The User's Manual for the Brain Volume I

by Bob G Bodenhamer

  Modal operator terms define the boundaries of our model of the world and our style of operation.

  So words like can and cannot, should and should not reveal personal beliefs about what we can or cannot do in life. Now modal operators come in several categories. We have the modal operators of necessity, of possibility, impossibility, empowerment, identity, choice, etc. These modes show up in words like can/cannot, possible/impossible, am/am not, and will/will not, etc.

  Listening for such words informs us what a client believes stands as possible or impossible in their world. “I can’t change my beliefs.” “I can’t learn efficiently.” “I can’t imagine saying that.” Such language not only describes their limits, it creates such limitations. Modal operators of possibility tell us what a person believes possible.

  The Meta-model challenge to such goes: “What would happen if you did change that belief?” Or, “What stops you from doing that?”

  Fritz Perls reframed “I can’t…” by saying, “Don’t say I can’t, say I won’t.” If a client accepted that statement, they moved from no choice to choice, from effect of a problem to the cause of such. All of therapy has to do with putting the client at cause. The presupposition in the phrase, “Don’t say I can’t, say I won’t,” assumes that the client can choose.

  Necessity words include: must/must not, should/should not, ought/ought not, have to, need to and it is necessary. These describe a model of the world that believes in necessity. Such words define some governing rule the person operates from. Often these rules limit behavior. Telling children that they should do their homework can induce a state of guilt (pseudo-guilt). Modal operators of necessity work wonderfully for creating such guilt. Yet if guiltiness doesn’t strike you as a particularly resourceful place to come from for studying, instead of telling children that they should do their homework, we can tell them that they can do their homework. “And I get to help you with it.”

  The Meta-model challenge to a modal operator of necessity: “What would happen if you did/didn’t…?” “I should go to church!” Response: “What would happen if you did go?” This will elicit specific reasons why they should go to church. The question goes to the Deep Structure and facilitates the person to recover effects and outcome. It moves the client into the future. Examples: “I really should be more flexible at times like this.” “I ought to go back to school.” “I have to take care of her.” “You should learn.”

  These questions come from Cartesian Logic. One can introduce this unique form of questioning by saying, “You have been thinking about this one way for quite a while and your thinking hasn’t changed. May I suggest another line of thinking? (Get their agreement either verbally or non-verbally.) What would happen if you did change that belief?” etc.

  Rene Pfalzgraf (1991) points out the effectiveness of utilizing a person’s modal operators of necessity in motivating them:

  “Some words will be more demanding and motivating than others. If you can discover that hierarchy and then employ it, you will begin to discover that it is easier to motivate a person to do something.”

  Suppose someone says, “I should go back to college. I really need to get more education.” Both of those sentences have a modal operator of necessity within them (“should” and “need to”). In replying, feed back the modal operator sequence in order to motivate them. “I agree with you. You should go back to school because we all need more education.”

  Examples: Modal Operators of Necessity:

  I really should be more flexible at times like this.

  I ought to go back to school.

  You should not hurry into trance just yet.

  You shouldn’t go into trance too quickly, now.

  You must be getting this now… at some level…

  I have to take care of her.

  You should learn.

  Examples: Modal Operators of Possibility/Impossibility:

  I can’t learn.

  I couldn’t tell him what I think.

  You could learn this now.

  You could write this down… or not.

  You could feel more and more peaceful.

  You can change overnight.

  You may hear the words of wisdom.

  It’s possible to learn everything easily and quickly.

  You could come up with a few more examples, now.

  You can learn.

  9.4.0.23 8. Lost Performative

  When we perform upon our world with value judgments, we speak about important values that we believe in. But in a Lost Performative we have stated a value judgment while deleting the performer (speaker) of the value judgment. As a vague value judgment, a Lost Performative will push the person into the direction you wish for them to go. “You don’t love me.” Note that the value judgment leaves off the name of the person doing the judging but it directs attention to “love me.”

  “Boys shouldn’t cry.” “If you’re going to do something, give it your best.” “That is a stupid thing you just did.” In these sentences the speaker has made a value judgment about something. Yet statements fail to inform us who said such or where the person got that value judgment.

  To challenge a lost performative and restore the deleted and distorted material, ask: “Who says boys shouldn’t cry?” “Who evaluates my actions as stupid?” “According to whom do you say such?” Or even more succinctly, ask, “Says who?” These questions require that the speaker access more information in the Deep Structure and identify the source of the judgments. Until we identify the source, we will lack the ability to challenge the statement’s validity.

  Examples:

  Oh, it’s not important anyway.

  It’s not good to be strict.

  That’s too bad.

  Today is a great day.

  No one should judge others.

  That’s perfect!

  It’s really good that you say that.

  One doesn’t have to…

  And, it is a good thing to wonder.

  9.5 Deletions

  9.5.0.24 9. Simple Deletions

  A simple deletion occurs when the communicator leaves out information about a person, thing or relationship.

  Examples:

  I am uncomfortable.

  I feel afraid.

  I am hurting.

  I feel alone.

  I don’t know.

  9.5.0.25 10. Comparative Deletions

  In a comparative deletion someone makes a comparison, but deletes either the specific persons, things, or items compared or the standard by which the speaker makes the comparison. Words like better, best, further, nearer, richer, poorer, more, less, most, least, worse, etc., provide cues of comparative deletions. What you compare to functions as a presupposition and the other person’s unconscious mind will fill in what’s missing.

  “He is much better off.” The challenge: “Better off than who?” “Better off according to what standard?”

  Examples:

  He is the best student in the class.

  She is the least likely person I know to have succeeded.

  And it is more or less the right thing to do.

  9.5.0.26 11. Lack of Referential Index or Unspecified Nouns and Verbs

  By referential index we refer to the person or thing that does or receives the action from the verb in the statement. When a sentence lacks a referential index, it fails to specify by name, term, or phrase that it references—whom it speaks about. It fails to specify or point to a specific person or group. The pronouns (one, it, they, people, etc.) are unspecified. Crucial material from the Deep Structure that completes the meaning has been deleted.

  Listen for words like one, they, nobody and this. “They did not come to the meeting.” Here the speaker failed to specify the subject of the verb.

  To challenge and recover the deleted material, we ask, “Who specifically did not come to the meeting?”

  In the statement, “Those people hurt me” the noun phrase (“those people”) like the uns
pecified verb (“hurt”) lacks a referential index. So we inquire, “Who specifically hurt you?”

  Examples:

  They don’t listen to me.

  Nobody cares anymore.

  This is unheard of.

  One can, you know.

  9.5.0.27 12. Unspecified Verb

  Unspecified verbs describe vague, non-specific action. Words like hurt, upset, injure, show, demonstrate, care and concern certainly describe action, a process, a set of events or experiences—but they have left out so much of the specific information about the action that we cannot make a clear representation in our mind about that action. She says, “He hurt me,” but we don’t know if he slapped her, left her waiting at the mall, molested her, insulted the pie she baked, etc.

  We recover such deleted material by asking, “How did he hurt you exactly?” “Who specifically hurt you?” If we fail to ask for the deleted information, we run the risk of inventing it in our own minds! While we may make good guesses if we know enough of the context and background, we may also make guesses that miss the other person’s meaning by light years.

  When we hear a sentence with an unspecified verb (“She misunderstood me”), the potential exists for much misunderstanding, because we can interpret it in many different ways. The questions will connect the person more fully to their experience. In terms of well-formedness we do not provide a sufficient enough linguistic “map” for the other person to get a clear message.

  Examples:

  You don’t care about me.

  I upset my mother.

  He doesn’t show me any concern.

  I was wondering.

  If only you knew.

  You may discover.

  And you can learn this.

  9.5.0.28 Conclusion

  Most sentences in our everyday languaging contain numerous Meta-model violations. As you hear them, start at the larger level violation and challenge the distortions first. Then go to the generalizations. And finally, challenge the deletions. Why? Because since every sentence has lots of deletions, if you start there, you could challenge deletions all day long. Since distortions carry the most weight and operate at a higher logical level, when we challenge them first, we get greater leverage on the person’s Deep Structure.

  You can now begin to use this Meta-model to enable you to get specific information in a client’s Deep Structure. The questions provided by the Meta-model enable you to chunk the person down to details and specificity. As such, the Meta-model facilitates the uncovering of crucial information which then empowers one to expand their world-model. At the same time, the questions of the Meta-model function to essentially bring a client out of trance. To put a client in trance, we would use the reverse language patterns, and in NLP, the reverse patterns show up in a model that we call the Milton Model (see Chapter Ten).

  After I (MH) first learned the Meta-model, I didn’t think all that much of it. “Just simple stuff, I do that anyway.” Then later at my master practitioner NLP training, Bandler talked about everything in NLP—every model, every process, every technique, every pattern, as having arisen from the Meta-model and to not know this model inside-out prevents one from understanding how to model. That grabbed my attention.

  “How could he think of this simple model as that powerful?” “Why would he put that much stress and importance on it?” I didn’t know. So I went back to the model and studied it “inside-out,” and came away from that study with the same conviction that to know this model gives you the ability to handle language, to not get bamboozled by language, and to challenge language instead of assuming it as real. Later, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Languaging and after exploring the foundations of General Semantics, along with several other therapy models, I added eight more pieces to the Meta-model. I finally concluded that if a person knows the Meta-model, they know the essence of good critical thinking skills and how to challenge and explore the logic of a statement.

  You have our permission to duplicate the following two pages of the Meta-model of Language. I (BB) encourage my students to keep one copy on their desk and one in the shirt pocket/billfold or purse. Refer to it often over the next year or so. You will spend your time well installing this model in your unconscious mind.

  Figure 8:5 The Meta-model of Language

  9.6 Extending The Meta-model

  The following nine linguistic distinctions indicating ill-formedness in the mapping process along with Meta-model challenges to elicit from the speaker a more well-formed cognitive “map” come from Alfred Korzybski (1933,1994) in his classic work, Science and Sanity, as well as from REBT (Rational-Emotive Behavioral Therapy). The abbreviated form of this comes from the research of Michael Hall in Languaging (1996) and The Secrets of Magic (1998).

  9.6.0.29 1. Identity/Identification (Id.)

  Like a complex equivalence, an identification statement makes an equation between things on different levels of abstraction, although here the equation involves a “self” identity equation, “I am… X” “He is a… X.” “She’s nothing more than a …X!” These involve the two most dangerous forms of mapping false-to-fact (doesn’t fit the territory at all), namely, “the ‘is’ of identification,” and “the ‘is’ of predication.” Predicating qualities even at the perceptual level (“the rose is red”) fails to map the interaction of what we receive from the world and the contributions of our sense receptors (rods and cones). Predicating judgments (our evaluations, meanings) takes this to a higher level (“He is a jerk.”)

  This Korzybskian language distinction closely corresponds to a complex equivalence and yet it differs. For Korzybski, identity meant “absolute sameness in all respects.” His “all” in this definition functions to make identity impossible. If we eliminate the “all” from the definition, then the word “absolute” also loses its meaning. Then we simply have “sameness in some respects,” an acceptable concept since by it we understand “same” as “similar.” The concept of similarity, in fact, would enable us to create, work with, and use generalizations, labels, categories, etc., appropriately. Yet if we alter the ideas of “absolute” and “all,” that would not leave us with “identity” at all, only similarity.

  In the world we only deal with unique individual persons, events, and things. There only exists non-identity in the world of cognitive processes. Every event stands as unique, individual, absolute, unrepeatable. No individual or event can exist as the “same” from one moment to the next.

  When we engage in identifying, we experience a comparatively inflexible, rigid form of adaptation, low degree conditionality, and neurological necessity. This represents an animal adaptation, inadequate for modern man (p. 195). Identification frequently shows up in the “to be” verbs (is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been, etc.), which David Bourland, Jr. (1991) has called “the deity mode” of thinking and speaking. “This is that!” “That’s how it is!”

  When we engage in identifying, we experience a comparatively inflexible, rigid form of adaptation, low degree conditionality, and neurological necessity…Identification frequently shows up in the “to be” verbs (is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been, etc.)…

  In identifying, we erroneously conclude that what occurs inside our skin (that is, ideas, understandings, concepts) has objective existence. Psychologically, this leads to projection and then to other mental mapping mistakes: delusions, illusions, and hallucinations (pp. 456-457).

  The insane and damaging “ises” include: the “is” of identity (“I am…” “You are…” “That is…”) and the “is” of predication (“The apple is red”). When used as an auxiliary verb “is” (“Smith is coming”) the “is” simply contributes to another verb and does not create a lot of semantic difficulties. The “is” of existence points to events and things that “stand out” in our perception.

  Identification erroneously evaluates the products of our thinking-and-feeling as having objective existence. Yet ascribing such external objectivity to words causes us to
map out untrue and unuseful representations. Evaluation only occurs in mind. It exists and operates only as a mental phenomenon at the level of thoughts.

  The following responses enable us to challenge identifications, to de-identify and to recognize the unique distinctions of reality.

  (1) Extensionalize. To make specific what otherwise might become falsely identified. Korzybski said that the extensional method deals structurally with the many definite individuals that distinguish and separate (p. 135). We can extensionalize by indexing specifics (who, when, where, how, which, etc.), by making distinctions, by hyphenating, and by E-Priming our language.

  (2) Differentiate realities. Since “identity” never occurs in the world, by rejecting the very concept of the “is” of identity, we actually accept differences and differentiation as fundamental (pp. 93-94). Now we can begin to look for, and specify, the absolute individuality of events. How do these things that seem similar and which you have identified differ?

  (3) Sub-scripting words with time-dates or space-locations (the indexing process). Such subscripting assists us in dealing with the absolute individuality of every event at every time. Since the world and ourselves consist of processes, every Smith1950 exists as quite a different person from Smith1995 (p. 263). This individualizing assists us in making distinctions. Depression1991 differs from depression1994; depressionBob differs from depressionSusan. By time-indexing we specify the date of our verbal statements. We can do the same with person-indexing, place-indexing, and even process-indexing.

  (4) Practice silence at the unspeakable levels. A central technique for eliminating the “is” of identify involves training in recognizing “the unspeakable level of experience.” In the place of repressing or suppressing,