Using Your Brain – For a Change
by Richard Bandler
Edited by Steve Andreas and Connirae Andreas
Richard Bandler is a remarkable individual, with simple ideas that he develops in very interesting ways, and Using Your Brain is one of his best books. This book is completely based on the simple idea of submodalities, the idea that we can represent the world usefully in terms of our five senses (modalities) and that by changing the parameters of these modalities (submodalities), we can radically alter our subjective experience of the world. From this simple starting point, this classic NLP book shows how phobias can be cured, motivation can be used generated, beliefs can be changed, and much much more. If Bandler can written nothing else in his career, this book alone, with its deep exploration of the potential of submodalities, would have been a massive contribution to our understanding of how the human brain can be run more effectively.
When I say ‘written’, this is a bit of a misnomer, because like many books in the field of NLP, Using Your Brain is an edited transcript of a workshop or series of workshops. While this transcript format does not always work well, it does work well in this case, due to Bandler’s skill in oral presentation and the fine editing of Steve and Connirae Andreas. The book allows the reader to participate in the seminar virtually and to gradually deepen his or her understanding of the possibilities of submodalities in a natural and effective way. Questions from the audience answer many of the questions which I had myself, and the demonstrations provide excellent examples of how these techniques can be used to promote change in other people in counselling or coaching situations.
Submodalities are nothing new; it is in the exploration of the concept in such depth that Bandler’s contribution lies. In everyday language, people say things like “She has a bright future”, or “She has a colourful past.” While these are generally seen as metaphors, Bandler suggests that they are precise descriptions of the speaker’s internal thinking, and that changing these internal descriptions is the key to effective change, learning, or communication. For example, if you think of a pleasant memory and notice the picture that you see, what happens when you make that picture brighter? Or change the location of that picture? You will probably notice that these changes produce an instantaneous change in the type and depth of feelings that are attached to this memory. Even with this simple example, you can probably already think of ways that you can make other memories even more pleasant, or reduce any bad feelings associated with other memories. These simple submodality shifts are just the beginning of the possibilities that Bandler presents in this book.
Some of the vital NLP concepts that Bandler introduces in this book are Submodality shifts (Chapter II), associated versus dissociated perspectives (Chapter III), strategy redesign (Chapter IV), motivation strategies (Chapter V), changing state using submodalities (Chapter VI), removing limiting beliefs (Chapter VII), learning strategies (Chapter VIII), and The Swish process (Chapter IX). If you are interested in the field of NLP and haven’t read this book, get a copy as soon as possible. Even though it was published way back in 1985, I believe that there is still no clearer explanation of submodalities available, and apart from the important ideas in the book, the richness of Bandler’s language is highly useful for any NLP practitioner who aims to produce change in the most rapid elegant ways.
by Richard Bandler
Edited by Steve Andreas and Connirae Andreas
Richard Bandler is a remarkable individual, with simple ideas that he develops in very interesting ways, and Using Your Brain is one of his best books. This book is completely based on the simple idea of submodalities, the idea that we can represent the world usefully in terms of our five senses (modalities) and that by changing the parameters of these modalities (submodalities), we can radically alter our subjective experience of the world. From this simple starting point, this classic NLP book shows how phobias can be cured, motivation can be used generated, beliefs can be changed, and much much more. If Bandler can written nothing else in his career, this book alone, with its deep exploration of the potential of submodalities, would have been a massive contribution to our understanding of how the human brain can be run more effectively.
When I say ‘written’, this is a bit of a misnomer, because like many books in the field of NLP, Using Your Brain is an edited transcript of a workshop or series of workshops. While this transcript format does not always work well, it does work well in this case, due to Bandler’s skill in oral presentation and the fine editing of Steve and Connirae Andreas. The book allows the reader to participate in the seminar virtually and to gradually deepen his or her understanding of the possibilities of submodalities in a natural and effective way. Questions from the audience answer many of the questions which I had myself, and the demonstrations provide excellent examples of how these techniques can be used to promote change in other people in counselling or coaching situations.
Submodalities are nothing new; it is in the exploration of the concept in such depth that Bandler’s contribution lies. In everyday language, people say things like “She has a bright future”, or “She has a colourful past.” While these are generally seen as metaphors, Bandler suggests that they are precise descriptions of the speaker’s internal thinking, and that changing these internal descriptions is the key to effective change, learning, or communication. For example, if you think of a pleasant memory and notice the picture that you see, what happens when you make that picture brighter? Or change the location of that picture? You will probably notice that these changes produce an instantaneous change in the type and depth of feelings that are attached to this memory. Even with this simple example, you can probably already think of ways that you can make other memories even more pleasant, or reduce any bad feelings associated with other memories. These simple submodality shifts are just the beginning of the possibilities that Bandler presents in this book.
Some of the vital NLP concepts that Bandler introduces in this book are Submodality shifts (Chapter II), associated versus dissociated perspectives (Chapter III), strategy redesign (Chapter IV), motivation strategies (Chapter V), changing state using submodalities (Chapter VI), removing limiting beliefs (Chapter VII), learning strategies (Chapter VIII), and The Swish process (Chapter IX). If you are interested in the field of NLP and haven’t read this book, get a copy as soon as possible. Even though it was published way back in 1985, I believe that there is still no clearer explanation of submodalities available, and apart from the important ideas in the book, the richness of Bandler’s language is highly useful for any NLP practitioner who aims to produce change in the most rapid elegant ways.