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What is NLP? A Model
Of Communication And Personality |
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Neuro Linguistic Programming
(NLP) began as a model of how we communicate to
ourselves and others which was developed by Richard
Bandler and John Grinder. This model explains how we
process the information that comes into us from the
outside. The belief is that "The map is not the
territory." And so the internal representations that
we make about an outside event are not necessarily the
event itself.
Typically, what happens is that there is an external
event and we run that event through our internal
processing. We make an Internal Representation (I/R)
of that event. That I/R of the event combines with a
physiology and creates a state. "State" refers to the
internal emotional state of the individual -- a happy
state, a sad state, a motivated state, and so on.
Our
I/R includes our internal pictures, sounds and
dialogue, and our feelings (for example, whether we
feel motivated, challenged, pleased, excited, and so
on). A given state is the result of the combination of
an internal representation and a physiology. So what
happens is that an event comes in through our sensory
input channels which are:
Visual
Including the sights we see or the way someone looks
at us;
Auditory
Including sounds, the words we hear and the way that
people say those words to us (unless you specifically
want variety in form);
Kinesthetic
Or external feelings which include the touch of
someone or something, the pressure, and texture;
Olfactory
Which is smell; and
Gustatory
Which is taste.
The external event comes in through out sensory input
channels and it is filtered -- we process the event.
As we process the event, we delete, distort, and
generalize the information that comes in, according to
any number of several elements that filter our
perception.
Deletion:
Deletion occurs when we selectively pay attention to
certain aspects of our experience and not others. We
then overlook or omit others. Without deletion, we
would be faced with much too much information to
handle with our conscious mind.
Distortion:
Distortion occurs when we make shifts in our
experience of sensory data by making
misrepresentations of reality. In Eastern philosophy
there is a well-known story of distortion in the rope
versus snake analogy. A man walking along the road
sees what he believes to be a snake and yells "SNAKE."
However, upon arriving at that place he is relieved as
he discovers that what he sees is really only a piece
of rope.
Distortion also helps us in the process of motivating
ourselves. The process of motivation occurs when we
actually distort the material that has come into us
that has been changed by one of our filtering systems.
Generalization:
The third process is generalization, where we draw
global conclusions based on one or two experiences. At
its best, generalization is one of the ways that we
learn, by taking the information we have and drawing
broad conclusions about the meaning of the effect of
those conclusions.
Normally, the conscious mind can only handle 7 (plus
or minus 2) items of information at any given time. Of
course, many people can't even handle this number, and
I know people who are a "1 (Plus or minus 2)." How
about you? Try this: Can you name more than 7 products
in a given product category, say cigarettes? Most
people will be able to name 2, maybe 3 products in a
category of low interest and usually no more than 9 in
a category of high interest. There is a reason for
this. If we didn't actively delete information all the
time, we'd end up with much too much information
coming in. In fact, you may have even heard that
psychologists say that if we were simultaneously aware
of all of the sensory information that was coming in,
we'd go crazy. That's why we filter the information.
So, the question is, when two people have the same
stimulus, why don't they have the same response? The
answer is, because we delete, distort, and generalize
the information from the outside.
We delete, distort and generalize the information that
comes in from our senses based on one of five filters.
The filters are, Meta Programs, belief systems,
values, decisions, and memories.
Meta-Programs:
The first of these filters is Meta Programs. Knowing
someone's Meta Programs can actually help you clearly
and closely predict people's states, and therefore
predict their actions. One important point about Meta
Programs: they are not good or bad, they are just the
way someone handles information.
Values:
The next filter is values. They are essentially an
evaluation filter. They are how we decide whether our
actions are good or bad, or right or wrong. And they
are how we decide about how we feel about our actions.
Values are arranged in a hierarchy with the most
important one typically being at the top and lesser
ones below that. We all have different models of world
(an internal model about the world), and our values
are the result of our model of the world. When we
communicate with ourselves or someone else, if our
model of the world conflicts with our values or their
values, then there's going to be a conflict. Richard
Bandler says, "Values are those things we don't live
up to."
Values are what people typically move toward or away
from (see Meta Programs). They are our attractions or
repulsion's in life. They are essentially a deep,
unconscious belief system about what's important and
what's good or bad to us. Values change with context
too. That is, you probably have certain values about
what you want in a relationship and what you want in
business. Your values about what you want in one and
in the other may be quite different. And actually, if
they're not, it's possible that you may have trouble
with both. Since values are context related, they may
also be state related, although values are definitely
less related to state than are beliefs.
Beliefs:
The next filter is beliefs. Beliefs are
generalizations about how the world is. One of the
important elements in modeling is to find a person's
beliefs about the particular behavior we are trying to
model. Richard Bandler says "Beliefs are those things
we can't get around." Beliefs are the presuppositions
that we have about the way the world is that either
create or deny personal power to us. So, beliefs are
essentially our on/off switch for our ability to do
anything in the world. In the process of working with
someone's beliefs, it's important to elicit or find
out what beliefs they have that cause them to do what
they do. We also want to find out the disabling
beliefs, the ones that do not allow them to do what
they want to do.
Memories:
The fourth element is our memories. In fact, some
psychologists believe that as we get older, our
reactions in the present are reactions to gestalts
(collections of memories which are organized in a
certain way) of past memories, and that the present
plays a very small part in our behavior.
Decisions:
The fifth element, and related to memories, is
decisions that we've made in the past. Decisions may
create beliefs, or may just affect our perceptions
through time. The problem with many decisions is that
they were made either unconsciously or at a very early
age, and are forgotten.
These filters will determine our internal
representation of an event that is occurring right
now. It is our internal representation that puts us in
a certain state, and creates a certain physiology. The
state in which we find ourselves, will determine our
behavior.
Remember that in this model the map, the I/R, is not
the territory. Our every experience is something that
we literally makeup inside our heads. We do not
experience reality directly, since we are always
deleting, distorting, and generalizing. Essentially,
what we do experience is our experience of the
territory and not the territory itself.
In a study of communication at the University of
Pennsylvania in 1970 (Kinesics and Communication, R.
Birdwhistle), the researchers determined that in
communication, 7% of what we communicate is the result
of the words that we say, or the content of our
communication. 38% of our communication to others is a
result of our verbal behavior, which includes tone of
voice, timbre, tempo, and volume. 55% of our
communication to others is a result of our nonverbal
communication, our body posture, breathing, skin color
and our movement. The match between our verbal and
non-verbal communication indicates the level of
congruency. (See Structure of Magic II).
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