NLP Training – Day 2

Another mind blowing day of NLP training! Today was about language and communication. The person who is most flexible with their language controls the conversation.

Here’s a recap of what we learned.

Hierarchy of Ideas (chunks)

• Up
  • To get agreement
  • Abstraction
  • “For what purpose?”
  • What is this an example of?
  • What is your intention?
• Down
  • Details
  • Distinction
  • Can lead to disagreement 
• Lateral
  • Chunk up (what is this an example of?)
  • What are other examples of this?
  • Chunk down to similar example

Metaphor

Presenting problem – Barrier (critical factor) – Solution

Metaphor presents a solution that is has no conscious connection and bypass the critical factor,

Making Metaphor work

• Get present state
• Get desired sate
• How is this a problem
• What prevents you…
• What’s important to you (of value or interest)
• Create metaphor
• Deliver metaphor (with out any conscious connect to solution)

Milton Model (chunks up)

Milton Erickson maintained that it was not possible to consciously instruct the subconscious mind, and that authoritarian suggestions were likely to be met with resistance. The subconscious mind responds to openings, opportunities, metaphors and contradictions. Effective hypnotic suggestion, then, should be ‘artfully vague’, leaving space for the subject to fill in the gaps with their own unconscious understandings – even if they do not consciously grasp what is happening. The skilled hypnotherapist constructs these gaps of meaning in a way most suited to the individual subject – in a way which is most likely to produce the desired change.

The Milton model is purposely vague and metaphoric and is used to soften the meta model and make indirect suggestions. A direct suggestion merely states the goal. For example, “When you are in front of the audience you will not feel nervous”. Whereas an indirect suggestion is less authoritative and leaves an opportunity for interpretation. For example, “When you are in front of the audience, you might find yourself feeling ever more confident”. The preceding example follows the indirect method as both the specific time and level of self-confidence is left unspecified. It might be made even more indirect by saying, “When you come to a decision to speak in public, you may find it appealing how your feelings have changed.” The choice of speaking in front of the audience, the exact time, and the likely responses to the whole process are framed, but imprecise language gives the client the opportunity to fill in the finer details,

Milton Model Language Patterns

• Mind read – Claiming to know someone feelings or emotions
• Lost Performance – Value judgment
• Cause & Effect – if this…then that
• Complex Equivalent – Two things are made to be the same, “that means”, “because”
• Universal Quantifiers – Every, all, never
• Modal Operators – Implies possibility or necessity – should, shouldn’t, can’t must
• Nominalization – Process words that are frozen in time and become nouns – “new learning’s”
• Unspecified Verbs – adverb/adjective does not specify the verb – “Just do it”
• Tab Question – Question at end of statement – “can’t you?”
• Lack of Referential Index – Phrase that does not pick out listeners’ experience – “one can do, anyone can do”
• Competitive Deletion – Comparison made and is not specified as to what or whom – “more or less the right thing”
• Pace Current Experience, aka the yes set – persons verifiable experience is described in a way that is undeniable 
• Double Bind – Statement that delivers two choices, both of which are desirable separated by “or”
• Conversational Postulate – A question delivered in such a way that answering “no” would be crazy.
• Extended quotes – A statement with a quote that is extended beyond “normal” and the deliverer of the statement keeps making their point.
• Selectional Restriction Violation –  A sentence that is not well formed that in that only humans and animals have feelings – “the walls have ears”
• Ambiguity – Two words that sound the same and have different meanings, “here, hear
• Utilization – using everything that happens or is said

Meta Model (chunks down)

The meta model was the first model presented by Bandler and Grinder in 1975 based on Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir together with some language categories from transformation syntax. It consists of categories of questions or heuristics which seek to challenge linguistic distortion, clarify generalization and recover deleted information which occurs in a speaker’s language. Typically, questions may be in the form of “What X, specifically?”, “How specifically?”, “According to whom?” and “How do you know that?”. Whereas the meta model is very specific, the Milton model was described by the authors as intentionally vague. Many of the Milton model patterns are intentionally distorted, generalized and deleted.

• Distortions
  • Get clarity by asking “how” questions
• Generalizations
  • Get clarity by asking “What” and “what would happen if”
• Deletions
  • Get clarity by denationalization and what/whom specifically  

Again if you’d like to learn more about NLP you can visit http://nlp.com

If you’d like to me to expand on any of the information above please let me know in the comments below.