Presuppositions of NLP™

NLP is not a model of repair…it is a model of acquisition…a generative model. We know that any behavior is adaptive given the circumstances under which it was learned. All external behavior is the result of neurological processes.

The map is not the territory. Humans create maps or models of the world to make sense of their experience, maintain coherency and guide their behavior. So, we operate on our sensory representations of the world, primarily visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Being aware of this can assist us in recognizing other’s models of the world and improves our ability to communicate more effectively.

In interactions among people, the individual with the greater flexibility and variability in thinking patterns and behaviors can influence and typically does, the direction of the outcome of that interaction. In Cybernetics, this is referred to as the “Law of Requisite Variety.” The mind and body are part of the same cybernetic system.

What is Cybernetics? According to the New Encyclopedia Britannica, “control theory as it is applied to complex systems.” To quote Margaret Mead, “The set of cross-disciplinary ideas which we first called feed-back and then called theological mechanisms and then called…cybernetics-a form of cross-disciplinary thought which made it possible for a members of many disciplines to communicate with each other easily in a language which all could understand.”

Gregory Bateson said it is the study of form and pattern and “the biggest bite of fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that mankind has taken in the last 2000 years.” Also, “There is latent in Cybernetics the means of achieving a new and perhaps more human outlook, a means of changing our philosophy of control, and a means of seeing our own follies in wider perspective.”

There is difficulty in defining Cybernetics according to Stafford Beer. The following is an illustration, “it concerns three men who are about to be executed. The prison governor calls them to his office, and explains that each will be granted a last request. The first one confesses that he has led a sinful life, and would like to see a priest. The governor says he thinks he can arrange that. And the second man? The second man explains that he is a professor of cybernetics. His last request is to deliver a final and definitive answer to the question: what is cybernetics? The governor accedes to this request also. And the third man? Well, he is a doctoral student of the professor—his request is to be executed second.”

“Use the word, cybernetics, Norbert, because nobody knows what it means. This will always put you at an advantage in arguments”
        —Claude Shannon in a letter to Norbert Wiener in the 1940’s. 

And now, for more presuppositions of NLP…Behavioral flexibility results in more choices. More choices are better than limited choices.

Individuals communicate on two levels: conscious and unconscious or other-than-conscious.

The highest quality of information in an interaction is behavioral information, which is more frequently than not, unconscious or other-than-conscious.

There are no failures in communication – only results. Mistakes are feedback without which flexibility and variability would be impossible. Mistakes are an essential part of the learning process. The NLP attitude views each and every experience as a rare and unprecedented opportunity to learn.