Representational Systems: Overview

The five senses: seeing, hearing, touching (feeling), smelling and tasting. The representational systems in NLP are simply the five senses. We represent the world using the visual (images), auditory (sounds), kinesthetic (touch and internal feelings), gustatory (tastes) and olfactory (smells) senses. Our thinking consists of images, sounds, feelings and usually to a lesser extent, tastes […]

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Milton-Model

The Milton model is a form of hypnotherapy based on the language patterns for hypnotic communication of Milton Erickson, a noted hypnotherapist. The Milton-Model is the inverse of the Meta Model, using artfully vague language patterns to pace another person’s experience and access unconscious resources. The Milton-Model helps with maintaining rapport and is often used in […]

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Perceptual Positions

A perceptual position is a point of view which includes all of our representational systems (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, gustatory, olfactory, linguistic). Our body’s somatic syntax, our beliefs, our patterns and behaviors, etc., are also parts of what we perceive, and thus can be important components of our perceptual position. Our brains are capable of representing […]

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Meta Programs: Types

There are many meta programs, but the following are a few of the most important. Each is a binary choice – that is, attention is focused on one or the other. Meta Programs are neither good nor bad outside some specific context. They are not a form of personality typing. In general, a person benefits […]

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Meta Programs

Meta Programs are habits or “programs” of attention – what we pay attention to and what we filter out – the awareness of perception in various contexts. The conscious mind, it is said, can only attend to a maximum of 7 +/- 2 representations at once. Yet our sensory receptors are actively perceiving uncounted millions […]

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Intentions

NLP defines ‘intention’ in several ways according to the context. In relation to a goal, a person’s intention is the “meta outcome” of the goal – the deeper something, the “even more important” something which having the goal will bring to the person. Often, the positive intention is several meta levels deeper or larger than […]

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Well-Formed Outcomes

A Well-Formed Outcome is a goal or desired outcome, with a firm intention to reach it, and having the action necessary to achieve it. NLP specifies the following six conditions for a goal, or other type of desired outcome, to be considered a “well-formed” outcome – that is, complete, fully congruent, and ecologically sound for the […]

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Orientation in Time

Orientation in time is a phrase originally used by Milton Erickson, M.D. to describe the ability of people to fully associate into experiences in the past, as well as the imagined future. NLP discovered that people do not have to be in a hypnotic trance to experience orientation in time in this way. In fact, […]

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Association and Disassociation

In NLP association and disassociation are characteristics of perceptual position. Association is perception and experience as if one is inside the scene or experience being represented internally, whether that representation’s time location is in the past, present or future, and whether that representation is in any of the four perceptual positions. An associated state is […]

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Submodalities

Submodalities are the specific characteristics of each of our sensory representational systems. For example: Visual submodalities: size, shape, color, focus, transparency, motion/still, angle, brightness/darkness, contrast, vertical position, horizontal position, distance, speed, peripherality, panoramic/bordered, visual texture, 2D/3D, point of view (associated, disassociated), etc. Auditory submodalities: volume, pitch, timbre/tonality, duration, distance, movement, source, direction, location, harmony, dissonance, […]

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