Express yourself congruently and evocatively. In eliciting, remember that your tools consist of your words, your tones and your tempo, your physiology and other non-verbals. So be evocative, and sound like what you speak about.
Allow people time to process things. If they aren’t accessing, then have them pretend (use the Pretend or “As if” frame): “What would it be like if you could?”
Begin with unspecific words and unspecified predicates (e.g. think, know, understand, remember, experience, etc.). This allows the person to search for the experience in their own way.
Follow up with specific predicates. As you notice the accessing of a certain rep system, help them by then using sensory-specific words. “And what do you see…?”
Use good downtime questions to assist the person in locating and identifying the experience. To do that you will need enough content so as to ask good questions. Downtime questions involve those questions the answers to which are not on the edge of consciousness. The person has to go inside to their unconscious mind to find the information. “How many green lights did you go through to get here today?” In the upcoming anchoring section (Chapter Thirteen), you will receive complete instructions in how to set a downtime self-anchor.
Once the person begins accessing, focus on the form and structure of the experience by getting the person’s submodality coding. If the person gets stuck in trying to think of something, ask, “Do you know anyone who can?” “What would it be like if you stepped into their shoes for a few minutes and did it?”
Eliciting helps the person you’re talking with to become conscious of factors normally outside their range of conscious awareness. This means your own patience, positive expectation, and acceptance will make it easier (and safer) for the other person to access the information.
8.8 Conclusion
The desired outcome of NLP as a whole involves making accessible more resourcefulness in people. To do that we need to have a general pattern for understanding how we get into “states” of mind-and-body, and how we can evaluate those states for resourcefulness. In this chapter you learned about these state management skills.
8.9 Thought Questions To Assist Your Learning:
What two factors primarily govern your states?
What ways have you developed to interrupt your unresourceful states?
Practice “scaling” your states (from 1 to 10) for a few days. What did you learn by doing that?
What submodalities really drive and amplify your states?
What do we mean by “state management” in NLP?
2
The NLP Language Model
9
The Meta-model of Language: Structure and Meaning
The Heart Of The “Magic”
9.1 What you can expect to learn in this chapter:
The heart and structure of “magic”
The NLP Meta-model of language
Distinctions that indicate ill-formedness
How to challenge impoverished “maps”
As we have explored the NLP communication model about how we create, process, and exchange messages with each other, this raises the question of how does “the structure of magic” work? How do we “make meaning” with symbols, words, and sentences anyway?
We have already noted that to “think” we use the rep system of the senses. This enables us to present to ourselves again (“re-presentation”) information that we originally saw, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted. As we use our senses we also code those understandings in words. Thus we can represent a pleasant summer day at the beach by using the specific sights, sounds, sensations, and smells of that experience or we can use an even more short-cut system, we can say “relaxing day at the beach.”
The words function within us as a symbol of the sensory representations, and those sensory representations function as a symbol of the actual experience. Thus if we begin with the experience (the territory), our VAK representations operate as a neurological “map” of the experience. Then our sensory-based words (“pleasant day at the beach”) provide us a basic linguistic “map” of the neurological “map.” And given the way our minds work, we can then use even more abstract and conceptual words (“pleasure”, “comfort”) as a higher level linguistic “map” of the other linguistic “map,” etc.
Given the fact that words function in our consciousness as a “map” of reality (and not even the first level “map”), then words work to provide us a scheme, model, or paradigm about that reality.
Given the fact that words function in our consciousness as a “map” of reality (and not even the first level “map”), then words work to provide us a scheme, model, or paradigm about that reality. To the extent that the words correspond in an isomorphic way (“form”, “similar”) to the territory they represent—they give us an accurate “map.” To the extent that they do not, they give us a distorted map with significant parts left out (deleted), or with parts over-generalized or messed-up.
NLP began here. Linguist John Grinder had studied, and contributed to, the field of Transformational Grammar for years—a field that sought to understand how the coding, meaning, and significance at the Deep Structures of experience (at the neurological levels) become transformed into language (at the linguistic levels). Thereafter (1975), he and Bandler put together the Meta-model of language for therapy.
They developed this model of language elegance by modeling Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir. Bandler and Grinder noticed their use of certain powerful questions in gathering information and another set of powerful questions that essentially enabled the person to reorganize their internal world. From a linguistic analysis of their language, Bandler and Grinder developed this Meta-model. (“Meta” comes from Greek and means “beyond, over, about, on a different level.”) The Meta-model specifies how we can use language to clarify language. It does so by re-connecting a speaker’s language with the experience out of which it came.
The Meta-model specifies how we can use language to clarify language. It does so by re-connecting a speaker’s language with the experience out of which it came.
Obviously, the business of communication involves language use—it involves “sharing the word,” and it involves living the word. The more we know about the neuro-linguistic processes at the root of language processing and languaging ourselves and others—the more effective our ability to handle this most incredible tool.
9.2 Deep Structure/Surface Structure
The Meta-model provides us with a tool to get to the experience behind a person’s words. When we speak, none of us gives a complete description of the thoughts behind our words. If we attempted to completely describe our thoughts, we would never finish speaking. Why? Because none of our verbal descriptions can fully or completely (exhaustively) say everything about an experience. As a speaker, we will always have a more complete internal representation of what we wish to communicate than what we can put into words. We inevitably shorten the description.
Now we call the complete internal representation (experience) of what we seek to communicate the “Deep Structure.” Most of this Deep Structure lies in unconscious parts of mind and neurology—some of it at levels prior to words, some beyond where words can describe. As we seek to present, articulate and clarify our experiences, we do so in what we call “Surface Structures”—the words and sentences that represent transforms of the deeper levels.
While Transformational Grammar has not proven adequate to fully explain language acquisition, syntactic structure, etc., the Meta-model does not depend upon the validity or adequacy of Transformational Grammar. The Meta-model only presupposes that below (or above, depending upon the operational metaphor), there exists another level or layer of abstraction—prior to the Surface Structure out of which the Surface Structure arose. Because the human nervous system and “mind” constantly “leaves characteristics out” (Korzybski) or “deletes” (Bandler and Grinder) or functions as a “reducing valve” (Huxley), Surface Structures as cognitive “
maps” suffer impoverishment. The Meta-model with its challenges involves a process whereby a person expands and extends the cognitive map, making it richer and fuller.11
We call the complete internal representation (experience) of what we seek to communicate—the Deep Structure. The words and sentences that we speak we call Surface Structure.
Bandler and Grinder noted that in the process of moving from the Deep Structure in our neurology (our neurological “map”) to the Surface Structures that come out of our conscious minds and mouths, we do three things, which they termed “modeling processes.” For the most part, we do this naturally and apart from consciousness. First, we delete much if not most of the material in the Deep Structure. Every second, approximately two million pieces of information feed into the brain. Obviously, the brain must screen out much information or else we would go crazy. Read the following:
Paris in the
the spring.
A snake in the
the grass.
A kick in the
the rear.
Lewis and Pucelik (1982) presented this in their treatment of the Meta-model (p. 7). Did you notice as you read that you deleted one of the “the’s” in each of those sentences? Unless you put yourself into a detailed state of mind (a proof-reader’s state of mind) you made sense of the sentence by quickly and unconsciously deleting the second “the.”
Second, we distort the meaning and structure of information as we simplify our description of the experience. We alter our perceptions using our brains. A story in Eastern philosophy relates how a man walked along the road and saw a snake. Immediately he yelled, “Snake!” But then, as he approached it, he saw it more clearly as a rope, and not a snake.
“Beauty” lies in the eye of the beholder. The ability to distort enables us to enjoy works of art, music and literature. Thus we can look at a cloud and turn its vague shapes into animals, people and all kinds of things—we do it by using our brain’s power of distortion. Our ability to distort makes it possible for us to have dreams and visions about our desired future.
Third, we generalize information. When new learnings come into our brain, our brain compares the new information with similar information previously learned. Our minds compare and generalize old similar material with new data. This process allows us to learn quickly. We do not have to relearn old concepts. Our brain utilizes them in new learnings. Although many kinds of cars exist, we relate to such through the category or class that we call “cars.” Mapping out experiences, events, people, learnings, ideas, etc., through categories enables us to compare, contrast, group, subgroup, etc. This helps us handle increasingly large amounts of information, process information through logical levels, and move into more and more conceptual levels of reality.
While other mapping functions exist, the Meta-model uses these three. They describe the key processes whereby we move from the Deep Structure within our mind-neurology to our Surface Structures that show up in our language and languaging. In summary, we delete, distort and generalize information as we create our model of the world.
Meta-model questions reverse the process of going from Deep Structure to Surface Structure.
What does this Meta-model consist of precisely? It consists of thirteen (in this model) language distinctions and thirteen sets of questions. These challenging questions inquire about the ill-formedness that shows up in the Surface Structures and this enables the speaker to restore the material deleted, distorted, and generalized. Meta-model questions reverse the process of going from Deep Structure to Surface Structure. The model reverses the abstracting process—we “de-abstract” via the Meta-model, we take a person back to experience. The Meta-model thus uncovers missing information in the client’s communication and model of the world—often crucial information without which they live in the world with an impoverished “map.” Some ask, “When do you stop asking Meta-model questions?” Good question. You stop when you have your outcome.
We have abbreviated the following description to provide an overview of this neuro-linguistic model. We would recommend that you obtain a complete description of the Meta-model and do a more in-depth study (Bandler & Grinder, 1975, Hall, 1996b).
9.2.0.15 The questions of the Meta-model restore:
Distortions
Generalizations
Deletions
9.3 Distortions
9.3.0.16 1. Nominalization
By nominalization we refer to those kinds of nouns that originated from process. They function meta to experience and symbolize whole chunks of experience. Young (1999) states, “They are iconic, like the symbols on a computer screen. When you metaphorically ‘double-click’ on the icon, it opens up to reveal something of the experience (s) it stands for.” Nominalizations take processes and freeze them so that the process movie becomes a still picture. A nominalization can be a word that represents a process, movement, action (verb) or ideas, understandings, and concepts such as memories, rules, principles, values and beliefs.
Linguistically, nominalization refers to changing a Deep Structure process (movement, action,, etc.) into a Surface Structure static event.
Linguistically, nominalization refers to changing a Deep Structure process (movement, action, etc.) into a Surface Structure static event. The classic NLP description that tests for a nominalization versus a true noun asks: “Can you put it in a wheelbarrow?” If so, you have a noun! If not, then behold—a nominalization!
Another way to determine a nominalization involves seeing if the suspected word will fit in the blank of the following phrase: “An ongoing_________.” A process word like a nominalization will make sense in that syntactic environment whereas a concrete noun will not.
Nominalizations delete large amounts of information. Consider the statement, “Our poor relationship really bothers me.” “Relationship” functions as a nominalization, even though we generally treat it as a concrete noun. But we cannot see, hear, smell, or taste a relationship. We can’t put a relationship in a wheelbarrow. Changing the verb “relating” into the pseudo-noun “relationship,” nominalizes the verb. Other examples of nominalizations: education, illness, respect, discipline, friendship, decision, love, fear, strategy and sensation.
We often describe medical diseases using nominalizations. When a friend recently told me (BB) that he had ulcers, I asked, “How are you ulcerating yourself?” He immediately replied, “I have been working too many hours.”
Lewis and Pucelik (1982) state:
“In an article entitled ‘Language, Emotion and Disease,’ Dr. Wallace Ellerbroek makes some astute, if unorthodox, observations. Staff psychiatrist at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, California, Dr. Ellerbroek’s article addresses the effects of language on our perceptions and behaviors. He contends that ‘…each word you use as a label for something makes you see it in an entirely different way.’ He cites the case of ‘essential’ hypertension, a medical condition for which the cause is unknown. His description includes the process of denominalizing the medical term, a rare action in the field of medicine in which nominalizations abound. Contrary to the generally accepted medical model, he states, ‘Remember, I called all diseases ‘behaviors,’ in other words, things that people do… When I found a patient with elevated blood pressure (140/90 mm/Hg or more), I said to myself not ‘He has hypertension’ but ‘He is hypertensioning.’”
This transformation of the nominalization ‘hypertension,’ the name given to a specific set of medical conditions, back into a verb or process of ‘hypertensioning’ not only altered Dr. Ellerbroek’s perception of his patients but also his behaviors toward them. This, says Dr. Ellerbroek, changed his patients’ responses to treatment in a dramatically positive way. The implication is that as we begin to alter our language, as in the above example, we change our perceptions of the processes of health and disease. Ultimately, this gives us more choices about our physical and emotional conditions.” (pp. 87-88):
To challenge nominalizations, we reve
rse the process. As a person has changed a process into a thing, we now direct him or her to change the thing back into a process. We do that by using the format: “In what way do you do the process of (nominalization)?” This question then assists the person to reconnect with the experience in a way that recognizes their role in the process.
Examples:
I have a poor relationship.
You have no respect for me.
Our system of education stinks.
Communication is a problem in their marriage.
Management made poor decisions.
His desires got him into trouble.
Her behavior is unacceptable.
This exercise will provide you with new insights, and new understandings.
9.3.0.17 2. Mind Reading
We engage in mind reading when we think and assert that we know the thoughts, motives, intentions, etc., in another’s mind. We do this when we say, “I know exactly how you feel.” In spite of communicating sympathy, typically such statements trigger pain, resentment, misunderstanding, etc. Mind-reading Surface Structure reveals much more about the speaker’s internal experience than the others. Accordingly, when we utter mind-reading statements, we project our own perceptions, values, issues, history, etc. Thus they usually have little to do with the person to whom we speak.
The User's Manual for the Brain Volume I Page 18