go in and out of trance state all day, such as driving a car and forgetting that we passed through some roads or villages. We jump when someone comes into the room when we have been reading a book, even though we know they are around. We go all weepy at a soppy film even though we know it is not real. These are some trance states we go through so trancing out is natural and normal.

When we go into hypnosis which is trancing out, we alter our focus and begin to relax more and concentrate on what is being said, or what we are hearing from somewhere or someone.

It is not necessary to know how to hypnotise someone and it probably would not be appropriate in some circumstances, but using language patterns can be useful and helpful if you want to overcome deletions, distortions and generalisations. More will become clear to you when you begin to use the patterns of language and you can notice how they begin to change your own perception of how you use language to influence others.

Pacing Current Experience

This describes the person’s experience. Example:

You are sitting here listening to me

Causal Modelling and Linkage Words

These are words that make connections that imply a cause-effect relationship between something that is happening and something that the communicator wants to happen. Examples:


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And as you make some changes, things become easier since you have learned NLP.

You are listening to my voice and you can begin to relax.

You are breathing in and out and you are curious about what you might learn.

As you sit there smiling, you can begin to go into trance.

While you sway back and forth, you can relax more completely.

The nodding of your head will make you relax more completely. Mind Reading

This is where you act as though you know what the other person is thinking. Examples:

I know that you think this is a good deal.

You may be wondering what I will do next.

You’re curious about how NLP will help you.

Lost Performative

These are value judgements where the performer or holder of the value judgement is omitted from the statement. Examples: It’s a known fact that being relaxed helps people change behaviours.

It’s good that you can learn so easily.

It’s not important that you let yourself go all the way down into relaxation.

And it’s good to remember that you have the resources that you need.

Cause and Effect

There is an implication that one things causes another

Examples:

When you relax and breathe out slowly, your whole body relaxes

Complex Equivalent


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This is when you imply that two things are equal or equivalent in meaning. Examples:

You are learning NLP and that means you will become more skilled

Presuppositions

These are the linguistic equivalent of assumptions. These are the most powerful of language patterns when used by a communicator who presupposes what they don’t want questioned. A general principle is to give a lot of choices that all presuppose the response you want. Examples:

You are going to learn something new, and become good at NLP.

Do you want to sit down while we discuss the problem?

I’d like to discuss something with you before you complete this work.

You may be wondering which side of your body will relax first.

I don’t know whether it will be your right hand or left hand that will rise unconsciously as you’re going into trance.

Would you like to brush your teeth before or after you have had a bath?

Do you realise that your unconscious mind has already begun to learn new things?

Did you know that you have already been in altered states many times in your life?

Are you curious about your developing trance state?

Are you deeply in a trance?

How easily can you begin to relax?

You can continue to relax.

Are you still interested in joining the practice meetings?

Fortunately, there’s no need for me to know why you want the job in order for me to decide.

Universal Quantifiers

These are words which have a universal or absolute character about them such as ‘all’, ‘every’, ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘nobody’, etc.


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Examples:

You will never know what it is like.

Every thought that you have can assist you in becoming more and more certain about what you want.

And now you can let yourself go all the way down into trance.

Modal Operators

Modal operators are words which imply possibility or necessity and which often form our rules in life such as: have to, should, shouldn’t, must, must not, can’t,. Examples:

When you experience this trance you should stop smoking, and you must know that your unconscious mind will allow that. You are able to do this.

You must not arrive late.

Children should be seen but not heard.

You have to go to school.

Nominalisations

These are words that take the place of a noun in a sentence but are not tangible – they cannot be touched, felt or heard. The words are process words which are used as nouns such as: education, confidence, independence, relationship, experience, understandings, etc. Examples:

I know you have a lot of difficulty with this.

I have no confidence.

My relationship is not working.

Unspecified Verbs

This is where the what, how or when of the sentence is unspecified, which forces the listener to supply the meaning in order to understand the sentence. It is something that was done, but not clearly how. Examples:

You know I want you to learn.

I know you will understand.


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Tag Question

This is a question that is added to the end of a statement that invites agreement. Example:

I know you want to experience a relaxed state do you not?

Lack of Referential Index

This is a phrase that does not specify who it refers to. Examples:

One can understand this you know.

People can relax

This can easily be learned.

You can notice a certain sensation.

Comparative Deletion

This is comparing, but to whom or to what? Examples:

That is more acceptable.

It is easier that way.

Selection Restriction Violation

This is attributing feelings to animals or objects, metamorphosing. Examples:

The chair was inviting me to sit down and then helped me to relax

Double Binds

Double binds are where all choices produce the same result. This is effectively a form a presupposition. Example:

You may want to go into a trance now or in the next few minutes.

Embedded Commands

This form of indirect hypnotic communication is effective as the commands bypass the conscious analytical brain to go direct to the subconscious mind. The communicator embeds the directives within a larger sentence by analogue marking the command that they want the listener’s subconscious mind to pick up, but delivers


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it smoothly within a larger sentence so the listener is not aware of the commands. They can be analogue marked in the following ways:

1. Raising the volume of one’s voice. 2. By pausing before and after the voice change. 3. By changing voice tone. 4. By gesturing with one’s hands. 5. By raising one’s eyebrows.

You can begin to relax now. I don’t know how soon you’ll feel better.

Embedded Questions

This is similar to commands except that they are questions. Examples:

I’m curious to know what you would gain from changing career?

I’m wondering what you would like to eat tonight?

Negative Commands

This is when a command is given in its’ negative form to gain a positive response. Examples:

Don’t think of a pink elephant skateboarding down the road.

I don’t want you to feel too comfortable.

Don’t have too much fun out tonight will you?

Extended Quotes

This is an excellent way to embed what you want to say in the context of a story and someone else saying it. Example:

Pete said to Jan, ‘You are looking really slim and healthy’. She obviously felt very flattered by the compliment.

Conversational Postulate

This is a yes or no question that elicits an action response rather than a literal answer. Examples:

Do you know how to relax deeply?


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Do you have the time?

Can you shut the door?

Is the door open?

Do you know what is on TV tonight?

Ambiguity

This occurs when a sentence, phrase or word has more than one possible meaning. Ambiguity used to create confusion and disorientation can be particularly useful in creating altered states in hypnosis. The key is that it is possible for the listener to process the message in more than one way particularly at an unconscious level. Another important use of ambiguity is to create humour a crucial element of any therapy. There are four types of ambiguity: Phonological Ambiguity

These are words that sound the same but have different meanings such as:

Write-right-rite, I-eye, red-read, there-their-they’re, weight-wait, knows-nose, here- hear, duck, left, down, light, etc.

‘Now you are here, you can hear what I am saying, and it may be right for you to write down some things’

Syntactic Ambiguity

This is where the meaning of the word is not clear from the immediate context. This kind of ambiguity is based on taking a transitive verb, adding ‘ing’ and placing it before a noun.

It was a moving feast.

They were visiting relatives.

They were milking cows.

Hypnotising hypnotists can be tricky

They were sleeping policemen.


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Scope Ambiguity

This is where it is not always possible to determine how much of a sentence, a word or phrase applies to.

Speaking to you as a child.

People who think our staff are rude should speak to the manager.

We’ll go with the charming men and women.

I don’t know how soon you will fully realise you are sitting here comfortably, listening to the sound of my voice, and you are going into a deep trance.

Punctuation Ambiguity

This is where it is not clear where one sentence ends and another begins.

‘Look at your watch the time go by. As you look at the clock face the front’.

‘That’s right now you’ve begun to relax.’

‘Your coat looks like it is made of duck down deeply into trance.’

‘I’m speaking clearly to make sure you can hear you are in the process of change.’

Exercise 17

In a group, pick a few of the language patterns and work out how you could use them on a daily basis for influencing people, for getting things done, and for helping someone who would like to relax. Write them down and then ask one person to read them out to the whole group.


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Metaphors

Metaphors can be simply explained as a story which talks about something without talking about it, if you get the meaning of that!

People do respond to story-telling no matter how old they are. Recall a time when you listened to a play on the radio, and you used your imagination to imagine what the people were like. I wonder if you asked a group of people who listen to the Archers what their perception of what Grey Gables looks like, what the characters look like in their imagination. We would probably hear many different versions, and that would be because we use our own imagination to create what we think is right and what our representations of the Archers would be. When we hear a story we make up the characters in our mind or we represent the story in our own model of the world. If we talked about growing flowers, some people might imagine their own garden, some would think about a garden they had been to and others may think of something completely different.

We often speak in metaphor. “When I talk to him I feel as though I am banging my head against a brick wall”. “I am up to my eyes in work”. “I don’t know if I am coming or going, but I feel as though I am going round in circles”. “When I get angry I see red and feel as though I am going to blow a fuse”. All of these statements are not factually correct, unless of course someone is truly banging their head against a wall or really going round in circles. They are just metaphor for the way we feel.

And if metaphors are a way of talking about something without talking about it, how do we construct a metaphor?

To begin with, we need to know the starting point and where we want to go.

Example: “I am not as confident as I would like to be, and I want to be more confident. I know I can do things; it’s just that I don’t really believe in myself. People tell me I am good at things, but when it comes down to it, I just back off all the time”.

So this person’s starting point is lack of confidence which presents as not believing in them self not believing others who tell them they can do things. What they desire is to be able to do the things they know they can do and believe in them self that they can do things.

Stop for a moment and consider the statement. When you read ‘they want to do things’, did you imagine what they might want to do? You were representing what the ‘things’ were in your map of the world and maybe even coming up with some metaphor perhaps.

Let’s consider how we could tell a story without saying, “you are confident, you can do the things you want to do”. Even if this were said in a hypnotic trance state the


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person would probably not believe it because that is what they think right now. If we tell a story about something, their unconscious mind will make sense of it.

So the story could begin with something or someone that does not believe in himself, or has conditioned in some way to think that.

Then as time passes they either stay with that belief or something or someone helps them to change it and they have the opportunity to decide whether or not the new belief is more beneficial.

Another example of a metaphor would be someone is ready to learn something new, but is not sure or is wary in some way. They want to learn and are keen but it feels like a problem that is difficult and not easy to overcome.

When I think about springtime I think of all that springs to life, plants and creatures, especially something like a caterpillar. Isn’t it amazing how everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. And the end for the caterpillar is the beginning for the butterfly, and have you ever watched as the caterpillar creeping along determined on its journey and it has some pretty hard times to go through. And then it is bound in a tight cocoon. Then it breaks free from the cords that bound it and as the butterfly emerges the wings startle as they begin to flutter and it flies away. A little butterfly, free now and having such a good time on rainy days and taking shelter when it rains. The glorious colour of it’s wings are there for you to see as it takes that step into the unknown and flies away.

Exercise 18

In your group work out the meaning of this metaphor and what particular language in this story could help a client.

As we work through metaphor we can use VAK within it, so we might start off with visual go through into auditory and in between have kinaesthetic. Most problems will be starting off big, so we can begin our metaphor with something that is big and then allow it to become smaller through the story.

Exercise 19

In your group create some metaphors. You will then read out three to the rest of the larger group and they will find out if they know what the problem was that you were using the metaphor for. Use some Milton language in your metaphors.

Here are some ideas that you could use around the metaphor:

Plants, animals, people, sci fi, films, sports.


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When working with a client or a group, it may not always be possible for you to come up with a story that is instantaneous. Ask the client for the metaphor.

‘So if you were to imagine this problem as a metaphor or story, how would it be like the problem of not presenting well at interviews?’

How is like your problem of working too hard and never really achieving what you want to achieve? (A good metaphor here would be the Tortoise and the Hare) It could also be useful for someone who eats too quickly and never feels full.


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Well-Formed Outcomes

Most people want to achieve some sort of goal. We think of all the things we would like to achieve at times and maybe even write lists of what we want in life.

When a client presents a problem, they may tell you what they want stated in a negative way. For instance, they may say, “I don’t want to be anxious anymore, I want to stop the lack of confidence”. What they are really doing is telling you what they do not want. A well-formed outcome has to be stated in the positive, or it is not well-formed. Well-formedness has criteria that need to be met if the goal is to be achieved. To help a client become confident, we need to know what confidence means to that person. When we ask specific questions about what confidence would mean, we will be getting more positive answers that eventually will lead to the goal being achieved.

The unconscious part of the mind does not process negatives, so when someone says “I don’t want to be anxious”, the unconscious has to think about being anxious, to then not be anxious. Shout at a child, “don’t fall off that wall you are on” and the child will look at the wall first and then may fall off. They have got to think about falling off first.

As an example; whatever you do for the next moment or so, don’t think of a green pig. Chances are you had to think of the pig first, you might have made a picture of one! It might sound a little strange to begin with, but it really works if you ask what the person really wants stated in the positive.

Setting Well Formed Outcomes

1. What do you really want – stated in the positive e.g. to feel relaxed rather than to feel less tense.

2. What will you see, hear and feel when you have achieved this?

3. Does this outcome involve others or can you achieve it by yourself?

4. Does it result in a win/win situation for all concerned?

5. Are there any benefits of your present situation that might be lost if you achieve this outcome? How can the benefits be retained?

6. How much energy will you commit to this project?

7. What will be your first step towards it?

Example:


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Client: “I don’t want to feel anxious anymore.”

Practitioner: “So, how do you really want to feel?”

Client: “Not anxious.”

Practitioner: “So, if you are not anxious, how are you feeling?”

Client: “Well, calm and relaxed.”

Practitioner: “And what would be happening to let you know you were calm and relaxed?”

Client: “I would feel at ease and my body would be calm and contented.”

This would begin the well-formed outcome. We would ask the client to state the desired outcome positively.

If someone was asking for help to get a big house and car that would not be so well-formed because it may be context dependant on other factors such as the income that was being earned now, and the capabilities that person has now. The client would need to know how they were going to achieve the goal and what was happening to them that told them they had achieved it.

For the person wanting to be calm, the sensory based evidence would be that they felt in control of their mind and body perhaps, that they were doing things that previously would have caused anxiety. For the person wanting a big house and car, they might be saying that a new business or job will bring these rewards but they would need to be working hard and giving plenty of time to the business.

For the well-formed outcome to work we would need to explore the context. Who and where and when is the outcome wanted? Is being calm context dependent on a partner being more considerate? Is the big house and car dependant on selling the family home? Is it ecologically sound? E.g. does the person have to rob a bank to get what he wants, or does the anxious person have to move out of the family home to find calmness? The well-formed outcome has to fit in with the client’s beliefs and values and to be ecologically sound.

A well-formed outcome will also preserve existing benefits. Every behaviour has a positive intention, so the person with anxiety would want to maintain some anxiety if it has a benefit such as walking down a dark road and seeing somebody suspicious walking towards them. They would in that case need to feel some anxiety that would allow them to take action if necessary.


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Exercise 20

With a partner elicit a well-formed outcome.

Ask your partner about what they would like to achieve.

Make sure it is stated in the positive. Be specific.

Ensure that the outcome would be in their control.

Ask for sensory awareness. What would they look like if they achieved X? What else would they notice?

Ask what resources they have already.

Make sure that the WFO preserves existing benefits.

Check that it is ecologically sound.

There are some questions that you can ask that allow the client to go on a trans-derivational search. They are based on something called Cartesian logic. The theory of Cartesian logic asserts that if an outcome (or any theory) will hold true in all four questions, then you can view your outcome as attainable.

What will happen when you feel calm and relaxed?

What won’t happen when you feel calm and relaxed?

What will happen if you don’t feel calm and relaxed?

What won’t happen if you don’t feel calm and relaxed?

The last question usually foxes most people. Be patient and wait for an answer as the client often repeats the questions to them self or asks you to repeat it.


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Representational Systems

We take in the world through five senses. These five senses allow us to see, hear, feel, smell and taste. In NLP we call them modalities, and the acronym we use in NLP is VAKOG - Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic, Gustatory and Olfactory.

This is the way we make sense of the world and what is going on around us. Our neurological pathways use the information that we gather in from our representational system externally to create an internal representation of it. From external representations we internally process what is going on around us.

Think back to when you first started the course. You may make a picture in your mind of coming into the room, looking at all the other people around you, hearing what was being said, and maybe noticing the feeling you had, either nervous or excited, or just calm and relaxed. You might recall that you could smell coffee and were offered some and recall what it tasted like. You used all your senses and systems at that point. Later in the morning, you may have felt hungry and looked at your watch to see if lunchtime was nearly there and thought about what you would have for lunch. You may have made a picture of the sandwiches you had brought with you, or thought about the place where you would eat and even thought about the taste of what you might like to have, even getting the smell of it.

We use all of our senses, but we do tend to favour one particular system. Some people describe themselves as a visual person, others more auditory, whilst others may say they are more into their feelings, kinaesthetic. It would not be fair to brand people as only favouring one system as we do use all of them, but you can begin to notice what system you prefer yourself. If someone loves to design rooms they may favour the visual system more than others, a sound engineer would be favouring auditory and perhaps an aroma-therapist might favour kinaesthetic, but it is important not to pigeonhole people, just noticing what system you and others prefer is interesting enough.


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Predicates

We can pick up what system people are using by the words that they use. In NLP we refer to them as predicates. Often we are not even aware of the language we are using, but it does give some indication to the system we use.

If someone was to say, “I looked out this morning to see a beautiful blue sky. As my head cleared, I focussed on what I had to do that day” we can assume that this person is using the visual modality.

“When I woke up I heard the birds singing and said to myself that I had a great deal of work to do that day. I listened to the radio on the way to work”.

“When I woke up, I felt good even though I knew I had to tackle a great deal of work, I knew I would get to grips with it and that gave me a satisfied feeling”.

Exercise 21

Before looking at the list of predicates for each modality, work in a group and write down all the words that would be associated with each predicate.

The Visual System

Words

Phrases

analyse examine image picture

survey angle focus inspect

pinpoint vague appear foresee

look scene view aspect

glance notice scope vision

clarity hindsight obscure scrutinise

watch cognisant horizon observe

see witness conspicuous idea

obvious show demonstrate illusion

outlook sight dream perception


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The Auditory System

Words

Phrases

An eyeful Appears to me Beyond shadow of a doubt

Bird’s eye view Catch a glimpse Clear cut

Dim view Eye to eye Flashed on

Get perspective Up front Hazy idea

High view In light of In person

In view of Looks like Make a scene

Mental image Mental picture Mind’s Eye

Naked eye Paint a picture Photographic memory

Plainly see Pretty as a picture See to it

Short sighted Showing off Sight for sore eyes

Take a peak Tunnel vision Well defined

announce earshot mention rumour

state articulate enunciate noise

say talk audible gossip

oral screech tell boisterous

hear proclaim shrill tone

squeal hush pronounce silence

utter converse inquire remark

sound vocal discuss interview

report speak voice dissonant

listen ring speechless divulge

loud roar communicate


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The Kinesthetic system

Words

Phrases

Afterthought Blabber-mouth Clear as a bell

Clearly expressed Call on Describe in detail

Earful Express yourself Give an account of

Give me your ear Grant an audience Heard voices

Hold your tongue Idle Talk Inquire into

Keynote speaker Loud and clear Manner of speaking

Pay attention to Power of speech Purrs like a kitten

Outspoken Rap session Rings a bell

State your purpose To tell the truth Tongue-tied

Utterly Word for word Well-informed

active flow hustle set support

affected foundation intuition shallow tension

bearable grasp luke warm shift tied

callous grip motion softly touch

charge hanging muddled solid unbearable

concrete hassle panicky sore unsettled

emotional heated pressure stir whipped

feel hold rush stress sensitive

All washed up Boils down to Chip off the old block

Come to grips with Control yourself Cool calm collected

Firm foundation Floating on air Get a handle on


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There is a good reason and purpose to using predicates with people. It helps us to communicate with people more effectively and get into good rapport quickly.

Exercise 22

With a partner, work out what predicates are being used here and then ask your partner to describe what their passion is in life. Work out what predicates they are favouring and then begin to use those same predicates with them in communication. Notice your own sensory awareness and ask your partner what they experienced.

Eye Accessing Cues For a quick and easy way to discover what representational systems someone is using, we can ask some questions and watch which way they move their eyes. In all NLP methodologies we cannot say this is a 100% foolproof way of determining which preference they are using or that if they look a certain way they are telling lies. This is a useful way though, of getting a good idea of what they are thinking or what they are searching for.

We can take our cue from where their eyes move and ask the right question that may elicit the right answer.

People tend to look up when they are visualising something. They may even look straight ahead, sometimes even with a glaze over their eyes. Teachers often think that their students are not paying attention, but perhaps the student is visualising what the teacher just said.

To look up and to the left may mean that the person is remembering something. You may have asked what they did last week or what their holiday was like. Generally they will go up to the left, unless of course they are left handed and then the cues will be reversed.

Get a load of this Get in touch with Get the drift of

Get your goat Hand in hand Hang in there

Heated argument Hold it Hold on

Hot head Keep your shirt on Know how

Lay cards on table Light-headed Moment of panic

Not following you Pull some strings Sharp as a tack

Slipped my mind Smooth operator Start from scratch

Stiff upper lip Underhand Too much hassle


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Looking up to the right can mean they are constructing a picture. If you asked for instance how they may cook a dish they have never cooked before, they will make a picture of how the dish may look. If you ask where they were last Tuesday and they look up to the right, they may be constructing a picture. It is very useful for police to use these kind of eye accessing cues although we must always bear in mind that it is not infallible.

Looking towards the left and middle is remembering auditory. So when you ask what happened and what conversation took place when they met a friend last week, they may go up left and then middle as they recall the meeting with the friend and the conversation they had.

We often look down left when we are having a conversation inside. In NLP we call this internal dialogue and we mostly all do it. We can be having a normal conversation with someone, and they say, “Have you been working very hard?” You might internally say to yourself, “They think I am looking tired and worn out”. We may verbalise it, so ask if that is what they think, but often we will just keep the internal dialogue going. We can even get cross when someone asks us a question and we have been having a really good conversation with ourselves at the time, so we feel disturbed by the intrusion.

Looking directly to the middle right may go together with constructing a picture and then constructing the words to go with it. Or it might be that the person does not know how to answer you so is constructing what to say next.

Down right is when we go into our feelings. Depressed people are often looking down right. It may not be surprising that we use words which go with our eye accessing cues. “Now that is downright depressing”. “It will be a long time before things start to look up”.


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Exercise 23

With a partner, ask some questions that will give you clues to their eye accessing cues.

Examples:

What colour is your car?

What is your favourite piece of clothing?

What music do you like to hear?

Make up a jingle in your head just now

What makes you sad?

It is always better if you make up the questions and then you can write down the answers to where you think they are looking.

Eye accessing cues can give you the information you may need that will help you to use words and language patterns that will effect change.

As an example, someone may be talking about depressing things and they often look down. As an exercise you can ask them how they feel as they are talking about the sad things, then ask them to repeat what they have said whilst looking up at the sky or ceiling. Then you can ask what feeling they have when looking up. Chances are they may report a different feeling.

Exercise 24

With your partner, ask them about something that makes them feel a bit down; nothing too depressing though. Ask them to stand up and use a posture that would match the thought. Get them to look down right if they have not already done so, and then ask them to slowly lift their head up and as they do so they begin to smile a huge smile. At the same time they begin to sing a happy tune inside their head whilst still smiling away. Then in this position ask them about the sad time and notice how they cannot get the same feeling.

The interesting thing about modalities is that you can notice which preference is most often used and then guide someone through other modalities


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Submodalities

Submodalities are the finer distinctions with the modalities. One of the easiest way to understand how they work is to begin to experience them.

If you are a visual person, you may want to imagine a time when you were really confident, and as you do, go back to that time and see a picture of yourself. As you look at that picture, do you see it in black and white or in colour? Does the image move or is it still? Is it in focus or defocused? Are you associated into the picture or dissociated? Is it a wide picture or does it have a frame around it? Is this picture near to you or far away? You can notice other distinctions about this picture perhaps. Now begin to notice how you can begin to change the submodalities. If it was far away, bring it closer to you, if it was in colour, turn up the colour even more to make it brighter. If it was a little out of focus, make it clearer and if it was still get it to move. If it was in a frame make it panoramic, notice the location of the picture, and as you do this notice what happens to how you feel when you alter the submodalities of this picture. Now turn up the sound if there was no sound before, or make it even more distinct. You have used submodalities to enhance your feelings about that recall.

If you are associated into a picture it means that you are looking out through your own eyes. Dissociated means you will be looking at the picture.


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List of submodalities Visual

No of Images Motion/ still

Colour/ Black & White Bright/ Dim

Focused/ Unfocused Bordered /Panoramic

Associated/ Disassociated Image size relative to real life

Shape Three dimensional /Flat

Close/ Distant Location in space

Auditory Number of sounds /Sources

Volume Tempo /Pace

Tone /Pitch/ Rhythm/Harmony Intensity Duration

Kinesthetic Location in the body

Motion/ Direction of movement Breathing/ Pulse rate

Weight/ Pressure/ Intensity Tactile sensations/ Skin temperature

Olfactory/ Gustatory Sweet/Sour/Salt/Bitter

Aroma/Fragrance/ Pungence


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Exercise 25a

With a partner, ask them to recall a time in the past when they had a negative experience and also of a time when they had a confident positive experience. Elicit the submodalities of these memories. Ask what the picture is like; find out what location the picture is in. Is it in front, to the side, up above? Is it in colour or black and white, is it moving or still, is it in a frame or panoramic? Focussed or defocused? What do you hear? Is the voice loud or soft, high pitched to low? Fast or slow? What do you feel when you look at the picture? Is the feeling light or heavy, warm or cold?

Reminder

If there is a good recall and you change it and it does not feel good, remember to change it back again when you have finished the exercise. The beauty of using submodalities is that you can make memories even better by cranking up the submodalities or cranking them down if the memory is not so good.

Creating Change

If a memory is not pleasant we can use submodalities to change in the internal representation of the memory. If the image was close, we can move it away, or change the focus, or location. We can put it in a frame if it was panoramic and change it from colour to black and white.

If it is an internal voice that is harsh to critical we can change the voice to one that sounds silly, or quieten it down so that you can hardly hear it at all.

If the feeling is heavy and cold, lighten it up and make it warmer. By cranking up or down, we are changing the meaning of what happened.

Exercise 25b

Using the submodality information you acquired in exercise 25a, begin to crank down the submodalities of the negative memory and crank up the submodalities of the positive experience and ask what happens when they are changed.

Contrastive Analysis

By using this technique, we can find two states and their submodalities.

Imagine you have two states. One is positive, one is less than useful. If we ask for the submodalities of the two states, we can find the difference between the two and begin to map the coding of the submodalities of the positive state over to the negative state.


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Exercise 26

With your partner, identify two states, something you are motivated to do and something you find difficult to be motivated to do. Write down the submodalities of both states separately.

Now begin to change the submodalities of the negative state to the positive motivation state.

Driver Submodality

Often when we transfer modalities, we change one and others will change too. This is then called the Driver Submodality, the master switch if you like that controls all the others. It does not always happen that you come across a driver, but it makes the job easier for you as the driver will change all the other submodalities.


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Swish

A Swish can be used to break habits patterns by using submodality changes that stop the old pattern of behaviour and get the brain to do something different.

Swish can be used for so many changes not just for bad habits, but generally we can help people to stop smoking, change eating habits, nail biting and just about any other habit that you want to get rid of. If we find the distinctions of the habit through eliciting the submodalities, we can see that they would be very different to how they could imagine themselves to be without the habit.

This process change needs to be done fairly quickly and repeated a number of times so that the old submodalities begin to change or disappear. Often people will report that they have ‘lost’ the picture or the feeling of the old habit.

The swish pattern provides a tool to exchange memories or replace visual deleted memories. The pattern has proved successful in removing behaviours that people don’t want anymore such as unwanted habits.

The procedure is as follows:

1. Identify a specific behaviour that you wish to change. 2. Determine the definite cue that triggers the unwanted response. What sets off the

behaviour – what are the specific submodalities? 3. Form an image of having your outcome – what would the desired change be like? 4. Check the desired outcome state is well formed: stated in positive; sensory based

language; self controlled; useful in all aspects of your life; got sufficient resources to achieve; secondary gain remains in place and you agree with the desired state in every aspect of your life.

5. Take the present undesired state and make it bright, large and associated. In the corner have a small, dark and disassociated image of the desired state.

6. SWISH the images taking on the new submodalities of each. Do it quickly as the brain learns fast. Make swishing sound as this occurs or similar.


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7. Clear the screen and repeat point 6 at least five times. 8. Future pace by testing the result by asking the person to go to cue of previous

unwanted outcome and check the new desired one comes to mind on cue with associated feelings attached.

If size and brightness do not work make distance the driver.

Examples of the Swish technique with content.

1. Ask your partner if they have a habit they would rather not have

2. Ask your partner to create an image where they are just about to do the behaviour. Example; biting nails would be when the hand is just about to go into the mouth, or the chocolate bar is about to be eaten. This picture will be in colour, bright and associated, in the picture looking at the bar of chocolate about to go into your mouth. Sometimes it is easier for the person to imagine a big TV screen and they are in the picture.

3. Push this picture off to one side and now create another screen. On this screen ask your partner to put an image of how they would really like to be without the habit. This picture will be in black and white and dissociated for the time being.

4. To make it easier, you may want to call this picture the new image and the other one the old image. Now shrink this new picture down into a tiny dark square and bring back the old picture and put the new picture into the top corner of the old picture. It does not really matter which corner it goes into. Some people use the right hand corner, whilst others use the left.

5. Now you can ask your partner to get ready for you to say the word “Swish” and when you do they can change the pictures over, so that the old picture goes into a


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dark square and the new picture becomes big and in colour. Make sure that they are following your instructions. They can tell you when they have done that.

6. Now they can swish the pictures again and again and again, going faster each time you say “Swish”. As you do this a number of times, they may begin to notice that the old picture fades away, or becomes defocused. Use some language patterns to help your partner notice the difference. As the new picture becomes bigger and brighter, test to make sure the old picture has gone, or that they have difficulty finding it again.

7. Now crank up the submodalities again and ask if they are associated or dissociated. In the picture or looking at it? If they are still looking at it, get them to step inside the picture, be in it and feel all the feelings of the new behaviour, seeing how much different it is and what they sound like with this new behaviour. You can even run through a few scenarios in this new behaviour.

“Now as you are looking out and seeing that chocolate, notice how it does not bother you any more. Hear your voice as you say no thanks, and notice how good that feels to be able to say no and mean it now.”

“You are looking at your lovely nails, and they have grown well, you have no desire now to bite them with this new behaviour.”

“Now with this new behaviour, see yourself in the future now, and how different it feels without that old behaviour that you once had, and notice how it makes the difference to the way you think, feel and behave.”

When someone finds it a bit difficult to visualise to begin with, teach them how to do it. Start by asking what colour their front door is, what their rooms look like at home, get them to describe their kitchen or their office or the place they work in. Ask them about loved ones and what they look like. Let them describe them to you and then ask if they can imagine a picture of them. For some it takes time for them to realise that they are visualising. Swish is very powerful so don’t be put off by the fact that the person says they cannot visualise. Many NLP techniques require a degree of visualisation, so you can be the one who can teach them to do it.

Exercise 27

With your partner, identify a habit or unwanted behaviour and change it with the SWISH process.


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The Fast Phobia Cure

The Fast Phobia cure is one of the most successful NLP techniques. Richard Bandler discovered that associating with our memories causes us to re-experience the emotions. Disassociating has the opposite effect.

The procedure is as follows:

1. Rapport. Establish a resource anchor to use before and after the process.

2. Fact Find. Establish how they believe they acquired the phobia. A past trauma experience? Learned from a parent, experience or movie? Get a fear rating on a scale of 0 – 10, how they feel about the phobia?

3. Establish a well formed outcome in terms of how they want to be in the future. This information can be used for future pacing at the end. Also check it is realistic, for example a fear rating for snakes or spiders of 3-4 might be useful in Australia for self preservation.

4. Process Set Up. Ask the client if they are OK going to the cinema. If not, have them do the same process in their lounge watching the television. Otherwise, have the client imagine going into a cinema and sitting in the middle of the front row looking up at the blank screen. Ask the client what the colour of the screen is, just to check that they can visualise it OK.

5. The client disassociates from their body by floating out and up into the projectionists room looking out of the window down at themselves looking up at the blank screen. So they can see the back of their head on the front row of the cinema. This is double disassociation.


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6. Movie Set Up. Get the client to play the movie of the phobic experience in black and white from the moment before to the moment after the event occurred. These are the key pause points. The moments before and after must be normal calm moments. The movie should include all the worst experiences about the problem. The movie is played emphasising they are looking down at themselves looking at themselves on screen, so they are the star of the movie! This is the first, last and only time the movie is played forwards during the process.

7. Once the movie has completed and they are at the end in comfort and security ask them to freeze frame and make the screen go blank.

8. Scramble Process. Now run the movie backwards in black and white from end to beginning at 2x the speed. Then blank out the screen.

9. Now run the movie backwards in colour from end to beginning at 3x the speed. Then blank out the screen.

10. Now run the movie backwards in colour from end to beginning at 4x the speed. Then blank out the screen.

11. Now run the movie backwards in colour from end to beginning at 5x the speed adding a silly music soundtrack such as Benny Hill, Can Can, Monty Python, etc. Then blank out the screen.

12. Repeat step 11 until you get to 10 times the speed of it running it backwards.


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13. Now freeze frame the last still of the movie when it was all over and they were relaxed. Then ask the client to float from the projection room and into the last still of the movie and associate with themselves in the movie. So they are floating into their own body as though they are there, seeing what they can see, hearing what they can hear and feeling how good it feels to be that it is all over.

14. Now run the movie backwards from the end to the beginning at 3 x the speed in colour with the silly music playing.

15. Repeat step 14 making it faster each time and the music louder to at least 10 x the speed. Let the screen go blank as soon as you get to the beginning each time. NEVER allow the movie to go forward except on the first occasion (step 6) when setting up. The speed of the movie can be altered to suit the length of the movie. For example, if it is short, it might be hard to get beyond 3 or 4 times the speed, in which case repeat the same speed a few times. If the movie is long, then you might need to increase the speed by greater multiples such as 5, 10, 15, 20 times the speed.

16. Float back into yourself in front row of cinema. Fire off the resource anchor. Then add some strong positive suggestions and future pace. Ask the client to imagine seeing their self dealing with a future situation that in the past was a problem, but dealing with it in a strong resourceful way. This is a test to check if the client has moved on.

17. Ask the client to leave the cinema. Test the thought of the phobia on a fear scale of 1-1- to ensure the process has worked.

If the process hasn’t worked the first time, then check the content of the movie to make sure all aspects of the experiences and events were in the movie. Check the well formed outcome for any secondary gain in terms of having the phobia.

This process can be used for trauma, however remove the silly music phase as we want to scramble the experience without it necessarily being comical as in the phobia cure.


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Exercise 28

With your partner, identify a fear or phobia that you want to change and eliminate it with the Fast Phobia Cure.


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Meta Model

When Richard Bandler and John Grinder developed NLP, the inspiration was the Meta Model which made a clear distinction between deep structure and surface structure of language that people used. If we are asked a question, we may simply answer from a surface structure as in, “I get nervous when I see the boss” to deeper structure of, “Because the boss always shouts at me, I get nervous” which is a deeper structure. There is more meaning to the sentence, and we get more information. Surface structure is a reduced answer to questions. In NLP we do our best to avoid the ‘why’ question. For example, “Why do you have a lack of confidence?” This question probably will give us a surface structure answer such as, “I don’t know. I have always been that way”. The Meta Model is the reverse of the Milton Model. The vague language of the Milton Model chunks down to find resources whilst the Meta Model chunks from deep structure to surface structure. The questions we ask in the Meta Model require us to search for the answers from a deeper structure.

There are three elements of the Meta Model:

Deletions

Distortions

Generalisations

Deletions

It is vital that we do delete much of the external information that is coming at us. If we did not, we might be in a catatonic state trying to process all the information all at once. We take in over two million bits of information per second at an unconscious level whilst our conscious mind can only process around 5 - 9 bits of information per second. An example of this would be that you do not need to process what kind of seat you are sitting on, or that your hands are on your lap, or that the walls are whatever colour they are. This information is unnecessary, unless of course you did want to pay attention to your hands for a while. So the unconscious will delete much of this information and filter out anything that is not useful at that moment.

Simple Deletion

We can challenge the deletions by asking, what, how, when, who. For example, if someone says; ‘I failed” something is missing. We need to recover what is missing. ‘What did you fail at?” will uncover the deletion.

Comparative Deletion


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This is when we often compare ourselves to others and delete specific information.

“They learn faster than me” the META challenge is; “Compared to whom?”

Lack of Referential Index

This is where we have the noun or object, person or event that is not specified.

“They all dislike me” – the META question is: “Who specifically does not like you?”

“People are learners” – the META question is: “Who specifically is a learner?”

“This is easy to learn” – the META question is: “What specifically is easy to learn?”

“He’s the worst boyfriend” – the META question is: “Compared to whom?”

“He is better at golf” – the META question is: “Better than whom?”

“She is the best” – the META question is: “Best at what?”

Unspecified Verbs

Here the verb is not specified or explained clearly.

“I get things wrong” – the META question is: “How specifically did you get things wrong?”

“He hurt me” – the META question is: “How specifically did he hurt you?”

“She went to Tesco’s” – the META question is: “How specifically did she get there?”

“I am confused” – the META question is: ‘How specifically are you confused?’

Distortions

If we do not have the information that we need, we often distort and then jump to conclusions. An example would be when you have made an arrangement with someone and they don’t turn up. You might distort and think the worst has happened to them, they have had an accident. Many parents may do this if their children are not home in time, or some people may think that the person has forgotten them and doesn’t care anymore. Distortions create fantasy, and then later when the friend has turned up, being delayed in traffic and very apologetic, you wonder why you made such a fuss internally and feel a bit guilty for thinking bad thoughts about the friend.


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We often distort what is really happening or going on and we use cause and effect to distort as if this were really true.

Cause and Effect

‘You gave me that cream cake and now I will have to abandon my diet’- the META questions is: ‘How does me giving you that cream cake cause you to abandon your diet?’

‘You make me angry’ – the META questions are: “How do I make you angry?” Or “How does what I do make you angry?”

“People bother me” – the META questions are: “Who specifically bothers you?” Or “All people?” Or “How do people bother you?”

Mind Reading

This is one the things we do regularly, we think we know what someone is thinking.

“I know you probably are thinking that I am stupid for saying this” – the META question is: “What makes you think I think you are stupid?”

“You don’t like me” – the META question is: “How do you know I don’t like you?”

“I know what’s best for him” – the META question is: “How do you know what is best for him?”

“Everybody thinks I’m bad” – the META question is: “How do you know they think that?”

Complex Equivalence

These are two different experiences are claimed to be the same thing.

“I failed my driving test so I am a complete failure” – the META question is: “How does failing your driving test make you a complete failure?”

“You’re always shouting at me – you don’t care about me” – the META questions are: “How does shouting at you mean I don’t care?” OR “Have you ever shouted at anyone you do care about?”


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“You don’t love me any more – you don’t bring me flowers” – the META questions are: “How does my not buying you flowers mean that I don’t love you?” OR “Do any of the people who don’t bring you flowers love you?”

“If he really cared for me, he would phone more often” – the META questions are: “How does not phoning mean he doesn’t care? Is there anyone who doesn’t phone you very often that does care?”

“I am fed up now because I got things wrong at work and my boss won’t like me anymore” – the META question is: “How do you know that your boss won’t like you because you got something wrong? Has there been a time when you got things wrong but he still liked you?”

Lost Performative

This is where we express an opinion as if it where a fact.

“It's a known fact that NLP is fantastic” – the META question is: “Who says that NLP is fantastic?”

“Its wrong to criticise” – the META questions are: “Who says its wrong to criticise?” OR “If it is you who say this, then how do you know it is wrong?”

“He”s acting strange” – the META question is: “According to whom is he acting strange?”

“This is the way we should do it” – the META question is: “Who says and do it for whom?”

“Boys shouldn’t cry” – the META question is: “Who says boys shouldn’t cry?”

Nominalisations

This is where the process has been turned into a noun or a thing.

“Communication around here is non existent” – the META questions are: “Who fails to communicate with whom?” OR “What do you want to communicate?”

“I don’t get no trust” – the META questions are: “So, you would like to be trusted?” OR “How would you know you were trsuted?”

“I need help” – the META question is: “How do you want to be helped specifically?” OR “What does help mean to you?”


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Generalisations

When we generalise we do it from previous experience. It is our way of coping. An example of this would be you take a friend to a restaurant and tell them that every time you go it is good. You are relating this from a past experience and generalising. If we went once to a new restaurant and it was bad, we may tell everyone we meet that it is an awful place, even though it might have just been a bad experience that one time. It is not an accurate representation of what the place may really be like.

As we go through the Meta Model, you will see how the Milton Model is a reverse of the Meta Model. In the Meta Model there are challenges that we can use to recover some of the information that is lost. By asking questions in a particular way the person will go from surface structure to deeper structure to find the missing information. If we ask “Why do you do that?” we get a surface structure answer and no resolution. If we ask the question another way, we get the required answer and also find resolutions.

Everyone generalises all of the time. In fact everybody that I know does it and no one ever does anything about it!

Sometimes generalisations are helpful, such as “Never walk into a lions den”, but many generalisations are not always true.

Universal Quantifiers

“She never listens to me” – the META question is: “Never? What would happen if she did?”

“I am always wrong about everything” – the META question is: “Always? You have never ever been right about anything ever?”

“I never get loved” – the META question is: “Never? You have never been loved ever by anyone?”

“He always says the wrong thing and he never gets things right” – the META question is: “Always says the wrong thing? He never ever says anything that is right?”

“Dogs are bad” – the META question is: “All dogs?”

Modal Operators of Necessity and Possibility

The modal operators limit behaviour such as can, can’t, must, must not, able unable, should, should not. They form our rules in life and remove possibility.

“I should stop smoking” – the META question is: “Who says you should stop?”


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“I can’t speak to those people” – the META question is: “What would happen if you did?”

“I have to stay” – the META questions are: “What stops you from going? What would happen if you went?”

“I shouldn’t go” – the META question is: “What would happen if you did?”

“I can’t do it” – the META questions are: “What stops you? What would happen if you did?”

“I will not pass this exam” – the META question is: “What will prevent you from passing? What would happen if you did pass?”

Presuppositions

These are assumptions that the communicator makes that are taken as a given within the context of the conversation.

“If my boss knew how overworked I was, he wouldn’t ask me to do it” – the META questions are: “How do you know he doesn’t know? How do you know you are overworked?”

“Why don’t you work harder” – the META questions are: “What leads you to believe I don’t work hard enough? How specifically would do you assume I need to work harder?”

“If you only knew, you would understand my pain” – the META question is: “What leads you to believe that I don’t know your pain? How would you like me to specifically understand your pain?”

It takes some time to get to know the Meta Model - the more you learn, the easier it becomes. We take great care when using the Meta Model to challenge in case we sound as if we are interrogating someone. It is best perhaps to use it in conversation.

Using the Metal Model helps people to become aware that they are not stating things as clearly as they could. When we have formed the well formed outcome, we can Meta Model to help the client to make necessary changes.

You will begin to recognise your own language patterns and can have some fun with it, and then you become a more effective communicator. Your own internal representations become clearer when you Meta Model yourself, so your thoughts become clearer.


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Exercise 29

With a partner use some of the Meta Model violations, and allow one partner to challenge them. Ask your partner if you sounded as though you were interrogating them or just having a friendly chat.


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Strategies

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Definition

A sequence of representations, leading to a specific outcome

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Strategy Levels Strategy extends from large chunks’ of behaviour down to the very detailed thought submodalities. A strategy is required for everything, it may take the form of specific words or a mental image that motivates one to do something.

Strategy Syntax A successful strategy requires one to think and act in a particular order – this is called the syntax.

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Four stage Success Model

• Decide what you want i.e. goal or target • Do something • Notice what happens • Change what you do until you get your desired outcome

TOTE Model – NLP Guide to eliciting strategies

Test - this is the stimulus /cue that begins the strategy Operate - this accesses the data by remembering, creating or gathering

information from the internal or external world Test - this second test compares the accessed data and the criteria

established initially Exit - this represents the result of the test – the decision point.

The TOTE model is followed until there is a match between the initial goal and the final outcome and then it exits and the decision is made. If there is no match then the process loops until there is a match.

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TOTE modalities of operation

Vi Visual Internal - create a visual image in ones mind Ve Visual External - actually see something externally Ad Auditory Digital - talking to oneself internally K Kinesthetic - a feeling inside about something

The above are all subject to the specific detail of the submodalities of each modality.


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The above modalities of operation can be ascertained by watching for eye accessing cues and listening for language patterns used.

Example Buying a jumper

Test/Trigger Vi – you see a picture of the jumper you want Operate Ve – you look around in shops and see some jumpers Ad – as you look around you might talk to yourself internally about the pro and cons of what you see K – some jumpers may give you a good feeling Test Ve = Vi = K? – here you compare what you have found with

what you wanted and see if it feels right Exit Make a decision and buy the jumper.

Key points of strategies

1. All behaviour is the result of neurological patterns i.e sequences of internal representational functioning.

2. Any particular neurological pattern is the result of accessing cues and synesthesia patterns such as anchors and associations.

3. The strategy must have a well defined representation of the outcome. 4. A strategy must have an operation to gather information and feedback from

which a representation of the desired outcome can be built and modified. 5. A strategy must involve all three representational systems. 6. A strategy cannot cycle back before the decision point. 7. A strategy may recycle or enter a loop by:

• changing the outcome/redirecting the strategy e.g. buy shoes instead of a jumper

• adjusting the outcome and chunking laterally e.g. put the money towards a holiday

• refining by further specifying the outcome e.g. wait till I can go to a designer shop

• accessing more data e.g. shop around some more for a jumper.

Strategy Chunks

These are various levels of strategy that contribute to the success or failure of it such as motivation, decision making, convincing and reassurance. These can be broken down into discreet strategy chunks which may well all be part of an overall strategy to purchase something. Each discreet chunk can be compared with different contexts e.g. is the same decision making strategy used for purchasing a new cooker as deciding who to marry?


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Strategy Elicitation

Everything we do on a daily basis has some sort of strategy that we employ. Do you ever work out how you get out of bed or make a cup of tea? What is your strategy for going on holiday? For some it would be just quickly looking on the internet for the best deal and going wherever the best deal is. For others it would be going to the travel shop, picking up brochures and then settling down at home to pour over them building up the excitement along the way. They probably would have a good idea of where they may want to go as well.

Strategies are the programming part of NLP and we use the modalities and submodalities to sequence the strategy. And many of use so many different strategies according to our representational systems. An easy way to understand a strategy is to ask yourself how you spell a word. Take the word ‘juicy’ and look away and spell it. What did you do? Did you see the word spelled out, did you try to remember what the word looked like when you read it or did you try to phonetically spell it out in your head? Good spellers usually see the word in front of them so it becomes easier to remember and recall what the word looks like. If it is a new word that you have never heard of, you would have to remember how to spell it and make a picture.

There is a shorthand notation of eliciting a strategy which is fairly simple to use.

Using the five senses we can focus on either external things that are going on, or internal of how we are representing it internally. So for instance if someone said they see a car, we would write down Ve for visual external, if they were recalling a car they had seen we would write down Vi for visual internal. If they talked about how they felt when they saw the car, it could be Ke for how they felt when they saw it and Ki for the internal feelings that were felt.

Are you wondering what would make us want to elicit a strategy? The strategies we use can make a difference to whether we achieve the results we want. When we talk about modelling success, we are finding out how someone does something really well, finding out what strategy they use to achieve success and then model it ourselves.

An example would be asking a successful business person how they achieved success:

“When you first started your business, what ideas did you have”?

“I got this picture of me selling second hand designer clothes”

“So you were making a picture on your mind of how it could be successful”? Vi

“Yes, but I also went to look at some premises that might be suitable” Ve “Then what did you do”?


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“I got this good feeling when I saw the place I wanted to sell the clothes” Ke Ki Ve

“How did you then begin”?

“ I remembered that I had got a loan from the bank some years ago for another project, and recalled how I had talked to the bank manager about it and he had agreed it was a good idea, so I knew if I went to talk to him again, he would probably recommend me for a loan”. Ar

“What happened then”?

“I got the loan, and started to make some plans of how the shop would look As I looked round the shop, I got the feeling that it would be extremely popular and already had a vision of how I could open another one very soon in another place I had spotted and it looked good and felt the right things to do”. Vc Ac Ke Ki Ve

So we could model the successful person on how they are doing what they are doing which makes them successful.

This next example would be of someone who is not running a good strategy. We don’t choose our strategies by the way. They are usually formed by trial and error.

“So you have been looking to create a business for a while, what kind of business do you have in mind?”

“Well, I have all kinds of ideas floating round in my head, but often I reject them because I don’t think they will work”.

“What kinds of things do you think of and what happens when you think of them”?

“I see myself running a web design business, but then think of my last job working for a web design company and it did not work out well, so then I feel depressed thinking that I could run a company on my own. I don’t like talking to bank managers because they tend to say no often, well they have to me in the past, and I remember that I did not have a good experience of talking to them, but that was years ago.”

“Do you feel confident that you could offer a good product to people?”

“Sometimes, but then I think of things that have not gone well, and what other people have said as well, so it does put me off quite a bit, but I do have this dream and picture of how it could be”.


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With a partner work out the strategy of this person; How are they doing what they do? What internal and external representations do they make? Visual, auditory and kinaesthetic.

Working out an Effective Strategy

If we find a strategy that works for us, we tend to stick to it. Often we don’t even think about the strategies we run unless we become aware of them in some way and work out how to design a new strategy for ourselves. NLP helps people in extend their choices and we begin with well formed conditions.

Exercise 30

With your partner, elicit the following strategies: Decision Making Learning Motivation Spelling Something you are very good at Discuss how these work for you and your partner and what you could change.

Exercise 31

Strategy Bazaar – Find someone who is good at something that you would like to be better at and allow your partner to install their strategy in you.


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Timelines

In NLP, time lines are used as a metaphor to code time.

Eliciting your Time Line

This is done by eliciting visual memories from the past and constructing visual images of the future noting their spatial positions and linking a line through them. The visual submodalities are key to this exercise, particularly distance and location.

There are different concepts of time in the world. The Anglo –European concept is very linear with events happening one after another, which leads us to placing an importance on order and time keeping. Alternatively, the Arabic concept of time is where everything happens at once, consequently time does not matter and living is in the moment.

Types of Time Lines Timelines go in many different directions and the direction affects a person’s personality.

‘In Time’ – this is where the line goes through the person’s body so that part of the line is behind them. These people tend to experience memories associated. These people have difficulty learning from the past as it is behind them – they live in the now and don’t carry emotional baggage from the past. On the Myers –Briggs scale they are seen as the Perceiver. A perceiver lives for the enjoyment of the moment – they often make great lovers! Time is not important, they are always live in the present – in a constant state of association –they can recall and experience any memory or state they wish whenever they wish. They like to keep their options open at all times therefore closure isn’t important.

‘Through Time’ – this is where all of the line is in front of the person. These people experience memories dissociated. Because all the time line is in front of them they give time a high value and have difficulty wasting it. They will always want to get their money’s worth. They tend also to see things in the perspective of the whole. In the Myers –Briggs scale these people are Judgers – loving organisation and procedure , doing things step by step, always showing up for appointments on time and they like setting goals. These people like closure as they are constantly reminded of the past.


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Conclusion

We can learn how to run our brains in the right way for us, feel comfortable with how and what we are doing. Finding the secret to doing this is easy; practising with this is often where people fall down. When we learn anything new, we need to practice it constantly before we become competent, both consciously and unconsciously. For those of you who drive, you know it took some time perhaps to just be able to drive without constantly thinking about changing gear, looking in the mirror. Now you just get in the car and drive without too much thought about how to drive. If our brain was damaged in any way, especially on the right side, we might have to learn to do things over and over again as the memory part of our brain may not be able to hold that information.

Many people learn an NLP course and call themselves practitioners. After some time they forget what they have learned because they are not using it constantly. They have vague recollections of the course they took, but when asked to carry out a technique, they have forgotten; they need reminding. A true NLPer will continue to practice all what they have learned not only with others, but most importantly with themselves. They become adept at making significant changes within their lives and the belief that they do not have to go through life with anything that limits them in any way becomes stronger and stronger all the time. The belief that they make some adjustments in the way they think, feel and behave becomes as natural to them as anything else they do in life.

We all have this ability to create change for the better, what would make us want to continue with old behaviours when we can find easy ways to live our lives?

All that you have learned during this course will enable you to continue making changes. We could be, as one student put it, ‘a work in progress’, so we never stop learning, we never stop wanting the desire to make the best of our lives. If you put this manual and NLP books away, stop thinking about NLP, it all disappears. Continue to read find out more information, talk to others about it and practice will keep it alive for you.


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Resources and Reading List

NLP for Dummies Romilla Ready & Kate Burton

The Users Manual for the Brain L.Michael Hall & Bob G. Bodenhamer

Introducing NLP Joseph O Conner & John Seymour

NLP: The new art and science of getting what you want Dr Harry Alder

NLP at Work Sue Knight

Frogs into Princes Bandler & Grinder

Patterns of Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H Erickson, M.D, Volume 1 & 2

Bandler & Grinder

Structure of Magic 1 & 2 Bandler & Grinder

Transformations Bandler & Grinder

Time for a Change Richard Bandler

Get the Life you Want – The secrets to quick and lasting life change with NLP

Richard Bandler

Using your brain for a change Richard Bandler

An Insider’s Guide to Submodalities Richard Bandler & Will MacDonald

The Adventures of Anybody Richard Bandler

Peruasion Engineering Bandler & La Valle


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Conversations Dr Richard Bandler & Owen Fitzpatrick

Change your life in 7 days Paul McKenna

I can make you thin Paul McKenna

I can make you Rich Paul McKenna

Instant Confidence Paul McKenna

Unlimited Power Anthony Robbins

Awaken the Giant Within Anthony Robbins

Changing Belief Systems with NLP Robert Dilts

Words that Change Minds Shelle Rose Charvet

The Magic of Metaphor Nick Owen


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