Operational Presuppositions of NLP

We have included a selection of presuppositions that guide the use of NLP. The presuppositions included overlap Ericksonian approaches, systemic and brief therapy approaches and DBM. Not all NLP trainers would agree with all of them and the application and training of NLP has not always been consistent with them. They are drawn from a variety of sources that NLP drew upon and are of particularly useful if NLP is used on its own. They have been remodelled and integrated into the methodology of DBM.

There are 18 in our selection below.

1. People Operate Out Of Their Internal Maps And Not Directly On The Sensory Experience.

This first principle acknowledges that each individual perceives the world from a unique vantage point of his or her own frame of reference (Korzybski). Keeping this principle in mind sensitises the worker to the individuality of the client. Interventions will be greatly enhanced by tailoring them to fit the clients model of the world. From the vast array of sensory experience people select particular areas and interpret these in terms of their own models of the world. They impose meaning and structure on their experience in terms of what they see, hear, feel, taste and smell directly. Indeed we do not wait passively for sensory experience, we go seeking certain experiences; we listen, look etc. for certain things. We will have more to say about models and maps in the next chapter.

2. Mind And Body Are Part Of One Cybernetic System.

All external and internal behaviour are part of one recursive system. As such 'external behaviour' is part of the 'internal thinking' and the 'internal thinking' is part of the 'external behaviour.' The structure of the 'internal subjective experience' can be monitored through its external components, the internal experience being sequences of the five senses. The five senses, what we see, hear, feel, taste and smell, are the basic building blocks of experience.

3. People Make The Best Choice For Themselves At Any Given Moment.

This does not mean that a person always makes a choice that other people would consider the best.  What it does say is that from a person's own individual frame of reference and life history, even a so-called problem behaviour or feeling is the best choice the person has learned to make in a particular circumstance.  In increasing the choices that people have, the choices have to be practically available to that person's own model for them to be real choices for that person.  If they are not compatible with the individual's own model then they would not become real choices for that person although to the outside observer they look as though they are options.  The actual choices made will indicate where particular blocks exist and where additional choices would be useful.

4. The Positive Self Worth Of The Client Is Held Constant.

A distinction is made between  self, intention and behaviour that the person engages in. This allows the intentions and behaviours to be explored and improved relative to their usefulness and effectiveness while maintaining support for the person as a unique individual.

5. The Explanation Or Metaphor Used To Relate Facts About A Person Is Not The Person. 

This includes the client's explanation and ideas about themselves as well as the worker's ideas, theories.  This principle is particularly important in the area of assessment.  The minute after a formal assessment is completed it is out of date.  As people change, the circumstances change and assessment has to be updated.  Even the most consistently updated assessment is still not the person.  It is only as useful as it usefully facilitates successful interventions to produce the outcomes agreed by the client and worker.  The dangerous situation can arise whereby we respond to the assessment rather than the person. Conferences, meetings, case files, can all discuss the map they have made rather than the person. 

6. Respect All Messages From The Client. 

There are many messages sent simultaneously during any communication.  There are verbal and non- verbal components, there are multi-levels in each.  As theorists grew more aware of the non-verbal components, a debate ranged over which was the real message and therefore, which one should be responded to as opposed to the other.  We consider it disrespectful to the whole person to view things in this way.  As we concern ourselves with the whole person all messages received from that person should be respected.  It is not that one is right and the other is wrong or one is accurate and the other inaccurate.  It is rather that they represent  accurately different parts of that person's model of the world.  This is an important aspect of communication.  Increasing our own skills in multi-level communications will enable us to further improve our work with the whole person.  Bringing the two messages together by pointing out consciously to somebody that their body does not match what they say is not respectful of the fact the client chooses to give the two messages independently.  This superficial way of dealing with different levels of communication is rather clumsy and disrespectful of the subtlety of the client's communication.  In latter chapters we will discuss ways of communicating more accurately and respectfully to the whole person.

7.  Teach Choice; Never Attempt To Take Choice Away.

This principle follows on principle 2, namely that people make the best choice themselves.  In addition to this principle, we have a sub category that states that you should always leave a client, or an individual, at least no worse off than when you found them, and at best, better off than when you found them.  Some behaviours, attitudes or feelings that people consider negative or bad may at some point in the future be useful for that person to be able to choose.  In the mean time a new choice if more appropriate will be chosen.  To take the old choice away, however, would be to debilitate the person in a possible future  situation.  It is therefore important to add to choice and not as behaviour modifiers do substitute one choice for another.  Our aim in our work is not just to substitute choice and therefore keep individuals equally limited as to the flexibility they have,  It is to increase their ability to create more choice for themselves (an appreciation of the application of logical levels to learning greatly assists).

8. The Resources The Client Needs Lie Within Their Personal History.

For the vast majority of people, a great variety of possible behaviours have been experienced, either first hand through their direct interaction with others or through their observations of the behaviour of others. This observation can be through seeing others in day-to-day life, through media and television, books and through their imagination (fantasy can be as useful as external experience). These resources are potentials of future behaviour, attitudes etc. Our role in helping people is to enhance these resources in order to accomplish the desired changes.

9. Meet The Client At Their Own Model Of The World.

To set off on a journey to anywhere , you have to start from where you are. The old joke of a stranger asking a farmer the best way to the nearest town and being told by the farmer that he would be better starting from some where else is relevant at this point. If we aim to help an individual, family, organisation etc. move in a certain direction then we have to start from where they are and then move on. The concept of rapport is crucial in meeting others at their model of the world not just verbally but non-verbally. Following this principal of matching the clients model will help sensitise the individual to their model of the world and greatly facilitate the level of rapport; and therefore the level of co-operation in whatever work is undertaken.

10. The Person With The Most Flexibility Will Be The Controlling Element In The System.

This principle is taken from cybernetics. Simply stated, the person with most alternatives in their behavioural repertoire will be in a better position to out manoeuvre others and will therefore achieve their outcomes more easily. It is not just the number of options though, it is the ease with which one behaviour can be changed to another in response to feedback indicating that the outcome is not being achieved (some degree of 'feedforward' is a necessary component). This is the flexibility within the repertoire of choices. To have a fixed goal and a variable means by which it can be achieved is a general guiding principal of NLP stemming from this concept of flexibility.

11. A Person Can't Not Communicate.

This refers to the fact that even if clients are not overtly communicating verbally, they are still sending messages non-verbally (Watzlawick 1964). In addition, the client always has internal responses. A client will respond to verbal and non-verbal stimuli by searching through their internal experience in an attempt to find meaning for the incoming communication.   This process is automatic and often outwith conscious awareness. When 'meaning' is retrieved it will guide performance or behaviour.  The behaviour may be very subtle, such as a breathing shift, a slight nod of the head, a grimace or a shift in muscle tensions.  It is very important to be sensitive to these responses.  For a client to try not to communicate is itself a communication of their position, intentions, etc. 

12. The Meaning Of Your Communication Is The Response You Get, Not What You Intended.

Communicating requires at least two positions, a sender and a receiver, with the responsibility being with the 'speaker' for ensuring that the 'intended' meaning is received. Whatever the 'listener' receives is what has been communicated to them. Good communication is aided through this and 13.

13. There Are No Mistakes In Communication, Only Feedback.

Because you cannot totally ensure that your intended communication is perfectly received right away, it is useful to appreciate that communicating is a process and not a fixed thing. That being the case you are always in the process of communicating and all responses are feedback as to where you are in relation to your intentions. When you do not get your desired response that is all it means - you have not failed rather you have got feedback that you have not yet got the desired response.

14. The Conscious Mind Has A Maximum Capacity Of Seven Plus Or Minus Two Chunks.

This famous discovery was made by Miller when studying the storage capacity of conscious attention. What is not fixed is the size of the 'chunks'. Our conscious subjective 'chunks' will be composed of a variety of the five senses. We can easily get 'overloaded' consciously. Number 15 aims to counter this limited capacity to make things easier for us to succeed.

15. If It's Hard Work Reduce It Down.

This is both a training principle and an intervention principle.  Lankton has commented, humorously, that General Custer would have won if the Indians had come over the hill one at a time.  In the same way, even complex tasks are manageable if taken one step at a time in component pieces.  Much of our training follows this principle. For example the model for organising interventions is one way of breaking down an overall task of organising based on needs and problems identified.  It is not the only way of achieving that outcome nor necessarily is it the way the writer goes about achieving those outcomes.  It is however, a model that will obtain the same outcomes as the writer or others in this area are aiming for.

16. Outcomes Are Determined At The Psychological Level. 

This is one of the three rules of communication described by Eric Berne.  (Berne 1966 page 277; Lankton, Lankton & Brown 1981).  Lankton states that "It refers to that fact that there are several simultaneous levels operating in any communication and that when the social level message (usually in words) says one thing and the psychological message (usually reflected in voice tone, gesture, or emphasis) indicates something else, the psychological message, outside of awareness, will be the determinant of the outcome".  An important facet of psychological level communication is the ability of metaphor and indirect suggestion facilitate changes in the clients experience. The elegance of indirect approaches and metaphor to respond to the variety of messages in the complexities of a client's communication is an important aspect of NLP.

17. If One Person Can All Can.

This is the basis for behavioural modelling. What one person  does can be made available for others, if they are not  physiologically  damaged. This does not mean that all people will be able to do it as well since they would not have the same life history and practice. It does mean that skills, abilities, beliefs, behaviours exhibited by one person can be acquired by others.

 18. NLP Is A Generative Model.

NLP is not a model of repair, a remedial model. It is a model of acquisition, for new and better skills, understandings, learning’s, and approach to life through a sense of curiosity and appreciation of the current and potential abilities of human beings.

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