This is a work-in-progress–an attempt to make a list and discussion of NLP resources for treating addictions. Please get in touch if you would like to suggest a useful resource.
When doing NLP work with people who have substance-abuse issues, particularly alcohol, there is almost invariably a mention of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). There is no doubt that AA has helped a lot of people, but it is not without its critics. One such article at http://www.orange-papers.org/ does raise some interesting points and potential problems with AA. However, while I recommend this article, I do find that it is a little overly critical and unbalanced – please keep that in mind as you read!
For a slightly more balanced critique of Alcoholic Anonymous and some interesting insights into other treatments for addiction, have a look at Richard Bolstad’s article.
In another post, I have described the Brooklyn Program and the freely downloadable manual is a great resource for an NLP-based approach to addictions.
All of the above is not intended to be a criticism of AA, just information about the wider range of possibilities available for people with issues with alcohol or other substance abuse.
Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality
by Tad James & Wyatt Woodsmall
I have long been a fan of Time Line Therapy and find it to be one of the most powerful techniques in the field of NLP. In this book from 1988, James and Wyatt give a very clear description of Time Line Therapy including how to elicit the Time Line, release a limiting decision or trauma, remove anxiety, or set a goal in the future Time Line. All of these are explained with clear language and easy-to-follow steps. For this alone, this book is well worth having, but it offers much much more.
In Section I, the authors explain the NLP Communication Model and the filters which we use as we process the world around us. At their best, these filters delete, distort, and generalize experience so that we can function effectively in the world. When they are optimal, they limit our options and cause problems in our lives. These filters are the substance of the NLP expression: The Map is Not the Territory. In other words, the way that we represent the world in our heads is not the same as the world itself.
The filters include: Metaprograms, Values, Beliefs, Attitudes, Memories and Decisions. The authors postulate that these form the basis of our personalities, and after the excellent description of Time Line Therapy in Section II, Section III explores Meta Programs in great detail and Section IV explores the formation, evolution, and changing of values.
The description of meta programs in Section III is divided into simple meta programs and complex meta programs. Simple meta programs are based on Jung’s work into human archetypes and also form the basis of the Myers Briggs personality testing system. These are Introvert/Extravert, Intuitor/Sensor, Thinker/Feeler, and Judger/Perceiver. In another post, I described the complex meta programs discussed in this book. Many different NLP trainers and researchers have explored a variety of Meta Programs, but the description and means of elicitation described in this book are among the best to be found.
Section IV is a very valuable discussion of Values. James and Woodsmall give a nice metaphor for values and beliefs. If beliefs are considered to be cups, then values can be considered to be the cup holders onto which they hook. In other words, beliefs are supported by values. The authors also make the suggestion that beliefs are generally conscious, whereas values are more embedded in the unconscious mind. In particular, core values can be completely invisible to the conscious mind unless we explicitly explore them in some way. Even more unconscious are meta programs which are the unconscious strategies by which we live our lives. This section also includes an excellent exercise for eliciting values and shows how the hierarchy/order of values can be changed by altering the submodalities.
The book finishes with a long transcript of a therapy session with a cocaine addict which illustrates many of the concepts of the book very well and shows how personality can potentially be changed in positive and practical ways in order to help people to live happier lives.
Much of the material in this book has found its way into NLP practitioner courses around the world, but returning to the original source is always valuable and highly recommended for anyone interested in either Time Line therapy or the nature of human personality.
I have always found Tad James to be one of the clearest writers in the field of NLP and recently I reread his wonderful book, Timeline Therapy and the Basis of Personality. In Chapter 14, he gives a fine description of what he calls complex meta programs. These are in addition to the four basic meta programs which emerged out of Jung’s work on human archetypes and which are used in the Myers Briggs personality testing system. Below, an elicitation question is given for each of the complex meta programs. Just using the questions on yourself or with other people is enough to help you understand how people work in different ways, but for fuller understanding of the ideas presented here, I highly recommend getting a copy of the original book. The questions here are phrased for the workplace, but you can easily tailor them into other areas of life.
Tad James believes that the four most important complex meta programs are:
1. Direction Filter
“What do you want in a job?”
This expresses the type of motivation and could be Towards (moving towards desirable things like money), Away (moving away from undesirable things like poverty), or somewhere in between these extremes.
2. Modal Operator Filter (Reason Filter)
“Why did you choose your current job?”
Answers can reflect Possibility (they look for new opportunities), Necessity (they do what needs to be done), or Both.
3. Frame of Reference Filter
“How do you know when you’ve done a good job?”
Possibilities are Internal Frame of Reference, External Frame of Reference, Balanced, Internal with an External Check, and External with an Internal Check.
4. Convincer Representational Filter
“How do you know when someone else is good at what they do?”
Possibilities include See it, Hear it, Deal with them, and Read about it.
5. Convincer Demonstration Filter
“How does someone have to demonstrate competency to you before you’re convinced?”
Possibilities are Automatic, Number of Times, Period of Time, and Consistent.
6. Management Direction Filter
There are three questions which can determine how effective a person would be as a manager. As with all these questions, the original book offers much more information and is highly recommended.
a) Do you know what you need to do to increase your chances for success on a job?
b) Do you know what someone else needs to do to increase his/her chances?
c) Do you find it easy or not to easy to tell him/her?
Possibilities include:
Self & Others (answered yes, yes, yes)
Self Only (answered yes, no, yes/no)
Others Only (answered no, yes, yes/no)
Self but not Others (yes, yes, no)
7. Action Filter
“When you come into a situation, do you usually act quickly after sizing it up, or do you a detailed study of all the consequences and then act?” Possibilities for this filter are Active, Reflective, Both, or Inactive.
8. Affiliation Filter
“Tell me about a work situation in which you were the happiest (a one-time event).” The person is likely to be one of: Independent Player, Team Player, or Management Player.
9. The Work Preference Filter
This is best elicited through more general questions about a person’s previous experiences. It indicates a person’s preference for working with Things, Systems, or People.
10. Primary Interest Filter
“Tell me about your favourite restaurant.” People will talk about People, Place, Things, Activity, or Information.
11. Chunk Size Filter
“If we were going to do a project together, would you want to know the big picture first, or would you want to get the details of what we’re going to do first?”
You will generally find that people fall into one of Specific, Global, Specific to Global, or Global to Specific. Of course, people may change from one context of their life to another.
12. Relationship Filter (Matching/Mismatching)
“What is the relationship between what you are doing this year, and what you did last year?” A Matcher will tend to notice similarities. A Mismatcher will tend to notice differences.
13. Emotional Stress Filter
“Tell me about a work situation (a one-time event) that gave you trouble.”
Notice if the person is Dissociated (no access to Kinesthetic), Associated (access to Kinesthetic), or Choice (first accesses Kinesthetic and then comes out of the feelings).
14. Time Filter
This is usually best elicited by observation, but you could potentially use a question like “Do you have your attention on the Past, Present, or Future? Or are you not concerned with time (Atemporal)”
15. Modal Operator Sequence
This is how a person motivates himself/herself. This is best discovered by observing words used over time. Notice which modal operators they use including I can’t, I should, I have to, I mustn’t etc.
16. Attention Direction
There is no specific question – simply observe. Is the person paying more attention to Self or to Others.
17. Goal Filter
There is no specific question. Just look at the person’s goals and see if they are aiming for Perfection or for Optimization.
18. Comparison Filter
“How are you doing on your job? How do you know?”
e.g. Quantitative (numbers) vs. Qualitative (good, bad, etc.) vs. Nature of comparison (comparing to others, to self in past, etc.)
19. Knowledge Filter
“When you decide you can do something, from where do you get that knowledge?”
20. Completion Filter
“If we were going to do a project together, would you be more interested in the startup phase, where you were generating the energy for the BEGINNING of the project, or in the MIDDLE of the project, where you were involved in the maintenance of the project, or in the END, where you were involved in shutting it down?”
“Is there a part of the project that you’d rather not be involved in?”
21. Closure Filter
“Once you have started receiving information that has, for example, four steps, how important is it to you that you receive all four pieces?”
***
Have fun exploring these questions and meta programs with yourself and other people!
Tools of the Spirit: Pathways to the Realization of Universal Innocence
by Robert Dilts and Robert McDonald
Like so many books in the field of NLP, this one is written as the transcript of a workshop. Like several other books in this format, much could possibly have been gained by changing at least some of this transcript into simpler prose form. One rather negative review on amazon.com suggests that the two authors were too lazy to rewrite the transcript and also criticizes them for writing a book on spirituality when neither have any formal spiritual training.
Reading the negative review before reading the book definitely framed the book in the wrong light for me, right from the beginning, and I didn’t enjoy the first few chapters very much which include many details that are more relevant to the participants present at the workshop than the reader who didn’t attend. The use of the song, the Hokey Pokey, was also presumably more effective in the workshop than it appears on the written page!
In Chapter 2, Dilts introduces his Logical Levels model which will be familiar to most people involved in NLP (Environment, Behavior, Capabilities, Beliefs and Values, Identity, and Spirit). I have found this model to be extremely useful in my work with clients and for helping myself to get different perspectives on an issue. For the purposes of this book with its focus on Spirituality, the top level is the most interesting as it gives a rough definition of spirituality as defined by the authors:
Spiritual experiences relate to our perception of being part of a larger system that reaches beyond ourselves as individuals to our family, community, and global systems. Answer to the question who/what else?
This is a much more general definition of spirituality than might be found elsewhere. For example, the World English Dictionary gives the perhaps more traditional meaning of:
the state or quality of being dedicated to God, religion, or spiritual things or values, esp as contrasted with material or temporal ones
However, as is noted on Wikipedia, spirituality has now become much more widely used in secular contexts. Keeping this is mind allows us to push away the criticisms from the Amazon reviewer and to allow the book to present spirituality through its own map of the world, rather than imposing an outside one.
Before I move on from criticisms altogether, however, on page 22 of the book, the Logical Levels are labelled as “Neuro-Logical” Levels and it is claimed that “these various levels of our subjective experience are embodied in the form of neurological circuits. Each level mobilizes successively deeper and broader commitment of neurological ‘circuitry.’ For example, Environment is postulated to employ the peripheral nervous system, and Behaviors are postulated to employ the motor system. Identity is tied to the Immune system and endocrine system. This tying of bodily functions to the levels does not seem justifiable. Our everyday behaviours certainly do engage the immune system in various ways. It is an interesting set of ideas, but one that could perhaps have been researched more deeply and presented in a different book. While not being central at all to the theme of Tools of the Spirit, it does leave the book open to criticism by writers such as Andy Bradbury on his website and John Grinder in Whispering in the Wind.
Later in chapter 2, the Logical Levels are used for the basis of a process called Co-Alignment. This is a powerful process of sharing with another person at all of the levels. For example, at the Behavior level, the two people ask each other the question: “What do I want to do when I am in that time and space (shared enviroment)” and eventually at the Spirit level it leads to the question “What is the larger vision and purpose I am pursuing or representing?” Then, the two people explore the ways in which the two visions fit together and taking the sharing vision, they walk back down the levels all the way to Environment. I have carried out this process and found it to be very rewarding and can recommend it for two people in a relationship or even for a company (where people can be encouraged to be open-minded for a little while at least!).
Chapter 4 introduces the Presence of Eternity process. This uses the concept of timelines to become present in the Now with another person, and then to extend that sense of time into eternity. It is certainly a useful exercise. The gazing into the other’s eyes and the holding of hands may put off some people, and the book should perhaps have mentioned that it is also a valuable exercise to do alone.
Chapter 5 uses the perceptual positions of NLP in the Spiritual Healing Process. I found Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 much more interesting, where Dilts and MacDonald introduce the idea of ‘Shadow’ and in particular I liked Chapter 7 where they explain the Releasing Enmeshment with the Shadow process. In essence, it assumes that we are enmeshed with a shadow (e.g. anger, fear etc.) and that by visualizing the nature of that enmeshment, we can deal with it. For example, the shadow could be represented as a dragon with its teeth in our neck. In a slightly complicated process, the dragon is replaced by a more spiritually developed version of ourselves. Although this other version of ourselves starts out enmeshed to us in the same way (with sharp teeth!), these quickly change into a more positive connection. Rather than killing the poor dragon, he is given his own spiritually developed self and starts out with his teeth in that other self. In the same way, those teeth change into a more positive connection. If the process sounds a little crazy, it is … and it also produces powerful change at an unconscious level. Metaphors are very powerful things, indeed.
One thing that I liked in the book was the repeated suggestion that shadows are simply the absence of light – they only exist because light casts a shadow. And shadows can never completely disappear because the bigger the light, the larger the shadow it will throw.
Chapter 8 explains the Self-Parenting process which is probably most useful for people who have issues with one or both of their parents. A parent (or an archetype of a parent) is visualized in each hand. Each has a gift and the other parent is asked to recognize the value of the other’s gift. While expressing gratitude and forgiveness, these gifts are then synthesized and integrated back into the body. I enjoyed this process, and think that some people could find it extremely useful in dealing with parents from whom they feel alienated or distant.
Chapter 10 was my favourite chapter. The authors introduce the extremely versatile tool from Generative NLP and Dilts’ Unified Field Theory. I’ve shown the basic idea in the table below:
| Future 3rd | Future 1st | Future 2nd |
| Present 3rd | Present 1st | Present 2nd |
| Past 3rd | Past 1st | Past 2nd |
A grid of nine squares is used to represent time (past, present, and future on the vertical axis) and NLP perceptual positions (1st, 2nd, and 3rd on the horizontal axis). The center square on the grid represents 1st position present (looking out of your own eyes at the present moment). From this position, you step into all the other squares bringing a growing feeling of spiritual awareness, and from the timeframe and perceptual position of each square, you send a message to the you in the center. Eventually, you end up with 8 messages supporting you from different directions. Like most of the other processes in the book, it sounds crazy, but it works – and this one works very well indeed.
***
The book concludes with a sampling of readings and poems, all of which are enjoyable. I would recommend this book for people already familiar with NLP who want to extend the tools of NLP into the area of spiritual development.
The Internet is truly an amazing resource, and amidst all the hyperbolic marketing and dubious products, I am sometimes very pleasantly surprised by the quality resources that people make available free of charge. Here are two examples of great resources for learning and practicing hypnosis that are available free.
Rene A. Bastarache carries out hypnosis trainings, but also offers his massive training manual as a free download without any commitment. It is 446 pages long and contains great lessons as well as numerous basic scripts that will help get beginner hypnotists practicing right away.
http://www.choosehypnosis.com/free_hypnosis_training_manual.htm
Dylan Morgan offers a huge array of resources at his website. The most accessible book for beginners is his free book:Hypnosis for Beginners. I have used it as the course book for hypnosis workshops and it has excellent exercises and explanations. It is a much more exploratory approach than other courses-the learner is asked to test everything to see if it actually works rather than simply accepting the teacher’s ideas. I am very impressed by Dylan Morgan’s ideas and generosity and would have loved to have had the opportunity to meet him, but unfortunately he passed away earlier this year. Perhaps the greatest tribute that can be paid to him now is to download and use his books-that is why he made them available–the more widely the powerful ideas of hypnosis are spread, the more people can be helped to utilize hypnosis to improve their own lives and the lives of people around them.
http://www.hypno1.co.uk/BookHypnosisForBeginners.htm
This post is based on the wonderful TED talk by Julian Treasure. Much of the text below is directly from the video. I heard about this talk on an NLP mailing list, and apart from its value in developing sensory acuity and rapport skills, it is also of interest to me in a university course that I teach called “Sound and Education Media.” For years, I have been teaching students about the value of listening and doing various exercises based on the work of Barry Truax and R Murray Schafer. I am delighted to see that some of this earlier work is being pursued and extended by people like Julian Treasure. Incidentally, Treasure’s use of language is excellent and from his words it sounds like he would be a fine hypnotist!
Treasure starts out by claiming that “We are losing our listening.” People retain just 25% of what we hear. Listening is the extracting of meaning from sound.
Techniques Used by the Brain
1. Pattern Recognition
We recognize patterns (e.g. our names) in order to distinguish noise from a signal.
2. Differencing
In the video, he gives the example of ‘pink noise’, If ‘pink noise’ is on for a few minutes, we literally cease to hear it. Pink noise is a type of artificially created regular noise which covers the entire spectrum of human hearing.
Filters
Treasure also talks about the other filters that we use at an unconscious level to listen to sounds. These include:
5 Ways to Listen Better
These are the five simple tools that I will be sharing with my university students in the second semester when it begins in October.
1. Silence
Just three minutes a day is a wonderful way to recalibrate your ears.
2. The Mixer
Identify how many channels of sound you can hear in a place. This improves the quality of listening.
3. Savoring
Listen to a mundane sound and recognize its beauty. For example, a clothes drier can have a waltz rhythm. ‘The hidden choir’ is around us all the time.
4. Listening Positions
Start to play with your listening filters. Here are some examples that you can start to play with:
5. An easy mnemonic to remember how to listen more effectively:
Receive (Listen to the person)
Appreciate (Make little backchannel sounds to show you appreciate it
Summarize
Ask questions
Treasure reminds us that every human being needs to “listen consciously in order to live fully, connected in space and in time to the physical world around, connected in understanding to each other, not to mention spiritually connected …”
And I agree strongly with his conclusion that we need to teach listening in our schools as a skill. With the rise of technological background noise, personal music players, shrinking personal space in noisy cities, and a general overload of information, listening is an endangered art and one that needs attention.
The next workshop will be held next Saturday at Brad’s house (30th July). Details have already gone out by email.
Here is a file with some notes that Brad and I have prepared that we will be using on Saturday.
Chapter 2 Morgan
As always, have fun practicing!
Richard M. Gray has very kindly provided the facilitator’s manual for Transforming Futures: The Brooklyn Program as a free download from Lulu.com. This is an incredible resource for NLP practitioners who are helping people with substance use disorders such as alcohol or drugs.
In the introduction to the manual, Gray says that:
The Program lasted for 16 weeks with weekly sessions of two hours each. More than 300 people passed through the Program over a period of seven years…. After using the Program for several years I discovered that it created such a radical
reorientation in most people that it could be used as a general, whole-life reframe without regard to the problem under consideration. I have found that wherever it was taught, especially to service providers, their lives were changed as much as the offenders for whom it was originally designed.
Several articles about the Brooklyn Program are also available on Gray’s website.
The program uses many tools that will be well-known to NLP practitioners including well-formed outcomes, anchoring, and submodality shifts. Unlike the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program which generally regards alcoholism as a problem which needs to be removed from the person, the Brooklyn Program follows the basic NLP belief that behaviour change is most effectively achieved through having more options, rather than less. In the forward, the author says:
… we see substance use disorders not as symptoms but, given the
resources available, as the best possible answer for the problems at hand. Here, the re-emergence of symptoms speaks less of underlying pathology than it does of the need for a more fundamental restructuring of the available resources. By this definition, addicts and other substance abusers are not broken, they have simply learned the wrong answers to the questions of life. Our task becomes this: making proper answers available, making them more intuitive and more powerfully motivating than the focus of the addictive behavior.
While the Brooklyn Program proved its success in alleviating substance use disorders, the author suggests that its uses go far beyond this:
The Brooklyn Program began life as a novel approach to
substance abuse services. It is, however, important to realize that all of its roots and presuppositions are related not so much to drugs as they are to the principles of human growth as understood by Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow and the founders of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. The Brooklyn Program aims to
enhance and restore optimal human functioning. It works for drugs because addictions are part of the normal range of human behavior as it manifests in abnormal contexts. The entire Program consists in the teaching and exploration of a set of cognitive and spiritual skills that are of universal relevance. As
a result, the Program has applications that range far beyond substance use disorders.
For anyone who is involved in helping people with substance use disorders, this manual is an excellent resource that will undoubtedly provide many useful ideas. It is available as a free download from Lulu.com
Many of the language patterns used in NLP were modelled from the work of the well-known hypnotherapist, Milton Erickson.While the analysis of his work by Bandler and Grinder and others is indispensable, it is also useful to go back to the original source and to watch Erickson at work. What strikes me as I watch him is his patience, his willingness to take exactly as long as is required to achieve the result. The slow pace certainly doesn’t result in anything nearly as entertaining as the fast inductions often demonstrated by Bandler and others, but conversely, the slow pace does provide an excellent chance to watch Erickson at work and to model his language patterns even more deeply.
The video is in five parts starting at this one: