 What
is NLPt – a more 'technical' perspective
NLPt
is, as any practice, including e.g. any scientific practice, based on a series of
assumptions or presuppositions.
NLPt is a pragmatic, systemic
and client-centred approach that fundamentally views human beings as having
their own unique models of the world, which are formed through processing of the
information perceived through the five senses. An individual’s model of the
world informs their behaviour, which can be thought of as making ‘sense’ within
that individual’s model of the world. Thus, identifying the assumptions in an
individual’s model of the world is equivalent to understanding the ‘sense’ in
the client’s behaviour. NLPt can therefore be said to take a position of
epistemological relativism, but not moral relativism.
The
‘causal’ model of NLPt is systemic rather than linear. A neurolinguistic
psychotherapist looks ‘instrumentally’ at how e.g. an undesired state is
maintained by the client’s subjective experience and helps the client become
aware of this process and find ways of restructuring the experience and/or
actively creating change in the system by changing part of the system.
A key
conceptual model in NLPt has been borrowed from Miller, Galanter and Pribram.
This model assumes that all human action is goal-oriented and feedback is
provided by testing the goal against the evidence criteria for its achievement.
It is therefore essential to identify the desired state and make it
sensory-specific.
At
the core of NLPt is the practice of modelling, i.e. extracting/constructing a
structure and ‘know-how’ through questions and observation. It is assumed that
experience has a structure, which can be identified and transferred through the
process of modelling. This process involves not only the modelling of behaviour,
but also mapping of internal states, beliefs, values and any other ‘information’
that may be useful for understanding and transferring e.g. a strategy, skill, state,
attitude, belief or thinking process. Both modeller and model may go beyond
conscious processing levels during the process, so that an understanding of and
skill to replicate what is modelled may occur ‘unconsciously’. This process can
be explained with reference to the limited bandwidth of the conscious mind and
the far greater bandwidth of the unconscious processes in the brain.
NLPt
takes fundamentally an extremely pragmatic approach, being open in principle, to
any new model, theory or practice, which empirically can be demonstrated to be
effective, as long as it respects the fundamental values and beliefs of the
client (i.e. it must not impose a model of the world on the client). At the core
of the NLPt approach is the question ‘how?’, both when it comes to gathering
information and when it comes to working with clients, rather than e.g. ‘why’
questions. i.e. what is important from an NLPt perspective is not causality
(e.g. explanation or prediction) or even ontology (whether something is
‘real’), but rather the methodology for achieving effective change.
Models of analysing and working with language play an essential part in NLPt.
The Meta Model and the Milton Model, which develop the skills of identifying and
applying specific and ambiguous language patterns respectively, are key tools of a
neurolinguistic psychotherapist.
Physiological observational skills are also a key skill of neurolinguistic
psychotherapy. These skills involve, e.g. identifying external evidence of
internal processing. The stronger these skills are the better quality feedback
is acquired about the system and thereby the potential to influence the system.
Behavioural skills involve the ability of the practitioner to influence the
system through his/her own behaviour, e.g. by matching the client’s behaviour
and leading the client to change their behaviour and to solidify the change by
using e.g. anchoring (creating patterns of association between external cues and
internal experience).
Important is also flexibility, which often is expressed by stating the law of
requisite variety (thus showing its roots in systemic thinking, which requires
of any part of a system (including the psychotherapist) a certain level of
flexibility in order to be effective). In practice, this principle implies that
the practitioner always must be alert and ready to revise procedures, behaviours
and strategies in order to adapt to the client. Related to this client-centred
requirement of a neurolinguistic psychotherapist is the ability to change
perceptual positions, which implies ability to ‘model’ a state or an entire
complex situation e.g. from the client’s perspective and from an observer’s
perspective (this again requires good modelling skills).
In
summary: NLPt involves gathering information from a system, identifying the
structure in the information, identifying desired change and creating desired
and effective change within the system. This process has given rise to a
multitude of ‘recipes’ depending on issues and specific procedures (such as
SCORE model or reimprinting technique), but at the core is still the methodology of
modelling in order to bring about change or 'replicate' excellence.
Key Working Assumptions of the
Neurolinguistic Psychotherapist:
(it is important to notice, that these are working
assumptions, not truth claims about how the world is. They are assumptions that
have been demonstrated in practice to be useful for achieving results in
neurolinguistic psychotherapy)
- Any internal model of
the world is different from the ‘real’/perceivable world. As Korzybski’s put
it: ‘the map is not the territory’. The confusion of map and territory is
one of the key causes of client difficulties and misunderstandings.
- All behaviour has a
positive intention.
- There is no failure,
only feedback.
- Individuals will make
the best choices they can, given their model of the world and the resources
they perceive are available to them.
- Everyone has, or has
the potential to develop, all the resources they need.
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