Related Reading
Activities are based on Chapter 1, “Communication and Conscious Intent,” in Healing with Language.
Definition of NLP
One of the reasons NLP has been in the “backwaters” of psychological investigation is that the name seems a bit strange. Richard Bandler said that he made up the name on the spur of the moment when he had been stopped for speeding and the officer asked him what he did. He looked at the titles of the books in his car and said, “Why, I’m a neurolinguistic programmer.”
Subjective Experience
External “reality” is the “territory.” The ideas we have about the territory in our minds are the “maps” of subjective experience. Understanding subjective experience gives you the opportunity to make your maps of the territory more accurate and useful.
Presuppositions of NLP
One of the most important about the presuppositions of NLP is that they are assumed to be useful rather than true. If we presuppose, for example, that all behavior is useful in some context, we can better understand why someone might choose behavior we would otherwise label “bad” or “wrong.”
Sensory Data and Perceptual Frames
A perceptual frame is the lens through which an individual views the world. The ability to change perceptual frames is essential for good communication.
Sub-Disc: In what way do perceptual frames influence communication? Provide a couple of specific examples from your own experience.
Subtle Communication
In what ways is “subtle communication” subtle?
Discussion Questions
- What (exactly) is Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), and what can you do with it?
- In what way does subjective experience have “structure,” and how can the structure be discovered and changed?
- Which of the presuppositions of NLP do you find especially useful? Provide two examples explain their importance for understanding subjective experience.
How do perceptual frames influence communication? What prevents someone who favors auditory processing and someone who favors kinesthetic processing from seeing “eye-to-eye”? - What distinguishes subtle communication from ordinary communication?
Subtle Communication: It is below people’s level of conciousness and awareness. It is gentle. Is is like asking vs forcing.
What is NLP: It is the use of language to get desired outcomes and can be used to accomplish anything! More specifically for me it helps me build better relationships with my employees and be more pursuasive to customers.
Subjective Experience: Subjective experience has structure because it is made up of beliefs, values, state of mind etc, which determine people’s interpretation of reality (territory) People’s structure can be discovered through the language they use or don’t use, the tense of the words they use and through feeling energy. The structure can be changed by discovering the process that allowed someone to create a belief and similarily installing a new belief that you/they desire.
Presuppositions of NLP: The Map is not the Territory: A sales person views cold calling as tough. That is a person’s Map and is no way true to what exsists in the territory, however it is true to them. So understanding this allows me to dig deeper into how/what makes them hold this belief and installing positive experience and by changing the context of what I am asking them to do, so for this employee I may not ask them to do “cold calls” but ask them to “go make friends” instead. In working with my 4 year old. When he believe’s something isn’t what he wants and throws a fit it allows me to be non-judgemental and empathetic which allows me better flexibiility when trying to calm him down. Every behavior is useful in some context: Allows me more empathy when dealing with a sales person that is unorganized, taking the judgement out of a behavior allows me to help them more objectively. Understanding that every behavior is usedful in context allows me to become more flexible in changing my own behavior, being figity helps keep me calm, so understanding that the behavior is useful allows me to be more postive about changing it and also allows me to understand the result I desire so I can program a new more positive behavior to get the same result.
Perceptual Frames: They influence communication because they would determine the content of your communication. Territory Observation: a horse is fast Perceptual Frame: I like fast horses. So in this instance because the individual has good feelings about fast horses they are likely to dicuss/mention this in commuication about the horse They also influence commuication because they will influence what you delete, distort or generalize. For example if one doesn’t care whether a horse is fast or not the person won’t input that into concious and thus not commuicate it.
Eye to Eye: because every experience has every sense a kinesthetic and auditory processor will pick up different details with varied levels of importance so their interpretations of the territory will be quite different. As well the language they use to express themselves will likely be different as well and won’t input into the others concious.
Subtle Commuication: It is different because it is considering the reaction/outcome of communication rather than focusing on the intention of communication. Subtle is also different because it is considering all aspects of communication rather than just the verbal or the “obvious”
Basically a good answer, Melody. Perceptual frames determine the focus of perception rather than the content. You and I could look at the same horse (content), but we would focus on different things because of your greater experience.
Also, note that you can paragraph responses for readability (blank line between paragraphs and boldface for headings.
Good to see you here.