User:Peter Damian/NLP

Draft Introduction

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is an approach to explaining human behaviour, thought and communication which describes how people represent and communicate with the world, and which gives principles or techniques for identifying thought patterns and behaviour. It claims people can use these principles and techniques to enable them to represent their world better, learn and communicate better, and ultimately have better, fuller and richer lives. The term 'neurolinguistic', to qualify the relation between language and the structure and function of the brain, originated in 1935, the term 'neurolinguistic programming' was coined by Bandler in 1976, reflecting his belief that humans are the only machines that can program themselves.

It was originally promoted by its founders in the 1970's, Richard Bandler and John Grinder as an extraordinarily effective and rapid form of psychological therapy, capable of addressing the full range of problems which psychologists are likely to encounter, such as phobias, depression, habit disorder, psychosomatic illnesses, learning disorders. It also espoused the potential for self-determination through overcoming learnt limitations and emphasised well-being and healthy functioning. Later, it was promoted as a 'science of excellence', derived from the study or 'modelling' of how successful or outstanding people in different fields obtain their results. It was claimed that these skills can be learned by anyone to improve their effectiveness both personally and professionally

[Space for short section on management science applications]

Because of the absence of any firm empirical evidence supporting its sometimes extravagant claims, NLP has enjoyed little or no support from the scientific community. It continues to make no impact on mainstream academic psychology, and only limited impact on mainstream psychotherapy and counselling. However, it has some influence among private psychotherapists, including hypnotherapists, to the extent that they claim to be trained in NLP and ‘use NLP’ in their work. It has also had an enormous influence in management training, lifestyle coaching, and the 'human potential' industry.

NLP and Science

At the time it was introduced, NLP was heralded as a breakthrough in therapy and advertisements for training workshops, videos and books began to appear in trade magazines. The workshops provided certification. However, controlled studies shed such a poor light on the practice, and those promoting the intervention made such extreme and changeable claims that researchers began to question the wisdom of researching the area further.

There are three main criticisms of NLP.

1. NLP pretends to be a science, but is really pseudoscience, for its claims are not based on the scientific method. Its very name is a pretence to a legitimate discipline like neuroscience, neurolinguistics, and psychology. It has a large collection of scientific sounding terms, like eye accessing cues, submodality, metamodeling, micromodeling, metaprogramming, neurological levels, primary system, presupposition, modalities. Corballis (1999) argues that "NLP is a thoroughly fake title, designed to give the impression of scientific respectability". According to Beyerstein (1995) "though it claims neuroscience in its pedigree, NLP's outmoded view of the relationship between cognitive style and brain function ultimately boils down to crude analogies." With reference to all the 'neuromythologies' covered in his article, including NLP, he states "In the long run perhaps the heaviest cost extracted by neuromythologists is the one common to all pseudosciences—deterioration in the already low levels of scientific literacy and critical thinking in society. " Proponents of NLP often deny that it is based on theory.

2. There is little or no evidence or research to support its often extravagant claims. Heaps remarks (Heap 2008) that if the assertions made by proponents of NLP about representational systems and their behavioural manifestations are correct, then its founders have made remarkable discoveries about the human mind and brain, which would have important implications for human psychology, particularly cognitive science and neuropsychology. Yet there is no mention of them in learned textbooks or journals devoted to these disciplines. Neither is this material taught on psychology courses at pre-degree and degree level. When Heap spoke to to academic colleagues who spend much time researching and teaching in these fields, they showed little awareness, if any, of NLP .

Heap argued that to arrive at such important generalisations about the human mind and behaviour would certainly require prolonged, systematic and meticulous investigation of human subjects using robust procedures for observing, recording and analysing the phenomena under investigation. "There is just no other way of doing this". Yet the founders of NLP never revealed any such research or investigation, and there is no evidence of its existence. Indeed, Bandler himself claimed it was not his job to prove any of his claims about the workings of the human mind. "The truth is, when we know how something is done, it becomes easy to change" (ibid).

3. A significant amount of experimental research suggests that the central claims of NLP are unjustified. See NLP and science for a description of the literature. A research review conducted by Christopher Sharpley in 1984, followed by another review in 1987 in response to criticism by Einspruch and Forman, concluded that there was little evidence for its usefulness as an effective counseling tool. Reviewing the literature in 1988, Michael Heap also concluded that objective and fair investigations had shown no support for NLP claims about 'preferred representational systems'.

A research committee working under the auspices of the United States National Research Council led by Daniel Druckmann found little if any evidence to support NLP’s assumptions or that it is effective as a strategy for social influence, and the committee failed to recommend NLP. They were more impressed with the 'modelling' approach used by NLP, however they did not take this approach up later. These studies marked a decline in research interest in NLP generally, and particular in matching sensory predicates and its use in counsellor-client relationship in counseling psychology. Beyerstein (1995) argued that NLP was based on outmoded scientific theories, and that its 'explanation' of the relationship between cognitive style and brain function was no more than crude analogy.

Scientific criticism

1980s - study of Preferred Representational Systems

In 1984, Christopher F. Sharpley (publishing in the Journal of Counseling Psychology) undertook a literature review of 15 studies on the existence and effectiveness of preferred representational systems (PRS), an underlying principle of NLP. He found "little research evidence supporting its usefulness as an effective counseling tool" and concluded that there was no reproducible support for PRS and predicate matching. Eric Einspruch and Bruce Forman (1985) broadly agreed with Sharpley, although they criticised his apparent failure to address methodological errors in the research reviewed. They claimed that "NLP is far more complex than presumed by researchers, and thus, the data are not true evaluations of NLP" adding that NLP is difficult to test under the traditional counseling psychology framework, and that the research lacked a necessary understanding of pattern recognition as part of advanced NLP training. There was also inadequate control of context, an unfamiliarity with NLP as an approach to therapy, inadequate definitions of rapport, and numerous logical mistakes in the research methodology.

In 1987, Sharpley published a response to Einspruch and Forman with a review of a further 7 studies on the same basic tenets (totalling 44 including those cited by Einspruch and Forman). This second article included a review of Elich et al (1985), a study that found no support for the proposed relationship between eye movements, spoken predicates, and internal imagery. Elich et al stated that "NLP has achieved something akin to cult status when it may be nothing more than a psychological fad".

Sharpley conceded that a number of NLP techniques are worthwhile or beneficial in counselling, citing predicate matching, mirroring clients behaviors, moving sensory modalities, reframing, anchoring and changing history, but argued that none of these techniques originated within NLP. "NLP may be seen as a partial compendium of rather than as an original contribution to counseling practice and, thereby, has a value distinct from the lack of research data supporting the underlying principles that Bandler and Grinder posited to present NLP as a new and magical theory". He concluded that as a counselling tool, the techniques and underlying theory unique to NLP, were both empirically unvalidated and unsupported but that "if NLP is presented as a theory-less set of procedures gathered from many approaches to counselling, then it may serve as a reference role for therapists who wish to supplement their counselling practice by what may be novel techniques to them."

A study by Buckner et al (1987, after Sharpley), using trained NLP practitioners found support for the claim that specific eye movement patterns existed for visual and auditory components of thought, and that trained observers could reliably identify them. However, the study did not address whether such patterns indicated a preferred representational system. They also made suggestions for further research. Krugman et al (1985) had tested claims for a 'one-session' treatment of performance anxiety against another method and a control group and found no support for claims of a 'one-session' effective treatment. Buckner et al argued for further research into NLP amongst other treatments that have "achieved popularity in the absence of data supporting their utility".

Responses to research reviews

In response to the experimental literature reviews Watkins said that "Neurolinguistic Programming studies attempted to match eye movements and representational patterns. These are appropriate tests of the validity of the proponents' claims. However, one can only speculate what might have been learned with a wider range of outcome variables. Since this is a review of empirical research it may seem unfair to focus on limitations of the studies reported, but at a minimum the authors could have critiqued the methodological rigor and conceptual soundness of the variables tested."

Heap's review

Michael Heap one of the UK's leading researchers on hypnotism, conducted a systematic review of the research literature on NLP and found, after analysis of over 60 research studies, that it was lacking in evidence,

The present author is satisfied that the assertions of NLP writers concerning the representational systems have been objectively and fairly investigated and found to be lacking. These assertions are stated in unequivocal terms by the originators of NLP and it is clear from their writings that phenomena such as representational systems, predicate preferences and eye-movement patterns are claimed to be potent psychological processes, easily and convincingly demonstrable on training courses by tutors and trainees following simple instructions, and, indeed, in interactions in everyday life.

Adding,

Therefore, in view of the absence of any objective evidence provided by the original proponents of the PRS hypothesis, and the failure of subsequent empirical investigations to adequately support it, it may well be appropriate now to conclude that there is not, and never has been, any substance to the conjecture that people represent their world internally in a preferred mode which may be inferred from their choice of predicates and from their eye movements. […] These conclusions, and the failure of investigators to convincingly demonstrate the alleged benefits of predicate matching, seriously question the role of such a procedure in counselling. (Michael Heap, Hypnosis: Current Clinical, Experimental & Forensic Practices, 1988)

1980s - Enhancing human performance study

As part of a study that investigated various psychological techniques for learning, improving motor skills, altering mental states, stress management and social influence at the request of the US Army Research Institute, the Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance (United States National Research Council) selected several heavily marketed human performance enhancement techniques that made strong claims for their efficacy. Many of the techniques evaluated happened to have origins in the human potential movement. NLP was selected as a strategy for social influence and was evaluated by the psychological techniques committee directed by social psychologist Daniel Druckman. The committee was already aware of the weak support for preferred representation systems (PRS) in the literature and noted that the body of research had largely not tested NLP beyond the assumptions related to PRS (consistent with the Sharpley's literature review in Journal of Counseling Psychology). However, the effect of matching predicates on all representations showed strong effect on perceptions.

The psychological techniques study committee directed by Druckman found little if any evidence to support NLP’s assumptions or that it is effective as a strategy for social influence. "Individually, and as a group, these studies fail to provide an empirical base of support for NLP assumptions...or NLP effectiveness. The committee cannot recommend the employment of such an unvalidated technique". They also concluded influence techniques of NLP were unsupported (including matching representational systems to gain rapport). Moreover "instead of being grounded in contemporary, scientifically derived neurological theory, NLP is based on outdated metaphors of brain functioning and is laced with numerous factual errors".

The committee were impressed with the modeling approach used to develop the [NLP] technique. The technique was developed from careful observations of the way three master psychotherapists conducted their sessions, emphasizing imitation of verbal and nonverbal behaviors (Druckman & Swets, 1988, Chapter 8). This led the committee to take up the topic of expert modeling in the second phase of its work." While the committee recommended further investigation into the NLP as a "model of expert performance", NLP was not mentioned in Enhancing Human Performance publications that followed, except by way of acknowledgment for the observation and imitation methods used by Bandler and Grinder to model the verbal and non-verbal patterns of "master psychotherapists" (Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson) in the early development of NLP.

1990s

The reviews of the 1980's marked the start of a decline in research interest in NLP generally, and particular in matching sensory predicates and its use in counsellor-client relationship in counseling psychology.. Beyerstein (1995) argued that NLP was based on outmoded scientific theories, and that its 'explanation' of the relationship between cognitive style and brain function was no more than crude analogy.

Levelt (1996) agreed that the main point of NLP was pragmatic, but doubted it had any basis in neurology, linguistics and computer programming. He argues that most modern neurologists are informed about the brain based on neuro-imaging and clinical data but in NLP there has been little interest in neuroscience or clinical research. He asserts that the experimental evidence does not exist to support the hypothesis that eye movements can reveal preferred representational system. He also claims there are philosophical conflicts between the NLP meta model, the philosophy of David Hume (sensory experience is combined to form representations) and William Wundt (which Levelt considers close to "the study of subjective experience", a main idea in NLP).

According to Von Bergen et al (1997) NLP was dropped from the experimental psychology research stream. They stated that "in relation to current understanding of neurology and perception, NLP is in error" and that "NLP does not stand up to scientific scrutiny" .

Carbonell and Figley of Florida State University Traumatology published an exploratory study (1999) on Visual/Kinesthetic Disassociation a component of NLP and three other novel treatments or power therapies for trauma (Thought Field Therapy or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and Traumatic Incident Reduction), which was not designed to be a comparison study and the methodology used was the "systematic clinical demonstration (SCD) methodology. This methodology guides the examination, but does not test the effectiveness of clinical approaches". With reference to Brief Treatments for the Traumatized (including NLP) John Wilson states that while it is "adequately descriptive of the clinical procedures, there is little, if any, empirically validated dated outcome studies to substantiate a theory driven and research informed brief treatment (p. 173–207)."

2000s

Eisner (2000) claimed that not "one iota of clinical research supports their (NLP proponents) claims. Apparently, no peer-reviewed researched has been published in over a decade. Moreover, there has been virtually no comparative research recently that assesses NLP's effectiveness." Eisner (2000) believes that with no clinical support, NLP proponents make grossly misleading claims about its effectiveness.

NLP is often associated with the work of the influential hypnotherapist Milton Erickson, upon whose techniques it was originally modelled to a large extent. However, other hypnotherapists have criticised the NLP interpretation of Erickson's work. Andre Weitzenhoffer, an influential Stanford researcher and former colleague of Erickson was an important critic of NLP. He rejects the NLP version of Ericksonian hypnosis, concluding that in terms of their evidence-base, “the neurolinguistic programming notions of Bandler and Grinder […] have very little substance and no empirical foundations.” (Weitzenhoffer, The Practice of Hypnotism, 2000: 108).

Albert Ellis, the founder of REBT, recently dismissed NLP as one of the “techniques that are avoided” in his approach, picking it out as his key example of a therapy rejected from evidence-based treatment because of its “dubious validity” (Dryden & Ellis, in Dobson, 2001: 331).

Lilienfield et al (2002)), described NLP as "a scientifically unsubstantiated therapeutic method that purports to "program" brain functioning through a variety of techniques, including mirroring the postures and nonverbal behaviors of clients" and include it in their description "(Quick Fix + Pseudoscientific Gloss) x Credulous Public = High Income".

Researcher and clinician Scott Lilienfeld (2004) said that "largely untested treatments comprise a major proportion—in some cases a majority—of the interventions delivered by mental health professionals." Lilienfeld argues that NLP, as a New Age psychotherapy, is one of many hundreds of variations of psychotherapy that have not been subject to rigorous empirical validation. Lilienfeld and colleagues believe that randomized controlled studies are the only way to verify whether or not psychotherapeutic treatments are effective. It is argued that the proof of the validity of new therapeutic practices in clinical psychology fall on the proponents of these practices. There has been no peer-reviewed empirical research on VK/D (Visual/Kinesthetic dissociation), an intervention derived from NLP which has been been taught alongside other Power therapies (eg. EMDR, TFT).

Devilly (2005) researching the experimental evidence underlying several "power therapies" including EMDR and VK/D (a technique spawned from NLP) stated that there had not been any peer-reviewed experimental research published yet concerning VK/D.

at the time of its introduction, NLP was heralded as a breakthrough in therapy and advertisements for training workshops, videos and books began to appear in trade magazines. The workshops provided certification [...] However, controlled studies shed such a poor light on the practice, and those promoting the intervention made such extreme and changeable claims that researchers began to question the wisdom of researching the area further and even suggested that NLP was an untestable theory. [...] NLP is no longer as prevalent as it was in the 1970s or 1980s, but is still practiced in small pockets of the human resource community. The science has come and gone, yet the belief still remains.

— Grant Devilly, 2005, p.437,

NLP Research Conference 2004

The first, vendor neutral, NLP Research Conference was held in 2008 sponsored by University of Surrey with the aim of encouraging improved research collaboration.

Sources

• NLP is a model of human behaviour and cognition which describes how people represent their world, how they interact and communicate with it and one another, how it can be that they can experience distress and disappointments in these interactions, and how they can be helped to change their representation of the world to alleviate their distress and cope with life more effectively and with greater fulfillment (Heap).

• NLP is a system of ideas about how people experience and communicate with their world. It describes how people might come to experience problems in living, how these problems may be alleviated, and how in general we can live more effectively and satisfactorily.

• ‘NLP is the art and science of excellence, derived from studying how top people in different fields obtain their outstanding results. These communications can be learned by anyone to improve their effectiveness both personally and professionally’ (O’Connor & Seymour (p xii)

• the origins of NLP and its initial impact were in the field of counselling and psychotherapy

• It was originally promoted as a sensationally effective and rapid form of psychological therapy.

• ‘It is explicitly stated (e.g. Bandler & Grinder, 1979, p ii; Lankton, 1980, pp 9-13) that by using NLP, problems such as phobias and learning disabilities may be disposed of in less than an hour’s session (whereas with other therapies, progress may take weeks or months). A recent NLP workshop announcement claims that spelling problems may be eliminated in five minutes (NLP Training Programme)’ (p 261-262). (Heap in a paper on NLP written in 1988 for The Psychologist (the monthly magazine of the British Psychological Society)

• ‘NLP appears to be applicable to the full range of problems which psychologists are likely to encounter – phobias, depression, habit disorder, psychosomatic illnesses, learning disorders, and so on. It is even alleged (Grinder & Bandler, 1981, p 166) that a single session of NLP combined with hypnosis can eliminate certain eyesight problems such as myopia, and can even cure a common cold (op.cit., p 174)…..(Also, op.cit., p 169) Bandler and Grinder make the claim that by combining NLP methods with hypnotic regression, a person can be not only effectively cured of a problem, but also rendered amnesic for the fact that they had the problem in the first place. Thus, after a session of therapy, smokers may deny that they smoked before, even when their family and friends insist otherwise, and they are unable to account for such evidence as nicotine stains’.

• "Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) - developed in the 1970’s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder - is an approach that aims to enhance the effectiveness of communication and facilitate learning and personal development. It is becoming increasingly familiar in formal education, professional development, and informal learning." [4]

• "How widespread or popular NLP has become in practice is difficult to say with precision, though. As an indication the number of people to have been trained to `Practitioner’ level in the UK since NLP’s inception seems likely to number at least 50,000. Trainings in NLP are found across the world, principally in countries where English is the first language, but including Norway, Spain and Brazil. There is no unified structure to the NLP practitioner community. Probably in common with other emergent fields there is diversity in both practice and organisation, and there are resulting tensions". [5]

• The title, `Neuro-Linguistic Programming’, suggests that a person is a whole mind-body system, and that there are assumed to be systematic, patterned connections between neurological processes (`neuro’), language (`linguistic') and learned behavioural strategies (`programming’) (Dilts, Bandler, & DeLozier 1980 p.2). [Dilts, R., Bandler, R., & DeLozier, J. 1980, Neuro-linguistic programming: volume 1, the study of the structure of subjective experience. Meta Publications, California.]
  • The name 'Neuro Linguistic Programming', and a large collection of scientific sounding terms, appear designed to suggest that NLP is a legitimate discipline like neuroscience, neurolinguistics, and psychology.

• While NLP appears to comprise a plethora of techniques, it was originally portrayed as a method, which the authors called `modeling’ (Bandler & Grinder 1975b p.6). [Bandler, R. & Grinder, J. 1975b, The Structure of Magic: a book about language and therapy. Palo Alto: Science and Behavioural Books.]

• "NLP also espouses the potential for self-determination (e.g. Bandler & Andreas 1985) through overcoming learnt limitations, and shares with the more recent field of positive psychology an emphasis on well-being and healthy functioning. Bandler and Grinder expressed their original motives as `sharing the resources of all those who are involved in finding ways to help people have better, fuller and richer lives’ " [6]

• John Grinder, Richard Bandler (1979). Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming. Moab, UT: Real People Press.. pp. 194pp. ISBN 0-911226-19-2. (Probable origin of name).

Scepticism

Why this almost total neglect of a body of knowledge that, if it has any authenticity, should occupy a pivotal role in the study of human psychology?

As Heap observes (Heap 2008) if the assertions made by proponents of NLP about representational systems and their behavioural manifestations are correct, then Bandler and Grinder have made some very remarkable discoveries about the human mind and brain and they would have major implications for human psychology, particularly cognition and neuropsychology. Yet there is no mention of them in learned textbooks or journals devoted to these disciplines. Neither is any of this material taught on psychology courses at pre-degree and degree level. "When I speak to academic colleagues who spend their working lives researching and teaching in these fields they show little awareness, if any, of these claims".

Consider the original work undertaken by Bandler and Grinder that led them to their conclusions. "To arrive at these kind of generalisations about the human mind and behaviour would certainly require the prolonged, systematic and meticulous investigation of human subjects using robust procedures for observing, recording and analysing the phenomena under investigation. There is just no other way of doing this. Yet, when they made their assertions, the authors never revealed any of this to their students and to their readers; they merely stated that this is what they had noticed." (Heap 2008)

"To be able to make with any confidence any single one of these claims about the human mind and behaviour would necessitate an enormous amount of honest systematic work, the gathering together of mass of data, and the deployment of not a little ingenuity. In the absence of such effort and diligence, it would be dishonest and perverse to use these claims as teaching material, particularly when the trainees are people who earn their living by ministering to the welfare or education of others".

Pseudoscience

With a name such as 'Neuro Linguistic Programming', and a large collection of scientific sounding terms, NLP purports to be a legitimate discipline like neuroscience, neurolinguistics, and psychology.

Lilienfeld (2003) states "the characteristics of pseudoscience are more specifically shown thus" (e.g.);

"The use of obscurantist language" (eg meta programs, parapragmatics, sub-modalities etc) "The lack of proper connectivity with recognized scientific principles" [5]

"Over-reliance on testimonial and anecdotal evidence" [82] "An overuse of ad hoc hypotheses and reversed burden of proof designed to immunize claims from falsification" [11] "Emphasis on confirmation rather than refutation (eg reliance on asking how rather than why)" "Absence of boundary conditions" (the claim that NLP is extremely powerful and can be used for anything)

"The mantra of holism and eclecticism designed to immunize from verifiable efficacy" [13](Claiming that NLP is unmeasurable due to too many factors or to simplistically “do what works”[14]. "Evasion of peer review" (If NLP claims were true, why are they not properly documented and presented to the scientific community?) [14] "Reversed burden of proof (away from those making claim (NLP promoters), and towards those testing the claim (Scientists))".

• [40] Corballis, MC., "Are we in our right minds?" In Sala, S., (ed.) (1999), Mind Myths: Exploring Popular Assumptions About the Mind and Brain Publisher: Wiley, John & Sons. ISBN 0-471-98303-9 (pp. 25-41) see page p.41

• (2003) Lilienfeld Scott O. , Steven Jay Lynn, and Jeffrey M. Lohr (2003). Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology. Guilford Press, New York.

NLP pages

• Neurolinguistic programming
• Positive and negative (NLP)
• Rapport (NLP)
• NLP and science
• History of neuro-linguistic programming
• Representational systems (NLP)
• Reframing (NLP)
• Milton model
• Sleight of mouth
• Submodality (NLP)
• Therapeutic use of Neuro-linguistic programming
• Methods of neuro-linguistic programming
• Future Pacing*
• Neuro-linguistic programming bibliography
• Perceptual positions
• New code of NLP
• Meta-model (NLP)
• Meta-programs

• Persuasion uses of NLP DELETED
• Research on NLP DELETED
• As-if (NLP) DELETED
• Strategy (NLP) DELETED
• Well-formed outcome DELETED
• Neurosemantics DELETED
• Neurological levels DELETED

• Representational_systems_and_submodalities (NLP) REDIRECTED
• Principles of NLP REDIRECTED
• Anchoring (NLP) REDIRECTED
• Worldview and working model of neuro-linguistic programming REDIRECTED
• Modeling (NLP) REDIRECTED

Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation

Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation: How to Harness the Power of Hypnosis to Ignite Effortless and Lasting Change (Paperback)"

Richard Bandler's books have sold more than a half a million copies worldwide. Tens of thousands of people, many of them therapists, have studied his blend of hypnosis, linguistics and precise thinking in the United States, Europe, and Australia. Bandler is the author of Using Your Brain for a Change, Time for a Change, Magic in Action, and the Structure of Magic. He coauthored Frogs into Princes, Persuasion Engineering, The Structure of Magic II, and Magic in Practice

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Patterns, Learning, and Change

How to Take Charge of Your Brain I have written many books and talked to many hundreds of thousands of people about hypnosis and NLP, and people are still confused about the similarities and differences between the two. In this book I hope to simplify the issue. My attitude is that at some level or other, everything is hypnosis. People are not simply in or out of trance but are moving from one trance to another. They have their work trances, their relationship trances, their driving trances, their parenting trances, and a whole collection of problem trances.

One characteristic of trance is that it is patterned. It's repetitive or habitual. It's also the way we learn.

After we're born, we have so much knowledge and expertise to acquire-everything from walking, talking, and feeding ourselves to making decisions about what we want to do with the rest of our lives. Our brains are quick to learn how to automate behavior. Of course, this doesn't mean the brain always learns the 'right' behavior to automate; quite often, our brains learn to do things in ways that make us miserable and even sick.

We learn by repetition. Something we do enough times gets its own neuronal pathways in the brain. Each neuron learns to connect and fire with the next one down, and the behavior gets set.

Sleeping and dreaming are important parts of the learning process.

Freud thought of dreams as merely 'wish fulfillment'-and maybe for him they were. I regard dreaming as unconscious rehearsal. If I do something I've never done before, I tend to go home, go to sleep, and do it all night long. This is one of the functions of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM sleep is the way the unconscious mind processes what it's experienced during the day. It's literally practicing repetitively to pattern the new learning at the neurological level. Quality information and quality material are important to the learning process. If the brain isn't given anything specific to work with, it processes nonsense.

If we plan to take control of our learning, we need to understand that it's not only repetition that is important but speed as well. The brain is designed to recognize patterns, and the pattern needs to be presented rapidly enough for the human to be able to perceive the pattern for what it is.

Most people have drawn a series of stick figures in the margins of their schoolbooks, then flipped through them to make the figure appear to move. Each page has on it a static image, but the brain will find a pattern-in this case, movement-if the images run rapidly enough.

We wouldn't be able to enjoy movies without this process. We'd never be able to understand the story if we only saw one frame a day.

So, when we dream, we're running through things to learn, and we're not doing it in real time. 'Internal' time differs from clock time in that we can expand or contract it. We learn at extraordinary speed-we can do maybe eight hours worth of work in five minutes before waking up. Sleep researchers support this idea. Subjects who report massively long and complex dreams are found through neural scanning to have been dreaming for only minutes, or even seconds, at a time. Sleep, therefore, is one of the ways we program and reprogram ourselves. If you doubt your own ability to do this, try this out tonight: As you're settling down to go to sleep, look at the clock, and tell yourself several times very firmly that you're going to wake up at a specific time. Set the alarm if you like, but you will wake up a second or two before it goes off.

This is something I've encountered in several different cultures. Some people gently bang the pillow with their heads the same number of times as the hour they want to get up.

Others tap their heads or their forearms to set their wake-up time. Whichever way it's done, the principle is the same; you somehow 'know' you have an internal clock that you can set, using a specific ritual, and no matter how deeply you sleep, it will wake you as effectively as any alarm.

If we can program ourselves to do one little thing-such as waking without an alarm-we can program our minds to do many things. We can decide to go to the supermarket. Maybe we need bread, milk, peanut butter, and a couple of cartons of juice. We can drive five miles to the supermarket, walk through a thousand products, maybe talking to someone on our cell phone, and still remember the juice, peanut butter, milk, and bread.

Academics sometimes challenge me for something they call 'evidence.' They want to know the theory behind what I do; they want me to explain it, preferably with the appropriate research references. I've even had people ask for the correct citations for things that I've made up. The way I see it, it's not my job to prove, or even understand, everything about the workings of the mind. I'm not too interested in why something should work. I only want to know how, so I can help people affect and influence whatever they want to change.

The truth is, when we know how something is done, it becomes easy to change. We're highly programmable beings-as unpopular as that idea still is in some quarters. When I started using the term 'programming,' people became really angry. They said things like, 'You're saying we're like machines. We're human beings, not robots.'

Actually, what I was saying was just the opposite. We're the only machine that can program itself. We are 'meta-programmable.' We can set deliberately designed, automated programs that work by themselves to take care of boring, mundane tasks, thus freeing up our minds to do other, more interesting and creative, things.

At the same time, if we're doing something automatically that we shouldn't be doing-whether overeating, smoking, being afraid of elevators or the outside world, becoming depressed, or coveting our neighbor's spouse-then we can program ourselves to change. That's not being a robot; that's becoming a free spirit. To me the definition of freedom is being able to use your conscious mind to direct your unconscious activity. The unconscious mind is hugely powerful, but it needs direction. Without direction, you might end up grasping for straws . . . and then finding there just aren't any there at all.

©2008. Richard Bandler. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

References

• Greenfield
• nlp and education