NLP Practitioner Manual

CBP Training
NLP Practitioner
Workshop Manual
This manual belongs to:
www.cbptraining.com
www.cbptraining.com
Contents
Introduction to the workshop ........................................................................................................................... 7
So, why learn NLP .......................................................................................................................................... 8
Assessment for the ANLP NLP Practitioner Certificate .................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Certification Body ............................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Using NLP responsibly ................................................................................................................................. 10
Breach of the above conditions ..................................................................................................................... 10
Section 1 – Introduction to NLP .................................................................................................................... 11
Peripheral Vision .......................................................................................................................................... 12
The Resource Triangle ................................................................................................................................. 13
What is NLP?................................................................................................................................................ 14
What does NLP do?............................................................................................................................... 14
Who Developed NLP? .................................................................................................................................. 15
Some useful definitions of NLP include ......................................................................................................... 16
The Five Pillars of NLP ................................................................................................................................. 17
Section 2 – The Presuppositions of NLP....................................................................................................... 19
The Presuppositions of NLP cont.................................................................................................................. 20
NLP Presuppositions .................................................................................................................................... 22
Section 3 – Your unconscious mind .............................................................................................................. 23
Your Unconscious Mind ................................................................................................................................ 23
Your Unconscious Mind cont. ....................................................................................................................... 25
The Levels of Learning .......................................................................................................................... 26
Bateson’s Logical Levels of learning ............................................................................................................. 28
Uptime and Downtime .................................................................................................................................. 31
Section 4 – Setting outcomes ....................................................................................................................... 32
Setting Compelling Outcomes ...................................................................................................................... 32
The Well Formed Outcome Questions ............................................................................................................... 34
The Cartesian Co-ordinates – ecology check................................................................................................ 35
The difference between a state and an outcome. ......................................................................................... 36
Stepping up and stepping down .................................................................................................................... 37
An example of stepping up and stepping down ............................................................................................. 38
Section 5 – NLP and Building Rapport .......................................................................................................... 40
The Map is Not the Territory -.................................................................................................................... 41
Our Physiology ............................................................................................................................................. 42
Matching and Mirroring ................................................................................................................................. 44
What is Rapport ............................................................................................................................................ 45
Rapport is not manipulative ................................................................................................................... 45
Building Rapport ........................................................................................................................................... 46
Congruence and Incongruence ..................................................................................................................... 47
Section 6– Communicating with our senses ................................................................................................. 50
Representational system .............................................................................................................................. 51
Sensory Based Communication .................................................................................................................... 52
Sensory Language ....................................................................................................................................... 53
Recognising Primary Representational systems ........................................................................................... 57
Section 7 – The Eyes have it ........................................................................................................................ 58
Eye Accessing Cues ..................................................................................................................................... 59
Questions to ask to uncover eye accessing cues .......................................................................................... 60
Eye movement exercise ........................................................................................................................ 61
Unwire a Synaesthesia ................................................................................................................................. 62
This is the process for Unwiring a synaesthesia. .......................................................................................... 63
Section 8 – The Meta Model ......................................................................................................................... 66
Practitioner Manual 3|Page

Our perceptual filters and how we communicate ........................................................................................... 67
Deletions, Distortions and Generalisations ................................................................................................... 68
Example of the perceptual filters in action.............................................................................................. 70
Language Deep and Surface Structure ......................................................................................................... 71
The Meta model............................................................................................................................................ 72
Meta Model – Deletions ......................................................................................................................... 73
The Meta Model – Distortions ................................................................................................................ 75
The Meta Model – Generalisations ........................................................................................................ 77
The Meta Model – Quick Reference ............................................................................................................. 80
The Meta Model – Quick Reference ...................................................................................................... 81
How to use the Meta Model .......................................................................................................................... 82
Section 9 – Introduction to Language Presuppositions ................................................................................. 83
The Presuppositions of Language ................................................................................................................ 84
Cover all bases ............................................................................................................................................. 85
Section 10 – Submodalities .......................................................................................................................... 87
Exploring Submodalities ............................................................................................................................... 88
Submodalities – Some Common Distinctions................................................................................................ 89
The Swish Pattern Technique ....................................................................................................................... 90
Section 11 – Anchoring and state management............................................................................................ 91
What is State Management?......................................................................................................................... 92
The Technique of Anchoring ......................................................................................................................... 93
Section 12 – Perceptual positions ................................................................................................................. 96
Perceptual Positions ..................................................................................................................................... 96
Perceptual Position Exercise ........................................................................................................................ 98
Section 13 – Introduction to timelines ......................................................................................................... 100
Elicit a Timeline .......................................................................................................................................... 101
In time and through time ............................................................................................................................. 101
Testing the Timeline ............................................................................................................................ 104
Timeline Submodalities ............................................................................................................................... 105
Section 12 – Values .................................................................................................................................... 106
Working with your values ..................................................................................................................... 108
Section 13 – Framing.................................................................................................................................. 110
NLP Frames ............................................................................................................................................... 111
Types of framing ......................................................................................................................................... 113
Types of framing ......................................................................................................................................... 114
Section 14– Chunking and sequencing ....................................................................................................... 116
Chunking and sequencing .......................................................................................................................... 117
Section 14– Advanced anchoring ............................................................................................................... 120
Advanced Anchoring................................................................................................................................... 121
Change Personal History ............................................................................................................................ 124
Change Personal History ..................................................................................................................... 124
Section 15– Strategies................................................................................................................................ 126
Strategies ................................................................................................................................................... 127
What we can do with strategies ............................................................................................................... 127
Other strategy notations ...................................................................................................................... 131
The NLP TOTE ........................................................................................................................................... 132
Eliciting a strategy ...................................................................................................................................... 134
Installing a strategy .............................................................................................................................. 136
Changing Strategies................................................................................................................................ 137
Design Principles ................................................................................................................................. 137
Ways of changing strategies ................................................................................................................ 137
The Disney Strategy ................................................................................................................................... 138
Section 16– Neurological levels of NLP ...................................................................................................... 143

Bateson’s Logical Levels ............................................................................................................................ 144
Neurological Levels of NLP......................................................................................................................... 145
How you can use the Neurological Levels .................................................................................................. 146
Some questions to ask at each level ....................................................................................................... 147
Section 17– The Fast Phobia Cure ............................................................................................................. 148
The Fast Phobia Cure................................................................................................................................. 148
Section 18– Trance and hypnosis ............................................................................................................... 152
Trance and Hypnosis .................................................................................................................................. 153
Points on Trance and Hypnosis .................................................................................................................. 155
Pre-framing trance work ............................................................................................................................. 156
Signs and levels of trance ........................................................................................................................... 157
Inductions for self hypnosis......................................................................................................................... 158
Inductions for self hypnosis cont. ................................................................................................................ 159
Section 19– Reframing ............................................................................................................................... 160
Reframing ................................................................................................................................................... 161
Six step reframe ......................................................................................................................................... 163
Section 20– More language presuppositions .............................................................................................. 166
Language Presuppositions ......................................................................................................................... 167
Section 21– The Milton Model .................................................................................................................... 172
The Milton Model ........................................................................................................................................ 173
Section 22– Using metaphors ..................................................................................................................... 182
Using Metaphors ........................................................................................................................................ 183
Section 23– Techniques for change work 1 ................................................................................................ 187
The New Behaviour Generator ................................................................................................................... 188
The New Behaviour Generator Process...................................................................................................... 189
Parts integration ......................................................................................................................................... 190
Section 24– Beliefs ..................................................................................................................................... 193
Exploring Beliefs ......................................................................................................................................... 194
Beliefs......................................................................................................................................................... 194
Where do beliefs come from? .............................................................................................................. 196
Changing beliefs .................................................................................................................................. 197
Submodality belief change technique – the process ................................................................................... 198
Driver Submodality Belief Change .............................................................................................................. 198
The Museum of Old Beliefs......................................................................................................................... 199
Section 24– Change Techniques 2 ............................................................................................................. 204
Visual squash ............................................................................................................................................. 205
THE SCORE Technique ............................................................................................................................. 206
SCORE – The process ............................................................................................................................... 207
Section 25 – Trance work ........................................................................................................................... 210
Suggestibility tests ...................................................................................................................................... 211
Reorientation .............................................................................................................................................. 212
Trance inductions ....................................................................................................................................... 213
Trance Deepeners ...................................................................................................................................... 215
Trance Deepeners ...................................................................................................................................... 216
Making suggestions under hypnosis ........................................................................................................... 217
Section 26 – Meta Programmes ................................................................................................................. 218
What are Meta-progammes ........................................................................................................................ 219
Meta-progammes ....................................................................................................................................... 219
How to work with meta-progammes ............................................................................................................ 224
Eliciting someone’s meta-progammes ........................................................................................................ 225
Section 25– Removing negative emotions using timeline techniques ......................................................... 229
Letting go of negative emotions .................................................................................................................. 230
Releasing Negative Emotions – the process steps ..................................................................................... 232

Examples of Reframing for not releasing emotions ..................................................................................... 234
Section 26– Ethics in NLP ............................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Ethics for ANLP Qualified NLP Practitioners .................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Glossary of NLP terms ................................................................................................................................ 237
Glossary of NLP terms......................................................................................................................... 238
Appendix ......................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Appendix 1: ANLP Code of Ethics for its Members .......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Appendix 2: Appeals Procedure...................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Appendix 3: Reading List ............................................................................................................................ 243

Introduction to the workshop
Hello and welcome to the NLP Practitioner workshop; we are really excited that you have taken time out of
your busy life to join us to experience the power of NLP.
You have now taken the first initial step of you taking back control of your life, your emotions, and your
thoughts, how you communicate and your future. You may find that in today’s hectic and busy climate where
things can sometimes seem overly complicated, where we are bombarded with information and tasks, and
where time is a precious resource that gets used up very quickly, you need new skills and mindsets to be
able to deal with all of these issues. This 8 day NLP Practitioner workshop has been designed to help you to
take control of all of these areas by utilising that fantastic tool you have called your mind.
In this workshop you will be shown some life changing material and exercises which will challenge you to
explore the rich resources in your mind and encourage you to utilise all parts of your mind. One of the main
benefits of attending a training workshop is that you will be in an intense experiential environment where you
will be able to use the skills learnt and get instant feedback from the trainers and other workshop
participants. This environment together with reading this manual and completing the exercises will help your
learning to achieve its fullest potential where you can start to integrate the skills on a daily basis.
We feel that the most important commitment you can make to yourself is to relax, have fun and to thoroughly
enjoy yourself over the next 8 days and by then allowing the contents of the workshop to transform the way
you think, feel and live. This workshop will ensure that you will be stretched in such a way that it will bring
new levels of experience and success into your life and of the people around you.
To get the most from the workshop you will want to focus on the information given to you by your trainer, take
an active part in all of the exercises, question areas you are not sure about and to read this manual a number
of times until you fully understand the contents.
This manual is yours so please make any notes or comments on any of the pages, this will help you to
embed the learning after you have left the workshop.

So, why learn NLP
Your mind is a wonderful thing, how much of it do you understand, how much of it do you use, how much of it
controls the way you act and the way you feel. This will be one of the reasons you have chosen to study the
field of NLP to find out what it is that makes you do and think what you do.
In this manual and during the workshop you will:
 Understand what controls your actions

 Understand how your unconscious mind works in patterns and run programmes
 Understand how to rewrite any negative programmes so they become positive and empowering
 Be able to build rapport with people and communicate effectively with people that you meet
 Use a set of tools and techniques that will bring about lasting change in yourself and others
Throughout the 8 days you will continuously learn more about yourself and others, what makes you tick, what
makes you the person that you are and then think about the person you choose to want to be. The workshop
may be an emotional roller coaster for some people where you will experience great highs and lows. The
important thing to remember is that we will be creating a supportive and safe environment where you can
experience, demonstrate and practice the tools and techniques within the field of NLP.
There are a number of key behaviours that you will want to use during the workshop, these include:
 Being flexible
o The saying is “If you keep doing things the same way you will always get the same results”
During the programme you are fully encouraged to be flexible and to try new experiences and
to be prepared to make changes from the way you normally approach things. Being flexible
will really help you to benefit from this workshop and as you will see it is a key concept in
using NLP.
 Be curious
o Do you remember what it was like as a child to be filled with wonder and excitement about
each new thing you were shown or new experience you had. During this programme feel free
to be as curious as you want and to ask “Why?” As many times as you want to. The more
curious you are and the more answers you seek the more you will gain from this workshop.
 Treat every experience as a way to learn

o We have designed the workshop to help you to gain the most from your experience with us.
We will explain, demonstrate and discuss each technique we use. There will always be a
chance for you to practice the techniques shown, to ask as many questions as you want and
to reflect on what you have learnt. This is why you are asked to keep a learning journal and to
make notes after every experience as these notes will help you to understand what you have
gained from the skill, how you can develop it and what you can use it for in the future.
 The Discovery Frame

o Throughout the workshop it will benefit you to put yourself into what is known as a Discovery
Frame. This is a state of mind where you, suspend judgement and expectations, use an open
mind and let go of any pre-conceived ideas about approaching a task. By adopting this frame
forget about doing it right or wrong or being the best at it. You will then be able to take note of
what happens around you and what you have learnt from the experience.

Using NLP responsibly
The NLP tools and techniques which you will be learning about and working with during these workshops are
both powerful and life changing. For this reason it is important that they are used in an ethical and moral way.
Before you use any of the NLP tools and techniques with other people, you need to consider:
 Is the person suitable to use NLP techniques with?

o You should avoid working with people who are under medication or who have mental or
psychological disorders
 Do you fully understand what you are doing?

o Before using any of the NLP tools and techniques with others you need to be fully aware of
how to use them, how they work and how to ensure they are used correctly with the person
you are working with
 NLP is not a therapy

o When talking about NLP you need to make it clear to the people you are working with that it is
a tool for personal change and not a therapeutic technique
 Make it clear to the client what you are doing

o Before undertaking any work with a client make sure they fully understand how you will be
working with them and the techniques you will be using and how they work.
 Work within your limits

o Only use tools and techniques that you have been trained to use, if you want to use other NLP
tools ensure you receive suitable training in their use before doing so.
Breach of the above conditions

If it is found that after training you have used NLP in ways that are either unethical or go against the code of
practice you may have your certificate revoked.
Practitioner Manual 10 | P a g e
Section 1 – Introduction to NLP
In this section we will cover the following topics:
 Peripheral vision and how it can help with learning
 The Resource Triangle
 What is NLP
 Who developed NLP
 The four pillars of NLP
 The presuppositions of NLP
Peripheral Vision
Sometimes in life, the simple things are the most important, and being able to change your focus is certainly
something very simple and valuable to do. I suppose that "change your focus" has a double meaning. It
could mean, change what you are looking at with your eyes, or it could mean, change what you are focusing
on within your mind and thoughts. Now you might have the belief that, being a training company in NLP and
Hypnosis, that we mostly specialise in teaching others how to change their focus within their mind and
thoughts, and this would be true. A lot of what we teach on our NLP and Hypnotherapy courses is about
changing what we are each doing in our heads. However, there is a valuable technique that we teach on
both our NLP and Hypnotherapy course, which is a simple process of changing the way you focus your eyes
and the benefit of this technique is endless.
The technique is called the peripheral vision and basically means expanding your vision to see into the
periphery. This is the opposite of foval vision, the acute concentrated vision that you would have if you were
for example, threading a needle. If you think about threading a needle and focusing your attention in that
way, you could easily miss all of the other things that could be going on around you. When in peripheral
vision, your focus is so expanded, you almost feel that you could see behind the back of your own head!
So why learn peripheral vision? The Hawaiian Huna’s have known of its benefits for many decades, using it
as part of a deep meditative trance called Hakalau. During Hakalau, the individual goes into peripheral vision,
breathes in to the count of 8 and out to the count of 4 using a "haa" breath. This regulates breathing, and
changing the brain waves, inducing a state of deep relaxation, in which it is impossible to hold onto any
negative thought, idea or notion.
Using peripheral vision alone, it is a resourceful state for learning, as your mind is open to the ideas that a
teacher may give you. If you just try out using foval and peripheral vision, you will notice that foval vision,
comes with a degree of tension, and tension is not so good for learning. We learn best in a happy relaxed
environment as this helps us to associate the knowledge we receive with feeling good and therefore makes
us much more likely to retrieve and use the information that we have stored in the future.
Peripheral vision is so easy to do.
Simply find a spot on the wall, just a little above your eye level, on which to fix your gaze.
Without moving your eyes, begin to become aware of the things around that spot, allowing your awareness
to expand further and further out.
Take your hands out in front of you and wiggle your fingers, moving your hands further back toward your
head, past your eyes and level with your ears.
See how far back you can move your hands, whilst still being aware of your fingers moving, with your gaze
still fixed to the spot on the ceiling.
The Resource Triangle
This technique is a great introduction to NLP as it really shows very clearly what NLP can be used for. This is
a very quick and easy technique to use and when you learn and understand this one the rest of the NLP
techniques will become a lot easier for you. The resource triangle shows very clearly how we can alter our
inner state to focus on a state that we want to have instead.
1. On the ground create a triangle by placing 3 sheets of paper on the ground, these should be close
enough to each other so that you can step from one to the other easily. On one piece of paper you
write “S” this stands for stuck state, on another you write “D” for disassociated and on the last piece
you write “R” for resourceful state.
2. Identify a “stuck” state that you want to change to a resourceful one, step onto the piece of paper with
“S” on it and fully associate with that stuck state for no more than 5 seconds
3. Disassociate from the stuck state and step onto the “D” card leaving all of the feeling around the stuck
state on the “S” card
4. Whilst standing on the “D” card turn and look at the “R” card and identify a resource that you would
need that you could use to overcome the stuck state. Such as strength, humour, patience,
confidence. See yourself on the “R” card where you can see that you have in place all of those
resources you need to change the stuck state.
5. Look at the resource card knowing that shortly you are going to step on the “R” card and be fully
associated with those feelings. Next step onto the “R” card and feel the resource you saw fully engulf
you. Feel all of those feelings, see what you saw, hear what you heard. Feel this state all through
your body.
6. When you have completely associated with these new resources step on to the “S” card taking all of
those new feelings with you and notice the difference
7. Step away from the triangle and look at how the problem is now different, what new resources are
now available to you that were not before.
What is NLP?
NLP is a combination of neurology and linguistics that uses practical methods to aid rapid personal
development. When you study NLP you will find out how easy it is to follow a route that can lead you to an
enriched life and towards personal achievement in interpersonal relationships in both personal and business
life.
There are thousands of people around the world from all areas of life and business who have studied and
now use NLP techniques, models and theories to change their own lives and also those of others they come
in contact with.
NLP can be classed as a modern day technology that can help people to create the quality of life they want
now rather than wait for something to happen in the future. It can also be called “The Study of Subjective
Experience”
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is so called because of the three different areas it brings together under
one set of techniques:
Neuro Relates to our nervous system, the mind and sensory organs with which we receive
and filter information through our 5 senses
Linguistic Language and other non-verbal communication systems through which our neural
representations are coded, ordered and given meaning. It covers the way we
communicate and interpret our experiences through language which includes images,
sounds, feelings, taste, touch, smell, body language and words
Programming The ability to discover and utilise the programmes that we run (our communication to
ourselves and others) in our neurological systems to achieve our specific and desired
outcomes. It is the way we construct personal programmes of thought communication
and behaviour.
What does NLP do?
NLP helps to bring about personal discovery and personal change in all areas of our lives. For practitioners
it can also be used to bring about personal change in others. It is good to remember that the more we work
on ourselves the more we can help others with greater effect.
To use the benefits that NLP can bring to yourself and others you need to:
 Be determined to succeed and be congruent in what you believe in
 Establish a high level rapport with other people so that you are able to develop a mutual trust and
respect for each other
 You need to identify what specifically it is that you or other people want to change and what getting
the change will achieve for you.
Who Developed NLP?
In the early 1970’s the two co-founders of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grindler, were studying at the
University of Santa Cruz in California. They both became interested in the study of people and what made
them able to achieve powerful results over and over again.
They wanted to find out what happens inside a person’s brain and what processes they use to achieve these
powerful results. They then wanted to develop a way to teach these processes to other people so they too
could achieve the same results.
Bandler and Grindler decided to study three therapists who were achieving exceptional results with the
clients they worked in their own specialised fields of work. The people they studied were:
Virginia Satir A Family therapist
Milton Erikson A world renowned hypnotherapist
Fritz Pearls The founder of Gestalt therapy
They also spoke to:
 People who had recovered from severe phobias

 People who had recovered from terminal illnesses
 People who had overcome significant emotional trauma
 Successful entrepreneurs
 Successful managers and sales people
Bandler and Grindler’s approach was to ask a number of very key questions to find out what makes people
excellent. The questions they asked were very simple:
“What is it that people do inside their heads that makes them excellent?”
“What is right?”
NLP is based on modelling what works - rather than what doesn’t - so they talked to people who had
overcome phobias (as opposed to people who still had them.) Their research provides us with a formula and
model of success that we know works as it is based on practical applications and not on pure theory of what
“might” work.
 A theory is a description of why something works - a model either works or it doesn’t.
 A model is valued by its usefulness - a theory is evaluated by its reasonableness.
In NLP you always look for solutions and what can be done and not for the problem and the theory behind it.
Some useful definitions of NLP include
“The ability to master your own states by running your own brain”
- Richard Bandler
“The study of excellence and how to reproduce it”

- John Grinder
“How to use the language of the mind to consistently achieve our specific
and desired outcomes”
- Tad James
“An attitude (wanton curiosity) and methodology ( modelling) that leaves

behind a trail of techniques” The attitude of NLP involves one of intense
and excited curiosity. It involves the desire to know what goes on behind
the scenes. With this kind of attitude of curiosity, we want to know what
makes the human mind work”.
- Richard Bandler
“NLP is whatever works”

- Robert Dilts
The Five Pillars of NLP
NLP is based on five main principles
 Outcome - knowing what you want
o In any situation you need to have a clear outcome of what it is you want to achieve from it. This
will ensure that you are always acting in a meaningful and purposeful way. Outcome thinking has
three basic elements:
Understand your present situation - where you currently are
Know where you want to be - where are you heading
How are you going to get there - plan your strategy, what have you got, what do
you need
 Flexibility in what you do
o When you have decided on your outcome you need to look at what you are getting. If you have a
range of strategies at your disposal you will have more chance of getting your outcome and a
higher chance of being successful. If what you are doing is not working, then do something
different until it is.
 Rapport – the quality of your relationships
o When you have rapport with others you gain mutual understanding and trust with them. It helps
you to see how the other person is experiencing the world around them so that you can step into
their world and make a connection.
 Take action
o The only way to succeed in anything is to take action, if you never start to make changes you will
never change. You need to take action and start the journey of changes that will help you to
achieve the outcome you want with the people you want and creating strong relationships with
others as you do this
 Work from a psychology and physiology of excellence

o Your mind and body are one unique system, where your breathing, posture and physical state
affect what you think and your emotions. You need to get yourself into the best possible state –
physically, mentally and emotionally and then take action.
Section 2 – The Presuppositions of NLP
In this section we will cover the following topics
 What presuppositions of NLP are
 How they can help you
 How they are used
The Presuppositions of NLP
These presuppositions are some of the cornerstones of the thinking of NLP and its users. They are also
useful to think about in your daily activities.
1. The mind and the body are one system
The mind and body are connected if you make a change in either it will influence the other.
When you think differently your body will react in a different way and will change according to
the thoughts we are having.
2. There is no failure only feedback
When you attempt something and you do not succeed in your outcome, we look at what we
have learnt from the experience rather than what we did not achieve.
3. People have all the internal resources they need to succeed
There are no unresourceful people only unresourceful states of mind. NLP looks at tapping
into the resources we have at our disposal to achieve what we want.
4. The more choices you have the better your outcome
Always look for more than one way to achieve your outcome. Those people who have the
widest number and the most flexible behaviour will be able to achieve more.
5. If it’s not working do something different
If you keep trying to change something and you are always getting the same result, look for a
different way of doing it. If you do things the same way over and over again you will always
get the same results.
6. The meaning of your communication is the response that you get
The way to understand the meaning of the communication you are sending out is to judge the
response you are getting from other people to the messages you are sending out.
7. The map is not the territory
We all respond differently in the same situation and only see our own unique interpretation of
the world around us. This interpretation is based on our memories, experiences and how we
take on information through our five senses.
8. All behaviour is the best choice currently available
A person will respond to any situation through their own map of the world. For this reason
they make the best choice available to them in any given situation.
The Presuppositions of NLP cont
9. People work perfectly
Nobody is broken and needs repairing. We are all working according to the strategies we
have designed. They may not however be great strategies so it is the strategy that needs to
be changed.
10. All actions have a purpose
We do not act in a random way, all of our actions are designed for a purpose to try and
achieve something. We just may not know what that purpose is.
11. The unconscious mind balances the conscious mind
The unconscious mind looks after everything that is not being used by the conscious mind at a
moment in time. The unconscious mind contains everything needed to keep the body working
in perfect balance
12. The only reliable information about a person is how they behave
You can tell much more about a person by observing their behaviour and the minute changes
they make in the physiology as this will tell you much more than the way they speak
13. Modelling successful performance leads to excellence
If you want to become good at something, find somebody who is already excellent at it, find
out their strategy for excellence and install it in yourself or others and then you can also
become excellent
14. Respect other people’s map of the world
Everyone has their own unique map of the world, in order for them to respect your map you
need to accept how they view the world from their perspective as well.
15. If you want to understand ACT
The only way to find out how something works is to stand up and take part. By taking part you
can learn and therefore understand what is taking place.
The above presuppositions are a set of guiding philosophies that run throughout the whole of the field of
NLP. If you really look at them and understand them you can see they also can be used as a blueprint for
how we should live our lives on a daily basis.
We call these set of principles “Presuppositions” because we act in a way that pre-supposes them to be true.
NLP Presuppositions
You can group these presuppositions into 2 categories, those that are about people and those that focus on
change and communication.
Presuppositions about people
 The map is not the territory
 All behaviour is the best choice currently available
 People have all the internal resources they need to succeed
 People work perfectly
 All actions have a purpose
 The only reliable information about a person is how they behave
 The mind and body are one system
 The conscious mind balances the unconscious mind
Presuppositions about change and communication
 Respect the other person’s model of the world
 The meaning of your communication is the response that you get
 You cannot not communicate
 There is no failure only feedback
 The more choices you have the better the outcome
 If it is not working do something different
 Modelling successful performance leads to excellence
 If you want to understand act
Section 3 – Your unconscious mind
 What is your unconscious mind
 The levels of learning
 Uptime and downtime
Your Unconscious Mind
Our unconscious mind is the basis for everything that we learn, it is the basis for all we have learnt, all that
we do and how we behave and change. The unconscious mind is also the place where all of our memories
are stored.
All that we have learnt is in our unconscious mind. When you think back over how much you have learnt and
stored in your life time it would be impossible to hold all of this information in your conscious mind as it would
stop you from living effectively as your conscious mind would always be completely full.
All of our behaviours start at the unconscious level and most of the actions we take start at the unconscious
level. It is only when they happen that they become conscious actions. How much do you have to
consciously think about walking, breathing or eating food? You don’t - you just do it without having to think
about it
Our unconscious mind has a number of prime directives that make up the framework of how we function on a
daily basis. The prime directive is to protect us. However there are a number of other things our unconscious
mind can do for us, they include:
 Storing your memories

o The unconscious mind stores all of our memories in the same way that a computer stores
data. It then helps the conscious mind to retrieve it whenever possible.
 Holds our emotions

o The unconscious mind is where all of our memories reside and are contained. They are then
accessed by our conscious mind when we need them. Even though our conscious mind uses
the emotions the unconscious mind holds them all.
 Represses memories with unresolved negative emotions

o The unconscious mind has the responsibility of suppressing memories that have unresolved
negative emotions. The memory which holds the negative emotion which will cause problems
is repressed until the emotion has been resolved. These can be seen as dark patches on the
time line.
 Presents the memories

o The unconscious mind puts forward the repressed emotion when it is right and ready to be
resolved. If the conscious mind is ready to change the emotion it will be put back in the
unconscious mind.
 Protects by repressing the emotions

o The unconscious mind can choose whether to repress memories or not. The unconscious
mind will keep presenting the memory until it is released, as repressed emotions are not good
for the body.
 Runs the body

o The unconscious mind is the computer that drives the body and tells it what to do and when -
such as breathing, walking and moving.
Your Unconscious Mind cont.
 Preserves the body
o The unconscious mind helps to protect the body from putting itself into danger such as
stopping you from walking in front of a car.
 Takes direction and follows orders

o The unconscious mind likes to take orders and be given directions by the conscious brain so
both parts need to be in rapport with each other.
 Controls and maintains our perceptions

o The unconscious mind filters everything that we take on from the outside world, it will filter it
based on our own experiences. It does this to an amount of data in chunks of 7 bits + or – 2.
 Responds with instinct and habit

o Some of the actions we take are driven either by our habits or our instincts such as the flight
or fight syndrome. These are all driven by our unconscious mind.
 Builds habits
o As our unconscious mind is always based in now it needs a lot of repetition of an action before
it will become a habit.
 Continually seeks more and more

o Our unconscious mind is programmed to seek more and more and to learn new things.
 Works on least effort

o The unconscious mind searches for ways of achieving outcomes using the least amount of
effort. It likes to conserve energy rather than use it.
 The unconscious mind takes everything personally

o The unconscious mind takes everything it understands and processes it personally as if it
relates to you directly. If you like your friends it is the part of you that you see in them that you
like. This is where the saying “projection is perception” comes from.
 Cannot process a negative thought

o Our unconscious mind cannot process a negative thought.
As the conscious mind is what drives our bodies and our feelings and holds our memories, if we make
changes at the unconscious level this is where change lasts. It works like overwriting a file on a computer.
The basic data is still there, we just change some of it to help to look at experiences in a different way and
therefore experience them in a different way.
This is why NLP is known as “software for the mind”
The Levels of Learning
George Miller in his book “The Magic Number 7 + / - 2” talks about how we start to process information using
a chunking approach. In his book he says:
“We structure information in terms of chunks of information from between 5 and 9, sometimes we can chunk
up to 9 and sometimes as low as 5, this depends on the situation, the information and how the person is
feeling at the time” When we learn anything new we use the 7 + / - 2 pieces of information to chunk this in to
a size which we can work with and understand, we would then keep learning these chunks until we
understood them in a habitual way, they are then stored in our unconscious mind in the way we choose to.
As we now fully understand this when asked about the information we can recall and answer the question
easily as we have stored it in a way that our unconscious mind can find it and then present it to the conscious
mind to answer the question. If you are learning a long process what happens is that the chunks when learnt
and stored start to clump together so that anything that links in with the learning is stored together, the
chunks and clumps of learning when fully completed then become one chunk of information that you are not
conscious off until you need it”
This process is called the levels of learning, when the chunks grow and clump, they form larger pieces of
information that become anchored in our unconscious mind. This then allows us to move through from the
conscious levels of learning through to unconscious learning by going through the following steps:
1. Unconscious incompetence
a. at this level you are not aware you are not competent to do something as it is not something
you are consciously aware of
2. Conscious incompetence
a. At this level you have realised that you are not competent to carry out an activity
3. Conscious competence
a. At this level you have realised that you need training in that particular activity, have undergone
the training and start to realise that you are competent to carry out the activity.
4. Unconscious competence
a. The learning has been chunked and has formed clumps which are then put into the
unconscious mind and out of our conscious awareness. This is when we carry out an activity
without having to think about it, it just happens automatically
5. Conscious competence of unconscious competence

a. This is at trainer level where the person is aware they are competent at a certain skill which
they can teach to others.
To put this into context if you drive a car think about the process that you went through as you were learning
to drive to how you drive now, Can you recognise the steps and are you at a level where you could teach
another person to drive.
Levels of learning
The steps of mastery over learning a new skill.
The process of learning shows how we move from conscious to unconscious mastery of a skill. When you
learn something consciously and keep learning it until you can do it easily so it becomes a habit, that
becomes installed in our unconscious mind. When you get to this level it is where you know how to do the
skill intuitively without having to think about the process first, it just happens.
We could then call this intuition as you instinctively know how to do something intuitively from all the learning
you have undertaken and form that habit which allows you to carry out the task with ease.
Therefore the more we learn something and keep learning it the easier it is to put it into your unconscious
mind.
Bateson’s Logical Levels of learning
The psychologist Gregory Bateson developed a model called “logical Categories of Learning and
Communication” This model was based on his investigation into the field of “epistemology”, this is the study
of “How we know what we think we know” Batseon’s model is a hierarchy with each level a “Holder” of the all
the items in the next level down. This hierarchy is shown below:
Level Title What happens in the level
III Learning how to learn how to learn Enlightenment
II Learning how to learn Can create new options if necessary, based

on understanding of learning processes
I Learning Selects from a range of options and learns

from feedback
0 Rule based actions Obeys the rules no “trial and error” therefore
no learning takes place
Batson uses these levels to distinguish the several levels of learning that we go through when learning
anything new. Below is a more in depth definition of each of these levels
Level 0
This is where the person responds in a certain way based on their reaction to specific stimuli which can be
classed as following rules. Right or wrong the response to the stimuli is not corrected, they become habitual
and are wired in to our make.
 For example:
o “I know that if it is raining and I go out I will get wet”
Level 0 is the simplest form of learning it is based on the outcome of “A is always followed by B” Most of this
type of learning is habitual, this means it is learning that we take for granted and when we have learnt is we
respond to it as a matter of habit.
Level 1
This is where the person uses a process of trial and error to adapt to the environment around them, they do
this to find a new response of pattern of responses to a situation. The person can then correct any choice
they have made that is incorrect to one that works, this is where the feedback takes place. The choice they
make however are constrained in a set of alternatives.
 For example:
o “The experiment with Pavlov’s dog learning to expect to receive food at the sound of a bell
which is sounded at just before feeding takes place”
At level 1 this is where the person is learning to make changes to the learning that took place at Level 0, here
the person learns that they can make changes the responses you have to a certain stimulus. Such as if I go
out in the rain and where a coat I will not get as wet or I can stay in and not go out. This is where the person
can overtime develop a range of responses through trial and error to the stimulus received. This is still a
basic level of learning, however if the response they had was not there before it is classed as learning
Level 2
This is the process of correcting the set of alternatives from which the choice they have made have come
from. It is this change in these choices that are embedded in the experience this incorporates and builds
upon the learning that has taken place in Level 1.
 For example
o “Learning that it is just not the sound of the bell that says if I get fed or not, it is also down to
how the person feeding me feels, how I feel towards them, other related conditions and the
context in which I am being fed”.
At Level 2 it differs from Level 1 as it involves the person developing a new set of habits that will increase the
complexity and flexibility of the response gained from the Learning in Level 1. The learning can now take
place in different situations and different contexts. In this level the person also has to recognise the different
contexts of the situation they also have to choose the correct response for the situation. Therefore this
means that an even greater degree of flexibility can take place. So to avoid going out in the rain the person
can check the weather forecast on a regular basis to make an informed choice.
This is classed as learning to learn and lends itself to developing more complex habits.
Level 3
This is where you gain control of a situation and by doing so change your habits around how you react in a
situation that are the outcomes of Level 2
 For example
o “Deciding that it is not food that is important to me at that point”
At this level the learning takes a pace back from Level 2 learning as in this level the person learns about the
whole process of forming, exchanging and losing the habits formed as Level 2. Here the person has to drop
the fixed ideas of themselves and the subject they are learning about. In this level the change is not just
about acquiring new habits it is about moving to a place where the person no longer needs them in the same
way.
This is where the person becomes enlightened not only about ourselves but also the world around them,
here old categories and ways of thinking become redundant and they move beyond the roles and established
ideas of the world and how they live in it.
This level is hard to achieve and very few people experience it.
Understanding the level of learning is important for 2 reasons:
 It helps you to understand how you learn
 It helps a trainer to develop training that helps people learn
Uptime and Downtime
Uptime
This refers to when a person’s state is all directed externally and where their attention and senses are all
directed in to their immediate environment around them. The person will have all of their sensory channels
alert and open to whatever is happening around them.
Downtime
This is where things are not happening within a person’s sensory awareness. The person is down inside their
own head and mind where they are accessing their own thoughts, feelings, memories awareness, they will
also be seeing, hearing and feeling this internally through their senses. This can also be described as being
in a light trance like state.
Section 4 – Setting outcomes
 Setting compelling outcomes
 The well formed outcome questions
 The difference between states and outcomes
 Stepping up and stepping down
Setting Compelling Outcomes
Whether you are setting outcomes in a business setting or in your personal life, there are three parts involved
in the process - where you are now, where you want to be in the future and what resources do you need to
get there. This can be looked at as a journey from one place to another where you need to use different
resources and modes of transport to get you from your current location to your new destination.
Your desired outcome needs to be something that you are totally drawn towards. If you have an outcome
that does not resonate with you and you do not feel congruent with it, you are less likely to want to put the
effort in to achieve it.
Think of times in the past that you may have set outcomes for yourself or others have set them for you.
What made you want to achieve the ones you did? What did you feel about the ones you may not have
achieved? You will normally find that the outcomes that you did not achieve just did not draw you towards
them and that something was missing.
This is why it is important that you are fully committed to achieving any outcome, that you feel it is worth your
while achieving it and that the effort you put in will be rewarded in some way.
When you know where you currently are and where you want to be, you can start to really identify what
resources you currently have and which resources you need to obtain to get to your desired outcome.
You need to identify what is missing and how you are going to get it.
The Well Formed Outcome Questions
1. What do you want to achieve?
This needs to be stated in positive terms

Something you are directed towards and something you want
Avoid listing things that you do not want eg “ I don’t want to be poor”
2. What evidence will you need to let you know you have reached your outcome, this should be stated in
sensory specific terms, see, hear, feel?
You need to think how you will feel when you have achieved this outcome
List it using sensory specific terms:
I will see, I will hear, I will feel, I will smell, I will taste
3. Is the outcome in your full control, if so how do you know?
The outcome you set for yourself should not rely on other people to help you to achieve it, it should be
something that you are fully in control of. You are responsible for your own behaviour and your own feelings
4. Who will be affected through you achieving your goal, this includes you?
This is an ecology check to see how you achieving your outcome may have an effect on other people, such as;
family, friends, colleagues, financial situation, time availability, sense of self etc.
5. What are the positives that you can take forward from your current situation?
Every behaviour has a positive intention within it, consider what are the positive intentions from your current
situation that you would like to preserve and bring forward to your new situation.
6. What resources do you need to help you to achieve your outcome?
These can include:

New learnings, New behaviours and personal qualities, Money, Skills, Other people role models
7. How will achieving this outcome benefit you?
When you have achieved your outcome what benefits will you gain from achieving it?
8. How will making this change affect other aspects of your life?
What will be the impact achieving your goal will have on other parts of your life, by changing one thing in one
area it will significantly change automatically what happen in other parts of your life.
The Cartesian Co-ordinates – ecology check
What would happen if you What would happen if you

did make that change? did not make that change?
This question gets you to think This question gets you to think what
about what changes are going to happens if things stay the same
happen when you achieve your
goal
What would not happen if What would not happen if

you did make this change? you did not make this
change?
Looks at what would happen if Looks at what you would miss out
you did not make the change and on if you did not achieve the
carried on as you are now outcome you are aiming for
The difference between a state and an outcome.
It is worthwhile, just stopping for a moment to consider the difference between a state and an outcome, as
this is an important aspect to consider when working with a client or for yourself. A state can be described as
a gestalt of thoughts, feelings and physical processes. Listed below are the main differences between
outcomes and states.
Outcomes States
Outcomes are stated specifically States are more ambiguous
“ I want to lose ½ stone by the end of 2011” “ I will be happier when I am thinner”
Outcomes are written in the future tense States are written as affirmations
“I want to open my new business by 31st October “I am a motivated and committed person and I have
2011” all the resources I need to be successful”
Outcomes are something to get in the future and time States are something you can have now time is not
is involved in achieving it involved
“ I will have my new job by the end of this year” “ I can choose to be happy or sad today”
Outcomes have steps to achieve them States do not have time involved as a state is
something you can feel now.
“When you know where you are now and where you
want to be you can plan a course of action to get “Today I choose to be positive”
there and put milestone steps into place”
Outcomes are measurable as you know where you A state is something that is not measured and
are now and you are clear about where you want to something that can go on for ever
be. It is something you will definitely know when you
have achieved it “ I choose to be positive in my approach to life”
“ In 6 months time I will be in my new home in

Buckinghamshire”
An outcome is normally stated for yourself A state can be for yourself or others
“ I will have a new car by the end of this month” “ I want to be more motivated”
“ I want my family to be more motivated”
Stepping up and stepping down
This technique is used to look at how an outcome will benefit you when you achieve it and also uncovers the limiting
beliefs you have about achieving the outcome.
As you are only using 2 questions you may think that the person you are using this with will get very
frustrated, however when speaking to them afterwards you may find that they did not actually realise that you
were just asking the same questions over again.
You always start by going down first and then end by going up, this uncovers limitations first and then when
moving forward allows these to be removed on the route to achieving the outcome
An example of stepping up and stepping down
The outcome: “I want to open up my own business”
1st question: “What stops you from opening up my business?”
(Here you always repeat the last part of the sentence that the person has said)
Client: “ I don’t have enough confidence”
2nd Question: “What do you want instead of don’t have enough confidence?
(again you repeat the last words the person has said)
Client: “I want to have more confidence
3rd Question: “What stops you from to have more confidence?”
(you may find that the sentence is not grammatically correct, that is OK)
You keep repeating this process until you are caught in a loop of the same answers to both
questions. You will know intuitively when you need to stop.
When you have completed the uncovering limiting beliefs section you can work towards their outcome
The outcome: “ I want to open up my own business?
1st question: “If you open up your own business what will it do for you?”
( here you always repeat the last part of the sentence that the person has said)
Client: “It will allow me to use my skills effectively”
2nd question “if you allow you to use your skills effectively what will it do for you?)
You keep repeating this process until you are caught in a loop of the same answers to both questions. You
will know intuitively when you need to stop.
Section 5 – NLP and Building Rapport
 The map is not the territory
 Your physiology
 What is rapport
 Sensory acuity and calibration
 Congruence and incongruence
The Map is Not the Territory - Our Personal View of the World
Each of us has a blueprint for how we view what is going on around us, and this view comes from what we
believe in, how we feel about things, our feelings, and our perceptions. However, this is our own unique
experience of what is going on around us. If you were asked to describe an event, you would most likely all
describe it in a different way to the person standing right next to you. Some people would talk about feelings
while others would describe an image or a sound. We would describe the experience depending on the
information we received through our preferred senses.
How we view experiences now is dependent on our own history and what we have learnt and unconsciously
stored throughout our lives.
In NLP we use the term “The map is not the territory.” This means that what we all experience (which is the
territory) is not the map we write in our minds. Like the example of describing the room, people will focus on
different aspects of the same room and describe this in a way that reflects the map they create in their mind.
This also relates to how we filter the information we take in from the world around us, we can apply many
different filters and we will explore later in this manual what those filters are
This also applies to how we remember experiences in the past. We do this by using our preferred blueprint
for experiences. If we keep remembering things in the same way we get the same emotions from them.
However in NLP we help to change the person’s map of the territory and therefore how they experience their
memories.
We use this technique to model how other people perform a skill excellently. We can then use this to install
a strategy into others and help them to perform excellently as well.
Our Physiology
One of the presuppositions of NLP is that the mind and body are connected, and that changing one will have
an effect on the other part.
We can change our physiology and this can help change an emotion, for instance:
“Do you like sitting in a certain way on a certain chair?” -
What happens if you have to sit elsewhere?
Do you have your computer set up in a certain way?
What happens if it is moved?
Have you ever come home from work exhausted, dragged yourself in the door and slumped into a chair?
Do you feel better or still tired?
What would happen if you went for a brisk walk instead?
Have you ever felt really down or upset and someone has asked you to go for a walk to take your mind away
from the issue? When you go for a walk how do you feel? Do you feel different? Does your outlook change?
If you are ever working with someone or sitting talking to somebody and they are starting to feel upset or
agitated, just suggest they change their posture. Sitting differently, standing up or just walking around will
change their mood as the mind reacts to what the body is doing.
Sensory Acuity
One of the biggest issues in communication is when people try to read the mind of the person they are
communicating with. They try to guess the internal state of the other person in terms of feeling or thoughts.
This is one of the biggest areas of lack of understanding between people as one person rarely understands
what the other person is thinking and feeling and will not generate the rapport they need to build effective
communication
Mind reading is where people think they can tell how another person is thinking and feeling purely through
the words they use, their behaviour and non-verbal communication. This means they are observing external
behaviour and using this to gauge how a person is processing information and how they are feeling inside.
Within NLP we aim to be more precise than this, we look for subtle changes that a person makes whilst they
are communicating. This process is called “Sensory Acuity.”
Here we are looking for the subtle non-verbal changes that people make unconsciously. This can include:
Area to notice Possible changes
Skin colour Light to dark
Skin appearance Shiny to matt
Breathing Fast to slow Shallow to Deep Upper to Lower
Lips Thin to thick Lines no Lines
Eyes Focus – glazed Pupils full – dilated Which Direction

Watering Redness
Voice
Tempo Pitch Volume Words used
Timbre Modulation
It is these subtle changes that people who are trained in NLP notice during conversations. Through
understanding and observing these changes, we can start to find out more about the internal process that the
other person is going through. To gain a full understanding of this you need to carry out a process known as
“Calibration.”
Calibration
Calibration is where you start to look for changes in a person’s observable behaviour and utilise these subtle
differences during a conversation. By using calibration you can start to become more in tune with how a
person is feeling inside as what is happening inside can be seen through their external behaviours.
Matching and Mirroring
Another process we can use to create rapport is to use “Matching and Mirroring.” By using this technique
you are encouraging the other person to communicate with you, and you are reflecting back how they are
behaving so they feel at ease with you. It works on the basis of people liking people who are like themselves.
Matching
People often notice how things are different or how they are the same as their internal experience of the
world. If you look for similarities between things then this is a matching.
When people match they look and listen for things they have experience of and make the connection
between what they hear someone saying and what they know. They tend to focus on what works and what
has been achieved. They also make good mediators who can bring people together.
Matching is something that you can do either verbally or physically, when matching someone you would use
the exact same body part as they did, for example if they crossed their left leg over their right leg you would
cross your left leg over your right leg and therefore match exactly what they did. If you are matching their
words you would mirror back key words and phrases they use and definitely match the representational
system they are reflecting in their vocabulary. You are in fact becoming their mirror image.
Mirroring
Mirroring is a similar process to matching, however in this case you are acting as if you are a mirror and
reflecting back the other person’s movements as if you were a mirror. So if a person was facing you and
raised their right arm you would raise your left arm. You would also mirror back the words that they used as
well, when mirroring you would reflect back the actual words that they used in the order that you used them.
Examples of what can be matched and mirrored
Physiology Speech Words
 Posture  Volume  Predicates

 Gestures  Quality of speech  Key words
 Breathing  Tone or pitch  Key phrases
 Stance  Rate of speech
 Blinking
 Facial Expressions
What is Rapport
Rapport can be classed as a shared feeling of understanding and the feeling as if two people are acting as
one. Rapport is the most important part of any situation as without it there will be no connection made and
the outcome gained may not have been the one that was wanted.
Rapport is something that can happen naturally especially when you are with family and friends. However
you can create rapport with people you do not know by utilising a range of NLP communication skills.
Some points about rapport
 You do not have to like the other person to build rapport, you can gain rapport yet still not like them,
however it is easier to build rapport if you do like them
 Rapport is not an entity it is a process, it is something we do to another person
 Psychologist have identified that there are 3 elements to rapport*
o Mutual attention this is where each person is tuned in with the other
o Shared positive feelings which are shown through non-verbal signals
o Synchronised behaviour this is where people respond unconsciously to each other’s

movements and gestures
Rapport is not manipulative
If you are trying to use rapport to manipulate another person you will find that it will not work as people can
feel that the interaction is false and being forced upon them.
If you respect the other person and you both have the same or similar outcome there is much more chance
of building effective rapport with them and to gain a win-win outcome to the interaction you are having with
them. If truthful rapport is not achieved then the outcome gained will not be the one either party wants.
You also need to remember that rapport works both ways and that as you build rapport with the other person
you are letting them in to influence you as well. So you need to ensure your interactions are truthful and that
you maintain yourself in a positive state of mind.
How to know when you have rapport
There are a number of different ways in which you can recognise you have rapport with the other person
these include:
1. You start to match or mirror the words and phrases they are using and their physiology
2. You may start to have a warm feeling in your stomach that helps you to settle and feel comfortable
with the other person. This may change from an initial feeling of apprehension
3. You may see a flushing in the other person’s face as they warm towards you and you may find
yourself doing the same
4. The other person says things such as “ I am sure I have met you before” “ You are so easy to talk to”
“You are just like me” “ I feel really at home with you”
5. You will be able to pace and lead the other person
6. You will feel it, you will have a feeling of being connected with the other person.
Pacing and Leading
When you have managed to get rapport with another person you can then pace and lead the conversation.
Once you feel you have rapport you can start to take charge of the conversation by making the first change.
First you need to test you are in rapport by making a movement and then seeing if the other person follows, if
they follow you then you have achieved a level of rapport with them.
When you have achieved this you can then lead the dance with the other person. For instance if a person’s
calls up to complain and they are speaking quite loudly and quickly you could match and mirror them then
slowly lower your voice and slow the rate of speech and your customer will follow you and you are then in
control and have a more rational conversation.
Building Rapport
The key to having effective communication with another person is to build rapport with them. There are a
number of ways in which you can do this which we will explain later. However to start off this section on
rapport building and effective communication, we want you to experience what it is like when you are talking
to someone who is totally out of rapport with you.
Congruence and Incongruence
When all of our parts are in alignment and they want the same thing and your are sure of what it is that you
want then you will be in congruence. If the parts are not in agreement and you are not sure of what it is you
want then you will be classed as being incongruent.
Congruence does not necessarily mean that everything is the same, it means that everything fits well
together such has having the correct wine with a meal or the correct colour of furniture to go with the colour
of the walls or carpet.
When you are congruent it is a very powerful state where you feel totally able to say “Yes” or “No” and that it
is the right decision to make on that occasion. Feeling congruent may be a good feeling of completeness to
have however it does not mean that you will get the outcome you want, it means that you will go for it feeling
totally connected. If you feel congruent it helps you to take action and move forward to achieving the
outcome that you want.
When you feel as if you are incongruent it is not such a powerful state and you will feel that you are not fully
together or aligned in all parts of your body and mind. You will probably feel that you are not ready to make
that first step and to be committed to getting the outcome that you want. It is a signal that we get to say wait
you are not ready to take that action or get that outcome. It is a signal to say that something is not quite right
yet and something needs to change. Being incongruent is not a bad feeling it is just saying that you are not
ready to change yet or take the first step.
If you are feeling incongruent it is good to recognise and understand this, as if it goes unnoticed it may stop
you from being as successful as you could have been.
Incongruence may show itself in the words that you use or the behaviour you have or both so that your words
and body language clash or a clash between two internal representation systems.
Being congruent and incongruent are not completely separate states that are from different areas, they are
both joined along a line and where you are on that line will depend on how you feel, the outcome you want,
the situation you find yourself in and if you are ready to achieve the outcome you want.
Types of incongruence
There are two types of incongruence that you can feel, they are sequential or simultaneous incongruence.
 Sequential incongruence
o This is where you take an action to do something and then afterwards regret what you have
done and say to yourself this is something I do not like and do the same thing at a later date. It
is as if you have two parts working against each other, one part is in charge of doing the
action and the other part is where you feel regret for taking the action. The parts also have
different sets of values and that is another reason why they appear to be incongruent as they
both work on wanting different things.
o If you notice that you have incongruence in your actions and your thoughts you will need to
negotiate with the parts that are conflicting with you such as carrying out a “parts integration”
technique on yourself.
o If you notice this in other people bring it to their attention and listen for their responses to your
questions. You can also check your understanding of this by asking relevant questions.
 Simultaneous incongruence
o This is where you express the conflicting areas at exactly the same time such as saying “Yes,
that is great” in a doubtful tone of voice or saying “Yes” and at the same time shaking your
head.
 If you notice this in yourself ask yourself why and find out what it is you really want
 If you notice this in others again ask questions or point out the things that they are being
incongruent about.
Section 6– Communicating with our senses
 Representational systems
 Sensory based language
Representational system
As we have discussed earlier we engage with the world around us with our 5 senses, our senses allow us to
take on board information from events, process this internally and then communicate back what we have just
experienced. Each person is unique and as such will use a different sense to take on the information around
them, this then creates their own personalised map of the world which they work from. As you become more
aware of your own and other’s maps of the world you can start to make the changes you need to know how
you relate to others to gain a good level of rapport with them.
When we take on this information we have two processes that it is useful to be aware of, these are Lead
system and Preferred system.
Lead system
The lead system refers to the sense that is the first to react in a situation or from a certain stimulus, for
example; if you were to ask me a question such as “How was my weekend?” I might first think about how I
feel about the question and my weekend, this may then be followed by an image of what I was doing over the
weekend or I could hear sounds related to the weekend’s activities. This means that my initial way to take on
this information was through my Visual sense, when I have done this I then bring in my other senses to
continue the processing activity. So in this instance my visual sense was my lead system. You may have a
different lead system that is used in different situations and experiences for example they may use visual to
recall god experiences and sounds for negative ones
Primary system
This refers to the representational system I will use to process information over the other 4 senses; we do
however use our senses in various combinations and sequences, although we will have one that dominates
over the remainder. This is the preferred system, this is the system that the lead system will pass the
information to after it has initially processed it.
Reference system
This is the system used to see in the information they have accessed is correct or not as it moves from
unconscious thought to conscious awareness
When the lead and primary systems are not the same
You may find that the lead system a person uses is not the system they are conscious of, this means that the
information they use to access this is unconscious until it moves to the primary system and comes into their
conscious awareness.
How do you recognise the system they are using?
There are 2 main ways in which you can recognise which is someone’s Preferred of Lead system and that is
through either listening to the words that they use or their eye accessing cues.
Sensory Based Communication
We have spoken previously about how we take in information from the world around us using our five
senses. We then take this information and present it to our mind using these different senses, which we call
“Representation Systems.” There are five representation systems:
Sense NLP Representational System Name

Sight Visual V
Hear Auditory A
Touch Kinaesthetic K
Smell Olfactory O
Taste Gustatory G
Out of the five representational systems the most common are Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic.
We all have our preferred representational system and you can start to understand a person’s most used
system through listening to their language. The language they use will reflect how they take in and interpret
the world around them and the experiences they have.
Processing
Input
information
Output information
Sensory Language
The language and words we use give a clear indication of what our most preferred representational system
is. Most people will have two preferred styles. When you start to listen to people speaking you can quickly
understand their preferred system and then reflect this back in your language to help you to build rapport with
them.
Examples of sensory based language
Visual preference
“ I see what you mean and I get the picture”
Auditory preference
“I hear where you are coming from and that rings a bell”
Kinaesthetic preference
“I don’t think you have grasped the situation and I will be in touch later to talk more”
Olfactory
“This smells a bit fishy to me”
Gustatory
This experience has left a bad taste in my mouth”
When we become more competent in using sensory based language during conversations it enriches what
we say and we also make a connection with the people we are talking to.
On the following pages there are some sentences. In each case can you identify which is preferred sensory
based language is being used?
Visual Words
Aim Dark Highlight Observe

Angle Dim Horizon Opaque
Animate Dimming Illuminate Pale
Aperture Direction Illusion Peep
Appear Display Image Peripheral
Apparently Etched Imagine Perspective
Apparition Eye Invisible Pictorial
Backlight Far Lens Radiant
Beam Flash Light Rainbow
Blank Flicker Lucid Reflect
Blinding Focus Map Refracts
Blink Fog Mark Reveal
Blur Glance Mirror Scope
Brilliance Glimmer Morph Sight
Clarify Glossy Murky Scan
Clear Glow Near Search
Close Graphic Neon Shadowy
Colour Hallucinate Notice Shimmers
Contrasting Hazy Obscure Sepia
Auditory
Accent Earshot Mono Say

Alarm Eavesdrop Melody Said
Amplify Echo Melodic Scream
Announce Eloquent Muffled Screech
Audible Enunciate Murmur Shout
Babble Fart Music
Bang Feedback Nag Shriek
Bark Fidelity Noisy Silent
Bass Frequency Noise Shrill
Baritone Harmonic Octave Song
Bong Harmony Orchestrate Talk
Buzz Hear Percussion Tell
Cackle Hiss Phonic Told
Chatter Hum Piano Tempo
Chord Howl Purr Told
Clef Hush Quack Tempo
Converse Inaudible Quiet Thunder
Crash Knock Quote Tone
Crescendo Language Remark Voice
Describe Linguistic Rebuke Verbal
Dialogue Listen Resound Whine
Discord Lilt Resonance Volume
Discussion Loud Reverb Whining
Kinaesthetic
Abrasive Extract Impress Remove

Adhere Fell Impressing Rotate
Affection Feeling Incline Rough
Balance Fill Inhale Rub
Blush Firm Kiss Sense
Bond Full Knock Sensitivity
Bounce Fumble Large Sensation
Breath Gentle Link Sensuous
Bump Grab Locomotion Shaken
Caress Grasp Lukewarm Slimy
Catch Grope Malleable Slippery
Choke Groping Manipulate Tactile
Clutch Handle Mass Temperature
Compassion Heavy Moist Tense
Crazy Heaving Motion Throw
Dazed Hard Nudge Thrust
Desire Heat Nudging Tingle
Discharge High Pain Touch
Dull Hit Perspire Vibrating
Emotion Hold Pinch Texture
Euphoric Held Poke Throb
Excited Hustle Press Throbbing
Exhale Immense Pull Tension
Olfactory
Acrid Foul Onion Smell

Aroma Fresh Garlic Smoky
Bouquet Lavender Honey Sniff
Burnt Mildew Incense Sniffles
Citrus Mould Pungent Stinky
Cologne Musky Putrid Sweet
Dank Musty Rank Vapour
Deodorant Nasal Rancid Yeasty
Fish Nose Reek Wafting
Floral Odour Scent
Gustatory
Acid Eat Lick Stale
Alcoholic Fish Meat Stomach
Bitter Flavour Milky Sugar
Bland Fresh Minty Sugary
Burnt Fruity Nutty Sweet
Buttery Gag Nice Tangy
Candy Gargle Onion Tart
Carbonated Gobble Palette Taste
Cheesy Gourmet Pasty Tea
Chalky Gritty Pulpy Thirst
Chicken Gulp Rancid Tongue
Chocolate Heart Runny Tummy
Creamy Hot Saccharine Vinegar
Crisp Hungry Sugar Vomit
Delicious Ingest Savour Quenching
Digest Indigestion Seasoning Sloppy
Diluted Jam Sour Saliva
Disgust Lemon Spicy Smoky
Predicate phrases
These are phrases which include predicate type words
Visual Auditory
“That appear to me “Can you please describe that is detail”
“We need to get a perspective on “ I have heard a rumour that”
this” “It is just a manner of speaking”
“Do you have to make a scene” “Give an account of”
“ An eyeful” “Loud and clear”
“Beyond a shadow of a doubt” “Pay attention to”
“Catch a glimpse of” “Hold your tongue”
“Draw me a picture” “Clear as a bell”
“Paint me a picture of it” “Manner of speaking”
“Make a scene” “Voice your opinion”
Kinaesthetic “You always rub me up the wrong way”

“We need to ensure we have a firm base for this project”
“I will see if I can pull a few strings to get us in”
“Pain in the neck”
“Start from scratch”
“Keep your hair on”
“Get to grips with”
“firm foundations”
“Hold on”
“Pull some strings”
Recognising Primary Representational systems
The follow are ways in which you can recognise which primary representational system a person uses
Visual  Tend to move think and talk fast

 Prefer to stand back where they can see you
 Stand up straight, breathe from high in the chest
 Interested in things looking good
 Memorise be seeing images
 Have trouble remembering verbal instructions
 Gestures used include
o Being High up towards top of head
o Being at eye level and above
o Uses lots of gestures to create an image of what they are
saying
Auditory
 Learn by listening
 Can repeat things back easily
 May talk to themselves out loud
 Like to be close enough to hear you
 Breathe from middle of their chest
 Easily distracted by noise
 Tone of voice is important
 Want things to sound right
 Gestures used include
o Arms folded
o Head on hands
o Hands near mouth or chin
Kinaesthetic
 Often talk and breathe slowly
 Memorise by doing or walking through a process
 Breathe from abdomen
 Interested in things sounding right
 Likes to be close enough to touch you
 Responds to physical touch and rewards
 Gestures used include:
o Palms facing upwards arms bent
o May place hand on heart or chest area
o May use hands like weighing scales
Auditory Digital
 Use a lot of internal dialogue
 Will often lean back during conversations as they speak to
themselves
 Interested in things making sense
 Can also show signs of other systems as well
Section 7 – The Eyes have it
 Eye accessing cues
 Questions to uncover eye accessing cues
 Unwiring a synaesthesia
www.cbptraining.com
Eye Accessing Cues
Another method that can be used to judge how a person is processing information inside their mind and what
sense they are using to do is through watching their eye movement. When you ask a person a question you
can take note of their eye movements to calibrate which sense they are searching for to give you the answer
you need.
The chart below highlights the eye movements and what they mean for a right handed person.
Vc – this is where a person will look when they are visually constructing an image
Vr - this is where a person will look when they are remembering an image they have seen before
Ac – this is where a person will look when they constructing new sounds or trying to piece new sounds
together – making a tune up
Ar - this is where they will look when they are remembering a sound they have heard before
K - this is where they will look when they are searching their feelings
Ad - this is where they will look when they are talking to themselves inside their head
Questions to ask to uncover eye accessing cues
Eye position Description Question to elicit
Visual Remembered Remembered images Remember what your saw coming

here today?
What colour are your bedroom

walls?
Visual constructed Invented images Imagine your home painted blue

with yellow spots
Future images
Imagine a dog with the head of an
elephant
Auditory remembered Recalled sounds Recall your closest friends voice
Recall your mobile phone ring

tone
Auditory constructed Invented sounds A saxophone being played

underwater
A dog singing your favourite song
Internal dialogue Talking to yourself Tell yourself that NLP is fun
Who did you speak to before you

left home?
Kinaesthetic Feelings and emotions Can you feel the clothes against
your skin?
How do you feel when you watch

a sad movie?
How do you feel when you see a

puppy?
Eye movement exercise
Using some of the questions on the previous page, find a partner and take it in turns to answer the questions,
as your partner answers the questions, indicate on the diagram, which direction their eye movements follow,
this will give you a clear idea of their thinking processes.
To make it easier to watch their eye movement, read the question to yourself first and then look up into the
face of your partner and ask them the question and track their eye movement. Use one of the questions from
each section on the previous page or make up your own.
Question Diagram
Unwire a Synaesthesia
This is an incredibly simple yet powerful tool which is so versatile that it can be used to change the way that you relate
to pretty much any problem or issue. So powerful is this technique that it is the preferred way of treating Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). In mainstream psychology
there is a very similar technique which is called Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) developed
by Dr. Francine Shapiro. The fact is that the top psychologists still do not know exactly how this works. What we do
know is that it does work and works very well.
In NLP this technique was developed by Dilts in the 80’s. He postulated that a particular thought has a precise location
in your brain. For instance, if you think about “apples” and were to go into a CAT scan machine, then a particular part
of your brain would light up. In the same way when we have a problem or issue, it is located in a particular area of the
brain. We also know that when we think about certain things that our eyes move as different parts of our brain are
activated. Dilts called this a thought cluster.
In this technique we get the client to focus on the issue that they want to change and get in touch with the feelings
associated with that issue. While they are fully focusing on that issue we guide them in moving their eyes around to
different quadrants. By doing this we activate different areas of the brain while still focussing on the issue. In this way
we “spread” the way that we process the issue to other parts of our brain which have previously not been engaged in
the direct processing of this issue. It can be thought of like a painful “knot” in a muscle which is then spread
throughout the muscular area with a massage, dissipating the pain. The body is unable to relate to the pain in the
same way.
A memory of an experience located in

the brain with emotions attached to it
A memory of an experience located in

the brain with emotions stretched from it
following an unwiring of the
synaesthesia
This is the process for Unwiring a synaesthesia.
The following explains the process for carrying out the technique called “Unwiring a Synaesthesia”
1. First, it is important to create an environment of trust. Relax your client by using your sensory acuity
to build rapport with them.
2. Once you have established rapport, ask what is the issue that they wish to work on or resolve. Ask
them how this is a problem for them and discover what is the positive pay off from them having the
issue. Make sure that the client is willing to sacrifice the payoff of the problem for the benefit of not
having it anymore.
3. Describe the technique and some background of how we think it works. Explain what you are going to
do and reassure the client that they are in control the whole time and whatever they experience is OK
with you. Ask if they have problems with their eyes or contact lenses. Tell them to inform you if they
have painful eye strain at any time.
4. Ask the client to get in touch with those difficult feelings and let you know when they are really there.
Remind them constantly to focus on the negative feelings.
5. Ask the client to grade the feelings from 1 to 10
6. Ask the client to project those feelings on to your hand and for them to focus on the issue. Move your
hand around in the way we described on the course. Watch for signs of emotional shift and repeat the
movements if necessary in those areas where you do not see a smooth fluid movement of the eyes
they have a physiological response.
7. Use your sensory acuity to judge how many times to go round the first time. Often 3 to 4 times
produces a good result.
8. Stop and ask them “What’s changed?” Depending on how they respond, wait for a reply and then ask
them, “When you try to get in touch with these feelings again, what’s changed?” Then re-grade the
feelings as above.
9. If you have a significant shift, say a drop from an 8 or 9 to a 2 or 3 then use your judgement to decide
if that is enough. If the shift is much less than that or you feel your client needs more, then repeat
steps 4 and 6,7 and 8 again.
10. When your client reports a significant shift, explain to them:
That over the next week or two, they may notice a deep change associated with these feelings and that it
will be impossible to have this problem in the same way as before. Instead they will notice that the issue
will be much less of a problem for them, if not completely forgotten about.
This is a powerful technique and your client may need a moment or two of quiet time just to get used to the
shift in feelings. Reassure them that this is all normal and OK.
Diagram of how the sequence to move your hand

The sequence you move your hand around the circle is not important as it will work whichever sequence you
use, the reason we specify a sequence is to help you to remember where you are in the process.
The 2 important factors to remember to do are:
 Speed of movement of hand, a nice steady motion, not too fast or too slow
 You also should ensure you are moving the eyes as far to the edge of each motion as you can to ensure
you are stretching the feelings out.
Section 8 – The Meta Model
 Our perceptual filters
 Deletions, distortions and generalisation and our thinking
 Surface and deep structure in language
 The Meta Model structures and how they are used
Our perceptual filters and how we communicate
The information that we take on in our unconscious mind is made up of both internal and external filters.
Our external filters are made up of how we sense the world around us. These include our 5 senses:
Taste, Touch, Sight, Sound, Smell,
We take these external feelings and process these using our internal filters. This comes from both our
conscious memory and unconscious memory.
Internal processing filters
Conscious filters Unconscious filters
 Memories  Deletions
 Decisions  Distortions
 Attitudes  Generalisations
 Core values and beliefs  Metaprograms
We then take the external event and the internal processing and reflect our experience by our external
behaviours, as shown below:
Deletions, Distortions and Generalisations
As individuals we are constantly being bombarded with information coming in from the world. In order to
make sense of all of the input which is coming in at us, it is necessary to code this information in a way that
makes sense. The study of NLP has identified three ways that the brain reduces the information that is
coming into us from outside into manageable chunks of information.
Deletions
One amazing capacity that we have is to delete information which is not directly relevant to us at the time.
For instance, when we’re driving a car we need to focus on the road ahead and what the cars in front are
doing. We delete any information which comes into our brain regarding any interesting items that may be in
the shops along the side of the road so that we can concentrate and focus on what is important at that time.
In another example you may have a ticking clock in your room. At first you are very aware of the sound, but
after a while you may not notice the ticking of the clock anymore because your brain has deleted the sound
of it to allow you to concentrate on other things without being distracted. A visitor to that room, however, may
be much more aware of the sound and may be distracted by it until they are accustomed to the sound at
which point they will be able to delete it too.
Sometimes the ability to delete information can cause us problems. For instance, if we continually delete
difficult yet relevant information about say, our approach toward other people, then this can hold us back
from personal growth and development. In an extreme case there is a condition called body dismorphia
which is when a person looks at their reflection in a mirror and deletes the visual information which is
reflected back to them and replaces it with the (usually) negative image of themselves that they have as part
of their internal experience.
Generalisations
The ability to generalise serves as a fantastic function for us. For example we all know what the door is. We
know what a door is likely to look like because of previous experience even if we have never seen that
particular door before. We have generalised doors so that any time we see an opening in the wall that has a
wooden or metal flap and a handle we know to call it the door. We do the same from lots of common objects
that we come across in life such as chairs, cars, buses, planes. This enables us to recognise and understand
the world around us without constantly having to relearn every time. We know what a plane is or what a door
is every time we see one, even if it is a new design or in any way different to our internal reference or
experience of this object.
We also generalise experiences in situations and potentially any other input that comes in through our
senses can be generalised. It is a fantastic function which reduces the world into recognisable and
manageable chunks of information which we can easily understand.
Problems can occur with this function. For instance, if we have an experience where a small dog jumps up at
us, particularly if it is at a vulnerable time in our lives such as when we are small children, we can incorrectly
acquire the generalisation that all dogs are threatening at all times. This function which originally has served
us very well can now cause us a problem. When a person believes that all dogs are always dangerous or
threatening to them at all times and in all situations, we generally call this a phobia. It can be also looked at
as an over generalisation.
We generalise leaving out exceptions and qualifiers that are irrelevant
Distortion
The ability to distort information is also an incredibly useful function. Any time we watch a movie and find
ourselves lost in the story we are distorting reality in order to enjoy this experience. Because we know that
Sylvester Stallone is not really a heavyweight boxer and is not really fighting for the world championship title
yet for the duration of the movie we allow ourselves to temporarily believe in this character. This can be said
to be a distortion of reality. Anytime we fantasize, dream, imagine or remember something we are in fact
experiencing a distortion of sorts.
It is easy to imagine how this function can cause problems. For instance if we are at school or work at a time
when our confidence is lower than it could be and perhaps we see a group of people laughing, we may
assume that this laughter is directed at us in some way. This may lead us to make all kinds of assumptions
about that group of people and their intention toward us when in fact the laughter from this group of people
was as a result of some entirely unrelated matter such as the sharing of an innocent joke, nothing to do with
us at all. This then, is a distortion.
The NLP practitioner looks, listens and feels out for his or her own deletions, generalisations and distortions
and that of others to make sure they are updated and serving the individual well. In NLP there are a wide
range of techniques which we can use to positively change deletions, generalisations and distortions when
they stop serving us usefully.
Therefore we:
 Select only some of the information available in the deep structure and delete the rest
 Generalise leaving out exceptions and qualifiers that are irrelevant
 Simplify what we want to say, which results in some distortion of the meaning
Example of the perceptual filters in action
You see an advert in a newspaper that says “ This is the finest restaurant in town, our food is delicious”
Your brain will take on that information and go through this process in less than one second
Memories
“Hmm, I have heard that before and then the restaurant turned out to be just average”
Attitude
“New experiences are good, I like to try new things”
Values
“Enjoying good well cooked and balanced food is important to a healthy lifestyle and a happy life. It is also
important to experience new things, it makes life more exciting and it is good to have some excitement in my
life”
Distortion
“If I eat too much good food, I will get fat and if I get fat, I won’t be able to make friends and if I can’t make
friends, I will leave a miserable life and die unhappy and alone”
Deletion
“Finest restaurant in town, sure it is, but what about the price, I am sure it will be hugely expensive, why
doesn’t the add say anything about price”
Generalisation
“ You know, I just don’t trust any of these adverts, they are all alike, they lie just to get you to buy something
The outcome of this thought process is
“ Let’s go and have some fun. If it turns out to be bad food and the advertisement lied, well at least we will
have had some fun. First let’s call and ask about the price and see if they have any low calorie healthy
options”
Language Deep and Surface Structure
This is a model based on the work of Noam Chomsky from his book “The Logical Structure of Linguistic
Theory” and his work on Transformational Grammar, The use of language, words and structures is
something that underpins everything we do in NLP, everything we say has an impact on ourselves and on
those we are communicating with. When we hear words, use them or read them we have an internal
representation of what they mean to us. The word creates an experience inside us that we then produce our
own unique map of what it means for us.
For example
“ if you were asked to recall a day you have had in the countryside” what do you recall about this
day, do you remember it being fun, hot, cold, exciting, relaxing, the way we remember it is based on how we
internalise and make sense of the sentence.
What you are doing is taking the experience, turning it into your map of that territory, which is your own map”
You may also find that if you compare your experience with a person you were with you would recall certain
things and possibly leave some information out, we would have deleted, distorted or generalised to suit our
own map.
When we speak here or read words, we understand these on two levels these are
 Surface structure
o This relates to the words and sentences that we use, either spoken or written to impart our
deep structure
 Deep structure
o This relates to the complete internal representation of what we communicate. This lies in our
unconscious mind and in out neurology. When speaking we mostly have a more complete
internal representation of what we want to say than we can put into words.
A person speaking has an idea of what they want to say which is the “deep structure” however the words
they actually use the “surface structure” cannot fully state and represent everything the speaker wants to say
as it would take too long.
If we use a sentence such as:
 “The cow is in the field”
To interpret this you will need to go all of your past experiences of seeing a cow, seeing a field and seeing
what they are doing to construct an internal representation of that sentence, and as this will be different from
the next person, you will create your own map of what this means to you.
A lot of this work was carried out by John Grinder and also use work from Noam Chomsky and his worked on
Transformational Grammar.
The Meta model
The Meta Model as developed through a modelling project that Bandler & Grinder carried out on Virginia
Satir and Fritz Perls. During their modelling research they observed that both used very powerful questions
to gather specific information from the clients they were working with. They also used these questions to help
the client to take the information and reorganise it inside themselves which helped them to view it in a
different way.
The Meta Model works by using language to clarify what another person has said and by reflecting this back
to them, allow them to reconnect with the words they have used with the experience they are referring to.
This then makes their internal map richer and fuller so they get a more complete representation of the
experience.
As mentioned previously in the communication model, we distort, generalise and delete information that we
take on, this is the same in the language we use as well.
The purpose of the Meta Model is to restore the parts of the communication that have been deleted, distorted
or generalised. This is carried out by asking some very specific questions that reverse the communication of
going from deep structure to surface structure
The Meta Model uses deletion, distortion and generalisation to move from the deep structure within the
person’s neurology to the surface structure which is found in the language that we use.
The Meta Model is made up of a set of 13 language patterns each of which has a set of questions which are
used to look at the ill formed part of the communication which shows up in the surface structure of the
language. The Meta Model is used to help to uncover the information that is missing in the client’s
communication and their internal model of the world.
The 3 areas of the model are:
Deletion
The Meta Model will help you to uncover what is missing from the other person’s statement by asking
relevant questions.
Generalisations
The Meta Model will help you to uncover generalisations that the other person is making and to refine this to
more specific topics which will help them to move forward in their life
Distortions
The Meta Model will help you to find out how the other person is experiencing the world around them and
you should then challenge this if it not being effective for them.
Each of these are then broken down into further categories, as described on the following pages.
Meta Model – Deletions
The following are the language patterns found in the deletion parts of the Meta Model, with some questions
that can be asked to recover what is missing.
 Simple deletion
o This is where the speaker leaves out the information relating to the object, person, relationship
or thing they are conversing about.
 For example:
 “ I am upset”
 “It makes me angry”
 “I am uncomfortable”
 “ I feel scared”
o You would then ask questions to find out what is missing.

 For example:
 “Upset about what”
 “What has made you angry”
 “Uncomfortable about what”
 “Scared of what”
 Comparative deletion
o This is where a comparison between two or more things has been made, however what is
missing is the, person, thing, item or standard one thing is being compared against. If you
hear words such as better, faster, more, less, richer, poorer etc are being used to compare
against
 For example:
 “ He is better than me”
 “ She writes better letters than I do”
o You would ask questions to uncover what is being compared against what
 For example:
 “How is he better than you?”
 “”What standard makes him better than you”
 “how does she write better letters than you?”
 “Better letters according to what standard?”
Meta Model Deletions cont
 Lack of (unspecified) referential index

o This is where the person, thing or object being talked about is not named in the conversation.
There will normally be a verb in the sentence which relates to any of these however there is
no evidence of who or what the verb is relating to.
 For example:
 “He did not attend the appointment”
 “She really upset me”
 “It will never work”
 “They still ignore me”
o You would ask questions to uncover what or who is being referred to

 For example:
 “Who did not attend the appointment?”
 “”Who upset you”
 “What will never work?”
 “Who still ignores you?”
 Unspecified verbs
o This is where the person uses verbs to describe a certain action that has been carried out,
however they leave out who has carried out the action or what the action refers to. When this
information is left out the listener is unable to make a clear internal representation of what the
action is. As information is left out this is where misunderstandings can take place as the
person listening has to construct their own representation of the situation.
 For example
o “If only you could see it”
o “I was thinking”
o “He hurt me”
o “She got injured”
o You would ask questions to connect the person more fully to the experience they are referring
to, to uncover what or who is being referred to
 For example:
 “What do I need to see?”
 “”Thinking about what”
 “Who hurt you?
 “How did he hurt you?”
 “How did she get injured?”
The Meta Model – Distortions
 Nominalisations
o This is a language structure that turns a noun into a process, it is like they take a process and
freeze it in time. This can be a word that refers to an action, process, idea, concept,
understanding, values, beliefs and principles. The way to test if a nominalisation is being used
is to ask “Can I put it in a wheelbarrow, if you can you have a noun, if not you have a
nominalisation!” Nominalisations delete big chunks of information from the conversation which
will need to be recovered to make sense of the conversation.
o For example
 “We have a poor relationship”
 “Communication is an issue in our company
 “His behaviour is poor”
 “She makes poor decisions”
o You would ask questions to reverse the process and turn the thing back into a process
 For example:
 “How are you relating?”
 “”What is the issue with how you are communicating?”
 “How is he behaving?
 “What is poor about what she decides?”
 Mind Reading
o This is where we think we know what is going on in another person’s mind. When you use
mind reading it can create, pain, anger, resentment, misunderstanding etc in the person who
is being spoken to. It says more about the person using the mind read than it does about the
person being spoken to as when we do this we project our own perceptions, beliefs, values
etc and have nothing to do with the person being spoken to.
 For example
o “I know she does not like me”
o “I can tell you are upset”
o “I am sure that you know”
o “He does not want to do it”
 You would ask questions to challenge mind reading which takes the surface structure
language and then takes the person to deep structure to get more information about their
internal representations of the event.
o For example
 “How do you specifically know she does not like you?”
 “How do you know I am upset?”
 “What makes you think that I know?”
 “How do you know he does not want to?”
The Meta Model – distortions cont
 Cause – Effect
o This where the language structure indicates that one thing is the cause of another and that the
other person has no choices in the way that they feel or relate to something else.
 For example
o “You make me mad”
o “She makes me angry”
o “I am stressed because of her”
o “Children annoy me”
 You would ask questions to challenge mind reading which takes the surface structure
language and then takes the person to deep structure to get more information about their
internal representations of the event.
o For example
 “How do I specifically make you mad?”
 “Do you not choose how you respond to her??”
 “By what process does she make you stressed?”
 “Do you let them annoy you, can you change how you respond?”
 Complex Equivalence
o This where the language structure takes part of an experience and use that to form all of its
meaning. So, we take the external behaviour that is a trigger we become aware of this and
use that to create our internal state to the whole experience.
o For example
 “You don’t tell me you love me enough, you don’t love me anymore”
 “As you attend this workshop you will learn lots of new things”
 “Jo’s face is red that means he must be angry”
 “When she turned away I could tell she was upset”
 You would ask questions to challenge complex equivalence to see how one thing could relate to the
other or cause the other outcome, also it helps to recover any deleted or distorted information as well
o For example
 “How does me not saying I love you mean I do not love you anymore?”
 “Has your face ever turned red without you being angry, could it mean something
else?”
 “How does her turning away show she is upset?”
The Meta Model – distortions cont
 Presuppositions
o In this language structure there is reference to concepts and linguistic assumptions that will have
to exist so that the statement can make some sense. When we hear presuppositions they inform
us about the person’s beliefs, values about themselves, others and the world around them.
Presuppositions can be either a positive or a negative statement that can hold us back.
o For example
 “You can go into a trance easily”
 “You should do more”
 “ You can make this better”
 “If you really knew me you would understand how I feel”
 You would ask questions to challenge the presupposition and the assumptions in the statement
o For example
 “How do you know I can go into trance easily?”
 “How specifically do you feel that I should do more?”
 “How can I make this better?”
 “How do you want me to specifically find out about your pain?”
The Meta Model – Generalisations
 Universal quantifiers
o This is a language structure that uses a set of words that forms a universal generalisation about
something. In this structure we take one example and transfer so that is refers to a whole group or
category, this could be where one event is then turned into the perception of a whole group of
events.
o For example
 “Everyone knows how to make pasta”
 “All mechanics are expensive”
 “ Everything will fit into the cupboard”
 “All the men I meet hurt me”
 You would ask questions to challenge the universal quantifier is where you simply repeat the word back
in the form of a statement
o For example
 “What everyone?”
 “All?”
 “What everything?”
 “All men?”
 Modal operators of necessity

o This is a language structure that shows that we operate from a world of what is not possible and
what will not happen. These words will define the boundaries of our internal model and how we
choose to operate.
o For example
 “I should go back to work”
 “I must not be late home”
 “ I have to do all of the work”
 “You shouldn’t go round the back of there”
 You would ask questions or make a statement that feedbacks the modal operator to the speaker so that it
will motivate them
o For example
 “I agree you should go back to work as you need to be on time”
 “What would happen if you were late home?”
 “Who says you have to do all of the work?”
 “I agree you should not go round the back it looks dark and scary”
 Modal operators of possibility

o This is a language structure that shows that we operate from a world of what is possible and what
opportunities there are. These words will define the boundaries of our internal model and how we
choose to operate.
o For example
 “I could go back to work”
 “I can change after this session”
 “ You may learn a lot today”
 “You could feel more at peace”
 You would ask questions or make a statement that feedbacks the modal operator to the speaker so that it
will motivate them
o For example
 “I agree you should go back to work as you need to be on time”
 “You can change after this session, when you choose too?”
 “You will learn a lot today when you focus on the content?”
 “I can feel more at peace if I think about it more”
 Lost performative
o In this language structure it is where a value judgement is made although we have not stated
who or what this relates to. In a Lost Performative statement it directs the person in the
direction which the person speaking wants them to go and leaves of the name of the person
speaking. The statement leaves out who said the statement or where the judgement came
from.
o For example
 “That is bad”
 “No-one should past judgement on others”
 “ Boys should not cry”
 “It is good to wander”
 You would ask questions to recover the information that has been deleted or distorted.
o For example
 “Says who”
 “According to whom?”
 “Who says boys should not cry?”
 “Who says it is good to wander?”
The Meta Model – Quick Reference
Pattern Response Prediction
Distortions
Nominalisations – Process words Turn noun back into verb Recovers the process, actions,
locked in time: “We lack “Who’s not communicating” movements etc
communication” “How would you like to communicate”
Mind – Reading – Claiming to know Question the source of the data Recovers the source or means
someone’s internal state “You have a “How do you know....?” Discover the process
problem with authority” “What lets you know...?”
Cause – Effect – “The cause is Ask about the process Recover the mechanism that explains
assumed without adequate “How does this process work?” the cause
description “You make me angry” “How does what I am doing cause you
to choose to feel angry”
Complex Equivalence – Two Ask about the equation (External Recovers the EB and IS
experiences interpreted as Behaviour (EB) = Internal State (IS) Recovers the complex equivalence
synonymous “Her frown means she is “How do you equate her frown with Counter Example
rejecting me” feeling rejected?”
“Has anyone ever frowned at you that
did not reject you?”
Presuppositions – “If you knew the Ask about the assumptions Recovers assumed ideas
importance of school you would study “What leads you to think that I do not
harder” know the importance of school?”
“I don’t study efficiently?”
Generalisations
Universal quantifiers – Universal Find counter example Recovers exceptions, causes, details
generalisations such as all, every, “All?” Counter Examples
never, no-one “No-one?”
Modal operators of necessity / desire Expand the boundaries Recovers mode of operation
- should, shouldn’t, must , must not, “What would happen if you did?” Recovers causes
have to, need to “What would happen if you didn’t?”
“I have to take care of her
Modal operator of possibility / “What prevents you?” Recovers mode of operation

impossibility - as in can/ can’t, will , “What would happen if you did?” Recovers causes
won’t, may, may not, possible,
impossible
Lost Performative – value judgement Seek source of statement Gathers evidence

originator not stated – “It is bad to “Who says it is bad to judge?” Recovers source
judge “How do you know?”
“Says who?”
The Meta Model – Quick Reference
Pattern Response Prediction

Deletions
Simple deletion – “ I am “About what or whom?” Recovers deletion

uncomfortable”
Comparative deletion – As in good, “Better than whom / what?” Recovers Comparative Deletions
better, best, worst, more, less, most, “Better at what?”
least, “She is a better person” “Compare to whom or what?”
Lack of Referential Index – “Who doesn’t listen to you?” Recovers the noun or Referential
Unspecified Nouns and verbs – fails Index
to specify a person or thing “They
don’t listen to me”
Unspecified verbs – Those verbs “How specifically do I not care about Specifies the verb
where the statement leaves out the you”
person doing the acting or the desired
action
How to use the Meta Model
The Meta Model is used to help you to follow and start to understand what a person is actually saying to you
through you recognising the thought patterns that show up in their language. When you follow these patterns
you can then start to think about the questions you would need to ask to get to the bottom of any issue they
are discussing with you.
The Meta Model use a set of linguistic violations each that have a set of specific linguistic challenges you can
use of them to get to the heart of what the other person is saying. However it is best to take care when
asking these questions so that you are not showing you are coming across in a confrontational or aggressive
way.
There are 2 main reasons for using the Meta Model these are:
1. To uncover any information that the other person has not said or they have forgotten about
2. To help the other person shake up their current model of the world around them
When using the Meta Model you will be able to:
 Confirm your understanding of what the other person is actually saying
 Ensure you are clear about how you understand what is being said and you are following the
communication effectively
 Help the other person to see and become aware of their internal maps, their thought processes and
the unconscious beliefs that they hold
 Help the other person to connect their thoughts back to the sensory experience they had and see if
they are able to identify any gaps they have in their thinking.
Section 9 – Introduction to Language Presuppositions
 Using the “If” word
 Using the “But” word
 Using the “Try” word
 How to use “Yes sets” and “Cover all bases”
The Presuppositions of Language
As the title suggests these are the assumptions that we can infer behind the words we are using, however
these are not always apparent when the other person hears them. These language presuppositions are
linguistic assumptions which we have to assume to be true in order for us to understand what is being said.
Have you ever said something and the other person you have been speaking too takes what you have said
the wrong way, this is because they have picked up on a few key words you have said which has given your
conversation a whole new meaning.
The main words we need to look out for are “if” “but” and “try”
If
When you use the word “If” in a sentence the other person will assume that they have a choice to make, for
example notice the difference between “If you decide to book on our next training event” and “When you
decide to book on to our next training event”. All we have done is to remove the choice by changing “If” to
“When”
But
When you use the word “But” this will negate everything that you have said before it when you do this you
will build up a sense of resistance in the person who is listening to you. For example: “I think you are very
smart, but you need to work harder”, instead you could say “ I think you are very smart and you need to work
harder, this links being smart and working harder together as a way forward.
Try
When you use the word “Try” this implies that you will fail. For example: “Try to have the report on my desk
by Friday” the probable result will be that you did not get it as the person only tried to do it and did not quite
finish it. You could say instead “ I want to have that report on my desk by Friday”
Yes sets
These are language patterns that are used to assist people into agreeing with a statement that you are going
to make. This process works by making three statements where the answer will undoubtedly by a “yes”, this
will mean that when you make the fourth statement the listener is so caught up in the process of saying yes
and the pattern this has created they will automatically say “Yes” to the next statement.
For example:
 “It is just after lunch”
 “You are sitting in this training room”
 “You are learning about NLP”
 “Learning how to set anchors will come easy to you”
Cover all bases
This is a technique that is used when addressing groups and when used correctly it will help to build rapport
with the whole group. The idea is that in the statement you make should be wide enough to encompass most
of the people in the group and the experiences they have had, for example:
“As you go home tonight you may take the manual out and read it again to absorb the information, you may
even place the manual on the table when you get in and not look at it again until the morning, you may even
show it and discuss it with your partner or you may just leave it hear for tomorrow or in the back of your car.
Whichever way you use it, the most important thing is to write your name on the cover so that you know it is
yours.”
Section 10 – Submodalities
 Exploring submodalities
 Submodality distinctions
 Submodality contrast analysis
 The Swish pattern
Exploring Submodalities
Submodalities are the qualities of our thoughts. We have established that we generally think using one of our
three representational systems; visual, auditory or kinaesthetic. Visual thinker will create a mental image
whenever you think of something. This image will have certain characteristics and qualities, such as colour,
brightness, location in space and whether the image is a still or moving. Auditory thinker’s submodalities
include volume and pitch, and for the kinaesthetic thinker, weight or density.
Submodalities change the way we think about something in remarkable ways. By understanding that we can
change our submodalities around a situation, we then know that we can programme ourselves to be
successful. We can define submodalities as the building blocks we use to put together the experiences we
have.
If you are a visual thinker, whenever you think of a scenario you create an internal mental image. The
submodalities of this image will change depending on what it is you are thinking about. If you think of
something that scares you, the submodalities are very different than those when you think of something that
make you happy.
By using the submodalities of a positive or successful scenario on a future event you are programming your
mind to achieve success in that future event. To do this you first need to elicit the submodalities that you use
for success.
Quick exercise
 Think of a time when you were successful. Imagine it as clearly as you are able. Then ask yourself
the following questions;
 Am I associated in the memory or disassociated?
 Is the mental image still or moving?
 Are there any colours present? If so what kinds of colours are they? Are they bright and clear or dull?
 How bright is the overall image?
 Where, in my mind’s eye, is the image situated?
 How big is the image?
 Are there any sounds present, and if so what are they?
 What qualities do any sounds have? (Volume, tone, pitch etc.)
 What do I feel in this situation?
Once you have elicited all of the submodalities that you have used whilst remembering a positive situation,
you have your recipe for future success! Now take your future scenario and mentally visualise it. Notice any
differences in the submodalities of your positive memory and your future image. If there are any
discrepancies, alter and tweak your future image until the qualities exactly match those of your positive
memory. By doing this simple exercise you are programming your mind to succeed!
Submodalities – Some Common Distinctions
The most common submodalities are under Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic senses. These can then be
broken down into different distinctions as shown below:
Visual Auditory Kinaesthetic

Associated Stereo Duration
Disassociated Mono Location
Framed Muffled Intensity
Moving Pitch Hard
Still Volume Size
Brightness Tempo Shape
Contrast Words Weight
Black and white Sounds Temperature
Colour Distance Soft
In focus Timbre Rough
Blurred Speed Smooth
Near Continuous
Far Intermittent
Location
Mapping across submodalities
We can then use these distinctions to see what submodalities people use in different situations to enhance
their experience of it.
We can play with the submodalities and change a person’s experience. By changing the submodalities
around you can change how they experience a situation.
For instance if we found out the submodalities a person uses for a really positive experience and then for a
really negative experience we could compare the two lists and by switching the submodalities around we can
change how they experience the issue and they may find they are more positive about it.
You will find that by changing some submodalities they will have a big effect on the person and these are
known as driver or critical submodalities.
Key points to consider on submodality change
 Identify the drivers these will be the submodalities you change which will have the biggest change on
the experience and also will change the other submodalities automatically
 Location can be a big driver as this is one of the few submodalities that can be seen in the visual,
auditory and kinaesthetic lists
 Identify which submodalilities work as either analogue ( a sliding scale of change) or digital ( either or
scale of change.
The Swish Pattern Technique
The Swish technique has been developed by Richard Bandler, the purpose of these techniques is to help
people to change the situation they find themselves in and get a different outcome from the one they would
normally get.
The Swish technique uses various senses to help to bring about shifts in a person’s perception. For example
we can impose a positive self image over that of a negative self image to change how we feel about
ourselves and to respond in a positive way.
The Swish pattern works with our submodalities to change the way we feel in a certain situation. This is a
generative technique and needs to be repeated on a number of occasions before it will be fully integrated
into the behaviour. It is designed to anchor a desired state to a trigger situation that currently produces the
undesired situation.
The process for using the Swish pattern and helping people to make changes from an undesirable behaviour
to a desirable one is as follows:
1. Choose a current behaviour that you want to change in a positive way.
2. Choose a behaviour that you would want to have instead.
3. Create a square framed picture of you having that new behaviour. In this picture you will be
disassociated. When you look at this picture it should give you really good feelings about how it will
feel when you have that new behaviour.
4. Create another square framed picture of you seeing what it currently is that triggers that behaviour.
This picture needs to be bright, big and colourful. You will need to see this through your own eyes
and be associated with the behaviour and experience the feelings you now have that trigger that
behaviour. Once you have this picture, let it slowly fade away and do a break state.
5. Next take this picture of your current behaviour, seeing what you saw when it was triggered make it
again big and bright and colourful. In the lower left hand corner of this image put a small dark image
of you having this new replacement behaviour.
6. Now take the big bright picture and make it dark and drain out all the colour and at the same time
make the small image in the corner bigger and brighter until it completely covers the whole of the
other image.
7. Now open your eyes and break state and take a look around the room to orient yourself to where you
are. It is important that you do the break state here as it stops a loop occurring from present state to
desired state back to present state.
8. Repeat steps 6 five times as fast as you can, opening your eyes between each change
9. Now go back to the original trigger for the behaviour and see how your feelings have changed around
the trigger.
An alternative to this is to use images in the distance and near and then quickly swapping their locations by
swishing them.
Section 11 – Anchoring and state management
 What is state management
 The technique of anchoring
What is State Management?
We all have moments in our lives when we wished that we could control how we feel inside, so that we could
feel better in a certain situation
Imagine the scene it is the annual European Budget Meeting where all of the heads of the Financial Offices
in each country get together to give presentation on the budgets they are proposing for the following year. In
attendance are fifteen of the most influential financial managers in the organisation, the Company Worldwide
President and you. Your boss the UK Financial Manager has had to take time off sick due to stress and you
have been asked at the last minute to stand in and give his presentation on his behalf.
You hate giving presentations, the last one you gave was to some middle managers in the UK and that
experience was dreadful. The projector did not work, your slides weren’t working, you were asked questions
that you could not answer, you felt it was horrendous. Now you have to give a presentation in front of all of
these people and you are next!
You start to shift in your seat, your hands are sweating and you can’t stop your knees from shaking, your
collar feels tight and you are finding it hard to breath, you keep looking at your notes and they keep going in
and out of focus.
You hear your name called, you stand up and very shakily walk to the lectern, you shuffle your papers face
the audience and…………
The Technique of Anchoring
An anchor is classed as any stimulus that, when fired, triggers a state of mind or behaviour. When an anchor
is fired it will allow you to access all of the feelings and emotions that are linked with the internal state you
want to have.
Anchors can occur naturally such as an image, sound, smell, touch or taste. Anchors trigger an experience
so that you feel all of the emotions and feelings that are linked to that one experience. You can set your own
anchor which you can trigger yourself to allow you to access the state whenever you wanted to.
Common anchors include
Visual Auditory
 Logos Words
 Facial Expressions Names
 Pictures Music
 Places Voices
 Signs Commercial Jingles
 Gestures Accents
 Famous people Voice Tones
 Symbols
Taste Kinaesthetic
 Cough medicine  Textiles

 Garlic  Clothing
 Types of food  Being touched
 Crisps  Fabric
 Sweets  Silk
 Vinegar  Warmth
 Peppermint  Cold
 Spices  Freshness
 Exercise
 Favourite chair
Deliberate anchoring
This is where you choose a place on your body where you can set a kinaesthetic anchor. This will mean that
every time you touch the anchor the state you want to access will kick in. You can also set spatial anchors
and auditory anchors.
How to set an anchor
1. Firstly you need to think of the inner state that you would like to access whenever you need to.
2. Next think of a situation where you fully felt the state you want to have. The more intense this
experience is the stronger the response will be when you have set your anchor. This also needs to
take place in one specific example and not across a number of different ones.
3. When you have the state you want, you need to fully associate yourself with the experience, see what
you saw, feel what you felt, hear what you heard. You need to feel as if you are in the experience
now.
4. Next make this situation brighter, louder, increase the feelings as much as you can until you are really
feeling the state you want to access whenever you want to.
5. The next step is to create the anchor, this should be set on a part of your body that is not touched on
a regular basis so a knuckle, elbow or place on the shoulder is ideal.
6. When setting the anchor timing is crucial, it needs to be set when you have reached the pinnacle of
the feelings around the experience. If you set the anchor on the way up to the peak you are not fully
in the state you want and if you set it on the way down you will be coming down from the state and
will not feel the intensity of the feelings you want.
7. If you are helping someone else to set an anchor then, one of the best ways to be sure you have set
it at the right point is through Sensory Acuity and calibration. If you ask the person to access the
state whilst you calibrate it, when it comes to setting the anchor you will be able to feel when they
have reached the peak and so your timing will be correct.
8. The more unique the stimulus is, the more accurate it will be when re-accessing the desired state.
This will ensure it will only bring in the feelings you want and not others that are anchored to other
parts of the body.
9. The more accurately the stimulus is recreated the quicker and more accurately it will be accessed.
10. When the anchor has been set, you need to break state and then test it. It should fire off the same
feelings as those being used to set the anchor. If it doesn’t then it was probably set at the wrong time
and will need to be set again.
The important points to consider when creating an anchor are:
Intensity - the experience must have intense and strong feelings and emotions attached to it so it
feels right
Timing - it needs to be set at the right time at the peak of the experience
Uniqueness - the trigger should be unique and not somewhere that is touched regularly
Repeatable - It can be easily accessed over and over again
Number of times the more you use it the stronger it gets.
When to set the anchor
Intensity
of state Apply
anchor
here -
as
state
change
s
Time
Your notes on anchoring
“Any time a person is in an associated, intense state, if at the peak of that experience, a specific
stimulus is applied, then the two will be linked neurologically” Tad James
This is a good definition of what an anchor is.
Section 12 – Perceptual positions
 What are perceptual positions
 How to use perceptual positions to gain new insights
Perceptual Positions
The purpose of using Perceptual Positioning is to be able to view a situation from 3 different perspectives,
this will then give you an insight into what other people apart from yourself are seeing and experiencing from
the situation. This is a really useful exercise to carry out especially if you are experiencing some form or
conflict or disagreement in a situation. When you see a situation from a number of different viewpoints, you
gain extra information that will help you to make more informed choices.
The 3 positions are called 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions.
In the 1st position you are viewing the situation from your own perspective where you will be in touch with
your own feelings and standing up for what you want
In the 2nd position you are viewing the situation from the other person involved in the situation, putting
yourself in their shoes to gain an understanding of what they are thinking, feeling and their motivations.
In the 3rd position you are viewing the situation from a person who is looking at the situation as an observer in
this position you will be detached from any emotions that are involved in the situation. You will also be able to
look at the interaction between the people involved in the situation. .
The idea of using the 3 different perspectives is that it will allow you to gain an understanding about what the
other person involved in the situation is experiencing during what is happening and to get an insight into how
your behaviour may be affecting them. It may also help you to see what you personally could be doing to
either create the situation or make it worse.
The purpose of having the person is that they will look at the situation in an objective way and therefore see
the situation from both sides of the disagreement or conflict. They could be called the head of reason as they
will help you to get a clearer picture of what is really happening in the situation you are looking at.
The process of how to carry out this exercise is on the next page.
Perceptual Position Exercise
The Process
1. Think of a situation or relationship at home or at work that you feel that you would want to improve in
some way. It is better to start with a small issue rather than launch straight into a large and
complicated situation, you will be able to work on these larger issues when you become more
experienced in this process.
2. Select the 3 positions you are going to use, these can either be a space on the floor or 3 different
seats, the important thing to remember is to ensure you remember where this position is and they are
not too close to each other. This is so that you can physically move from the position you are
currently in and go to the next position and leave the other position behind.
3. Move to the 1st position, from this position you are to consider the situation or relationship from your
own perspective. Imagine reliving the experience through you own eyes as if you were looking at the
other person involved. It is important for this exercise that you are associated with the experience,
this will help you to fully engage in what is happening. Start to listen to what they are speaking to you
about, listen to their tone of voice and the words they use, look at the body posture and the
expression on their face. When you are hearing the other person speak ensure you do this be
actually hearing their voice speaking and not your own, as it is important that you can experience this
as if the other person was actually in front of you speaking. As you experience this become aware of
how this is making you feel and how you are reacting to the situation, what is your inner voice saying
to you. Think about how being in this position is making you react and what the other person is doing
or saying to cause these reactions.
4. Move away from the 1st position and break state before moving on
5. Now move to the 2nd position, in the position you are experiencing the situation from the other
person’s perspective. Imagine you are them, stand in the same way they do and use the language
and tone of voice they use, you should start to feel as they feel about this situation. To reinforce this
feeling use any gestures, movements, words and tone of voice they use and really become that
person. Now setting aside your own beliefs about the situation, become associated with this person
and this situation and see how it feels to experience it from their point of view. Now talk to the you on
position 1 about what you are experiencing, when you are talking about you on this position, be sure
to use the word “You” and not “I” as you are now talking from somebody else. Get in touch with what
this person thinks, feels and believes about this situation and about you.
6. Move away from position 1 and break state before moving on
7. Now move to position 3, this is a position where you are disassociated from the situation and are
looking in as an observer to what is taking place. So this time you can see both yourself and the other
person in the situation and observe both at the same time. Now replay the event as if you were
watching this on TV, listen closely to what is being said and how it is being said, observe body
posture and facial expressions. Now think about what you as an outsider learn from this experience
as someone who is objective what do you see and feel is happening, how can the situation be
improved. Have a sense of curiosity about the situation really find out as much as you can about it
from this position. Now hold on to this new learning and insight
8. Take these new insights back to the 1st position, with these new learning look at the situation again,
do you see it differently; what is different now, has anything changed? When you feel that you have
put the new learnings into this position move to the 2nd position.
9. Again take the new insights and experiences and see what has now changed in this position.
10. You can then move to the 3rd position and comment on what you are seeing now about the observer
and what has changed, or if you think more work is needed.
11. You can keep repeating this process as many times as you like until you are happy with the result,
you can also move to any position whenever you feel that you may need to
12. You will need to end the exercise on position 1 where you will then be able to absorb all you have
learnt, identify the changes you may need to make and to consider how you will respond in the future.
Fourth position
There is also a fourth position that is sometimes used, at this position you are removed another step
away from the situation. Here you will be observing the other 3 positions all at the same time watching
and listening to the interactions that are taking place, so it will be as if you are watching a 3 way
conversation.
In this position the words used are “We” or “Us” as you are experiencing the situation in the same way as
the other people in the process. At this position you will be able to identify with the other people within the
system at the same time.
We will explore this position more when we look at the “Meta Mirror” later in the workshop.
Section 13 – Introduction to timelines
 What are timelines
 How to elicit a person’s timeline
 Using timeline techniques to create a positive outcome

Elicit a Timeline
One application of submodalities is to find out how people experience time, each person may experience
time in a different way. We need to think about how we deal with time, how we describe time. For most
people when they describe time they will talk about a line that links their past to their future, we may describe
it as long time or short time, distant memories or talk about being in now or think about our future.
To find out a person’s time line you can use the process listed below, remember this is the other person’s
time line so you should not make any judgments or changes to what they say.
Ask your client the following questions; you can make notes on the diagram on the bottom of the page so
that you can recall easily their Time Line
If I were to ask your unconscious mind to search for where your past, present and future is. I think that you
may say that it is either “From the your right to your left” or “From your rear to your front” of “From above you
to below you” all of these will be in some relation to where your body currently is
As I am speaking to your unconscious mind and not your conscious mind, If I were to ask your conscious
mind to think about something that happened in your past can you point in the direction that the past memory
came from. That’s good.
As I am still speaking to your unconscious mind if I ask you to think about something that may happen in the
future can you point in the direction that the future happening came from?”
The
Person

In time and through time
There are two ways in which people relate to their time line, these are classes as people who are either “in
time” or “through time” this would depend on where the person saw or felt their time line to be.
How do you identify if a person is In Time?
If a person is through time their time line will pass through their body, they are in time people, these people
will be associated in NOW with their past behind them and their future in front of them.
 They will not be aware of time passing them by

 They are not greater planners
 They will be fully associated in any memories they have
 They are not very good at keeping to deadlines, may miss appointments
How do you identify if a person is Through Time
If a person is through time their time line will pass outside of their body normally with their past on one side
usually their left and their future on their right side this will usually be in front of the person. You can
recognise a through time person as:
 They are disassociated with now

 Are very good at planning ahead and can see the sequence of events
 Are disassociated in their memories
 Good at keeping to deadlines and appointments
So that you fully understand this draw a diagram of when a person is in time and when they are through time
in the space below:

Testing the Timeline
To help build a person’s confidence in using timelines you can should do this exercise straight after you have
elicited their timeline.
1. Ask the client to close their eyes and float up above the timeline to a height at which they are
completely comfortable. Be aware that some clients will find it easier to stay where they are and let the
timeline sink away below them - so it is beneficial to offer the client this option as well.
For this process to be effective the client will need to be associated with the experience of floating
above the timeline rather than watching themselves floating. Ask them to float even higher - way up
high - and ask them to notice what happens as they do.
2. Invite them to turn towards their past and float a short distance in that direction.
3. Invite them to float a similar short distance in the direction of their future.
4. Bring them back to above now and ask them to practice floating up a little and down a little and notice
what happens as they do. Ask them to notice the difference between this experience and their normal
everyday experience.
5. Invite them to bring back everything they like about that sensation as they come back down to now,
back into the room, and when their unconscious mind is ready to move on to the next stage they can
open their eyes.
6. Say “Welcome back” (presupposes that they’ve been somewhere) and ask them what it was like - in
particular, how did it compare with normal everyday experience. Most people will say they felt “calm” or
“detached” - this is what we are looking for.
On occasions you may find a client who is uncomfortable with floating above the timeline. This would be an
indication that you should use a kinaesthetic timeline technique (such as Robert Dilts' 'Re-Imprinting') rather
than floating above the timeline to help them clear emotional baggage and limiting decisions.
If the client is unable at first to float back in the direction of the past, usually floating up higher will allow them
to get past the obstruction.

Timeline Submodalities
As well as the major distinctions of 'in time' and 'through time', there are other submodality distinctions which
can affect a person’s experience of time.
Submodalities of the timeline itself

 Length of line
 Tilt
 Width
 Colour
 Single or multiple (e.g. some people have multiple branches on their future timeline, representing
multiple possibilities; some people have both 'in time' and 'through time' lines simultaneously)
 Events at different times accessed one at a time, or represented all together
 Density (i.e. are events closely packed, or spread out?)
Submodalities of individual events on the timeline

 Size
 Transparency
 Detail
 Moving/still
 Colour/black and white
 Focus
 Colour
Changing timeline submodalities will change the individual's experience, regardless of the content of
individual memories.
Different timeline configurations
'Through time', but reversed with regard to the person's eye accessing cues.
This could make past memories seem 'flexible' and easy to change, while the future seems more fixed.
Planning will be easier, and therapeutic changes to the past should generalise more easily into the future, if
the timeline is brought into alignment with the eye accessing cues.
The past is ahead of the person

This could be a 'reversed through time' line, where the past is behind the person, or a narrow 'v' shape where
both the past and the future are ahead. Either case could make it difficult to move on from the past or to plan
for the future - every time the person looks ahead, the past will keep coming up.
Both future and past are behind the person

This would tend to make them present-oriented.

Section 14 – Values
 What are values
 How to find out your personal values
 Values hierarchy
 Working with values

Values
If you look up the word “value” in any dictionary you will probably find something written along these lines:
Value: To determine or estimate the worth or value of; appraise.
As value normally relates to something or worth or something we value or desire, this makes the item being
valued something that will motivate you to want to achieve or have it.
In NLP we look at the term “Value” in a different way, a term you may hear used in NLP to describe values is
“Criteria”, this is because this is what we use to take action and make a decision.
When a person’s values are met or matched it can create a sense or harmony or rapport about a person they
are relating to or a situation they find themselves in. If a person’s values are not being matched they can
have a sense of dissatisfaction to incongruence with a situation or person.
Values can be classed as a way in which we filter how we view the world around us and how we react to
different situations. Your values will define what you choose to focus on or ignore in any situation, they will
also pull you towards or away from a situation.
Your values can be described as the “Hot Buttons” that drive our behaviour. So, values can be classed as
the emotions that drive our behaviours.
Any action or decision you make is taken to satisfy one or some of your values, even though you will
probably not be consciously aware of this.
Your values are the criteria you would use to decide if something it good or bad, or right or wrong, whatever
you call a right or wrong decision will be matching one of your own personal values. You will also use your
values to judge other people, how they behave and what they do.
For example if you have a value that is linked to punctuality and being on time for meetings and
appointments, you will see someone who is always late as being unprofessional or uncaring about the
meetings they attend. This judgement may or may not be true, however it is one of the only benchmarks you
have for viewing someone else’s behaviour.
It is important that you understand your own values as this will help you to see why you act in a certain way
in a given situation. It will help you to identify “What is important to you?” “What motivates and drives you?”
and what helps you to get out of bed in the morning even though you sometimes do not want to.
Your values will also affect the goals and outcomes you set for yourself as well. Your outcome will then fulfil
a need to have your values met when you have achieved it. This is the reason why sometimes when you
have set an outcome for yourself and you do not achieve it, it is because it has not met your values fully and
may be incongruent with them.

Think of some of the things that motivate you about either going to work or your family and write them in the
box below:
Until you start to look at values you may not be aware of what yours are, however when you start to question
about what is important in certain situations you start to have a clear picture of what your values are. You will
find that you do things because you want to and do not necessarily know why you do them,.
When you start to work with your own or another person’s values it can create a major shift in their
behaviour, it may be that through working through their values that they find they include a new one that was
not there before at the expense of another value that was currently not working for them. It is when a person
drops a value that the biggest change in their behaviour happens. It may be that the value they were holding
on to caused them stress in decision making, internal conflict or held them back from taking important
actions.
Our values are normally formed through our upbringing and the social environment we have found ourselves
in, most of these may have started when we were children, however they can still drive and affect our actions
and decisions when we are adults. It is when we are not aware of our values that things stay the same, when
your values come into your awareness you are then able to make the necessary decisions to improve
yourself both now and in the future.
The importance of knowing our values
Knowing your values enables you to
1. Have more control over your mind, your emotions and actions.
2. Have greater awareness of what is important to you and therefore make better decisions
3. Understand what motivates you and makes you feel good about yourself or situation
4. You are able to fulfil them in a way that suits that particular value.
Working with your values

The key to understanding and changing your behaviour can be starting to understand the current values you
have and which are working for you or working against you.
The first exercise to do is to actually start to list your values and to do this we carry out an exercise called
“Values Elicitation”
The process to carry out this exercise is as follows:
1. First identify an area of your life that you feel is not working for you as well as it could be at the
moment
2. Then ask yourself “What is important to you about this situation?”
3. Keep asking yourself this question until you have run out of answers, a good number to work with is
around 10
4. Now that you have a list of values it is important to see if they are in the right order for you, this is
called a “Values Hierarchy”. Look at the list, take the top two and ask out of these two which is the
most important to you in this situation.
For example: if your top two values were, money and freedom, you would ask what is important to you about
this situation money or freedom. If the answer is freedom this would rank above money.
5. You continue this process all the way down the list until you have ranked all of your values, so your
next question would be the value in position number 2 and the value in position number 3. If you
position 2 and 3 change, you would then test the new number 2 against the number 1 value.
6. You work thorough all of your values until you have created a new hierarchy of values, when you
have completed this read your values out loud to yourself and see if the new list sounds right for you,
if not check through it again.
7. Now that you have a new values hierarchy go through each value and ask “What does this value get
for you” and write this next to the value, read through the list again and see if it still feels right for you.
8. With this new set of values or a set of values that are now in your awareness, think of an outcome
that you struggled to achieve or an outcome you are currently working on and see if your values are
being met by achieving your goal, if not something may need to change.

Section 15 – Framing
 What are NLP frames
 Types of framing

NLP Frames
When we talk about framing in NLP we are referring to the way we provide a context, focus or guidance for
our thoughts and actions. NLP frames provide a focus for our activities, helping us to ensure we are
congruent, to provide a context in which we can assess our progress, for exploring possibilities and for
seeking a common understanding.
Framing helps us to put a range of experiences into different contexts so that each will have a unique
meaning to what is important at that particular moment in time. By using framing effectively it helps you to
control a situation effectively.
Bandler and Grindler noticed that effective communicators established how communication should take
place, rather than just what it was going to be about. They discovered that the person who sets the frame for
the conversation takes control and can control the outcome.
Just as a picture frame puts borders or boundaries on what you can see in a picture, the frames of reference
that you choose as a result of your beliefs about yourself and others, your perceived role in life, your
perceived limitations in skills/abilities, etc. can limit what you see as possible or can open up all sorts of
possibilities.
You and sometimes other people are continually setting timeframes, boundaries, limits, etc. on what you can
and can’t do - often without any real thought about the consequences or if the limitations are true.
For example:
You may have had a very uncomfortable experience, which when recalled an hour after the event could have
an all consuming feeling for you as if you are reliving the experience over again and as it only happened an
hour ago those feelings are really strong and the images will be easy to recall. However when thought about
in relation to other things that have happened to you over your life time the situation may not feel as powerful
and all encompassing as it does when viewed in isolation.
Frames operate outside of our conscious awareness, in the same way that our filters do, we have automatic
ways and habits that we use to think about and experience things and these are also generally linked to our
beliefs as well.
The way you experience any situation will depend on the frame that you apply to it, some frames are useful
in a situation and others are not so. Also the type of frame you use for a situation will help you to identify the
questions that are asked about how you feel, how you deal with and how you react to it.
“ A frame in NLP is used to refer to how we look at things, the frame used will determine what we
focus our attention on, everything outside of the frame we choose to ignore”

Types of framing
You can choose the reframe you want to use in any situations to either take control or to get the outcome
you want. The most common frames are:
Outcome Frame
An outcome frame provides a focus for what you want to achieve, the ensuing effects and the resources
required to achieve it. You should set an outcome for all of your activities.
If you have not set an outcome for today and you meet a friend who has, then most likely your friend will
enrol you to help him get what he wants. And you may get unhappy about them for taking advantage of
you, when in reality you set the stage for what happened.
Clearly defined outcomes provide you with a context for making decisions and assessing your
behaviours. Without appropriately defined outcomes, you can limit your accomplishments, take on too
much and become overwhelmed or simply not accomplish your dreams.
By using an outcome frame in a meeting, during negotiation or if giving a presentation all of your thoughts
and behaviours will be set and pointing towards achieving your goal.
You need to have a clear goal on what you want to achieve you can then go and achieve it
Evidence Frame
This links in with the outcome frame however here you use sensory evidence to know when you have
achieved your outcome, what will you see, feel, hear etc.. This can be used as a gauge to see how you
are progressing towards achieving your outcome.
As if Frame
This frame is based on acting ‘as if’ a desired state or outcome has been achieved or ‘as if’ someone else
is giving you information:
For an outcome, act as if you have already achieved your outcome. Live your dreams now and allow
reality to catch up!
When negotiating or problem solving, you can explore other possibilities by saying, “Let’s proceed as if I
agree to this demand or take your proposed course of action. What would you do for me, or what would
happen as a result?”
For project planning, you may want to act as if the project has been successfully completed and then ask
what steps were necessary to reach this outcome.
This approach may highlight some important information that is not obvious when planning from the
present.
It will also help you to overcome limiting beliefs you may have about getting an outcome or completing a
task. A great technique to opening up possibilities.

Types of framing
Ecology Frame
A person, who pursues there outcome without regard for the impact on other systems (e.g., body
systems, family, work environment, community), has not taken into account the ecology frame.
For example, going on a diet may result in a good-looking body, however is the diet good for your
immune system?
For an outcome that you have at work, what is the effect on your co-workers and can you mitigate any
negative effects?
The ecology frame is used to consider the wider consequences of your actions or decision you take in a
certain situation.
Backtrack Frame
This frame is used to check agreement and understanding during and at the conclusion of a meeting, to
update a new arrival or to restart a discussion.
Backtracking is accomplished by reviewing the available information using the keywords and tonality of
those who brought the information forward.
We all filter information differently and may come to significantly different conclusions.
Backtracking is a way to ensure everyone has the same understanding of what was discussed and
decided this helps to maintain a course towards the desired outcome for the meeting or situation.
Open Frame
This is used when you want to open up a conversation or for dealing with questions or concerns about
certain issues. Asking if there are any questions is a really good way to use an open frame, however you
need to be prepared for what might come back at you
Discovery frame
This is used to help people to experience a situation or an exercise, by working through an exercise they
can discover how something works and also if they can do it. It helps others to come to an understanding
through allowing them to take part in a process where they can discover the outcome themselves.

Types of framing
Agreement frame
The ‘Agreement’ frame. is used in situations where there is a conflict and people are unable to view each
other’s point of view.
In this frame, both the parties rise above their current levels and take into account all the perceptions,
concerns and frames of reference. In NLP when the two parties rise above the level of the problem, they
can reach quality agreements.
The Agreement Frame is used If you want to express your viewpoint while acknowledging another
person's right to hold a different view, you can use the "agreement frame" which uses "and" in place of
"but".
 "I agree": If you actually agree with the other person's point, but want to add a different
perspective:
o "I agree with you, and have you considered that it could also appear like this..."
 "I respect": if want to show that you find something to respect in what the other person has said,
despite disagreeing with it (e.g. the positive intention behind what they have said):
o "I respect your honesty in saying that, and you may want to be aware of this different
viewpoint...."
 "I appreciate": if you can't find anything to agree with or even respect, you can at least
acknowledge the other person's opinion:
o "I appreciate the depth of your convictions about this, and I know you will respect other
people's right to a different view..."
What not to say:
"I understand..." – this can sound patronising.
Relevancy Frame
This frame is used to bring any discussion or meeting back on topic and avoid distractions and people
digressing away from what their focus should be on at a certain point in time. For example you could ask
“How is this information relevant to this topic?” “What is the connection between what you are discussing
and our topic?”. The purpose is to help people to focus more on what they are saying and to stick to the
topic in hand.

Section 16– Chunking and sequencing
 What is chunking and sequencing
 How chunking works and how to use chunking

Chunking and sequencing
In the world of computers and computing the term “Chunking” means to organise pockets of information that
are related or have something in common into groups. It is down the person to decide what this information
has in common and why and to sort out the groups they want to put them into.
People can either talk in very general terms or very specific terms this can depend on the person or on the
situation they find themselves in. NLP helps people to see how using both ways of processing information
can really help them get clarity around a problem, to define a goal or to help solve a problem. Chunking is a
really useful skill to have when there is a sticking point in a negotiation and no way forward can be seen,
chunking will help to identify where the blockage is and then to move forward to find a solution.
In NLP we use Chunking to uncover information on a certain topic that can either be very detailed or very
general. Chunking also defines how pieces of information relate to each other, a single piece of information is
not large or small, general or specific until it is compared to another piece of information or group in which it
is held.
Chunking consists of either “Chunking Up” or “Chunking Down” or “Chunking Laterally. When you use
chunking up it helps to move the information or topic from specific to more general or abstract information.
When you use “Chunking Down” you look for more specific information and when you “Chunk Laterally” you
are looking for connections.
Chunking up
When using chunking up it helps to move the conversation from the specifics to the more general
information. When chunking up you start with the more specific parts of the information and move up to the
larger and more general information.
You can chunk up from either a small part to a whole part, such as from petal to flower or you can chunk up
from an example to a group that might contain that part such as plane to means of transport. When you
chunk up from a part to a whole you can start to see the whole is made up of all of the parts and how the
different parts relate to each other. Chunking up gives you wider choices and more mental space to start to
see how things connect with each other and with other things.
To chunk up on a piece of information, use one or more of the following questions:
 What is this an example of? – to move from example to class
 What is this a part of? – to move from part to whole
 What is the intention? – to move from behaviour to intention
 For what purpose? – to chunk up from outcome
Chunking down

When using chunking down it moves the information from general to specifics, this is really the reverse of
chunking up as you move from a whole down to a part such as from bicycle to handlebar or from a group to a
single entity such as food down to salad. When you chunk down it helps you to analyse how parts to relate to
the whole and therefore start to understand how the parts work independently and together. If you have a
problem chunking down will help you to get to the root cause of the problem and decide on a possible
solution.
To chunk down on a particular piece of information use one or more of the following questions:
 “What is a part of this whole?” – to move from whole to part
 “What other behaviour would fulfil this intention?” – to move from intention to behaviour
 “ What is an example of this group?” – to move from class to an example within the class
 “What stops you from getting your outcome?” – to identify the part of the outcome that needs work
Chunking laterally
When using chunking laterally you move from one member of a group to another member of the same class
such as moving from plane to boat in terms of transport or to move from one part of a whole to another part
of the same whole such as from handlebar to saddle on terms of parts of a bicycle. Chunking laterally can be
termed as free association as when using this you start to make connections between items that you do not
always straight away make or see a connection.
To help to chunk laterally you could ask
“ What are other examples of this”
Through using either chunking up, down or laterally in a conversation it can help to remove misunderstanding
and to ensure people are focused on the same level. To ensure everybody understands where to focus it is
important that they know where they are in the process and what the process is, so they need to be informed
what happens at chunking up, down or laterally. You will find when you use this approach it is much easier to
overcome disagreements, blocks in negotiation and to identify where you want to go and what is stopping
you.
You can use chunking when negotiating with other people as all you need to do is to keep chunking until you
reach the level of abstract concepts. When you have matched someone’s chunk level you can then take
them to a place they need to go to.
Chunking is also used in the Milton Model which is a topic we will be looking at later in the manual.
Example of Chunking

Section 17– Advanced anchoring
 How to use Stacked anchor
 How to use Chained anchors
 How to use Collapsed anchors
 How to use Sliding anchors
 How to use Spatial anchors
 Using anchors to change personal history

Advanced Anchoring
We have previously looked at how you can use anchoring to use anchoring to change your internal state by
setting a basic kinaesthetic anchor. However for some deeper rooted issues or for more indepth or powerful
negative states there are other types of anchors that can be used. These types of anchors are outlined
below:
Stacked anchors
Stacked anchors are exactly what the title suggests, this is where you can stack one anchor on top of
another to create a really powerful internal state change.
So, stacking anchors is a technique where you put additional resourceful states on top of another already
anchored resourced state. This then makes the original anchor set much more powerful as when you trigger
the anchor you will not only trigger that first anchored state you will trigger all of the other states you have
stacked on top of it.
The state you choose to set for each stacked anchor can be the same as the first one to make this first
anchor much more powerful or you can use different states
Chained anchors
A chained anchor is used when the required resourceful state is very different from the current state. The
reason for using a chained anchor is that purely by setting one anchor for the state required the jump from
the current state to the desired state is so big that one anchor may not be enough to achieve it. For example
a person may be completely lacking motivation and want to move to a fully motivated state and there 2 states
are so far removed that a way to connect them is needed.
A good technique to use for this is to use the knuckles for this procedure or you could use the back of the
hand or an arm. To set a chained anchor effectively you would need to find out what are the steps that the
client would need to go through to move the stuck state to full motivation. When you have identified these
steps you then elicit and anchor them one at a time on the chained selected, if using the knuckle you would
set an anchor on each knuckle independently with the first anchor being the stuck state.
When you have anchored these states independently you now need to chain them to do this you can follow
this procedure:
1. Fire the first anchor when this reaches its peak let go of this anchor and immediately fire the next
anchor in the chain
2. You then continue this process for the remaining anchors
3. Do a break state with the client
4. To test the anchor ask the client to fire the first anchor and they should immediately go to the next
state chained
5. Break state and repeat the process, this time they go to the next anchor set, i.e from 1 through to 3
6. Repeat this process until you have checked all of the anchors are linked effectively
If any of the chaining does not work, it may be that you need to strengthen one of the anchors that have been
set.
Collapsed anchors
A collapsed anchor is used when you are experiencing a negative state that you want to change to a positive
state. The process works by anchoring two different opposing states one positive and one negative which are
fired at the same time. As our nervous system is not able to handle two opposing states at the same time
the strongest state will be the one that takes control. The purpose of the collapsed anchor is to allow the
positive state to take over from the negative state and change what a person is currently experiencing.
The process for collapsing and anchor is as follows:
1. Access the state that is not wanted and anchor this to a spot on the body, perhaps if the client is
sitting down you could use one of their knees
2. Break state
3. Access the desired state and anchor this to another spot on the body, perhaps the other knee you
need to ensure that this is a powerful state as it needs to be strong enough to collapse the negative
state. It may be worth checking how intense the feeling is by using some type of scale such as a 1 –
10 rating if it is low pick another feeling or intensify it.
4. Test both anchors independently to ensure they work effectively, if not increase them by working with
the visuals, sound and feelings
5. Now have the client to fire both anchors at the same time and hold them for as long as is necessary,
this may take several minutes and you may see the client go through some confusion as they do this
6. Ask the client to remove the anchor ensuring that the negative anchor is removed first
7. Test by asking the person to think about a situation in the future when they may feel the negative
state they should instantly go to the positive state
8. Or you could test by asking them to fire the negative anchor and this should move them to the
positive resources
9. If it does not work correctly you may need to either increase the intensity of the positive anchor by
either making the feelings stronger or by setting a stacked anchor on the positive spot.
Sliding anchors
A sliding anchor is used to either make a state stronger or to reduce it through the use of using a kinaesthetic
slider, this method will amplify the feeling or diminish it. A sliding anchor is normally set on a part of the body
that is easy to access and big enough to making a sliding movement up and down it, such as an arm or leg.
The process to follow is:
1. Have the client experience the feeling they want and then anchor this to the lower part of their arm
2. Break state
3. Have the client access the state again by you firing the anchor, encourage the client to intensify the
feeling and as they do you slide your finger up the arm up to a point, at this point lift your finger off
4. To intensify the feeling you work with the clients visual, sound and feeling modalities
5. When you have got to the top you remove your finger and start the process again, still increasing the
intensity this time you take your finger past the top of the last process and this will increase the
feeling more as you will take them higher up the slide and intensify the feeling
6. You can repeat this process as many times as necessary
7. It may also help to also add sound to the movement of your finger, as you move up the slide you
could also use a rising tone at the same time.
Spatial Anchoring – The Circle of Excellence

Spatial anchoring refers to setting an anchor in a specific location, such as a position on a floor, table chair
etc. It is sometimes used by presenters or trainers to anchor a certain feeling to a part of the stage, so tat
whenever they go to that point on the stage it will evoke a certain feeling in the audience.
One of the most use types of spatial anchoring is a technique called “Circle of Excellence” which uses spatial
anchoring to create a state of excellence in a client. The process of this is outlined below:
The thoughts and feelings we hold inside our mind have a big effect on whether we operate from a place of
weakness or a centre of strength. By setting an anchor which we call “The Circle of Excellence” you can
ensure that you operate from a place where your emotions and thoughts are at the right place and level for
what you are about to undertake. This technique helps you to become centre and focused and ready for
anything that you want to achieve. It is a very easy technique to carry out yet has excellent results.
The Technique
Identify 5 states of behaviour that you think you will need in any situation and then think of a time in the past
when you have experienced all of the emotions or states, for example your emotions could include being:
 Totally powerful
 Totally confident
 Totally loved
 Totally happy
 A time when you knew you could not fail
Next write down a specific event when you experienced each of these states
Stand up and imagine on the floor in front of you a circle as big or as small as you need it. This is your circle
of excellence, think about the colour it needs to be to show you it holds the state of being fully in the place
where you want it to be. Now turn the colours up, make them brighter and sharper and richer, next add any
sounds that you want to put in the circle, again turn them up to a level that suits you.
Stand outside the circle and start to access the first state, you need to think about that time where you felt
fully powerful, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard, feeling what you felt, now make them stronger
and bigger and when you are ready step into the circle and feel the feelings soar and feel stronger and
richer. When you are ready set your anchor.
Step outside the circle leaving those feelings inside the circle of excellence
You know repeat the process for the other 4 emotions you want to have
When you have repeated this for all of the states that you want you need to test your anchor, To do this think
about a time in the future when you will need to experience these feelings, when you see yourself in that
situation fire your anchor and see how good that will feel for you.

Change Personal History
This technique is used to help someone to change their outlook and their current feelings about a past
experience which is affecting how they are now. It is not possible to change past experiences however you
can change how you think about them and the meaning it still holds. The technique works by changing how
we code the past event and then recode it so it serves you in a much more positive way. This technique uses
anchoring to pick up certain resources from your past and to take these resources back to a time when they
would be useful for you and when they may have been needed to help you.
It is used to help to break down old limiting beliefs and behaviours that are holding you back now. It will work
best if you can select a problem that keeps coming back that has a trigger that is based in the past.
The process is as follows:
1. Firstly you will need to identify the unwanted or unresourceful behaviour that they currently have, this
should be a recurring issue and then to think of a typical situation when they would experience that
unresourceful state.
2. Ask them to get the experience now and to notice how it feels and where in the body it is located and
to name that feeling, get fully associated with it and to anchor it using a kinaesthetic anchor
3. Still holding the anchor ask the client to use their unconscious mind to search back in their past until
they come to the first significant example of that feeling. They need to continue to do this going
further back in their past to the earliest experience they can find of having that feeling. They also
need to stop at every instance of that feeling as they go back in time from the newest to the earliest
experience of the feeling.
4. When they get to the earliest example ask them to release the anchor and to break state and then
bring them back to the present
5. Ask the client to talk about the earliest feeling and what they experienced and to identify what
resources they would have needed to have been able to deal with the situation and to get the
outcome they would have wanted. You need to make note of the exact words or phrases they use as
they do this
6. At this stage they will be disassociated with the experience, they will also need to ensure that the
resources they want are those that they are fully in control of
7. When they have identified this you can set an anchor on a different part of the body for the resource
they want. If there is more than one resource, you can either set different anchors on different parts of
the body or you can set a stacked anchor. Ensure that this is a powerful anchor and the feelings
associated with it a strong, resourceful and powerful
Change Personal History

8. They have now set a positive and negative anchor
9. Ask the client to return to the earliest experience they have identified previously and to take those
new resources with them. When they have arrived at the negative experience they need to fire off the
negative anchor and the positive anchor at the same time, this creates a collapsed anchor and the
positive resources should overlay the negative feelings
10. As they fire off the anchors you could ask them “ what would that past memory feel like now, that you
have added in the positive resources that you need” “ How has this new resource made the past
different for you”
11. When they have done this they now come back to the present time stopping at each point they feel
they need to add this new resource into an event in their past. This should start to change the
personal history and make each of these previous negative experiences into more positive and
resourceful ones.
12. Bring them back to the present, if they have had trouble changing the previous experiences it may be
because the wrong resources were used. You can repeat the process with the client identifying other
resources that would help them to overcome the past negative situation
13. Break state with the client and ask them to go back to the first event they recalled and ask them to
see what has changed for them and if they are now recalling it differently.
14. Future pace your work as you can also ask them to think about times in the future where they might
have a similar experience where they would have been in an unresourceful state and ask them to see
how it feels now that they have the new resources to use.

Section 18– Strategies
 What are strategies and how they can be used
 How to find out a person’s strategy for doing a task
 Strategy notations
 The NLP TOTE process
 Eliciting and installing a strategy
 The Disney Strategy

Strategies
In NLP the term “Strategies” is used to describe how you do what you to, to get the outcome you get. In NLP
terms strategies are “The representational steps in the structure of a subjective experience” A strategy is any
internal or external sequence of experiences that lead to a specific outcome.
In strategies we mainly focus on a person’s internal representation systems and how they are used to plan
our actions and to make the choices and decisions of things we do every day from buying a pair of shoes to
taking action towards a certain outcome. Strategies refer to how we shape our thinking about how we think
about everything that we do and some strategies are used for more than one thing. For example you may
have a strategy for learn a certain task, this learning strategy will then be used across all of your learning.
Strategies play a big part in developing models of behaviour, it understanding someone’s strategy that helps
you to find out what is going on inside a person as they do certain parts of the activity or process you are
modelling. It is eliciting and understanding a person’s strategy which makes the difference between copying
what someone does to fully understanding how they do it.
There are 3 distinct parts to strategies
1. The outcome – what happens at the end of the strategy

2. The sequence of using the representational system
3. Which submodalities make up the representational systems used.
What we can do with strategies
 Elicit them
o Discover a person’s strategy for carrying out a particular task or achieving a certain outcome
 Utilisation
o When you understand a person’s strategy you can use this when working with them by using
words and actions that fit with their strategy
 Installing
o You can install a new strategy in someone if their current one they use is not working for them
 Modelling
o You can find a person’s strategy for doing a certain task and create a model to be used by
others
The most important part of eliciting a strategy is to ensure you get the sequence of internal feelings and
actions in the correct order, if you do not sequence them correctly you will not get the outcome that you want
to achieve using another person’s strategy.
We are usually not aware of our strategies for doing certain things as they happen without you having to
think about what you do and they also happen very quickly and are outside our conscious awareness.
Each person will have their own strategy for doing certain things and they will be different from other people’s
strategies, this is why some people can be good at making quick decisions and others take longer, it maybe
they have a strategy for buying clothes which may be very different from another person’s.

In NLP there is a technique used that will allow you to extract another person’s strategy for doing a certain
task and then if you want to install it in yourself or in someone else. So, if a person has an effective strategy
for becoming motivated about achieving an outcome and another person struggles getting motivated, you
can ellict the strategy from the motivated person and install it into the unmotivated person so that they can
become more motivated.
A strategy will always work and will always lead to an outcome, it may not be you want however, this may be
because the strategy you are using is not the right one. Therefore all you will need to do to get a better
outcome is to identify a better strategy and use that instead.
We have strategies for activities such as:
Buying Love Motivation Boredom Relaxation
Success Spelling Learning Decisions Procrastination
There are 5 main groups of strategies
 Learning strategy - how we learn new information and skills

 Decision strategy - how we make our decisions
 Motivation strategy - how we motivate ourselves to take action
 Memory strategy - how we remember things
 Reality strategy - how we decide what we think is real and what is not.
A good analogy to use to help to understand how a strategy works is to think about baking a cake.
When making a cake you will go through the following steps
1. Find your recipe

2. Gather up all your ingredients
3. Get all of the resources you will need
4. You place all of the ingredients in a bowl in a certain order
5. As you put each ingredient in you may have to do a specific task
6. You then place the mixture in a tin
7. Place mixture and bake in the oven at the right temperature and cook for the required time
However if you put together the ingredients in the wrong order or you miss out a step, or you put all the
ingredients in the bowl at the same time and without mixing it put it in a very hot oven for a long period of
time you will get a very different outcome than if you followed the recipe correctly.
This same process applies to strategies, by following each step in the right order you will get the outcome
you want.

How do you find out someone’s strategy?
The best way to find out how a person performs a certain task is to ask them. You then observe their
responses using your sensory acuity, observational and language skills, such as watching their eye
movements, listening to the predicates they use, and making note of the order and sequence these are
carried out in.
Eliciting a strategy is a very skilful exercise to complete, it needs you to use a whole set of NLP skills as
mentioned above and also being able to ask quality questions to extract the information you need.
Fortunately there are 6 elements that make up a strategy and these correspond to our 6 representational
system of:
 Visual
 Auditory
 Kinaesthetic
 Taste
 Touch
 Internal dialogue
These 6 elements can then be divided again into the following categories
 External
 Internal
 Tonal
 Digital
 Constructed
 Recalled

Strategy Notation
When eliciting someone’s strategy you need to find a way of being able to take note of what they are saying
in an easy method and so to do these a set of notations have been developed as you need to know which
element they have said and then how they have accessed it. The following table identifies the notation that
can be used to record a person’s strategy.
Representation Code to use
Visual internal Vi
Visual external Ve
Visual internal remembered Vir
Visual internal constructed Vic
Visual digital ( seeing words) Vd
Auditory internal Ai
Auditory external Ae
Auditory internal remembered Air
Auditory internal constructed Aic
Auditory tonal ( sounds you hear) At
Auditory digital ( words you hear Ad
Auditory internal dialogue ( self talk) Aid
Kinaesthetic internal Ki
Kinaesthetic external Ke
Kinaesthetic internal constructed Kic
Kinaesthetic internal remembered Kir
Kinaesthetic positive ( a comfortable feeling K+
Kinaesthetic negative ( an uncomfortable feeling) K-

Other strategy notations
There are also some other strategy notations which look at now the submodalities are working in conjunction
with each other. It is important that this is notated correctly as the way they are experienced could be a big
part of how the strategy works.
Sequential
This is where the submodalities happen one after the other, such as a visual image of something leading to a
happy feeling, if this was the case it would be notated as:
Ve →K+
Simultaneous
This is where the submodalities happen at the same time such as seeing the image and getting the feeling
straight away
Ve
K+
Synaesthesia
This is where a set of submodalities are joined together, such as seeing the external image, feeling happy
and hearing a positive internal sound
{ Ve K+ Ai +}
Comparison
This is where there is a comparison between two submodalities such as comparing an internal feeling to an
external one
K i/ Ke

The NLP TOTE
The TOTE model is a flow chart from stimulus through to response and is in itself a basic strategy pattern.
The TOTE is used to analyse the sequence of activities that takes place in our representation system that
operates outside our conscious awareness which takes us from the present to the desired state. It is used to
break a strategy into its various components.
The model explores how we cycle through our representational sequences as part of our thinking strategies
as we work towards our desired outcome.
The TOTE model gives us a framework to show how we move from stimulus through internal processing, to
checking if we are getting what we want to achieving the outcomes we want, this model is shown below:
The TOTE begins by focusing on an outcome that is wanted and that is important to you at this point in time.
The TOTE is then used to identify what needs to happen to help you to achieve your outcome, what changes
you need to make.
So you are comparing what your present state is and then comparing that to the desired outcome you want
and then what needs to change to help you to get what it is you want.
The TOTE Model is found in “Plans and Structure of Behaviour” in 1960 by George Miller, Eugene Galanter
and Karl H Pribram

The TOTE process
1. The first part of the process is the 1st Test where you are comparing the current state and the future
state. If a difference is shown between the two then a comparison is needed.
2. If a difference is found the next part of the process is Operate, in this part you are looking at what
might need to change in order for you to achieve your outcome and to reduce the difference between
the two. The operation part of the process should generate, options, alternatives and a chance to
gather more data about the present state.
3. To find out more about how a person operates some key questions can be asked:
a. “What actions have you taken to achieve your outcome?”

b. “what specific steps and stages do you go through?”
c. “If you do not succeed first time what other options do you have?”
d. “What do you do if you experience problems or difficulties?”
e. “What do you do first?”
f. “What do you do when you feel you have not reached your desired outcome?”
g. “What happens as you begin the process?”
4. When you have made the necessary changes to reduce the difference you go to the 2nd Test to see if
you have now got what is needed to achieve your desired outcome. At this stage you could ask the
following questions:
a. “How do you know that you have met your desired outcome?”
b. “What have you compared to come to your new conclusion?”
5. If the Test shows that something needs to change you go back to Operate and see what other
changes are needed to achieve the desired outcome
6. If the Test shows that you have made the changes and there is now no difference between what you
wanted and achieving it you can now move to Exit as you have achieved the outcome you wanted
through making the necessary changes.

Eliciting a strategy
The following outlines the process to follow when you want to discover the strategy that a person uses to
achieve a certain outcome:
1. Ensure you have got a good level of rapport with the person you want to discover the strategy from
2. Have the person fully associated with the strategy, if it is something they can work through now set a
scene for them to do that, for example if you wanted to discover their decision making strategy ask
them to make a decision about something small as you work with them. Or you may have to
associate them into a past event where they have used the strategy, however when you talk to them
always use present tense language. This is so you can filter out their strategy for remembering the
event and you then only get the information relating to the strategy you want
3. As they go through their strategy use all of your sensory acuity skills to observe their behavioural
changes, such as eye movements, breathing, gestures, the predicates they use.
4. You will want to distinguish between steps that are sequential and those that are simultaneous as
there will be a different outcome if you get these steps wrong. To define them a sequential step is
identified by the word “then” and simultaneous by the word “and”
5. Ensure you focus purely on the strategy being used and not on the content of what is being said as
the process is the most important part of the strategy and the bit you need to focus on
6. You can use the TOTE questions to uncover the details within the strategy, you will want to find out
a. First you will want to identify the outcome they are going to be working towards
i. What will you achieve through doing this?”
b. The trigger point (stimulus) what starts the process

i. “What is the first stage of the process?”
c. Keep asking questions to get to the next step in the process

i. What do you do after this?”
d. The operations that take place

i. What are you aware of as you go through each step?”
e. The tests that take place

i. “What has to be in place before you move to the next step?”
f. How do they know when to exit

i. How do you know when you have got the result you want and are ready to fininsh?”
g. The critical submodalities involved in the process

i. Check the submodalities all the way through and what are the strongest at exit

7. The exit part of the strategy is normally identified by the persons submodalities being at a high level
which helps them to experience the outcome they want in the way that is right for them
a. It could be a big bright vivid picture for them

b. An intense internal feeling that lets them feel it is right for them
c. They could hear an internal voice saying “Yes I have done it”
8. It may help the person if you check that they are using the right strategy for the particular outcome
they are working towards, you could keep going back through the steps of the process to remind
them where they are in the strategy and to ensure nothing has been missed
9. When they have completed the process and the strategy is complete you can talk them through it to
ensure it makes sense to them and it is correct with the steps in the right order
10. You could also try the strategy yourself to see if it makes sense to you.
11. If you feel you have not got the strategy ask the person to go over it again and to maybe emphasise
key parts or small steps of the strategy or to exaggerate what is happening so that you can get a
clearer idea.

Installing a strategy
Once you have elicited a strategy from someone you then may want to install this in yourself or others to use
the same strategy to get the same outcome or to replace an unhelpful strategy with a helpful one. There are
different ways you can install a strategy these include anchoring, repetition of the strategy, accessing cues,
metaphors, future pacing and mental rehearsal. The method you use will be dependent on works either for
you or for your client and you will know this from either previous experience of through building rapport with
the client.
Anchoring
As strategies use steps to get to the outcome wanted you can use anchoring to anchor feelings to each step
and each step to the next, so in fact you are setting a chained anchor. To do this you will need to:
a. Identify the feelings that are needed at each step of the strategy
b. Get the client to recall a time when they had that required feeling
c. Walk through the strategy and set the anchor for the required feeling at each stage of the
process using the chained anchor technique
d. You could also use spatial anchoring to set each step of the strategy which you would get
them to repeat over and over again getting faster each time to get the new strategy fully
embedded in them
Repetition
A method to use is to have the client or yourself keep walking through the strategy and to rehearse each step
again and again until they feel comfortable with it. They should do this until they can do the new strategy
without having to think about it. It may help if at each step of the process they use something that will help
them to access the feelings, visuals or sound. This could include holding up an image of what it is they need
to see, closing their eyes and taking a mental snapshot of it and then closing their eyes to get a mental
image of it, you can do the same for feelings and sounds.
Eye accessing cues
You can also use the client’s eye accessing cues to install a new strategy. To do this you link the
representation that the client is feeling at a step and ensure that as they move to that step of the strategy
they have their eyes in the appropriate location. If a client needs to access a feeling for the next step you
would ask them to move their eyes down to their right so that they can use their eye accessing cues to
ensure the feeling is congruent with the movement and next step. We are here working on the body and
mind working together to get the right outcome.

Rehearsing synaesthesia patterns
Through using this process it helps to link together to representational systems which helped to create
different feelings and experiences for the client. This will help to make these connections more familiar and
developed in a way that could help a client to install a new strategy. For example you could link visual and
kinaesthetic together and ask your client to create an image of the next step and notice how their body reacts
to this image, do this for a number of different images and see how each one affect the body sensations.
Future pacing and mental rehearsal
Here you would talk your client through the new strategy and see how it now feels for them, you could ask
them to think about a time in the future when they would need this new strategy and how it now feels for
them. You could ask them to run this strategy through their mind and see how they react to it.
Changing Strategies
Design Principles
1. Follow the TOTE model.
2. Keep it simple - the change should be as small as possible to get the result. Larger changes are
more likely to lead to unforeseen side-effects (bear ecology in mind).
3. Intervene at a point before the strategy goes wrong - it's easier to prevent problems than to try to
clear them up after they've happened.
4. Use all three of the main rep systems (V, A - tonal or digital - and K). Different rep systems are
good for tracking different kinds of information.
5. Change any elements that put the person into a sub-optimal state.
6. Make sure there is an exit after a certain period of time or a certain number of times round the
loop.
Ways of changing strategies

 Rehearsal with eye accessing cues
 Dissociated state rehearsal
 Reframing - e.g. "It takes 20 no's to get to a yes, so each 'no' is a step closer to the yes"
 Submodality changes
 Metaphor - tell a story which guides the listener through a series of steps analogous to the steps
of the revised strategy
 Use a chain of anchors to install a new step or remove an existing one

The Disney Strategy
The Disney strategy was developed by Robert Dilts following a modelling project that he carried out on Walt
Disney. It is a strategy that they use to help to create new ideas and ways of thinking where anything is
possible, however they also add in a critic and a realist to give the creative idea a ground and to see if it is
something that could be implemented. It is a really effective strategy to help people to be more creative and
works just as well for individuals or for teams so would be a good strategy to use in a workplace to help
teams to develop new ideas that would work for the company.
The process works through using physiological shifts to affect how a person is feeling inside and to create
the persona of a Dreamer, a Realist and a Critic. It also becomes more powerful if a spatial anchor is set for
each of the 3 types.
Below is an overview of each of the types:
The Dreamer
 Their role
o This is the person where anything is possible

o To generate new ideas and possibilities
o Think about the big picture
o Anything goes no barriers to what they can do
o To break from the normal way of thinking
o To look in to the future for long term outcomes
 Position to adopt
o In this position it is best to stand up, to raise your head up and look at the skies
o The posture should be relaxed and it helps if the arms are slightly away from the sides of the
body with palms facing up
o Use Eye accessing cues for Visual Construct Vc as this will help to develop possibilities
 Questions to ask in this position
o What ideas do you have?

o What ideas do you have that are even better than that one
o What other possibilities are there?
o What could these new ideas lead to in the future?
o What do you want to do?
o What is the purpose of this?
o What do you get from doing this?
The Realist

 Their role
o This is the person who sorts things out

o Takes the ideas and puts together action points and plans
o They think about the practicalities of using the creative ideas
o They start to evaluate the ideas put forward
o Filter the good and bad ideas and decide on which to use
 Position to adopt
o Stand with their head and eyes looking straight ahead they should be centred yet also relaxed
their arms can be by their sides with palms facing inwards.
o You may want to have your eye movements go to Kinaesthetic so that you get a feeling for the
situation
 Questions to ask
o What resources do you have?

o What resources do you need?
o What is the first step you would need to take?
o What would be the next step to take?
o How will you put the idea into practice?
o How will you implement the idea?
o How will you know when you have achieved your outcome?
o Who could get involved in the idea, what would their role be
o How long will it take to implement and achieve
o Are any steps missing from the process?
The Critic

o Their role
o This is the person who casts a critical eye over the ideas, they look for the bits that do not fit
into the overall idea. They take a step back and look at the idea from different perspectives
and look for the benefits and drawbacks of putting it into practice. They apply an air of logic to
the process and see if the plan needs to be adapted
o Position to adopt
o Stand with their heads down and slightly tilted, the posture is slightly angled as well. They also
go to a meta position and look at both the Dreamer and Realist views
o You may want to move your eyes to Auditory Digital Ad to focus on what you are saying about
the situation
o Questions to ask
o Who might be affected by this idea?

o Who might object to this idea going ahead?
o What would stop the idea from being implemented?
o What would be the outcome of implementing of not implementing the new idea?
o Where and when would you not implement the new idea?
o What are the positive things you get out of doing things as you do now?
o How can you take these forward to the new idea?
o What would happen if you did not implement the new idea.
o What is missing?
o What could go wrong?

Section 19– Neurological levels of NLP
 Bateson Logical Levels
 What are neurological levels
 How you can use the neurological levels

Bateson’s Logical Levels
The work of Gregory Bateson on systems theory is something that has influenced many of those current
involved in thinking about how organisational and individual change works. The work he carried out in looking
at the systematic perspective on change and growth in individuals has inspired many of the concepts in NLP.
Logical Levels provide an effective tool for looking at planning, implementing and evaluating any change or
programme of change that takes place. Logical levels are useful when thinking about whether all of the levels
are aligned so that true and congruent change can be carried about.
For example
How many organisations like to display their mission and value statement on the walls of their office and on
their websites. However, when you deal with the people who work for that company they do not act in a way
which supports the mission statement. By using logical levels you are able to identify why this is happening
and see what work you can carry out to bring all of the levels back into alignment.
The logical levels of change is based on systems theory. Batesons’ work on looking at how individuals
categorise, process and make sense of the world around them and their experiences found that people
would generalise this to help them to understand what they were experiencing.
Bateson found that as we observe the world and the signals given by other people we interpret these by
refining this to a degree where we can make sense of them and understand their meaning. This is then fed
into our behaviour system which tells us how to feedback to the other person in the type of communication
that we use. This process also helps us to grow and develop and to continue to find out and understand
more about ourselves and others
This means we use our mental-emotional activity of selecting elements and classifying them for a particular
category, a way of naming and typing, of sorting out what’s in the world in other words generalizing.
When asked what a “logical level or type” is, Gregory Bateson said, “The name is not the thing named, but is
of different logical type, higher than the thing named; the class is of different logical type, higher than that of
its members.”
It is the work and study carried out by Bateson that has been used to develop some of the principles
concepts of NLP such as: meta model, metaphor, perceptual filters, perceptual positioning to name a few.
To understand what systems theory is a simple method is to think that you are not able to change a situation
by focusing on one element, you need to focus on how other elements interact with it and look to change
these and by doing so change a situation.
So in our example above you had the company (the situation) the mission statement ( one element) and the
workers (another element). To have an effect on the company you need to see if it is the mission statement
or the workers that need to change to help the company to prosper.

Neurological Levels of NLP
The framework of neurological levels was developed by one of the first people involved with NLP Robert
Dilts. Robert Dilts had studied the work of Gergory Bateson on systems theory and has developed the
Neurological levels of change as a technique to help to create change in individuals or companies.
This framework helps us to look at and to think about change and learning and personal development in a
structured way. The neurological levels has 6 levels, and an individual can be operating at any one of these
six levels at any given time. If there is a part of your life that you want to change and you are not sure where
to start, this framework can help to identify where and how an intervention needs to be made to ensure it is
effective and will achieve its aim.
The six levels can be shown in a hierarchy, the bottom of the hierarchy is usually environment and the top is
spirituality. The framework is shown below, showing the levels, what it relates to and possible questions to
ask to find out more about each level
Neurological Level What it relates to Questions to ask
Environment Constraints or opportunities on Where does this happen?

actions and behaviour, where When does this happen?
a person is will affect how they
behave and think
Behaviour What a person does in a given What do you do that…..?

situation, it covers their actions What causes you to react in
and reactions that way?
Capabilities How a person does something, How do you do that?

the strategy they follow, skills
they use, plans they make
Beliefs and values This is why a person does Why do you behave in that
something what is driving them way?
to act in a certain way, What Why do you always act like
motivates them to do that in front of me?
something
Identity Who a person thinks they are, Who are you?

a sense of self, understanding Who am I?
their mission in life Why am I here?
Spirituality What a person does things for, Who else is involved?

including for their immediate Who else will be affected?
family and community, what
exists outside of self
This can also go as far as
planet and universe.

How you can use the Neurological Levels
You can use the framework to check to see how congruent each level is with the next, this may help you to
identify why a person behaves in the way that they do and how you can help them or yourself to change.
For example:
A work colleague may say to you that they think it is really important that they are always on time for
business meetings they need to attend (belief) however they may always be late for meetings (behaviour)
so each behaviour contradicts itself. You can then explore with this person where the two areas clash and
how they can be brought more in line with the outcome needed.
If you work as a consultant and advise on business issues you can also use the neurological levels to work
with a company and help them to identify where changes may need to be made.
For example
If you are called into a company to work with them on issues surrounding the area of how they deliver
customer service. The consultant may walk into the offices and see a very untidy working environment and
staff may not be listening actively to what their customers need. This could mean that the company believes
that paying attention to customers’ needs is important and this is not reflected in the environment or staff. It
may also be that the staff’s idea of customer care is not the same as the companies.
When a consultant can recognise this they can then take actions to make the necessary changes.
In the box below can you identify any areas of your life where neurological levels are in conflict and how you
could possibly adapt your behaviour to change the outcome.

Some questions to ask at each level
Vision;- what is my purpose?

 What larger systems are you a part of?
 What value do you bring to the systems that you belong to now?
 What legacy do you want to leave?
Identity – what is my mission?

 How would you define yourself, who are you?
 What is unique about you?
 What supports you and what hinders you, what are your strengths and weaknesses?
Beliefs – what motivates me and what do I believe about self and others?
 How do you view yourself?
 What do you think that others think about you?
 What beliefs support you and what holds you back?
 What do you value above all else, what has to be there in your life?
Capabilities – what strategies do I have available?

 How do you reward yourself for doing well?
 What skills do you already have and which skills do you need to achieve your vision?
 How will you manage the changes needed to reach your goal?
Behaviour – what are my actions and reactions?

 What are you doing everyday to move towards your goal?
 Which behaviours support your goal and which undermine it?
 What do you need to do differently?
Environment – what are my external constraints and opportunities?

 What around you supports your vision and what hinders it?
 What needs to change in your surroundings?
 What needs to be reinforced and what needs to remain in place?
Think of a situation you are struggling with at the moment and go through the neurological levels and identify
what needs to change at the different levels, to help you to get the outcome you want.

Section 20– The Fast Phobia Cure
 What is the fast phobia cure
 What is a V-K disassociation
 The fast phobia cure process
The Fast Phobia Cure

The Fast Phobia cure is a technique that helps people to overcome phobias in around 20 minutes or less. It
is also called “The Rewind Technique” or “V – K disassociation”

The process works by taking the person back to the time when the phobia first started and then to
disassociate the feelings they have that are linked to this event. When this is done the person can have an
image of the event or recall the event without the overpowering feelings of fear still being present.
We are taking the image and removing these feelings, hence it is a V – K disassociation technique as when
you look back at an event as an observer you are not able to access the feelings as you did when you were
associated with the event.
Even though the event may have taken place a long time ago, it is the way that the person is representing
this event internally that is causing the current phobia.
This technique also works on
o Accidents
o Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
o Forms of abuse
The process for using the Fast Phobia Cure is as follows
1. Gain a good level of rapport with the client using your sensory acuity skills
2. Ask the client to speak about the issue they want to work on, only briefly as you do not want them to
get to upset, as they do this calibrate what changes in them as they do, this is so you can see just
how powerful the issue is for them
3. Bring them out of the feeling by doing a pattern interrupt
4. Help them to set a bail out or safety anchor, this is to ensure that if the client gets into a stressful or
distressing situation the anchor can be fired and they will be brought back to a place where they feel
safe
5. Ask then now to imagine they are going into a cinema, they can sit any where they like in the cinema
so that they can see the screen.
6. You can tell them that they have complete control over the movie they play and they can decide how
it appears and how it sounds, they control whichever are their critical submodalities for this event.
7. Ask the client to go back to the earliest memory they have of this issue and to make this into a film
which they can show on the cinema screen in front of them. If they are unable to find the first event
they can use one that is very intense or just the earliest one they can remember. They need to start
the film from seeing themselves just before they had the experience when they were safe to just after
the event to when they felt safe again.
8. If the client finds watching the event on screen to overpowering then they can watch it on a smaller
screen such as on a TV. They can also take out all of the colour and turn the image to black and
white, if the colour makes the image to vivid and makes them feel uncomfortable.
9. If the client still feels quite affected by the movie you can carry out a double disassociation where the
client is watching themselves watching the movie on the screen. This is known as a double
disassociation.
10. Throughout the process you need to use language which keeps them in the moment of the event and
you can say things such as “ As you sit here and now watching the person on the screen there and
then...”
11. You ask the client to continue to run the movie until they feel they are not going to be sent into a
phobic episode
12. Now do a pattern interrupt to break the state and find out what they learned from that experience and
about their phobia both in positive and negative terms.
13. Ask the client to run the movie again and pause it at the end, when they have done this they will need
to associate themselves into the movie as if they were seeing the event through their own eyes
14. They now need to run the movie backwards right to the start of the film where they felt safe.
15. Break state and ask the client to repeat this process 5 more times still being associated, still running it
backwards and still making it go fast
16. When this is done you can test the work by future pacing to a similar event in the future which would
get a phobic response and ask what has changed. If the client feels everything is fine and the
response has changed to the event carry out an ecology check to see how this new response may
impact on other parts of their life.
17. If the response is still there you can repeat the process and do more work on the submodalities.

Section 21– Trance and hypnosis
 What is meant by the term trance
 What is meant by the term hypnosis
 How hypnosis works

Trance and Hypnosis
Definition of hypnosis and trance
There are some big misconceptions of what is meant by hypnosis, in this section we will look at how we
define hypnosis in NLP terms.
Firstly it is good to make clear that when you hypnotise someone you cannot make them do anything that
violates their personal values or morals. Medical research that looked at how hypnotic suggestions and
commands work proved that it does not work in a way that over powers a person’s own mind and way of
thinking.
A hypnotist will put a person into a trance, which affects their mind, emotions, body and nervous system
through the use of words and language. So, hypnosis can be said to be a form of communication and a state
which comes from certain types of language structures.
Hypnosis means “Sleep” this is being asleep to the outside world with the person being totally focused on
what is happening in their internal world. They are focusing on some idea, thought, emotion, memory, feeling
or person etc.
Trance is defined as the transition from one state to another, in this case we are talking from one state of
mind to another state of mind. We go into trances everyday of our lives some time deep trances sometimes
light trances, have you ever been on a long journey and when you arrived at your destination and realised
you cannot remember going past certain points on your journey. Or have you ever seen a person eating a
meal in front of the TV and at some points their forkfull of food hovers in mid air as they are entranced by
what they are watching, these are both types of trance.
The reason you do not remember passing those landmarks on your journey is that you have transferred from
an uptime alert state into a downtime state where you are going inside to visit some more interesting places
or thoughts.
In NLP we do not use formal hypnotic inductions that a hypnotherapist might use, we use language and
language structures to create a Trans-derivational search which happens when a person is looking to make
meaning to the language they have heard. During this TDS the person goes inside their mind to search their
history, learning and experience banks to make sense of the language they are hearing.
When you have found out more about trances you start to understand this you can see that people who go
into hypnotic trance can use it in a destructive way and creates problems that do not help them to function
correctly. This may be where you see a person acting out of character, against their values, seem out of
control or under a spell. In NLP the work we do is about helping people to bring people out of these
unresourceful states and allow them to access more resourceful ones.
Hypnotic trance happens at the theta level of sleep when this happens we spend time paying more attention
to internal information that we store in our brain patterns such as memory, this takes place as we are not
using stimulus from the outside world and all of our focus is internal.

How hypnosis works
The process of hypnosis works through the person reacting to the words they are hearing which encourages
them to go inside themselves and search for answers. This is where the skilled practitioner uses language
structures and words that will hypnotise people and go into a trance. The word structures used promotes the
trance experience through sending their mind on a Trans-derivational search to make sense of the words
and language structures they are hearing. This encourages the person to move from uptime to downtime to
search for the meaning of what is being said.
How can Hypnosis help
Hypnosis is a natural process of consciousness that we all have and that take place everyday, whenever we
focus our thoughts and feelings internally and do not connect with the outside world this is classed as a state
of trance. This can be when we are thinking deeply, focusing and concentrating fully on something,
meditating, sitting relaxed or daydreaming, really anytime our focus shifts from the external environment to
the internal environment is classed as trance.
When a person is in a trance state, this can be used to activate our internal power and forces of the mind
body connection. When we have this level of internal concentration and awareness it will help to activate
some of the internal resources we are not using or to increase those that we are. When you are in a trance,
or under hypnosis you fully focus on one particular thing which is why it is powerful and how change takes
place as you put all your thoughts and resources into this particular thing.
Altered states and trances
Your unconscious mind holds a great deal of information, experience and knowledge that you hardly use and
is something you should consider starting to use now. Most of your actions and the way you behave is
driven by your unconscious mind and you just let it do what it needs to do without questioning it. Have you
ever done something and then regretted doing it and said something like “ I could not help myself, it just
came out!”, this is where your unconscious mind has decided on what to say or do based on the information
it received.
NLP uses trance as an altered state to get in touch with the unconscious part of the mind needed to create
the change needed. It gives access to the part of the mind where habits, patterns and experience coding are
stored. When someone is in a trance state they are more open, receptive, relaxed, comfortable, open and
safe which allows a direct route to the unconscious mind.
The benefit of going into trance is that it allows you to fully focus on the issue you want resolved, the
unconscious mind will present, information, knowledge and previous experiences which can be used to
resolve the issue you now have.
NLP works primarily with the client’s unconscious behaviours, we reframe these behaviours and set up a
communication with the part of the unconscious mind is producing that behaviour. We then connect these
parts with other parts that can help to solve the behavioural issue so that resourceful behaviours can be
created instead. The NLP practitioner will work to get the client’s conscious mind out of the way so that the
work can be carried out at the unconscious level and then to reconnect the unconscious mind and conscious
mind so the new behaviours can be implemented. A lot of the techniques that we use at the NLP Practitioner
Level work with the unconscious mind and this is all carried out using the different language structures that
you have been shown.

Points on Trance and Hypnosis
 Trance is an altered state of consciousness, one that is different from our normal state. It is like the
state people are in when they more from being awake to being asleep and vice versa
 Trance is naturally occurring, it happens when we drive, watch TV, drive, are on training courses,
walking down the street etc
 Ernest Rossi who carried out work on the Ultradian Rhythms states that we can be in a naturally
occurring trances from between 90 -120 minutes everyday
 Being in trance helps you to gain more control of you

o As you will be in better communication with your unconscious mine
o You will be able to control your body functions, cope with stress, access memories and
experiences
 When you are in a trance you control the suggestions that you receive and take note of
 All hypnosis is classed as self-hypnosis as you will always retain your own free will and therefore are
in charge of your actions.
 Everyone can go into trance and therefore everybody is a good subject to be hypnotised successfully.

Pre-framing trance work
When you mention the word “Trance” to most people it does tend to scare them, they start to think about the
hypnosis shows they have seen on TV and think that when they are put in a trance they will be completely in
your control. The 4 main reasons people are apprehensive about being put into a trance are:
1. Revelations
They are scared of what they might reveal either about themselves of other people when they are in
the trance
2. What they will do
They are apprehensive of what they might let themselves do when they are in trance or what they
may be asked to do by the person who has put them in the trance
3. Letting go of their unconscious mind
They are fearful of letting their unconscious mind out of their conscious control and therefore letting
all of the things they have kept buried and under their control out. Or some think that it will be like the
effects of taking drugs and this may cause them to have hallucinations and bad experiences
4. Being controlled by others
This relates to what people have seen in movies, TV shows and stage shows about what people can
do and are asked to do when they are under trance or in hypnosis. They are fearful on making a fool
of themselves or being asked to do something that is out of their control.
To help someone overcome these fears you need to carry out some preframing with them so that they know
what to expect when you are working with them. You want to allay their fears and keep them in a calm state,
perhaps you could use embedded suggestions in your preframing discussions to help them to enter trance
more easily.
“Everyday in some of the more familiar activities you carry out you easiliy go into a trance, such as when you
are watching TV and forget what has happened, or you have arrive at your destination whilst driving and
cannot remember crossing the bridge from one state to another. You go into a room and forget why you
went, there and stand transfixed whilst you try to remember what you went their for. Or when you are lying in
bed and starting to drift of too sleep and you feel warm, safe, calm and relaxed as you gently fall into the
realm on sleep”

Signs and levels of trance
The following are signs that you can observe in people as they either go into trance or are in trance, the list
starts from the signs for light trance to deep trance:
Relaxed posture
Eyes closed
Fluttering of eyelids
Rapid eye movement
Skin tone changes
They feel warm
Changing in breathing
Arm catalepsy
Watering eyes
Increased level of suggestibility
Feeling of either being heavy or floating
Time distortion
Ideomotor responses
Amnesia
Do not feel pain
Hallucinations
Full body catalepsy

Inductions for self hypnosis
You are also able to put yourself into a trance this is useful for managing stress, solving problems or just for
meditating and working with your unconscious mind rather than your conscious mind. You are also able to
give yourself suggestions when you are under self hypnosis to help with a number of issues, such as
stopping smoking or eating the wrong type of food.
The following are self hypnosis methods that you may like to experience and then see which works best for
you.
Focusing on your breathing
This is a very easy method of self hypnosis and one that you will be able to master very quickly. Just close
your eyes and focus on your breathing noticing when you breathe out and breathe in. You do not need to
slow down or speed up your breathing it is the effect of focusing on the motion which helps you to relax. This
is because you are shutting of the world outside and just concentrating on the one movement, if you do feel
that you are losing your focus just return to focusing on your breathing.
If you have any tension trapped in your body, start to let go of the tension by focusing on the area where you
are tense and imagine you are breathing in and out of that particular part and you will feel the tension start to
slip away.
The Eye Roll induction
This is an induction developed by James Braid and is sometimes known as “The Braid Effect” James Braid
was the founder of hypnotherapy. It was Braid who coined the English term “hypnotism”, and subsequently
“self-hypnotism” and “hypnotic therapy”.
This inductions works by synchronising the brain waves in both hemispheres of the brain and is a good
starting point for other inductions.
Sit down and get into a nice comfortable position and look straight ahead. Without moving your head, roll
your eyes up to a point in front of you and above, such as where the wall meets the ceiling. Now imagine a
point in between your eyebrows reaching up to all the way where you are looking, you will notice an
immediate change in how your body feels.
Continue looking at the point until you start to feel your eyes either defocusing on the point or starting to get
heavy and feel that they want to close, you may also feel a change in your breathing level. You may also
start to have a sense of relaxation starting to spread throughout your body emanating from your closed
eyelids
While you keep looking up with your eyes closed you may find that even if you try to open your eyes they will
remain closed
When you feel ready you can bring your eyes back to normal and open your eyes and start to feel more alert,
you should carry this out at a pace that feels right for you.

Inductions for self hypnosis cont.
Eye closed with breathing
This process is combined with the Braid Effect Eye roll it is similar to the Braid Effect however the process
happens more on a physiological level as the breathing involves your body more
Start with the Braid Effect however you start to breathe a little more deeply than normal. Start the first breath
with your eyes open and as you breathe out let your eyes come down and close them. As you breathe in
again open your eyes and focus on the spot as you did before.
Continue with this process until you feel your eyes starting to defocus and you find it harder and harder to
open them.
Dave Elman Self-Hypnosis Induction
Dave Elman was a Master Hypnotist and Trainer, the process for this induction is as follows:
Firstly carry out some deep breathing with your eyes closed, relax the eyes and keep them closed, even
though you know you can open them
Let the relaxation flow through your whole body so each piece of you feels relaxed
Now open and close your eyes and as you do so become 10 times more relaxed, be aware of your body as it
physically relaxes
Now mentally relax by counting out loud from 100, becoming 10 times more relaxed with each number: 100
deeper relaxed, 99 deeper relaxed, continue to do this until the numbers disappear.

Section 22– Reframing
 What is meant by the term reframing
 What is meant by content reframe
 What is meant by context reframe
 The 6 step reframe

Reframing
This is a technique used to change the way an event is perceived, this can be either a past, future or current
event. When you change how you perceive an event, you change its meaning and also change your
behaviour and response to it. There are 2 types of reframing, they are:
o Content reframe
o Context reframe
Content or Meaning Reframing
The content or meaning of a situation is determined by what you choose to focus on.
o For example:
o An electric power cut can be viewed either as disruptive and a major disaster given all you
have to get done. Or you can choose to view it as a great opportunity to spend some intimate
time with your partner or to have fun with your children finding ways to make the power cut
exciting and adventurous
A content reframe is useful for statements such as: ‘I always get really agitated when my manager stands
behind me while I am working on something important.’ Notice how the person has taken the situation and
given it a specific meaning -- which may or may not be true - and in so doing limits how resourceful they can
be and thereby limiting possible courses of action.
To reframe this situation, consider one of the NLP presuppositions ‘Every behaviour has a positive intention’
and ask questions such as:
o What other meaning could the managers’ behaviour have?

o Or for what purpose does he do it?
A possible reframe might be:
o ‘Is it possible they want to help and do not know how to offer their assistance in any other way?’
Other examples
o “I have just had to downsize and buy a smaller car

o Reframe: “Great, that means you will be able to save money for our holiday”
o “I get really angry when people ignore me or don’t call”

o Reframe: “You have too much self respect to let that bother you”
o “My car got stuck in the snow and I had to walk home”
o Reframe: “I bet you had a nice time walking home with your wife enjoying her company and
the scenery”

Context Reframe:
Almost all behaviours are useful or appropriate in some context. Context reframe works by using
generalisations and opening up the frame to other possibilities of its meaning. You need to take the situation
being discussed and place it in a context where it can be seen as more helpful.
o For example
o Interrupting a speaker by standing up and offering your view in the middle of their lecture may
be judged as inappropriate. To do this same behaviour at the end of the presentation in order
to provide a different perspective may be welcomed by all present.
A context reframe is useful for statements such as:
o ‘I am too pushy.’ or ‘I wish I did not focus on what could go wrong.’
In this type of situation, the person has assumed that this type of behaviour has no value. As a practitioner
your job is to discover when it is of value by asking yourself the question
o ‘When or where would this behaviour be useful or viewed as a resource?’
A possible reframe might be:
o ‘Isn’t that a great skill to have when you need to get things done or to avoid potential problems?’
Once you have your client more resourceful, you can then assist him to discover behaviours that may be
more appropriate in other situations.
When presenting a reframe to another person:
o Make sure you have rapport and their permission to offer it.
o You may believe your reframe is the best ever and yet it may not work for the other person -- simply
because they have a different model of the world than you do.
Remember the NLP presupposition - There is no failure, only feedback - and explore other possible
reframes.
If you present the reframe in the form of a question or a metaphor (story), it will most likely be more fully
considered by your client than if you present it as a statement of fact.
Example of context reframes include:
o “My daughter is very stubborn

o Reframe: “that means she will not let people boss her around”
o “ I always get bogged down in the details”

o Reframe “You must be a perfectionist then”
o “I am not strict enough as a parent”

o Reframe: “ I bet that makes you a good mother who your children adore”

Six step reframe
The six step reframe is a technique that is used to control behaviour that may be out of your conscious
control or causing a person to experience problems. It is also used to help you to stop or change something,
however you don’t seem able to do so.
This normally is because your current behaviour is being controlled by your unconscious behaviour and is
not normally changed by conscious thought alone. If you are unable to change the behaviour at the
conscious level this is usually because there is a positive intention you are receiving from the behaviour.
You can use the technique called the Six step reframe leads to changing the behaviour at the unconscious
level whilst maintaining the positive intention of the behaviour.
1. Identify the behaviour or response to be changed.
This is usually along the lines of 'I want to do something, but something stops me.', or 'I don't want to
do something, but I seem to end up doing it just the same.' When working with another, it isn't
necessary to know what the behaviour actually is, they can keep it secret, if they like.
Acknowledge the good that the behaviour, or at the least the intention behind the behaviour has done
for you in the past. Make clear you aren't going to get rid of it.
2. Establish communication with the part which is responsible for the behaviour
Go inside and ask the part if it is willing to communicate with you in consciousness? Notice the
feelings inside of you. This is an unconscious response, so ask yourself: Can you reproduce that
signal consciously?
If you can reproduce this it is not an unconscious response, because if the response was conscious
then it would be easy to turn it off. You could just decide not to do it. For example, when you hear that
another has got the job you really longed for, and you want to be decent and congratulate them, but
when you do so you feel that sense of discomfort. Can you turn that off? Can you help feeling that
way even though you don't want to feel that way? That is the unconscious signal. Establish a
communication system. Ask the part to increase the signal for 'Yes' and decrease it for 'No'. Get it to
do this several times so you get a 'Yes' and a 'No' signal that are quite clear.
3. Separate the positive intention from the behaviour.
Thank the part for co-operating.
Ask, 'Will the part which is responsible for the behaviour let me know what it is trying to do?' You will
get a clear intention which may be a surprise to your conscious mind. Think whether you want the
part to do that.
If you get a 'No' signal, you can just assume a positive intention and continue. Or you could ask under
what circumstances it would let you know.
Ask the part, 'If you were given ways to accomplish this intention, at least as well, if not better than
the present, would you be willing to try them out?' If you get a 'No', your signals are scrambled - no
part would turn down an offer like this!

4. Ask your creative part to generate new ways that will accomplish the same purpose
Ask your creative part to generate as many solutions as it can - you do not need to know what these
are consciously. Ask the part being negotiated with to select at least three of these for it to try. Ask it
to give you a signal each time it has selected one. Take as long as you need on this part of the
process.
Thank your creative part when you have finished.
5. Ask the part if it will agree to use the new choices over the next few weeks, rather than the old
behaviour.
This is future rehearsing the new behaviour. There is no reason why the part should not agree to do
this. If you get a 'No', then tell it it can still use the old behaviour - only use the new behaviour first. If
you still get a 'No', then reframe the objecting part go back to step 1 and start again
6. Ecological Check
Go inside and ask, 'Does any part of me object to the new choices?' If there are objections then
check them out by asking the part to intensify the signal. If there are objections then you can reframe
the part or ask it to get together with the creative part to find more solutions.
Ensure that there are no objecting parts, otherwise they may try to sabotage.
Summary
o Identify a problem
o Identify the part, and get different signals for 'Yes' and 'No'.
o Get the part's positive intention, and ask it 'If you were given ways of achieving this intention just
as well or even better than now, would you be willing to try them out for a week or so?'
o Ask your creative part to generate many possible solutions (it does not have to find only good
ones!) while the part in question gives a 'Yes' signal when there is a solution it thinks it might use.
Get at least three.
o Ask the part if it will try these in the next few weeks.
o Check that there aren't any objecting parts.
o This process is based on the presupposition all behaviour has a positive intent and the more
choices you have the better the results you can get.

Section 23– More language presuppositions
 Cause v effect
 Mind reading
 Complex equivalence
 Existence
 Possibility
 Awareness
 Inclusive and exclusive “or”
 Ordinal
 Time
 Adverb / verb

Language Presuppositions
We have already looked at some language presuppositions in the manual we are now going to look at other
language presupposition structures that can be used in conversations for a range of different reasons. These
patterns can also be found in the Meta Model as well.
Language Presuppositions are linguistic assumptions and are useful for:
 Recognising what is assumed by the client’s speech and assisting in them in creating new internal
representations of situations they are referring to.
Some of the language presuppositions include:
Cause and Effect
This is a distortion pattern where the language implies that one person’s behaviour will make another person
behave in a certain way. What we are saying here is that one statement will automatically create a response
in another person to hearing that statement. This is mainly seen when a person’s behaviour is said to have
come from another person’s statement and the behaviour caused was unresourceful this can also create an
unresourceful state of mind as well.
o Examples of cause effect presuppositions

 “He made me upset”
 “The situation made me angry”
 “I am irritated because of you”
 Her voice scares me”
In all of the above examples one thing has caused the internal response on the person and what they are
saying is they have no control over their feelings.
 Questions to use to counter cause- effect statements

o “ How did he make you upset?”
o “How did that happen?”
o “Does hearing that always make you feel that way”
o “How do I irritate you”
o “Why do you choose to let her voice scare you”

Mind Reading
This is where the speaker presumes they know what the other person is thinking or feeling, they think they
know a person’s internal state without any evidence or sensory calibration taking place.
o Examples of mind reading presuppositions

 “They think I am not part of the team”
 “You don’t like me”
 “She keeps trying to catch me out”
 “He thinks I am after his job”
 They think I am to posh”
In the above examples the person has distorted what the situation is by presuming they know what is going
on inside the other person with no real evidence.

o “ What makes you think that?”
o “How do you know I don’t like you?”
o “How specifically is she trying to catch you out”
o “What reasons do you have to think he is after your job”
o “How do they show that”
Complex Equivalence
These are distortions where the speaker links two statements together so that one statement means the
other statement will happen, they are in some way linked. The name of this pattern is taken from the way
these two statements are connected and have the same meaning even though they can both be on a
different neurological level. These are statements were there is an implied “therefore” or “so in the statement.
o Examples of complex equivalence presuppositions

 “She never cooked dinner last night, she has stopped caring about me”
 “He came in late from work again he doesn’t love the children”
 “He didn’t buy me the flowers I like, he really doesn’t know me”
 “When I talk she doesn’t look at me – she never listens to what I say”
 “She walked right past me she is ignoring me and wants me to feel bad again”
 “Being on this seminar means you will change”
In the above examples the person has said that by one thing happening the other will happen as a result of
the first thing happening as they are both linked.

o “ How does her not cooking dinner mean she doesn’t care for you?”
o “Have you ever been late back from somewhere, does that mean you do not love your
children?”
o “How does him buying you the wrong type of flowers show he does not know, have you ever
bought him the wrong thing, did it prove you do not love him?”
o “Do you always look at people when they are speaking to you, does it show you were not
listening?”
o “Do you think she may have been pre-occupied thinking about something else and not noticed
you, I am sure you may have done this”
Existence
This is where a person, place or thing is mentioned in a statement, which they presupposes that they exist in
some form.

o Examples of existence presuppositions
 “Jill arrived home late last night”
 “The car had an oil leak on the garage floor”
 “Mark ran around the field to escape the bull”
 “The mushroom was pink in colour”
 “The boat is travelling up river”
Possibility
This is where the statement presumes that is possible that something will happen, the statement may also
include words such as could, would, may, might and will
o Examples of possibility presuppositions

 “Alex thought there might be a bike behind the garage that he could use to cycle into
town”
 The parts of the statement which make it a possibility statement are:

 “It is possible for Alex to ride the bike”
 It is possible that there might be a bike behind the garage”
 “It is possible for Alex to ride into town”
 “The village is near enough to cycle too”
Necessity
This is where the statement states that there is a need to do something, the statement may also include
words such as should/shouldn't, must/mustn't, need to, have to and ought to.
o Examples of necessity presuppositions

 “Alex found the bike and had to cycle into town”
 “Alex thought he had to go into town and had to find some transport”
 “Alex ought to go into town on the bike he found
 “Alex mustn’t miss his appointment in town
Awareness
This is where the statement helps you to become aware of something being in existence. Common phrases
of this type include - as you can see, as you heard, you can feel and you may already have noticed (but you
already knew.
o Examples of awareness presuppositions

 “Alex noticed there was a bike behind the garage”
 “Alex heard he had to go into town and had to find some transport”
 “Alex realised he had to go into town on the bike he found
 “Alex felt he mustn’t miss his appointment in town
Time
This is a statement that has a some reference to time, past, present or future built into the statement, words
used could include: past, present, future, previously, earlier that day, tomorrow, later, some time in the past.
o Examples of time presuppositions

 “Alex had seen previously that there was a bike behind the garage”
 “Alex heard he had to go into town later that day and had to find some transport”
 “Alex realised earlier that day that he had to go into town on the bike he found

 “Alex felt he mustn’t miss his appointment in town at 6 o’clock
Ordinal
This is a statement that puts things in a specific order in which they must happen.
o Examples of ordinal presuppositions

 “Alex first had to find the bike that was behind the garage”
 “Alex had to find his bike and then cycle into town”
 “Alex first realised he had to go into town and then had to remember why he needed
to”
 “Alex felt he mustn’t miss his appointment in town and then made plans to get into
town”
Adverb / adjective
This is a statement that contains an adverb or adjective that the listener has to accept as real in order to
accept the presupposition
o Examples of adverb / adjective presuppositions

 “Alex had seen previously that there was a rusty bike behind the garage”
 “Alex heard he had to go into town later that day and had to find some useful transport”
 “Alex realised earlier that day that he had to go into the old town on the bike he found
and
 “Alex panicked as he realised the ride to town was on a steep busy road”
Exclusive “or”
This is where the presupposition in the sentence means that the listener will have to accept one thing or the
other and that either way they will get the same outcome. An exclusive OR allows only two possibilities - you
have to choose one thing or the other. This type of language construction can be used where there is a need
to provide choice which is limited This is also called a “Double Bind”
o Examples of exclusive “or” presuppositions

 “ Alex had to ride into town sooner or later”
 “Alex would need to use a bike or walk into town”
 “Alex had to find the bike or not bother to look”
 Alex either got into town on time or missed his appointment”
Inclusive “or”
This is where the presupposition in the sentence means that they will accept one of two choices that will
mean they can leave one choice out. An exclusive OR allows only two possibilities - you have to choose one
thing or the other. This type of language construction can be used where there is a need to provide choice
which is limited. This type of language construction offers choices or suggestions and can also stimulate the
person we are communicating with to generate choices of their own - useful if the person had not considered
what choices might be available to them.
o Examples of inclusive “or” presuppositions

 “ Alex could ride into town or get there another way”
 “Alex might stay at home or do something else”
 “Alex had to choose between eating a take away or cooking himself”

Section 24– The Milton Model
 What is the Milton Model
 The Milton Model language patterns
 The Milton Model and trance work

The Milton Model
The Milton Model was developed by Bandler and Grinder following a modelling project they carried out on
Milton Erickson. They found that Erickson would tell stories that used language structure that was very vague
and ambiguous, this is known as being “Artfully Vague”
The Milton Model uses chunking up to do the exact opposite of the Meta Model as it is designed to create
new deletions distortions and generalisation in the client’s thinking. By using this approach it allows the client
to put in their own words and language to fill in the gaps that are left. The sentences produced are very open
to interpretation and as general language can be trance inducing, the client goes into a trance as they search
for the way to fill the gaps left.
The Milton Model
o Induces a trance like state

o Speaks straight to the unconscious mind
o Encourage the client to go into a transderivational search.
Within the Milton Model there are a range of different language structures used, each are intended to create
a different experience for the person who is listening to the conversation, The Paragraph below uses some of
these structures, as you read it you may find that is does not read very clearly however you may find that you
experience something as you read it.
“ I know that you have begun to experience new ways of thinking about a range of subjects that may be
useful to you. And it is a good thing to experience, to really experience. For, as you gain new experiences
you will have already begun to have changed in small ways means that healing has started. You may
experience these changes by how you feel or how you talk to yourself. Since you have begun the healing
process, that means all other areas that need healing can begin to change. And you can make the changes
as you should, it is the right thing to do that is to change”
The above paragraph does not make much sense as you read it and that is fine, it is not supposed to,
however you may have filled in some of the blanks that were left in it.
Meta Model categories
The Milton Model does use the Meta Model categories, however what it does is actually use them in a way
that creates, deletions, distortions and generalisations, the following explains how it does this:
Deletions
o Simple deletions
o This is where the information is left out of the conversation and the listener has to fill in the
gaps themselves, through asking questions and seeking answers internally, For example
“That makes sense” leaves the listener asking “What makes sense?” “Makes sense to
whom?”
o Lack of referential index

o This is where is it not clear who or what is being referred to in the conversation, so they have
to draw on their own understanding and experience to find the answer. For example: “They

must be better” the question that will need answering is “ Who must be better?” “Better than
what?”
o Comparative deletion
o This is where a comparison is made, however there is no evidence against what something is
being compared, this creates a trans-derivational search to see what is missing. For example:
“ You will enjoy it more” “You are brighter”
o Unspecified Verb
o This when a verb is not specified in the conversation and the person listening will need to put
them in themselves to be able to make sense of what they are listening to. It describes action
without specifying if the action has taken place or not . For example: “He caused the problem”
“You will understand how you will know”
Distortions
o Complex Equivalence
o This is where two statements can appear to have the same meaning by linking them together
and the way they are linked together. The easiest way to this is to use the terms “that means”
For example: “As you start to relax that means you are going into a trance” “ As you stand up
you will become more alert”
o Nominalisation
o These are abstract nouns that have been created out of process words, as they appear to
have no meaning they send the person on a transderivational search to try and make sense of
it. The listener will also attach their own meaning to the noun as well. For example: “People
can come to new understanding” “As you progress into relaxation”
o Mind reading
o This is where you claim to know what the other person is thinking and can help to make any
suggestions made much more believable to the listener, it is also important to keep these
statements general to avoid clashes with actual experience. For example “ I know you are
feeling more relaxed” “ You are making sense of where you are now”
o Cause – Effect
o This is where one thing leads to another thing happening, and there is a sequence that is
followed, this is also an example of pacing and leading. For example: “As your eyes close
you will go deeper into trance” As you start to breathe deeply you will start to relax more”
o Presuppositions
o This is where you can gain agreement from the other person through including assumptions or
presuppositions in your conversation. For example: “We you be making the change now or
later on today” After you read this book you will understand the concept a lot more”
Generalisations
o Universal quantifiers

o When speaking in a way that makes the topic more universal and generalised it makes this
seem more credible as it applies to a range of things, people etc. So if it works for others it
must work for me as well. For example: “People always go into trance quickly if they are laying
down” “ Everybody enjoys the feeling of learning new techniques”
o Modal operators of possibility

o When speaking you are able to conjure up the feeling that something is possible for the other
person and to create the feeling of choice. For example: “ You can go deeper into trance if
you choose to” “ You can learn new techniques easily”
o Modal operators of necessity

o These are used to either limit the other person’s choices or to create a feeling that something
needs to happen. For example: “”You must make the first step now” “ You have to set the
outcome you want to achieve.
Exercise
Using the paragraph from the front of this section, identify which Meta Model statements are being used and
where they are in the paragraph.
“ I know that you have begun to experience new ways of

thinking about a range of subjects that may be useful to
you. And it is a good thing to experience, to really
experience. For, as you gain new experiences you will have
already begun to have changed in small ways means that
healing has started. You may experience these changes by
how you feel or how you talk to yourself. Since you have
begun the healing process, that means all other areas that
need healing can begin to change. And you can make the
changes as you should, it is the right thing to do that is to
change”

Milton Model language patterns
As well as the Milton Model categories there are also some specific Milton Model language patterns to use,
these can be used to either:
o Pace the other person’s experience

o Distract their unconscious mind
o Accessing any of their unconscious resources.
o Pacing the person’s current experience

o This is a very powerful way to build rapport with the another person, it is also a great way to
induce trance as you are stating what the other person is currently experiencing. Through
doing this you are helping the person to focus on what is happening to them and they get an
internal focus of their feelings. Also you can link two things together so that the person feels
that if they are experiencing one of them the other will happen naturally.
o Examples include:
 You can feel the chair against your legs and as you do you can feel more relaxed
 You are in this room and are aware of how safe that makes you feel
 And as you hear those internal sounds you start to wonder how they are affecting you
 As you continue to breathe in and out you start to feel yourself becoming more rested
 Some good words to use for linking 2 things together are:
 And, while, as, when, before, during, since, and as,
Distracting the conscious mind

o In this section you will use multilayered and highly ambiguous language to let the conscious
mind start to carry out a trans-derivational search, the following language structures are used
to do this.
o Phonological ambiguity
o Many words have a different meaning yet sound the same such as “You knows/nose what to
do” “You can here/hear my voice” The person will go into a trance as they try to understand
what meaning to apply to the word. Examples of these words include:
 There / their
 Son / sun
 Where / wear
 Weather / Whether
 Bare / bear
 Right / rite / write.

o Syntatic ambiguity
o This is where it is not readily apparent what the words is used for and the context in which is it
used is not clear. The type of word normally used is a verb with “ing” placed at the end of it,
which means it could either be a verb or an adjective. For example: “I like shooting stars” this
could mean that
 I like shooting stars that I can watch in the night sky
 I like shooting stars who annoy me on TV
o Scope ambiguity
o This is where you are unable to identify through context, how much of one part of the
sentence links to the other. You can also construct scope ambiguity through putting an “ing”
on the end of a verb or using “and” For example: “Today I rode my bike with flip flops on”
does this mean:
 Today I rode my bike while I was wearing flip flops or
 My bike was wearing flip flops as I was riding it
o Another example “ The class is full of intelligent women and men”, does this mean
o The women are intelligent and the men are not
o Are they both intelligent
o Punctuation ambiguity
o This is where through lack of punctuation or punctuation being in the wrong place you are
unable to see where the sentences start and finish and this merges two sentences in to
one. There are 3 types of punctuation ambiguity
o Run on sentences this is where two sentence merge into one, for example:
 “ On the table there is a watch yourself go into trance”
 “In today’s session we are covering a new topic I don’t know if you can
learn this today”
o Incorrect pausing this is where the person speaking pauses in the wrong place in
the sentence which can take a while to finish it. This is a type of forced mind
reading and is trance inducing. For example:
o “Today we are-----------------going to learn----------------- how to do---------------
-the Milton Model
o “ I want to tie.......into your unconscious”
 Incomplete sentences this is where a person starts a sentence and never

completes it before starting the next one which goes to a different topic. For
example:
o “Today you are going to look at” Everyone should make time to
encounter”
o Double Binds
o This is where you give the person a perceived choice, however whichever one they choose
they will select the outcome that you want. Double binds have an unspoken presupposition
within the sentence. For example:

 “I don’t know whether you will go into a trance straight away, or shortly and I
don’t mind when you do”
 “When you go into a trance you will raise either your right or left arm”
 “ You can have lunch either before you finish the report or after”
 “ You may start to feel the change taking place now or after this session”
Accessing unconscious resources

o This type of language is designed to allow the client to have many choices. They also do not
appear as commands and come across as suggestions for the client to allow them to access
unconscious resources.
o Tag questions
o By using tag questions you can lessen a person’s resistance to a statement by placing a
question at the end of the sentence, which helps to gain an agreement. This question
draws the conscious mind to the question allowing the first part of the sentence to go
straight to the unconscious mind. Also if the person gets used to agreeing with each
statement it helps them to agree easily with the next statement. Example include:
 “You find it easy to relax, don’t you”
 “You can make these changes, can’t you”
 “You find these tag questions easy to use, don’t you”
o You are also able to get the conscious mind distracted and confused and put the person in
a different timeframe. For example:
o “You are able to make that change, haven’t you”
o “ That is an issue, wasn’t it”
o “You have been relaxed, aren’t you”
o Conversational postulates
o This is where you are inviting a “yes” “ or “no” response on a surface level, at a deeper
level it is understood as a command. However the question seems to go around the
conscious mind and install in the unconscious mind a desire to do something about the
statement. So, it avoids giving a direct order and is perceived as given the person a choice
over how they respond. Examples include:
 “Do you know that you know the answer to this already”
 “Can you imagine doing that”
 “How easy will this be for you to do”
 “Do you think you can place the order now”
o Embedded questions
o These are questions that appear in a normal conversation, they are indirect questions,
however the other person will respond internally as if they have been asked a direct
question. Examples include:
 “I don’t know if you can tell me when did you last do something new “
 “I wonder if you know what the issue is”
o Emedded commands
o These are direct commands that are contained within a sentence structure. It is a way to
give direct instructions to the unconscious mind. Examples include:
 “I will not say that it is easy to change”
 “I don’t know whether you will go into a trance in a few moments”
 “Do you think you should tell your friends about this”

With both embedded questions and embedded commands you will need to mark out the embedded
part of the sentence, this is normally achieved through changing the tone of your voice to mark out
the command you want to give. You would normally lower the tone of your voice yet slightly raise the
volume of it as well. In the above 3 examples it is the word in italics that would need to be marked
out. There are also other methods you can use to mark out the command, they include:
o Stretching the words out contained in the command or question

o Pause after you have given the command or question
o Dropping your voice at the end of the command or raising it at the end of a question
o Use visual anchors to mark out the words.
o Quotes
o These are also called “Extended Quotes” these reason for using quotes is that it takes
the attention away from the speaker and displaces the conscious mind and lets the
information go straight to the unconscious mind. Also as it comes from another person
you do not have responsibility of what is being said. Examples include:
 Jeff said that he found it very easy to go into trance when he let himself feel
that he could”
 Milton Erickson said that it was possible for anyone to go into a trance”
 “ I was speaking with a friend the other day in a coffee shop and she said “that
to really get a grip on your life it is really helpful to get a coach”
o Selectional Restriction Violation

o This is sentence structure which uses ill-formed sentences to give feelings to an object,
thing or an animal. These violations are quite like listening to a fairy story where
inanimate objects come to life, this again helps the message going straight to the
unconscious mind. Examples include:
 “That brick hurt my car”
 “Can you see how time flies”
 “If you are quiet you can hear the trees talking to you”
 “The tomato shook as the knife approached”
 “The chocolate was speaking my name”
 “The dog smiled at the mess he had made”
Other Milton Model patterns include;
o Utilisation
o This is a technique that Milton Erickson used a lot and was very successful using it and
became an expert in using it. This is where you use everything that happens either inside the
client, or something they have said or to the environment around them. The purpose of using
this is to help the client make connections to what you are saying and what they are
experiencing. Examples of this are:
 If a noise has just been made such as a bang:

 “As you here a loud sound it will let you know that things are changing inside
you”
 If you are aware of something is about to happen:

 In a moment you will hear a click and as you do you will go deeper into trance”
 The client keeps moving their fingers

 “When you can feel your fingers moving it is a sign that change can happen
now”
 The client says: “ I don’t think I know what to do”

 “That is right you don’t think you know yet”
o Linkage language
o This is a language structure which is used to pace and lead the client. This works by firstly
describing the current observable behaviour that can be verified by the listener, and the
speaker then links this to the listener’s desired behaviour. This is also a way to use utilisation
and connecting it to specific words. There are 3 types of linking language:
 Conjunctions
 This uses the word “and” to link observable behaviour to the desired behaviour.
It is used to link the pacing statement to the leading statement in a way so that
they appear to follow each other logically. Examples include:
o “As you sit there breathing and listening to my voice and you can start
to breather more deeply and to relax more”
o “ As you sit and read the paper and listening to my voice as I speak to
you and you can breathe deeply and relax to a greater degree”
o Linkage language cont
 Disjunction
 This uses the contrasting or negative form of conjunctions to achieve the same
results as positive conjunction. The sentence structure would be (“X” and/ or
“X” and / or “X” but “Y”) or you can see it as “Pacing / Pacing / Pacing /
Leading. An example:
o I don’t know if you would prefer to keep staring at the ceiling, or gaze
elsewhere, or if you would like to breath more deeper but I do know
that your unconscious can and can develop a trance that will fit with
your present needs”
 Implied causative
 This is where you use a language structure that uses “time based” words to
imply that one event is linked in time or caused by the other. Examples include:
o “Since you have started to breathe deeper, you can start to relax even
more”
o “When you get sitting comfortably you can allow your eyes to start to
close slowly”
o “While you start to remember that special time you can start to deepen
the trance:
o “After you become more comfortable you can begin to allow the trance
to deepen”
o Other words you could use include: “ before, during, throughout,
following, as, often.

Section 25– Using metaphors
 What are metaphors
 Types of metaphor
 How to construct a metaphor

Using Metaphors
In the field of NLP we use the term Metaphor to cover things such as: stories, parables, figure of speech and
comparisons. A metaphor can be described as “Chunking sideways” as they are used to compare one thing
to another to create or emphasise a certain point that is being made. A metaphor is used to take a situation
and to add some colour, depth or other aspect to make it appear different from how it is currently being
perceived.
Metaphors are an excellent communication method as they appear far less threatening than receiving direct
advice from someone. This is because the message we want to put across is bedded within the metaphor
and is not always easily recognisable on a conscious level.
Metaphors also work by communicating a message at different levels at the same time and can work with
both the conscious and unconscious mind at the same time. The surface structure of the story is normally
creative and fun and keeps the conscious mind focusing on the content of the story, while at the same time
the main message in the deeper structure of the story goes straight to the unconscious mind, where it can
start to make connections.
The metaphor works by firstly having the surface structure which is the contents of the story and at this level
we are only concerned on listening to the story. At the same time we hear the deep structure in the story
which then starts a Trans-derivational Search to find connections and references in our memory files which
then connects us back to the story. This happens outside of our conscious awareness as we unconsciously
make the connections.
Metaphors are a type of reframe and can be very powerful and on their own can create change or healing
within the person listening to the story as it operates on our mental internal representations. When using
metaphors the language used can introduce new strategies, states, ideas and new ways of thinking and
more.
There are different types of metaphors each are used for different situations, these are as follows:
o Comparison metaphors
o This is where you compare one thing to another, our everyday language is full of this type of
metaphor. You can also use comparison metaphors to create a theme which you would refer
to a number of times in your conversation this is called an “Organising Metaphor”
 Examples include:
 Parenting is like gardening
 Coaching is like building a house
 Being a therapist is like being a policeman, what type of policeman would you
be, how would you solve a crime, what clues would you look for, what evidence
would you collect

o Linked metaphors
o This is where you would use a number of metaphors that may seem unrelated however they
will all have something in common in terms of the information you want to pass on to the other
person. An example would be:
 A car journey, getting through a maze, using a compass, map reading, walking across
a desert are all linked to going on a journey and finding the right direction.
o Learning metaphors
o This is a method where you want to impart some knowledge of information without saying it
directly, these can be either very short and to the point or very long depending on the point
you want to put across. For example:
 “I used to think it would be great to buy an old car and do it up, the more I thought
about it the more I wanted to do it. I really wanted to do a restoration project on a mini,
I brought all the books looked at the websites and researched buying an old mini.
Although I never did it, when I look back I think “If only I had brought that mini” now all I
do is think about what I have missed out by not buying one and doing it”
o Emotional metaphors
o The purpose of this type of metaphor is to create an emotional response in the listener. These
work in two ways
 You can tell a story and get the listener to identify with being in the same situation and
then feel the emotion this would generate
 You can describe a situation and the listener will feel an emotion over what is being
said.
o An example of this would be:

o “ I woke up late yesterday and realised that I had to go to an important meeting by
10.00am and I could see by the time that if I did not get moving now I would be late. I
got up turned on the shower and no hot water came out, I had to decide to either see
if I could fix the boiler which would take time or have a cold shower, what to do?. I
decided on the cold shower, big mistake I came out shaking with a headache. I got
dressed went to have breakfast looked at the time and decided I did not have time, so I
grabbed two slices of dry bread, downed a cold glass of water and left. Got in the car,
got out forgot my briefcase, got back in the car and started my journey using the
satnav. Got to the town where the meeting was being held, I could see the building I
needed to get to yet my satnav kept sending me round and round in circles, what to do
leave the car parked somewhere and get a ticket or keep trying, it was now getting
near 10am. Do you know what it feels like to be so close to something yet so far
away? I decided to find a parking space and just be late for the meeting, what else
could I do?
o How many emotions did this bring up for you?
Isomorphic metaphor
An isomorphic metaphor is a story that closely resembles the real life situation that the client is going
through. It should work towards a conclusion that the person would want and should contain examples of
resources they could use to change their current situation to get them to the outcome they want. The more
indirect the metaphor is to the situation the more powerful it will probably be.

You can link the metaphor to your own life experiences, to famous people, books, films , TV programmes,
myths and legends or jokes.
There is a process to follow to create an Isomorphic metaphor, which is as follows:
1. Gather the information about the client’s current problem

a. Who does it involve, how many people, what are the important places or things in the
situation, what is the context of the problem
b. What are the submodalities used to describe the problem, people or objects.
c. Take note of what is happening in the current situation
2. What is the outcome or state they want to achieve

a. Who does it involve, how many people, what are the important places or things in the
situation, what is the context of the desired outcome
b. What are the submodalities used to describe the problem, people or objects in the outcome.
c. Take note of what is happening in the desired outcome
3. What are the important relationships in the elements of the story

a. You need to ensure that in the story the main relationships are still used and a clear
connection can be seen
b. All other elements of the story can be changed as long as these main relationships are kept
4. Chunk sideways from the problem

a. Does the situation remind you of anything else
b. Replace the significant characters in the story with different people, this also applies to places
and objects
c. The context of the story should also be changed
d. Use the same submodalities in your new story as were used by the client in their description
of their situation
e. The story should move from the present state to the desired outcome to mirror the client
f. Ensure the story parallels the original relationship of the elements between present and
outcome state
g. It is sometimes easier to work backwards from the outcome to design the steps to get to there
from the current state

To make the metaphor effective
To help to make the metaphor more effective for the listener you can:
a. Help the listener to relax so they can fully focus on the story
b. Use lots of sensory based language
c. Ensure you can engage with the listener
d. Ensure the listener buys into the story so they want to know how it ends
e. Use predicates that help the listener to see, hear and feel the story internally
f. Use the art of suspense so the listener is keen to find out what comes next and how the story ends
g. Help the listener to identify with the characters in the story
h. Use humour to switch from one state to another
i. Create the unexpected in the story to amaze and engage with the listener

Section 26– Techniques for change work 1
 The New Behaviour Generator
 Parts integration

The New Behaviour Generator
The New Behaviour Generator is a strategy that is used for most situations which would involve someone
using some personal flexibility. The outcome of this technique is to mentally rehearse what is wanted by
generating imagery and connecting feelings to this, of what it will be like to achieve the outcome required.
The New Behaviour Generator is based on the following NLP beliefs:
o People can learn new ways of behaving by creating new mental maps
o The more complete the mental map is, the better the chances of achieving the new behaviour
o When you are fully focused on your goal the possibility of achieving it increases
o People already have the resources they need to achieve this new behaviour
There are 3 main steps to this strategy:
1. Creating a visual image of the behaviour required

2. Associate with the image kinaesthetically
3. Look for any missing elements that are needed
Using these 3 steps a feedback loop is formed as they move from the outcome of what is required from what
is missing and then feeding back.
The New Behaviour Generator TOTE

This strategy can be classed as a “How to do something” process, which uses the concept of “Acting as if” to
support the changes that are wanted in terms of adapting an existing behaviour or using a new one.
The process follows a set sequence of steps that involve using representational systems and accessing cues
to ensure the steps of fully experienced and adopted to allow the changes to take place.

The New Behaviour Generator Process
1. Decide on what new behaviour is needed, the question to ask would be “ If you had already achieved
your goal what would you look like” As you do this look down and to your left to access the Auditory
Dialogue representation system (AD)
2. Now picture yourself actually achieving your goal, what do you see. You will want to create an image
that you are disassociated from either looking at you from above or as if you were next to yourself. As
you do this look up to your right to encourage yourself to stimulate your visual imagination (VC)
a. If you are finding it difficult to find an image of yourself achieving your new goal you could
i. Use Chunking down to identify smaller steps of the goal and see yourself achieving
these small steps and visualise yourself achieving these smaller goals you could also
ask yourself “Can I see myself achieving this step?” ( Ad – Vc) or ( Vc – Ad)
ii. Use an image from a previous success that is similar to the new one you want to
achieve and you could ask yourself “ Have I achieved something already that is the
same or similar to the new goal I want to achieve?” Create an image of you being
successful in that situation and then change it to seeing yourself being successful in
the new goal you want ( Ad – Vr - Vc )
3. Fully associate with the image so you can start to really feel what it will be like to achieve your goal.
As you do this put your head down and to the right as you start to experience this feeling, what do
you see, hear and feel? . ( Vc - Kc)
4. Compare these feelings with a similar past experience where you have already been successful. As
you do this keep your eyes and head down to the right ( Kc - Kr)
5. If these 2 feelings are an exact match and you feel truly confident that you can achieve your goal
successfully, you have finished the process.
6. If these 2 feelings are not the same, identify what is missing and add these needed resources to your
goal, this could be things such as; more confidence, more relaxed, free from anxiety. If you need to
be more confident then you should ask yourself, “ If I was more confident what would I be doing
instead. Then go back to step 1 and repeat the process. As you do this move your eyes and head to
look down to your left
7. When you go back to the first step add the new resource that you need into the image and goal
statement such as “ When I give presentations I will be more confident and less anxious”

Parts integration
This is a technique that is used to help to resolve internal conflict by finding areas that the parts that are in
conflict agree on. This is a process used to help the person negotiate with themselves to get the outcome
they want and to resolve the inner conflict.
We have all experienced times when parts of us want different things and it is the strongest part that normally
wins, for example:
 Part of you may want to go to the gym and the other part may want to stay at home and watch TV, it
is the part that has the strongest pull that gets the outcome it wants
The part that wins will be expressed in our external behaviour which may appear to be calm and enjoying the
outcome, however inside there may be some turmoil or doubt being expressed as the part that lost out starts
to fight back.
The Parts Integration technique is used as a mediator between the 2 parts so that an outcome that both want
is achieved the process for doing this technique follows:
1. Ask the client to identify the conflict they are having and the parts involved in the conflict. They need
to make sure that they clearly identify the parts and fully understand the nature of the conflict.
2. Explain to the client they are going to be separating the parts out and you will be doing this spatially
on their hands. You will want to have the client hold their hands out in front of them and to the side at
about chest height
3. Have the Part, which represents the unwanted state or behaviour come out on the hand first, you will
need to ask the client “I wonder if I can talk to this part. Which hand would it like to come out and
stand on?”
4. Make sure that the Client has a V-A-K image of the part as it comes out on the hand, ask them “Who
does this part look like; does it look/sound/feel like someone you know?”
5. Now ask the other part to come out on the other hand and say: “I’d like to talk to the Part with which
this Part is most in conflict, and let’s have it come out and stand on the other hand.”
6. Make sure that the Client has a V-A-K image of the part as it comes out on the hand, ask them: “Who
does this part look like; does it look/sound/feel like someone you know?”
7. Separate intention from behaviour so that the positive intention of each part is found. Reframe each
part so that they realise that they actually have the same intention by chunking up — ask, “What is
the intention ...” or “For what purpose ...” Begin chunking up first with the part that has the unwanted
state or behaviour. As you do, make sure that the client’s intention stays associated.

8. Now, have the two parts notice they were once part of a larger whole.
9. You now need to ask:

o “Where do the two parts meet?,
o “What can both parts agree on?”
10. You need to explain that both parts are important and that neither part has to give anything up as part
of this process in order to agree to find the high level intention. Also both parts need each other to get
the outcome they want as currently neither part is as they remain in conflict.
11. Ask if there were any other parts that were also once part of the larger whole of this conflict and have
them also become part of the integration.
12. Ask them what resources or attributes does each part have that the other part would like to have?
13. You now need to settle the conflict by having both parts integrate together or to get a workable
agreement.
14. To integrate the parts ask the client to do this in a way that is right for them, this could include:
o A sound of the 2 parts merging together
o An image of 2 images coming together
o Two beams of light coming together
15. One effective method is to ask the client is to bring the two hands together and as the hands come
together give additional suggestions for integration.
16. Take the integrated part inside and have it merge into the wholeness inside by bringing the merged
hands together into your chest and feel the new part being absorbed inside.
17. Allow the client some time for the integration to take place and to see what difference this has made
and how they now feel.
18. Test & future pace.

Section 27– Beliefs
 What are beliefs and where they come from
 How to identify beliefs in yourself and others
 Limiting beliefs
 Changing belief techniques
 Submodality belief change technique
 The Museum of Old Beliefs

Exploring Beliefs
When we talk about a person’s beliefs you are talking about the rules that people live their lives by. They are
our internal representations of how we view the world around us and it what we call our reality of
experiences. Our beliefs and our values have a big influence over the way a person acts in different
situations.
A belief can be classed as a generalisation on how we view the world, they can be called our presuppositions
of the world around you and this can either give you power and a positive outlook on life, or drain our power
and give you a negative outlook. You can think of a belief as an on / off switch on our ability to do anything
we want in the world around us.
Our beliefs contain deletions, distortions and generalisations which are used more or less in different
situations that we experience.
 For example
o If we believe that we do not deserve to have certain things happen to you in your life you will
probably delete any evidence of this in your life as you believe you are not able to have it.
o If we believe everyone ignores us then we will generalise that with everyone that we meet and
then make it so.
o If we think that we do not have the strength to do something then we will not be able to
The beliefs we hold are there to protect us from doing certain things and also to protect the belief itself.
 For example
o If you believe that you are not successful, your belief is protecting you by stopping you from
attempting something and then failing, also by not trying something it protects the belief itself
and reinforces it.
Our beliefs operate out of our conscious awareness they are patterns we run all the time based on the
experiences we are going through at any point in time. Every experience that you have had and all of the
people you have met have helped to shape your current beliefs.
Our beliefs are not facts, we just believe they are, however our beliefs can be very strong and so we view
them as being true facts in the way we live our lives and what we do.
In NLP we treat beliefs as a type of presupposition, not as definite truth or absolute facts.
Therefore if they are not definite truths or absolute facts we can work with them and change them.
You can also choose what to believe and what not to believe; therefore you can change them when you
choose to as well.
Beliefs

As we grow up we start to shape our own views of the world around us, this is something we do naturally and
this is what shapes our beliefs. As we develop beliefs we tend to focus on information that supports our
existing beliefs so that they become stronger. We tend not to focus on anything that will undermine or go
against our current beliefs and show us they are not true.
If you hold lots of deep seated beliefs, it can make you very blinkered in your thinking and you will not bend
from believing in these beliefs and you may start to develop some very strong opinions on the areas in which
you believe totally.
When you have rigid beliefs you may clash with others who do not hold the same beliefs as you, as you are
both working from your own model of the world.
Identifying beliefs
You can start to uncover people’s unconscious beliefs through listening to the types of statements that they
make. Some examples of statements which show a person’s beliefs are:
 “I am, I am not” statements

 “My family is, My family isn’t”
 “Life is , Life is not”
 “My job is, My job is not”
To identify your own beliefs about certain aspects of your life, you can get a piece of paper and write down
the answers to questions such as:
 “What do I believe about life?”

 “What do I believe about work?”
 “What do I believe about me?”
 “What do I believe about my family”
You could then repeat the process asking yourself “What you do not believe?” about each area
By doing this exercise it will bring to your conscious awareness the current beliefs you have about these
areas, they can be positive or limiting. If you want to make changes in your life and get the results that you
want you can start to look at your beliefs and identify which ones are serving you and which are holding you
back. You may also want to start to think about what beliefs you could start to have about your life which
would help you to see it in a different way.

Where do beliefs come from?
As we grow we acquire and develop our beliefs as we try to make sense of the world around us. Your beliefs
may have been shaped by some of the following:
 Your culture
o Your parents and family play a large part in developing your current beliefs. You may follow
the same religion as your parents or support the same football team, or go to certain places
because your parents did
 Life experiences
o You may have some significant experiences in your life that have made an imprint on your
beliefs, a majority of this imprinting takes place before we reach the age of 7. The beliefs that
are formed can be either empowering beliefs or limiting beliefs.
 Role models
o You may also take on the beliefs of people you admire and are influenced by, this can be
friends, celebrities or through reading stories about people who overcome traumas in their life.
 Reference experience
o You may have had one event that has happened to you or that you created that had a big
impact on what you believe about yourself, about others or about the world around you.
 Repeat experiences
o If you think about an event over and over again you will start to believe it will be true for you,
also the more you actually have an event happen to you the more you believe it as well.
 Peer groups
o The groups we belong to can influence your beliefs, you may be attracted to groups that have
the same beliefs as you do so that these then become reinforced or you may change your
own beliefs to take on the beliefs of a group you want to belong to or are already a part of.
If you believe it you get it
Our unconscious mind works in a very logical way, whatever information it takes in, it sorts this information
so that it matches your current beliefs and most other things are ignored. You can think of your beliefs as
filters on the world that only let through information that matches our beliefs the other information gets
deleted.

Changing beliefs
Our beliefs are not set in stone, as we know they are not reality they are just our perception of what we think
is reality. Some beliefs do change by themselves this is normally when you are exposed to the information
that may have been missing in the original belief, that when it is found will change that belief.
 What beliefs did you use to believe in that you no longer believe is true now, think about what
changed that belief?
So, some beliefs can be easy to change, however some are more deep rooted and takes much more effort to
change them. These beliefs can carry on throughout a person’s life and if they are limiting beliefs they can
hold a person back from achieving the things they want to in life and from being the person they want to be.
When working on changing a limiting belief that someone has this is normally something that has come from
something significance that has happened to the person, however there are a number of NLP techniques
that can be used to remove these limiting beliefs.
 Some examples of limiting belief statements are:

o “I am not good enough”
o “I’m useless”
o “I have no control”
o “I will never win”
o “ I am too fat”
o “I am ugly”
o “It is not safe to show feelings”
o “ I cannot trust people”
o “I cannot trust myself”
o “I am not important”
The beliefs are all very similar and this can be because of the wording used. It is the words that are used that
hold the power of the belief, when you are aware of these beliefs and the impact they have on your
behaviour, you can start to question these and then start to change them.
There are a number of NLP techniques that are used to help to change a person’s limiting belief, we will look
at two here which are:
 Submodality belief change technique

 The Museum of old beliefs

Submodality belief change technique – the process
1. Ask the client to think about a belief that they no longer want to have
2. Carry out a submodality analysis on this belief to identify how the client codes this belief
3. When that is completed break state and ask the client to think about something they doubt, this is
something they are not sure about or something they feel may or may not be true. When they have
an example you again carry out a submodality analysis on how they represent doubt.
4. Now compare the 2 checklists, the one for belief and the one for doubt and carry out a contrast
analysis on these and make note of the differences.
5. Carry out a test on the way the client codes belief and if changing the different submodalities to that
of how they code doubt makes any difference to them; be aware to look for any changes as well. You
should go down the list changing one at a time seeing the impact that makes before moving on to the
next one, remember to change each one back to how it was before moving on.
6. Ask the client what is the new belief they want to have, this needs to be stated in positive terms and
as something that they want and not something they already have.
7. Be sure to ask the client what might be the effects of them having this new belief, will it affect them,
other people or their life. If it does ask them to change the belief until it is right for them and they are
happy with the effect it will have.
8. You are now going to have them changing the belief to a doubt. Now using the submodality analysis
you carried out in step 5 use the most powerful submodalities change each one with the belief until it
is something they doubt
9. You now need to change the content from the old belief to the new one by using another submodality
shift. One thing you could do would be to ask the client to move the old belief they no longer want
way of into the far distance until they can no longer see it. They can then bring this image back
formed as the new belief that they want
10. You now ask them to change doubt to belief by reversing the submodality changes you made in step
8 yet still keep the content the same. If there is any resistance to the change ask them to be sure they
have created correctly the new belief that they want.
11. Test by asking them to think about this new belief and see which submodalities are used.
Driver Submodality Belief Change

Visual Belief Doubt New Belief Change to
make

Associated / disassociated
Framed / panoramic
Location in space
3D or flat
Colour or Black & White
Bright or dim
Contrast
Intensity
Focussed or blurred
Still or moving
Number of images
Angle of view
Auditory Belief Doubt New Belief Change to

make
Volume
Tempo
Pitch
Tone
Loud or Quiet
Clear of Muffled
One location or all around
Constant
Pauses
Internal / External
Direction
Number of sources
Voices
Groupings
Kinaesthetic Belief Doubt New Belief Change to

make
Internal / External
Location
Temperature
Vibrating
Still
Weight
Pressure
Size
Shape
Movement
Steady / pauses
Duration
Emotion
The Museum of Old Beliefs

This is a process that has been created by Robert Dilts, it is a process which uses spatial anchoring to help
to change a person’s limiting beliefs. The method to carry out this technique is listed below:
Before you start this technique, you need to have prepared 7 pieces of paper, then write one of the following
statements on the paper:

 Meta position
 Open to doubt
 Used to believe
 Museum of old beliefs
 Open to believe
 Believe
 Trust
Ask the person to identify the limiting belief they have about themselves and get them to fully associate with
this belief. I do this to ensure that the person can get in touch with their belief and they feel that it is
something they really want to change.
When they have got in touch with the belief fully get them to break state as you explain the process that you
will be going through with them
As this is a spatial anchoring technique you need the person to be able to fully associate with each of the
states you want to create, therefore it is important that you break state between each of the positions.
Next place the paper on the floor in a circle in the positions shown on the following page
Meta
Open to
Believe
doubt
Open to Used to
believe believe
Museum
Trust of old
beliefs
1. Ask your client to stand on the paper with the words “Open to Doubt” written on it, here they need to
fully associate with how it feels to not fully believe something and that what they have heard might not
be true. You could give some suggestions here if you want to such as “ I am not sure if I will pass my
exams”. When they have fully associated with this using VAK, get them to anchor this to the paper.
After they have done this ask them to step off the paper and do a break state with them
2. Now the client can stand on the “Used to believe” paper and think of how it feels to have believed in
something that they now know is not true, such as, “the tooth fairy”, The moon is made of cheese”
UFOs. When they have fully associated with this using VAK, get them to anchor this to the paper.
After they have done this ask them to step off the paper and do a break state with them
3. They can now go on to the Museum of Old Beliefs; here they can create a museum where they are
going to place their old beliefs. Ask them to create their own image as this will be easier for them to

recall. However you should ask them to put in this museum a long corridor with a room at the end, in
the room there is a cupboard in the cupboard there is a drawer in the drawer there is a lockable box;
here they are going to place all of their old beliefs. When they have fully associated with this using
VAK, get them to anchor this to the paper. After they have done this ask them to step off the paper
and do a break state with them
4. Now ask them to stand on the Open to believe piece of paper, and get them to get fully associated
with how it feels to be open to believe that something can be true. Such as “ I believe that one day I
will be able to achieve all of my goals”. When they have fully associated with this using VAK, get them
to anchor this to the paper. After they have done this ask them to step off the paper and do a break
state with them
5. Now they can go to the piece of paper with the word “Believe” on it, here they need to get fully
associated with something that they truly believe without any question, such as “My partner loves
me”, “the sun will rise tomorrow” When they have fully associated with this using VAK, get them to
anchor this to the paper. After they have done this ask them to step off the paper and do a break
state with them
6. Now they can go to the trust piece of paper and here they need to get a connection of how it feels for
them to fully trust something or somebody, this needs to be a really strong feeling of trust. When they
have fully associated with this using VAK, get them to anchor this to the paper. After they have done
this ask them to step off the paper and do a break state with them
7. Now we can start the process of change with the client, ask them to step onto the piece of paper with
the word “Meta” on it and get them to fully associate how it feels to have that limiting belief.
8. Keeping that belief they can move to the piece of paper saying “Open to doubt”, they now need to
allow the state of being open to doubt to influence how they are feeling about their limiting belief. Let
the client have time to do this and ask them to let you know when they are ready to move on. You can
talk to them during this and say language such as “ how does it now feel that you are open to doubt
that belief and you can feel that old belief fading from you
9. Now move the client to the paper stating “Used to believe” and ask them to allow the feelings of used
to believe to be applied to the limiting belief they used to have, again allow them time to fully
associate these feelings with their old limiting belief and move them on when they are ready
10. They can now go to the piece of paper with their museum of old beliefs on it and go to the box they
constructed and place that old limiting belief in that locked box and how good it feels to have them left
behind and locked away so they cannot come back
11. Now they can go to the piece of paper with the word “Trust” on it, here they can find for themselves a
strong empowering belief that they will find useful to have instead of the limiting belief and to fully
associate with the trust feelings that this is something they can have and a believe that will make a
difference for them. When they have fully associated with this using VAK, get them to anchor this to
the paper. After they have done this ask them to step off the paper and do a break state with them
12. Taking this new belief and this feeling of trust they move to the piece of paper with “open to believe”
on it. On this spot they take this new belief they have about themselves and allow it to grow and get
stronger and to feel empowered by this new belief and that is something they can do. When they
have fully associated with this using VAK, get them to anchor this to the paper. After they have done
this ask them to step off the paper and do a break state with them

13. They can now take this feeling to the piece of paper with the word “Believe” on it here they can now
feel that this new believe is something that they strongly believe to be true about themselves and that
it is a really strong feeling inside them
14. When they are ready ask them to step away from the circle, do a break state with them and future
test your work, if they are not fully sure about the change you can repeat the process.

Section 28– Change Techniques 2
 Visual squash
 The SCORE process

Visual squash
The visual squash is a technique that is used to integrate "parts" of a client. This is a technique that can be
used when you hear a client say something like "on one hand I want this, but on the other hand I want that".
This shows that the client is going through some kind of internal conflict between parts where they are unable
to decide what action to take. This technique takes 2 separate parts and then creates another part that gives
them access to more choices.
 For example
o You may have a task to complete one part of you might want to get the important task
completed to a good standard, however the other part of you wants to play, so you will have
an internal conflict as these two parts clash with each other.
The Process to follow:
1. Ask the client to identify the parts that are in dispute, for example part of them wants to leave their job
and start an exciting new career, part of them wants to stay in their current job.
2. Ask the client to hold out each hand in front of them.
3. Get them to decide which part should be on each hand, perhaps they place the part that wants to
leave is on their right hand, and the part that wants to stay is on their left
4. Ask them to visualise what each part looks like. Get them to see it as clearly as possible. To listen for
any associated sounds. Ask them to take note of the feeling of the weight of that part in your hand.
5. Ask the client to pick one part, perhaps the part that wants to leave.
6. Have them ask the part, or their unconscious mind, what that part wants to achieve for them by
leaving. Say the answer that comes back is that the part wants excitement. Ask them what
excitement brings them. Say the answer is happiness. And happiness? Say the answer is peace. Go
as high as possible in terms of intention.
7. Now have the client turn to the other part and repeat the process. Say that part wants safety. And
through safety, protection. And through protection, peace.
8. When you have reached a positive intention that is common to both parts, point out that both parts
want the same thing.
9. Suggest that a new part can be formed out of the union of the two parts. Using hypnotic language
guide the hands to move together, then move to the body as the part is integrated back inside.

THE SCORE Technique
The SCORE model was developed by Robert Dilts and Todd Epstein in 1987 to describe the process that
they used intuitively to define problems and develop interventions.
The SCORE technique is a more fluid process to use than other techniques as it allows you to use your
intuition to decide on what approach to take. Most NLP models work by following a defined process which
when followed in the precise order will get you the outcome required. The SCORE Model is also a good
technique to use to help solve problems that you are able to see a resolution to.
In the SCORE technique you can start from any part of the procedure that feels right for you and the situation
the client is addressing and how they are presenting it.
The SCORE Model is made up from 5 elements, they are:
 Symptom
o These are the surface issues which the client is using to indicate they have a problem that
they want to resolve
 Cause
o These are the ways in which the symptom is triggered, they may not at first be obvious
however part of this process is uncovering what the causes are.
 Outcomes
o This refers to the desired state that the client wants to achieve; it looks at what are the new
behaviours that the client wants to have to replace the ones they currently use.
 Resources
o This looks at the range of techniques that can be used to help to change the behaviour and to
get the desired behaviour. Here you can use any NLP which would be appropriate for the
client to help them to get the change they want.
 Effects
o This looks at what are the longer term effects of achieving the new behaviour what will it
change and what effect will it have either positively or negatively, it is really an ecology check.

SCORE – The process
This technique works very well when the process is followed using a spatial anchoring process. . To do this
you can place pieces of paper on the floor using one piece of paper for each part of the model, an example
of how you could do this is shown below:
1. Firstly have the client identify the symptom they want work on.
2. Ask them to stand on the Symptom spatial anchor and ask them some questions relating to the
symptom, these could include the following:
a. “How has the symptom come to your attention”
b. “What do you notice most about your current situation or problem?”
c. “What are the presenting or surface problems you identify with this symptom
d. What other symptoms are you now becoming more aware of?”
e. “What long term symptoms may arise if this situation or problem continues”
f. “What do you want to change”
3. You can now ask them where they want to stand next or you can intuitively tell them where to go next
4. If the go to Causes next you could ask them any of the following questions:
a. “What has caused this current situation?”
b. “When you have this symptom what internal representations let you know that you have it?”
c. “What other contributing factors start you to feel the symptom
d. “What other causes are you now aware of that you were not before?”
e. “What meanings can you attribute to these causes?”
5. If they go to Outcome next you could ask them any of the following questions?
a. “What is the outcome that you want?”
b. “What is your desired end goal or outcome?”
c. “What other outcomes may arise from achieving this outcome”

d. “Which path will you take to achieve your outcome?
e. “What is the final outcome you want to move towards?”
6. If they go to Resources next you could ask them any of the following questions?
a. “What resources do you have at your disposal, thoughts, imagination, memory etc?”
b. “What resources do you need to move from your present state to your current state?”
c. “What beliefs or behaviours do you current have that will help you get your outcome?”
7. If they go to Effect you can ask some of the following questions?

a. “What effects will happen as part of achieving your desired outcome?
b. “What can your desired outcome lead to?”
c. “What would be the outcome of achieving the outcome you want?”

Section 29 – Trance work
 Suggestibility test
 The reorientation process
 Trance inductions and deepeners
 Making suggestions under trance

Suggestibility tests
These are test which help to identify if a person is liable to go into a trance and how suggestible they are to
instructions, as you talk through the process you are actually taking them into a trance at the same time.
The lead weight and the balloon
This test is used to see how suggestible the person is to instructions, this is a very simple test to use and the
results will be very easy to observe. The process for this is as follows:
1. Ask the person to extend their arms out in front of them, with their right palm turned facing upwards
2. Tell them to imagine holding a heavy lead weight is sitting in the palm of that hand
3. Tell them to make a fist with their left hand with their thumb pointing towards the ceiling
4. Ask them to imagine that there are several large balloons filled with helium tied to their thumb
5. Explain that as their hand is lifted by the balloons , the hand holding the lead weight is becoming
heavier and heavier
6. As you see the hands start to move apart you can say that as the right arm becomes heavier their left
arm is becoming lighter as it is lifted by the balloons
7. You could also reverse it by saying that as the left arm becomes lighter the right arm becomes
heavier.
The hand clasp
This is a test which convinces the person they are not able to pull apart their hands
1. Ask the person to take their hands and clasp them together and to close their eyes
2. Now say “Your hands are becoming more and more tightly clasped together, tighter and tighter they
will be clasped
3. Now say “Try to open them, try to pull your hands apart, try and find you cannot, in fact the harder
you try the harder they clasp themselves together
4. To end the exercise, say, “You are now able to unclasp your hands easily”

Reorientation
Before working with people and using trance and hypnosis it is important that you know how to bring them
back out of a trance and back to being fully awake and alert. This is so that when they leave you they are
fully aware of what is going on around them and they are fully in control of themselves, this is important for
safety reasons.
Process 1
This process is really the reverse of the process you would use for putting them into a trance using a trance
induction. The following is a script that you can use to reorient a client after they have been in a trance.
“In a moment, not now I am going to start to count from 1 to 10, and as I count up with each new number you
can come back to full waking consciousness. 1.. starting to come back… 2….. your energy level is rising…
3, 4 becoming more aware of the room around you… 5…..6….. starting to move and stretch a little
now…7…8 ready to open up your eyes… 9… 10.. and now fully open your eyes and make sure you are all
the way back, full of energy, full of confidence and fully refreshed as if you have just woken from a deep,
relaxing and refreshing sleep….
If the client is still not fully awake you could also add the following to your reorientation…
“ Put your feet on the floor, and be aware of the connection between your feet and the floor. Feeling down to
earth and fully connected again, fully back in the room and awake
Get them to stand up and walk around until they feel fully awake.
Just before they leave you could say
“And as soon as you get out into the fresh clean air you will feel even more refreshed and more wide awake
than usual and if you are driving as soon as you put your key in the ignition, your hand on the steering wheel
and gearstick, you will feel even more alert and drive more safely than usual”
Process 2
You could also use this script
And it's almost time to begin to come back now... and just before you do... remember that next time you
choose to relax in this way... you can relax more quickly... more easily... more deeply... each time you
choose to relax in this way... so now... bringing everything that you've liked about this back with you... just
begin to come back to full waking consciousness... as your energy levels rise... you feel more alert... starting
to move and stretch a little... and open your eyes, feeling refreshed, alert and fully awake, as if you've just
had a deep, refreshing sleep. And welcome back!

Trance inductions
The following are a range of inductions that you can use to put a client into a trance
Arm Levitation induction
You will need to say the section on relaxation when the person breathes out and the sections on arm
levitation when the person breathes in.
1. Can you feel comfortable as you rest your hands gently on your thighs, that’s right, without letting
them touch each other
2. Can those hands rest so lightly so that the fingertips are just touching your thighs
3. That’s right, as they rest lightly, you can notice how each time when you take a breath out that they
want to lift up a bit. Good, now I wonder what’s about to happen
4. Most people can experience one hand becoming lighter than the other and I wonder which one is
becoming lighter now
5. Person should indicate which hand is becoming lighter
6. And it is that lightness like being pulled from above, as if a helium balloon is tied to your hand that
tugs your hand upwards each time the balloon is tugged by the wind
7. Or it can feel as if your hand is being pushed from below as if a cushion of energy is expanding under
your hand pushing it upwards
8. Do your hands begin to lift even more lightly and easily be themselves as the rest of the body relaxes
more and more
9. As that continues does one hand or the other or maybe both keep up lifting even more
10. And does that hand float up and keep on lifting higher and higher, all by itself, bit by bit. As if it has a
mind of its own.. and it does.. your unconscious mind. And does the other hand want to keep up or
will it just relax and rest?
11. That’s right. And does the hand continue lifting with these slight small jerking movements or does the
lifting get smoother and smoother as the hand continues up towards your face?

12. Does it move quickly or slowly as it eases towards your face with deepening comfort, only as quickly
as your unconscious mind is ready to let you go deeper? And does it want to…pause, just before the
moment it touches your face, you’ll know when your unconscious.. is ready to let you go deeper…
when it’s ready to touch your face
13. And when the hand touches your face, will your body take a deep breath as you really relax and go
deeper into that pleasant state
14. As the person’s hand touches their face you can go back to speaking on their out breath
15. And as your hand.. floats down… all the way down.. to your lap,, only as quickly as you let yourself
drift deeper , will you even bother to notice your deepening… comfort… and maybe your
unconscious… is ready to dream… by the time that hands goes all the way down.
16. At this point you can give the person the suggestions that will help them to get what they require from
the session
17. After you have delivered the suggestions you will want to start to reorient them back to being fully
awake and alert using the script outlined previously.

Trance Deepeners
There are a number of methods you can use to help the person go into a deeper trance, some of these
include the following
The Staircase Method
The following script is spoken to the person
1. Imagine you are at the top of a lovely ornate staircase, this staircase had just 10 steps and these
steps lead you down to the place where you find it easy to relax and feel safe
2. I am going to count down from 10 to 1 and with each number I count you can take a safe,
comfortable, easy step down towards your relaxing place
3. You can say the numbers on the out breath, gradually slowing down as you get closer to 1 you could
also say deeply relaxed on alternate breaths out
4. When you reach the bottom of the stairs, imagine that your favourite resting place is just as you like it
to be to help you to relax easily, imagine the sights, sounds or feelings that you experience when you
are there
5. I will soon start to count up again and with each number I count you can make your way back up the
staircase 1 step at a time. When I have reached 10 you will be fully conscious, with your eyes open
and are fully awake.

Trance Deepeners
The Mirror Method
This is taken from the book Training Trances by John Overdurf and Julie Silverthorn
The script to follow is…..
“Just imagine yourself floating and as you float and rest in that place, I wonder if you can notice a mirror that
is floating slowly and gently towards you from the horizon, coming closer to you so that you can soon see
what is reflected in it. This is a magic mirror, instead of just reflecting back your image, it reflects how you are
going to look a few minutes into the future. See the “you” in the mirror going into trance.
Notice how your eyes are relaxing and getting ready to close. Notice your forehead smoothing out and the
muscles in your face slowly starting to relax. And you may notice some gentle change in your breathing
You could say to yourself, or even hear a voice saying “this feels so good” in a warm and comforting tone,
you know the tome that works best for you
And now that mirror starts to float away from you, floating further and further away as the picture fades and
gets vaguer, until it disappears. Leaving you floating where you are now…..
When you are ready bring the mirror back from a point in the distance back towards you. See the “you” in the
mirror beginning to come out of trance, until you are all the way back and fully alert again”

Making suggestions under hypnosis
When you have the person in a trance and under hypnosis you now need to be able to make the suggestions
for the person to be able to create the change that they want. The following is one process you can follow to
give suggestions:
1. When you make suggestion to people you need to state them in the positive as you will remember
that the unconscious mind does not process negative commands.
2. Always keep your suggestion, clear, concise and brief and only focus on one outcome at a time
3. Use symbols to aid suggestions, using images that the person can relate to, include all of the
representational systems, sight, sound and feelings, as this will aid your verbal suggestions, such as:
“ As you breathe easily, your body will unwind like a tight coil that can slacken and feel
free from tension as is gently uncoils and relaxes”
“You can be as limp and relaxed as a piece of seaweed floating about in the sea”
4. Use process words such as “You can” of “You will” rather than “You are” as it can contradict their
sensory experience, for example:
“ You can relax” or “You are relaxing” rather than “You are relaxed”
5. Make sure the suggestions will serve the person in the widest context and not be focused on specifics
6. You can make the most of post-hypnotic suggestion triggers, such as:
“When I see the door to my home I immediately feel myself becoming calmer and more
relaxed”
“When I see people eating junk food, I feel happy that I am eating well and glad that I am
becoming fitter and healthier
7. Where possible link a value or an emotion to the suggestion for change, what is important to them
about changing, for example:
“When I see others smoking I am content that I am saving money and providing more for my
family”

Section 30 – Meta Programmes
In this section we are going to cover:
 What Meta-progammes are

 The different types of meta-programmes
 Eliciting people’s meta-programmes

What are Meta-progammes
Meta-progammes are classed as programmes or behaviours that we demonstrate in specific contexts and
situations.
These are classed as a form or structure of the way we think and can be considered as our thinking style,
this is something that exists above our thinking level or outside of it, thus it is termed as “meta”.
We call these ways of thinking out meta programmes, which identifies them as thinking that is outside or
above the content we are thinking about. The meta-progammes we used are developed as we grow up and
and are used to help us to make sense of the world around us. As we develop, and over time we form a
range of generalisations in our patterns of behaviour which then become useful learning responses.
The meta-progammes can be classed as the way we process and sort information relating to a situation we
find ourselves in. This sorting can be classed as perceptual filtering and this helps us to make up our map of
the territory we found ourselves in.
Meta-progammes can also function as deletion filters as they help us to focus on specific aspects of a
situation and delete the rest.
Meta-progammes being the formation of thoughts and behaviour are used effectively to understand a
person’s behaviour rather than to label people as having a certain personality type.
Meta-progammes can be likened to a computer operating system, the outcome you get from inputting data
will depend on the operating system that is running at that particular time. Which means, a person can take
in the data and the way they interpret it, will be dependent on the situation they find themselves in.
The meta-progammes in NLP are derived from the work of Karl Jung and his perspective on personality
types which was then further developed by Myers Briggs. In each of the 8 types of personalities they are
divided into opposing types and in meta-progammes this is still the case. However in meta-progammes there
are 16 different types, some on the more common of these are outlined on the following pages.
Meta-progammes
Motivation Direction Filter
Towards Away from
 Future focused, looking towards events that  Have a cautious outlook and focus on what
are yet to happen they will need to avoid
 Wondering about what will happen in the  Their approach it to focus on prevention to
future avoid things happening
 They future brings them excitement and  They want to consider problems and be ready
enjoyment for them
 Have an optimistic outlook and focus on the  Thinks about difficulties and problems the day
day ahead with excitement or future may bring and be ready for them
 More proactive than reactive  Have a pessimistic outlook and are concerned
 Motivated by being rewarded for their about the problems each new day will bring
achievements. that they will need to avoid
 More reactive than proactive
 Motivated by the stick and not the carrot
Reason Filter
Procedures Options
 Likes to have a thought out step by step  Likes to have choice on how to complete a
procedure to follow task
 Likes having things in a logical sequence  Will look for new ways to complete and activity
 Will refer to manuals and operating  Likes to be involved in brainstorming sessions
instructions on how to use equipment and think in a creative way
 Will always look for an established  Likes to look for new ways to carry out
procedure for them to follow existing tasks
 Uses intuition rather than following a structure
 Will always come up with a range of options
when faced with having to make a decision
 Likes to be involved in lots of different tasks
 Will be good at writing procedures, however
not so good at following them.

Frame of reference
Internal External
 They will pay more attention to their own  Uses external data and evidence to make
thoughts, feelings, emotions and judgements and come to a decision
experiences when making a decision  If there is no credible data available they will
 They can sometimes ignore external carry out research until they find some
information if it does not fit with their internal  Will ask a lot of people what they think of a
information and judgement situation
 Gives a lot of feedback to other people
whether they have asked for it or not
Chunk size
Global Detail
 Likes to think about the big picture and not  Likes to focus on all of the details relating to
on the details an issue
 Would rather focus on concepts or principals  Will be happier focusing on things that are
rather than the heart of how things work tangible and can be measured rather than
 Rather have a meeting to generate ideas abstract concepts
rather than work out a plan of action  Likes hard facts rather than theories and
 Will pool things together so that he can look concepts
at them as a whole rather than focus on the  Will break big pictures down into small parts
individual items to allow them to focus on individual
components.
 Likes to take things apart to see how they
work.
Attention direction
Self Others
 Will focused on own needs first rather than  Will care about the needs of others before
on others focusing on their own
 May not be aware of other people’s needs  Will consider other people’s feelings and what
unless they are told they think they can provide to help them
 Will not notice how someone’s body  Likes to make other people happy and to be
language signals or tone of voice will successful
indicate how they feel  Will go out of their way to help people to be
 Can see other as getting in the way of them satisfied and get what they want
doing something such as when standing in a
queue
Time storage filter

In time Through time
 Very focused on the now and the moment  Their attention will move from past to present
they are in to future events
 Can concentrate fully on the task they are  Like to be on time for events that are going to
carrying out happen in the future
 Not usually aware of how the time is passing  May appear distracted as their focus shifts
and how long a task is taking to do from now to what is going to happen next
 Can plan ahead, however due to the lack of  They do not like to waste time
being aware of time are usually behind  Good at planning and writing schedules and
schedule keeping to them
 Not very good at planning and are oftern
late for meetings
Relationship filter
Sameness Difference
 Likes to work to established routines and in  Like to create change and then follow it
a consistent environment through and drive it
 When thinking about new ideas or  If there are established procdures they will
experiences will see if they compare to look for ways to do it in a different way
things they have done already  Can have a low boredom threshold and likes
 Look for things being similar to what they to continually try out new ideas and
know already experiences
 Will like to be with the same group of friends  Will not stay in the same job for very long
of social circles  Are quick to change their mind if the new idea
 Will stay in the same job for a long time seems more interesting
 Will work to a fixed routine for activities they  Likes to be put into new situations and
have to carry out unfamiliar surrondings
 May go away to the same place for holidays
each year

Action filter
Doing Considering
 Like to get on with tasks and to be kept busy  Will think things through and consider all
 Will prefer to get stuck into an activity rather possibilities before making a decision
than sit down and make plans  Likes to spend time analysing what to do
 Will work out a plan as they tackle the task before taking action
 When problems arise they like to deal with  Will put off taking action until they have
them head on rather than stop and thinking considered all of the possible issues
about tackling them
 Do not like to leave things unfinished
 Likes to make quick decisions
Emotional stress response filter
Thinking Feeling
 Uses thinking time and logic to process  Will show their feelings openly
information and make a decision  Likes to use a lot of hand gestures,
 Are calm and analytical in their approach to expressions and will show how they are
solving problems feeling through their body language signals
 Can be emotionally disassociated with  Will base their judgement on how it makes
events and therefore make decisions based them feel
on logic.  Will use intuition to come to an answer
relating to an issue
Modal operators
Possibility Necessity
 Looks for things that can be done and may  Will look for the rules, process and
be possible to achieve procedures they need to follow
 Looks for the options they could follow  All around them all they can see are
 Uses language such as could, would, might, constraints on what they can do
may, will  Uses language such as, must, should, have
 Their world is full of choices and options to, need to
 Their world is full of limitations

How to work with meta-progammes
When you start to understand either your own or other people’s meta-progammes you can identify how they
act or react in different situations. When you are able to do this it will help you to ensure you can change your
behaviour or the words that you use to help either yourself or the other person get the most from the
situation.
When you have identified the meta-progammes a person is running it will allow you to change your method
of communicating with them so that you use words or actions that fit into what they are experiencing. This will
then help you to enter into their map of the world and speak to them in the language which fits into their
thinking processes. When you enter into their world and communicate in their language it will help you to
build rapport with them, and empathise with how they are experiencing the situation.
When you talk to someone in language which fits in with their thinking and thought processes it makes your
message you are giving much easier to understand by the person you are speaking to
Working with meta-progammes is useful for:
 Coaching others
 Sales
 Negotiation
 Presenting
 Teaching
 Recruitment
 Persuading

Eliciting someone’s meta-progammes
It is useful to be able to identify another person’s meta-progammes as this will help you start to develop
rapport with them and help them to see that you are on the same channel as them when you are both
involved in the same situation. It also shows them that you understand the situation they are in and that you
understand how they feel and what they are doing.
One of the easiest yet most useful methods to use to elicit someone’s meta-progammes is to ask them
questions to gain certain responses. These responses will then give you an indication of the meta-
progammes they run.
The types of questions are listed below:
Motivation Direction Filter
Question Towards response Away from response
“What do you want in a house?” Words such as… Words such as:
What do you want in a job?”  Get  Not have
What do you want in a holiday?”  Attain  Avoid
“What do you want to do with your  Have  Repulse
life?”  Include  Excluding
“What do you want to do with your  Attract  Keep away
career?  Obtain  Not having
“What is important to you  Value  Steer clear of
about…?”
Reason Filter
Question Options response Procedures response
“Why did you choose the house Words such as… Words such as:
you live in?”  Possibilities  Procedure
Why do you want that job?”  Choice  The right choice
Why do you want a holiday?”  Reasons  The only way
Why is that important to you”  Options  Proven method
Why did you choose….?”  Alternative ways  Know it works
 Other chances  The way I know
 The correct way

Frame of reference
Question Internal response External response
“How do you know you made the Words such as… Words such as:
right choice?”  I tell myself I am  I am told that
“How do you know you are doing a  I can feel it  Other people tell me
good job?”  Only you know  The feedback I get
“Do you believe what you feel or  Only you can decide  Other people think
what other people say to you?”
“How do you know if you are
succeeding?”
Chunk size
Question Global response Details response
“What do we need to know before Words such as… Words such as:
we start this task?”  Overview  Specifics
“When you book a holiday what do  Headlines  Details
you look for?”  Big picture  Facts
“When you want to start work on a  Summary  Step by step
new project what do you look at  Hot topics  Key points of each process
first?”  Instructions
“Shall I tell you the big picture first
or shall I go straight into the
details?”
Attention Direction
Question Self response Others response
“Do you know what you should do Words such as… Words such as:
to be successful at work?”  Focus is on I  I will let them know
“Do you know what others need to  I know what I have to do  See if I can help them
do to be successful at work?”  I can do it  What they do is important
“Are you willing to tell them?”  Why should I tell them to me
 I will see if I can help
This is also observed in their
behaviour they are not willing to This is also observed in their
help others behaviour if someone needs help
they will be the first to volunteer

Time storage filter
Question In time response Through time response
“Where do you put most of your Words such as… Words such as:
focus past, present or future?”  Let’s keep track of time  Time is of the essence
“In which direction is your past”  Lose track of time  Let’s proceed step by step
“Do you like to plan what you do?”  Keep our options open  Future, past
“Are you on time for meetings?  Present  Likes to plan
“Do you day dream”  Let’s just get started
“Do you get lost in the moment?”
Relationship filter
Question Sameness response Difference response
“Do you like to do things the same Words such as… Words such as:
or prefer different approaches?”  They are the same  Do something new
“Do you always do it that way?”  Similar  Different
“”What is the similarity between  Compares to  Change
your last job and this one?”  We already do that this  New
“Are you going on holiday to the way  Never before
same place this year as last  No need to change what  Don’t know till we try
year?” works  Let’s see if it works
“Do you want to try the new  I always do it like this
restaurant or go the usual one?”
Action filter
Question Doing response Considering response
“In a new situation do you try Words such as… Words such as:
things straight away or stop and  Get started  Think
think about it first?”  Why wait  Consider
“”Do you consider all of the  Now  Study
courses of action before starting?”  See how it goes  Hang on
“Do you always jump straight into  Jump straight in  Hold back
a task?”  Act  Size it up

Emotional Stress Response filter
Question Thinking response Feeling response
“Tell me about a situation at work Words such as… Words such as:
that has caused you trouble in the  I will wait and see what  It makes me feel
past” happens  I get nervous
“How will you react to the changes  I know that it will be for the  It upsets me ( they may
that are going to happen?” best show this as well)
“How will you deal with the new  I will consider it  Unhappy about it when I
boss”  Let me have some time to think about it
think about it
Modal operators
Question Possibility response Necessity response
“Why did you take the job?” Words such as… Words such as:
“What did you say to yourself first  To see what it would bring  Needed
thing this morning?”  New opportunity  Had to do it
What are you going to do at the  I might just see what  Have to do
weekend?” happens  Only one thing I can do
“What will you do with your  Can’t wait to find out  Same as usual
bonus?”  No choice
There are more ways of using the meta-programmes, Shelly Rose Charvet has written a book called “Words
that Change Minds”. In this book she shows how you can use meta-programmes to help you to influence
people in a range of situations.

Section 31– Removing negative emotions using timeline techniques
 The process of removing a negative emotion using timeline

techniques

Letting go of negative emotions
When a person has negative emotions that are stored in their unconscious they will have a big impact on
how a person acts and feels and will also hold them back from taking the steps they want to take to achieve
the things they want in life.
Timeline work can help a person to solve the problem of clinging on to these negative emotions and release
them to do the things they want to do. This process will work on emotions such as grief, fear, guilt, shame
and sadness
Releasing Negative Emotions
The following outlines the process to follow when working with a client who wants to remove negative
emotions
When we look at the process there are a number of positions that are mentioned, these are explained below
for you.
Position 1
This is where the client is floating above their Timeline, facing their past going back to their past until they
find the event they are looking for.
Position 2
This is where the client floats directly above the event, looking down into the event

Position 3
This is where the client floats above the event and goes past the event, so they are in a position before the
event took place, they will be looking towards Now on the time line. They need to go far enough away from
this position until all of the emotions linked to the event have disappeared.
Position 4
This is where the client floats down inside the event and becomes associated.
Now that you have a full understanding of the 4 steps in this process it will make it much easier for you to
carry out the technique for releasing negative emotions in your client.
By carrying out this process effectively you will be able to release the gestalt that is clustered around this
Significant Emotional Experience.
On the next page the process to follow with your client to remove negative emotions is set out for you.

Releasing Negative Emotions – the process steps
1. Ask your client to float up above their time line, and facing the past go back to the first time the event
occurred, this is Position 1 when they have arrived at the event ask them where the emotions linked
to this event are.
2. Now ask your client to go to Position 2 so that they re now directly above the event looking at the
event. They are disassociated here so they should be seeing themselves in the event. Ask them to
notice where the emotions are now and also to ask their unconscious mind to keep anything they
have learnt from watching the event that will help them to let go of the emotions with ease. The
unconscious mind should preserve whatever they have learnt from the event to be able to use this in
the future if needed.
Learnings the client has from Position 2
When your client is at Position 2 this is where they will gain most of their learning about the event and the
emotions around it. Sometimes the client may find it hard to see what they have learnt from this position, it
will be your role as the practitioner to ensure the client is aware about what they have learnt, you can do this
by asking the right questions and listening to the responses you get.
You need to ensure that the learnings the client gains from this experience are:
 Positive – will help the client to change and develop in the future
 Future based – listen to the language they use should be future tense
 Self – should be things they have learnt about themselves, they need to use words such as “I, me,
my”
You also need to ensure that the learnings the client gains from this experience are not:
 Negative – learnings that will not help the client to develop
 Past - the language should not be based in the past
 Others – should not be things they have learnt about others or others have said about them,
such as “they told me” “he is not a nice person”
Now ask you client to float to Position 3 so they are now in a place before the event took place and are
facing towards now on their timeline, ask them “where are the emotions now?”
When your client is at Position 3 there are a number of areas that you should check to see if the process is
working, these include:

Are they actually in Position 3?
To check if they are in Position 3 you could ask them:
 “Are you still feeling the emotions?” if they are they are not far enough away from the event, so you
may have to ask them too:
 “ Float up higher above the event and further back away from the event”
 “Float up high enough and far enough back until the emotion disappears”
Are they at the first event?
To check they are before the first event you could ask them:
 “Are you at the first event where this emotion started?”
 “Is there an earlier event than this one, if there is go to that event now make sure it is the first
occurrence of this emotion”
Do they want to let go of the emotion?
To see if they are agreeing to let go of the emotion, you could ask them:
 “What is there to learn from the event?” When you learn this won’t this be better than having the old
emotions?
 “How can you get the same benefits that the emotions provided when you let them go”
If the client is still struggling here you could use Reframing to help them to move on.
Now ask your client to go to Position 4 and float down inside the event so they are fully associated with the
event and seeing the event through their own eyes. When they are inside the event they need to check on
the emotions “Are they still there or have they disappeared”
They now need to go back to Position 3 if they are still experiencing the emotion you need to carry out some
Reframing
Some examples of reframing are on the following page

Examples of Reframing for not releasing emotions
If your client is having trouble letting go of the negative emotion there are some reframing techniques that
could be used to help them to let these emotions go, these include:
The Prime Directives
The purpose of your unconscious mind is to protect and preserve your body, by holding on to this negative
emotion you are in direct conflict with your unconscious mind. If you continue to hold this negative emotion it
will not preserve the body, in fact it will harm your body eventually. “Would it not be better to let go of these
negative emotions and to help preserve the body”
Learnings
What has your client learned from the event, which by learning will help them to release the negative
emotions they are holding on to easily and effectively”
 “Won’t it be better to hold on to and preserve the learnings and let go of the negative emotions”
 “When you let go of the emotions and preserve the learnings you will have learned everything that
you need”
Personal Protection and safety
People hold on to negative emotions as they feel it protects them from being hurt, when reframing with your
client you could say:
 “ The negative emotion you are holding does not protect you”
 “When you hold on to negative emotions they can be harmful to the body, when you hold on to
negative emotion it can contribute to problems, such as:
o Heart attacks
o Depression
o Stress
o Lower immune system
o Phobias
Are there other problems you can think that may happen if your client holds on to negative emotions?

Now your client has let go of the negative emotion and is in Position 3 they can now in their own time start to
come back to Now, as they reach all of the events which are connected to the emotion they are releasing. As
they get to each event, they should be in Position 3 preserve the learning they have got from the event and
let go of the emotion, they need to continue this all the way back to Now.
1. When the client is back to Now ask them to float back down into the room and break state with them
2. You now need to test your work by asking the client to think of an event in the past where they had
that old negative emotion, ask them to go back and see if they can still feel it, or find that you cannot.
3. You next ask the client to future pace the emotion by going to an unspecified time in the future where
they feel they may have experienced the emotion they no longer want, they can do this by walking
along the Timeline
4. When you have finished always bring them back to Now

Glossary of NLP terms
Accessing Cues
Shifts in breathing, posture, gestures and eye movements that indicate internal mental processing such as
visualisation, auditory and kinesthetic activity.
Analogue
Continuous change over time: continuous movement. An example is the light dimmer switch in contrast to an
ordinary light switch which is either on or off (digital).
Anchoring
Applying a gesture, touch, or sound just before a state peaks, either in oneself or someone else, so that the
anchored state can be re-activated by reapplying that gesture, touch or sound. A smell can also be used as
an anchor. For example, as you remember the smell of a rose, you may find a memory of some experience
that involved roses coming to mind. Psychologists recognise the pattern of anchoring as stimulus response
conditioning.
Associated
Experiencing the present with all your attention; seeing, hearing and feeling the living action that is taking
place in the moment. For referring to memory or imagination, living a past or future experience from your
viewpoint of the time; seeing, hearing and feeling as if you are present in that moment.
Auditory Processing
The processing of sounds. This could be in the form of language, music or noise. Includes the ability to have
internal dialogue, recalled information such as remembering someone's voice, recall of music or the
construction of words, or composition of music.
Behaviour
Any human activity, this includes internal thought processes, such as visual, auditory or kinaesthetic
processing and involuntary as well as involuntary movement such as blinking or heart beat.
Beliefs
Subjective ideas about what is true and not true for ourselves and the world, developed through exposure to
experience, and modified by perceptual filters of distortion, generalisation and deletion. A configuration of
submodalities that lets a person who holds content in those submodalities know that content is true for them.
Calibration
Learning to recognise visible, auditory and kinaesthetic clues to an individual's use of their mental processes.
Defining that individual's expressions by comparing their present behaviour with their previously observed
behaviour.
Congruence
The match of a person's body language (gestures, posture and voice patterns) with their verbal output
(auditory digital) while they are communicating. Congruence in communication is one of the patterns found in
charismatic people. Note though, when a person is communicating with congruency, this is not necessarily
an indicator of truth, rationality or sensibility in terms of the content communicated. It means that in the
moment, they believe what they are saying. E.g. Hitler communicated congruently, yet many of his ideas
(content), were unecological in their effect on third parties.

Conscious
Anything in present moment awareness
Context
The situation, time and place within which designated activity takes place.
Cross-pacing
Taking any repetitive behaviour on the part of the subject, and matching that behaviour through a different
communication channel. You could speak in time to the subjects breathing. If the person is blinking, you
could tap a pencil in time to their blink rate. Cross-pacing builds rapport with the person's unconscious mind
and is a subtle, less noticeable approach to building or maintaining rapport than mirroring the subject's
behaviour directly.
Deletion
The process of excluding portions of experience of the world from one's internal representations and one's
speech.
Description (map, model)

An internal representation that we have that guides our behaviour. Primarily we have sensory
representational systems, that is, we represent the world in mental images, sound tracks and sensation.
There is also secondary representation, language. ie. We can represent our internal pictures, sounds and
feelings in language.
Digital
Sudden change in state. A standard light switch is digital - it can only be on or off.
Dissociation
The process of stepping outside the point of view of experiencing the world from one's physical position;
seeing oneself from outside the self and, for internal representations, from outside the image and separate
from the sounds.
Distortion
Inaccurate reproduction of events in any recording medium, including human representation. Distortion in
language refers to demonstrably inaccurate comments on any subject.
Ecology
The process of considering the effects of any change in behaviour across a number of time frames,
situations and places for self and others. What are the consequences now, in the future, for oneself, for
significant others, in various contexts such as home, career, lifestyle, as well as possible effects on the
physical environment. The use of the answers to these questions is determined by the values held important
by that individual.
Eye Accessing Cues

The directional movements of the eyes which indicate the accessing of different modes of thinking, or
representational systems. These are visual recall and construction, auditory recall and construction,
kinaesthetic (feeling and sensation), and internal dialogue or auditory digital.

Flexibility
An extended range of behavioural responses that can be drawn upon. Each sensory channel has an
extended range of ways of recalling and constructing representations. Also an extended range of emotional
responses which can be elicited, created and expressed for each situation encountered by the individual. At
a more complex level of processing, flexibility describes access to an extended range of perceptual filters.
The use of flexibility is in its application to any given context, such that the individual can use behaviour
which serves them in that context, whether conventionally accepted or otherwise, with reference to their own
ecology.
Future Pace
The process of placing new or desired behaviours, capabilities and or perceptual filters into the future for use
in appropriate times and places. See Simulation Programming
Generalisation
The act of taking a specific incident or behaviour and generalising the content across contexts, as if it were a
generic pattern. Eg "People always do that," or "If it works at all, it will work everywhere."
Internal representation
The pictures, sounds and feelings that we make on the inside; our thoughts. Our internal representations,
also known as mental maps, govern our behaviour in the world.
In Time
A state in which the individual perceives the passage of time as continuous in the present, where the future
has limited importance, and the past is no longer relevant.
Kinaesthetic
Pertaining to feeling, touching, sensation.
Leading
Using verbal and non-verbal communication to elicit a desired response from another person. Usually
preceded by pacing, to establish rapport prior to leading.
Map of Reality
Reference to NLP presupposition "The map is not the territory." If everything a person senses is at one
remove from external reality, then their representations constitute a map.
Mismatching
Doing something differently from another person with the result that rapport is broken. For example,
breathing at a different rate, speaking more quickly or slowly than the other. Can be conscious or
unconscious.

Model of the World

The sum total of an individual's beliefs, values, perceptual filters, desires, expectations, experiences and
understanding of the world. Each person has a unique combination of the above. As human beings, our
behaviour is governed by how we perceive, believe, and think about ourselves and the world. It is our internal
representation of reality, and the processes we use to organise our internal representations that shape our
actions. These internal maps and the relationships within our minds are referred to as our model of the world.
Olfactory
Pertaining to the sense of smell.
Outcomes
In Neuro-Linguistic Programming a representation of what we want in a specific context, involving all
representational systems. To be well-formed, an outcome is also stated in positive terms, has defined
resources that the individual can get access to, is within the individual's control, has demonstrable evidence
and is ecological.
Pacing
The act of matching breathing, posture, movement, voice tones and tempo with someone over time, in order
to develop rapport.
Parts
An imaginary division of an individual into separate segments, each motivated by an outcome the individual
wants, and capable of generating behaviour designed to obtain their outcomes.
Pattern
Any sequence of features that repeats over time.
Perceptual filters (perceptual biases)

The socially and psychologically constructed bias through which we filter our perceptions of the world. Some
perceptual filters remain the same regardless of the state a person is in, while others shift according to the
state of the perceiver. It is useful to be able to access an extended range of perceptual filters, and change
filters, or build new filters at will. This shifting of perceptual filters enables the user to obtain a greater range
and quality of information about the world. The process of perceptual filter flexibility is a major component of
a dynamic, balanced and creative personality. According to John Grinder "It is the Perceptual Filters that you
set just before you begin a class of activities, that are the difference that make the difference."
Physiology
Matters pertaining to the physical body and its use. The general posture and breathing of the individual is
highly correlated with psychological state and cognitive processes. Note for yourself the difference in
'physiology' when contrasting a resourceful and unresourceful state eg. Excitement and interest compared to
depression.
Presuppositions

Anything which is assumed, not stated, and can be inferred by referring to the source of the presupposition,
be it an utterance, a sentence, a model, book, etc. For example, in the sentence, 'you have knocked it over
again,' the presupposition is that you have knocked it over before. Cultural presuppositions are the unstated
shared beliefs and understandings found in a culture. Personal presuppositions include beliefs and values
which are important to an individual, although often outside conscious awareness. A quick way to elicit
conscious awareness of anyone's presuppositions is to expose the person to a context in which their
presuppositions are not shared by others.
Rapport
The engagement and holding of the unconscious, willing attention. When individual people or animals, or
groups synchronize their behaviour, whether deliberately or unconsciously, they are said to be in rapport.
Rapport can be established either by design, in which case one person matches another's behaviour, or it
can arise spontaneously in response to a person's interest in the other. In this case the person matches the
other unconsciously, through expressing their interest.
Reality
That which the individual believes to be so in the external world. A state in which a person's map is a close
enough approximation to the external world for the individual's impact on the world to produce evidence of
well formed outcomes.
Requisite Variety
A basic principle of cybernetics which states that in any system of humankind or machines, the part of the
system with the greatest range of variability in behaviour is the controlling element.
Representation
A picture, sound or feeling generated from within to represent a concept, or a historical or future event.
Representational Systems
The internal use of the senses for thinking. We can represent the world in mental images, internal sounds
and feelings.
Resource
A piece of knowledge, an understanding about the world, a belief, a behaviour, a skill, a person or an object,
which contributes to the achievement of an outcome.
Sensory Acuity
The ability to make refined distinctions in what one see hears and feels. During a face to face
communication, practitioners of Neuro-Linguistic Programming attend to changes or shifts in the other's skin
colour, muscle tone, eye movements, breathing and posture, and to voice tonal patterns, rhythm and
language used by the other. On the telephone, auditory information alone is available, and can be sufficient.
This information is used to calibrate the other's internal state and cognitive processes. It is considered in the
world of NLP that sensory acuity is a capability that can always be improved.

Sensory based Description
A description in terms of what one can see, hear and feel, either in the external world during an experience,
or in the describer's internal experience.
Sensory Cues
The indicators we have through observation, listening and touch, of a subjects ongoing experience. These
cues indicate that mental processing is taking place; they do not identify the content being processed.
State
This refers to the overall emotional physiological and psychological condition of an individual. It involves the
beliefs, values, capabilities and behaviour within a context at a particular time. The concept of state can also
be applied to a family, corporation or any social system.
State Choice
In the NLP model referred to as state control. The act of choosing deliberately to construct and inhabit a
particular state in a given context, with the intention of achieving one's chosen outcome in that context.
Submodalities
The sensory components within each of the modalities of the senses. Eg the sensory modality of
visualisation is made up of components such as brightness, colour, hue, size and whether the image is
framed of unframed etc. The auditory sensory modality has components such as stereo or mono, loudness,
tempo and timbre quality etc.
Synaesthesia
When a signal is received or represented in one sense and is re- represented immediately in another
representational system. The experience of sight/feeling, hearing/feeling etc. The test for a synaesthesia is to
remove the first representation. If the second representation disappears at the same time as the first
representation is removed, it is a synaesthesia.
Through Time
A state in which the passage of time is perceived as being outside an individual, where they can see the
past, present and future simultaneously. This is very good for planning, and activity which is enhanced by a
dissociated state. This is the perception of the fixed duration appointment, and concepts of lateness, on time,
lunch hours etc. Most Western business uses a through time system.
Timelines
The internal subjective organization of individual perceptions of the passage of time. A timeline is the
representation, usually by location in chronological order, of events from the past and projections of the
future as images, sounds and feelings.
Unconscious mind (other than conscious mind)

Those parts of one's mental processes currently outside conscious awareness. Given that the conscious
mind can only hold 7 + or - 2 chunks of information simultaneously, and the unconscious mind holds the bulk
of one's information, the unconscious mind is worth cultivating.
Well formed Outcome

An outcome that is stated in positive terms, has defined resources, is under the individuals control and
respects positive by-products of the present state.

Appendix 1: Reading List
The following are suggested books to read to enhance your NLP Skills and Knowledge
Book title Author

Structure of Magic Volume 1 Bandler and Grnder
Structure of Magic Volume 2 Bandler and Grindler
Frogs into Princes Bandler and Grindler
Reframing Bandler and Grindler
Transformations Bandler and Grindler
Using your Brain for a Change Bandler
Insider’s Guide to submodalities Bandler and MacDonald
Beliefs Dilts
Time for a Change Bandler
Monsters and Magical Sticks Heller and Steele
NLP The New Technology of Achievement Andreas and Faulkner
The Users Manual for the Brain Bodenhammer and Hall
NLP workbook Joseph O’Connor
Patterns of Hypnotic techniques Milton Erickson
The Source book of Magic Michael Hall
Words that Change Minds Shelley Rose Charvet
Pattern of the Hypnotic techniques of Milton Erikson Bandler and Grindler

Vol 1
Changing Belief systems with NLP Dilts
NLP at Work Sue Knight
My voice will Go with You – The teachings of Milton H Sidney Rosen

Erikson
Brilliant NLP workbook David Molden and Pat Hutchinson
The Power of Metaphor Michael Berman and David Brown
Frogs into Princes Bandler and Grindler

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This manual belongs to:

Practitioner Manual 3|Page

Practitioner Manual 4|Page

Practitioner Manual 5|Page

Practitioner Manual 6|Page

Practitioner Manual 7|Page

In this manual and during the workshop you will:

 Understand what controls your actions

 Treat every experience as a way to learn

 The Discovery Frame

Practitioner Manual 8|Page

 Is the person suitable to use NLP techniques with?

 Do you fully understand what you are doing?

 NLP is not a therapy

 Make it clear to the client what you are doing

 Work within your limits

Breach of the above conditions

In this section we will cover the following topics:

 Peripheral vision and how it can help with learning

 The Resource Triangle

 Who developed NLP

 The four pillars of NLP

 The presuppositions of NLP

Peripheral vision is so easy to do.

What does NLP do?

 Be determined to succeed and be congruent in what you believe in

Virginia Satir A Family therapist

Milton Erikson A world renowned hypnotherapist

Fritz Pearls The founder of Gestalt therapy

They also spoke to:

 People who had recovered from severe phobias

 A theory is a description of why something works - a model either works or it doesn’t.

 A model is valued by its usefulness - a theory is evaluated by its reasonableness.

“The study of excellence and how to reproduce it”

“An attitude (wanton curiosity) and methodology ( modelling) that leaves

“NLP is whatever works”

 Outcome - knowing what you want

Understand your present situation - where you currently are

Know where you want to be - where are you heading

 Flexibility in what you do

 Rapport – the quality of your relationships

 Work from a psychology and physiology of excellence

In this section we will cover the following topics

 What presuppositions of NLP are

 How they can help you

 How they are used

1. The mind and the body are one system

2. There is no failure only feedback

3. People have all the internal resources they need to succeed

4. The more choices you have the better your outcome

5. If it’s not working do something different

6. The meaning of your communication is the response that you get

7. The map is not the territory

8. All behaviour is the best choice currently available

The Presuppositions of NLP cont

10. All actions have a purpose

11. The unconscious mind balances the conscious mind

13. Modelling successful performance leads to excellence

14. Respect other people’s map of the world

15. If you want to understand ACT

Presuppositions about people

 The map is not the territory

 All behaviour is the best choice currently available