The Magic of NLP Demystified

Byron Lewis

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781845908188
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

Byron A Lewis MA is the director of the Meta Training Institute, a Northwest Educational and Consulting firm specialising in the techniques of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Frank Pucelik PhD is widely recognised as one of the world's finest trainers in interpersonal communication and success strategies for change.

Chapter 1

Models

The purpose of the model is to enable the user to do a better job in handling the enormous complexities of life. By using models, we see and test how things work and can even predict how things will go in the future.

Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture

The Use of Models

No other creature we know of is quite as infatuated with the construction and use of models as we humans appear to be. As Hall points out, “We are the model-making organism par excellence” (1976, p. 13). We use these models to represent almost all aspects of our environment, our social organizations, our technology, and even our very life processes. Models of machines, buildings, or bridges help us see and evaluate design and structure. Models of government enable us to understand complex systems of human social behavior. Scientific models assist us in perceiving relationships and properties of theoretical problems and processes.

It is our goal that the psychological and behavioral models presented in this book will operate as Hall suggests. That is, they will reduce the complexities of human communication into a more easily perceived and understandable framework, ultimately enabling you to direct yourself and others toward a healthy and positive future.

Neurological Basis

Our romance with constructing models of our experience of the world may have a basis in psychobiological processes. We cannot escape the limitations imposed by our biological origins.

As Carl Jung observed:

Man … never perceives anything fully or comprehends anything completely. He can see, hear, touch, taste; but how far he sees, how well he hears, what his touch tells him, and what he tastes depend upon the number and quality of his senses. … No matter what instruments he uses, at some point he reaches the edge of certainty beyond which conscious knowledge cannot pass. (1964, p. 21)

In our constant attempts to understand, driven by some intrinsic need to explore and explain, we create our models. But we are inexorably separated from the world outside ourselves.1 Neural transmission, the basis of what we call perception, is a bioelectric phenomenon. Billions of neurons make up the human nervous system. Even though sensory input varies from pressure to temperature to sound to electromagnetic waves, they are all ultimately transformed into electrochemical impulses as they are transmitted to the central nervous system. The study of this miraculous transmutation of energy leads us to a fundamental aspect of experience: we do not perceive reality, but rather a neurological model of reality. This is what forms the basis for what we call our model of the world.2

---

The Nerve Cell

The nerve cell represents the first step in the creation of our models of the world. The basic units of the nerve cell are shown below.

1. Cell body containing nucleus.

2. Dendrites. These extend from the cell body and form the “receiving area” for stimulation from outside the body and from other adjacent cells.

3. Axon. This single fiber transmits the bioelectric impulse to the axon terminal.

4. Axon terminal. This is the part of the nerve cell that activates other neurons on the way to or from the central nervous system as well as within it. Neural “messages” are also transmitted to muscles and glands through the axon terminal.

---

Because sensory organs vary greatly from one individual to another, each one of us perceives the world differently. These differences may be subtle or great. But since our perceptions form the basis for our models of the world, we must assume that every individual will have a different model.

The Reality Model

Due to similarities in neurological mechanisms in each of us, we are able to have similar experiences. These, combined with shared social and cultural experiences, enable the creation of what might be called “consensus realities.” These are shared models that form the basis of our social structures. Language is the prime example of such a model. However, it is a fact that there can be no universally shared and accepted representation of experience, no one model of the world that is accurate for everyone, that accounts for the marvelous diversity found in the human personality.

---

Perceptions Can Be Deceiving

There was an interesting exhibit at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Two half-inch copper tubes are wound side-by-side around a wooden dowel. Warm fluid is piped through one tube, while cold fluid flows through the other. It was quite a shock to touch or grasp the bundle: the simultaneous sensations of warmth and cold produce a perceived extremely hot or burning sensation. It was fun to watch disbelieving people jump after reading the description and then, thinking they will be able to discern the difference, take a firm grasp of the bundle!

---

Patterns of Rule-Governed Behavior

Although it is important to appreciate the individual nature of perceived reality, it is equally important to identify patterns of behavior exhibited by individuals and groups. The observation of these patterns forms the central theme of this work. In his book, The Silent Language, Edward Hall states that, “The goal of the investigator who deals with human phenomena is to discover the patterns … that exist hidden in the minds, the sensory apparatus, and the muscles of man” (p. 115). These bits and pieces of observable behavior go into the making of the process-oriented model of personality presented in this book.

During interactions involved in communication, certain consistencies of behavior become evident. Just as the language we use is structured by semantics and grammar, so does the rich and varied non-linguistic behavior of humans appear to follow a highly structured order. We are, however, confronted with the same dilemma that has long faced linguists. The native speaker of any language forms his speech without any necessary awareness of the rules being used. Likewise, the rules of non-linguistic behavior are veiled by their very nature: they are unconscious processes. In both cases we must study these rules by analyzing their end products: language and behavior. As Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson state in Pragmatics of Human Communication, the goal comes down to observing these processes exhibited through language and behavior in an attempt to identify a “complex pattern of redundancies” (p. 37). A good enough model, says Watzlawick, will give us the ability to evaluate, predict, and influence behavior.

In The Structure of Magic, Vol. I, Richard Bandler and John Grinder introduce a set of elegant tools for organizing and describing our observations. There are three mechanisms common to all model-building activities: generalization, deletion, and distortion. Bandler and Grinder call these the “universal human modeling processes.”3 These three processes operate at every stage in the construction and use of our models of the world. They underlie our abilities to concentrate, to plan and learn, and to dream. They become evident to the trained observer through a person’s speech and behavior, and learning to detect and utilize these universal processes is a central theme of this book.

Generalization

The process of generalization provides part of the explanation of how we are able to learn as rapidly as we do. Many “new” behaviors, for example, are actually composed of bits and pieces of previously experienced behaviors that are similar to the new behavior. Because of this similarity, we are able to generalize from the experience of the old behavior, alleviating the need to learn the new behavior “from scratch.” The ability to generalize from past experiences means that it is not necessary to expend great amounts of time and energy learning new behaviors. This same process is utilized in the learning of new concepts and in other activities associated with what we call “thinking.” In essence, generalization eliminates the necessity to relearn a concept or behavior every time we are confronted with a variation of the original.

---

Generalization

One form of this process often taken for granted is our ability to learn a word-symbol, like the word “chair,” and then apply the symbol to other forms with similar function. This ability to generalize promotes the rapid assimilation of diverse kinds of information.

---

Deletion

It has been reported that the human central nervous system is being fed more than two million pieces of information every second. Just in terms of efficiency, if every bit of this information had to be processed and used, the time and energy necessary would be astronomical! This is where the process of deletion comes in. Our central nervous system actually operates as a “screening mechanism” enabling us to function at peak efficiency. As Aldous Huxley says in The Doors of Perception, experience “has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness that will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet” (p. 23).

Obviously, our ability to delete portions of the barrage of input is essential to our survival.

---

Deletion

		Paris in the the spring.
			A snake in the the grass.
				A kick in the the rear.

One of my favorite examples of deletion is portrayed in the above three sentences. In order to make sense of what you see, there is a tendency to delete the portion of the sentence that doesn’t make sense. Notice the extra “the” in each of the sentences. Many people have difficulty seeing it, even when it is pointed out to them. As we shall see, this process has some profound implications in the area of human communication.

---

Distortion

The third universal hum...