Different Weights on Scales

Richard Bandler in “Using Your Brain For A Change" describes NLP as “an educational process” of learning how to use more of your own brain so you can:

(1) choose whether or not you want to change;

(2) have more choice over how you change;

(3) know you can change your experience to get better results.

I recently asked these questions of a client, using scaling of 1 (low) to 10 (high) as a quick measure. It revealed very differing scores, definite food for thought as to where our work needed to focus.

NLP And Creativity - How To Enjoy More!

Do you ever decide you want to do something and get cold feet?  Maybe you start and decide it's too much and question whether you ever really wanted it in the first place?  Or maybe you think that you're not good enough and that greater success belongs to other people and not you?

If you've ever had these or similar thoughts around a desired outcome, it can be incredibly unsettling in terms of moving forward and taking action.  Alternatively, if your typical pattern is to start before thinking things through, it can be disappointing when your plans don't turn out as well as you had hoped.  Or perhaps you don't know want you want so you never get started! 

Steve Jobs, the co-creator of Apple, talks about "bombarding your brain with new and novel experiences" as a way of developing creative insights around goal-setting because this helps your brain make new connections it might otherwise have missed.  This is similar to NLP when we talk about "expanding our maps of reality" by becoming more aware of our senses.

Sometimes fear and anxiety can hold us back from creating more of what we truly want so 'the fear of change' is what we need to overcome.  Jobs says we have to expect our brains to fight us every step of the way and that anxiety is normal because it's a human tendency to want to conserve, rather than expend, energy!  This is helpful to know but what else can we do to transform fear and anxiety?  The poet, W H Auden, says he is always anxious when writing poetry except when he is "playing"!  So maybe this is the key .....

At our NLP Practice Group this week, we explored NLP outcomes through "play" using a combination of our senses and art materials.  We didn't know what we would create when we started yet through becoming immersed in the process of image-making, we were able to bring what we desired into existence; our images held individual insights and meaning, and served as powerful visual reminders for what we truly wanted!

Some of the images from the evening are reproduced in this article with kind permission from (top to bottom) Sandra, Landy and Tom - thanks!

Power to Persuade: The Story of NLP

Radio 4's recent documentary about NLP asked critical questions and included an interview with one of the co-founders Richard Bandler (see insert). 

Here's the transcript so you can read it for yourself and make up your own mind as to why NLP still courts controversy in some places. 

The radio programme begins with an extract of a Fast Phobia Cure - which is the topic of our NLP Practice Group on Thursday 10 March 2011 - and then goes on to defining NLP and giving an insight into its historical roots.  It's interesting to hear Bandler talk about the first time he met Satir and how he used his mathematical brain to work out her language patterns ..... whatever you think of Bandler he has a definite 'genius' streak running through him.

Bandler is known to be forward in his views and this interview demonstrates it.  In it you hear him talk about NLP and therapy, as well as NLP and education .....

Although he dismisses the way education is researching the efficacy of NLP, I think it's essential that research trials are carried out.  After all, why should NLP be exempt?  It's interesting to hear the comments by Richard Churches on the Fast Track Teachers' NLP training.  He says the teachers were offered many different types of training and NLP proved to be their most popular choice because they could apply NLP in their classrooms the next day.  I've seen this for myself as I assisted in some of the NLP training for teachers when I was working towards my NLP Trainer's qualification which was led by one of my teachers, NLP Master Trainer, Roger Terry. 

In therapy, well, I agree with the comments from Lisa Wake, an NLP psychotherapist and ex-chair of the UK Council of Psychotherapists who says that NLP training alone is not enough for accreditation and well meaning NLPers can do more harm than good ...... I know that when I decided to train in integrative arts psychotherapy I chose a modality outside of NLP so that I could challenge my thinking and learn from all different angles.

Bandler says "NLP is an evolutionary tool" to help "make the best of people better" and one of his measures is whether or not he leaves somebody "in a better place" and more able to "change their internal response" to get better results than when he met them. 

I wonder how different NLP would have been if Bandler and John Grinder, NLP's other co-founder, hadn't spent so long in dispute over who owned the rights to NLP?  Would NLP be sitting alongside Cognitive Behavioural Therapy as one of the preferred NHS psychological therapies?  I'd like to think it would be the therapy of choice - it has so many strengths .....

Anyway, enjoy the transcript and let me know what you think!

Would You Only Invite Strangers To Your Birthday Party?

Theodore Zeldin, author of "An Intimate History of Humanity" celebrated his 74th birthday with a party. Not your usual birthday party consisting of friends and family, but instead only with strangers to whom he offered a "menu of conversation", a series of 25 questions they were invited to explore with one another to find moments of connections.

His premise is based on the fact that there are 6 billion of us on the planet and we each experience and perceive the world in a unique way, and he's more interested in, not answering the question, "Who am I?" but rather "Who are You?"

I like his curiosity about people because this attitude enables us to gain more of an insight into how people are both similar and different.  So although we might share the same experiences, we'll also have our unique perceptions and that's exciting because it opens up the way to greater understanding and enrichment of our own viewpoints.

Here's a thought experiement,  taken from Theodore Zeldin's book: 

"Look upon yourself as a collection of electric bulbs: do not put all of your energy into one bulb, or it will explode, allow your energy to circulate freely through the many sides of yourself.  The looser, the more open and limitless your identity, the better.  Treat your emotions as a garden that needs to be kept tidy.  Be generous and that will stimulate more resources within yourself".

In Every Nursery There Are Ghosts

KEY NLP WORDS: maps - subjectivity – virtual other – internal representation

Motivational speakers often point out “change is easy” – all you have to do is follow a few simple rules and you can transform your life.

I’m not saying this is not true, but I am fascinated by the complexities of creating lasting change through a deeper understanding of how we’ve grown up from the time we were born, and even before.

One of the key concepts in NLP is “to respect each other’s maps”, that means, we work with a person’s subjective experience knowing that their past shapes present perceptions and impacts on now.

According to Aitken and Trevarthen, the concept of the “Virtual Other” (Siegel:1990:102) is the internal image we hold of our primary caregiver which is out of awareness yet present in our everyday communication.

In other words, the “Virtual Other” in NLP terms is an internal representation coded using our senses of smell, taste, touch, sight and sound. As infants we develop this capacity within our first year and this helps us to hold an absent parent in mind.

As we grow, we expand our set of “Virtual Others” to include key people in our life who ‘invisibly’ shape us over time and who come to life unexpectedly as we communicate with people in different contexts!

So, for example, you may have had the experience of realising you suddenly said something which sounded just like your mother, or other people tell you you’re turning into her which may or may not be good news!

As you consider the next time you’re talking to someone and you’re not getting the results you want, maybe you’re not just communicating to who you think you are or perhaps it’s your ability to perceive which is being blocked by one of your own “Virtual Others”!

References:

S. Fraiberg, E. Adelson & V. Shapiro, 1975, ‘Ghosts in the nursery: a psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships’, Journal of American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 387-421. D.J.Siegel. (1999). The Developing Mind, Guildford Publications, Inc.. New York