NLP Academy Forums

Yeah, hello, hi, happy to converse, provided it’s to the point.

My short goal in posting here is to get a sense of what I have as reason to study the new code versus other methods I have more experience and affinity with or my own brand of change through state development games. I also try to pick up choices for what to do in more difficult times of life. I fall on the side of Mr. Carroll et al on most topics of nlp practice and performance, and do not have an agenda I won’t state if asked. So go for it, if you’re concerned.

My broader goal in studying nlp methods is to increase the list of options I forsee can bring change to cultures, communities, families, and people in general. There’s so much to be discouraged by in the world, and I think shining a light on its positive alternatives deserves as much candlepower as possible.

There’s also an ignore feature on this site, so if you don’t like what I have to offer (though I’ll try to be as straightforward and courteous as possible), use it on me. If you think it’s fun to manipulate clients against their conscious impression of their best interests or like to insult people that do one thing and do it well, then I’ll probably ignore you.

That said, I’m honored to be read by any true practitioners of New Code and other effective and positive practitioners of NLP. If you have offerings, I am open to questions or suggestions for learning or homework that can help me reach my goal.

Thank you.

njsc

NJSC

You are more than welcome in this forum. I am looking forward to the discussions ahead

Warmest Reagrds

Michael

OK, thanks much.

Hi NJSC

Happy to join a discussion with you but I’m unsure of how specifically you’d like the discussion to begin…

1) New Code - are you asking why you should/would consider learning/focusing on New Code? What is your specific goal in this area? Have you read the article by Michael on New Code? You can find it here… http://www.nlpacademy.co.uk/articles/view/new_code_nlp/

2) I’m interested in knowing more about your own brand of change using state change games, that you mention in your post.

3) Outside of NLP, you might like the website by Dr Martin Seligman… http://www.authentichappiness.com

Suzy

Taking (2) first, I don’t have much to teach anyone else. My own use of these technologies is limited to self-anchoring (I do the factory method from the “Leaves Before The Wind” book, along with keywords of my own rather than “stop,think”), or minor forms of auto-hypnosis, or receive assistance from others more skilled in NLP. The alphabet game is useful to me as a state interruption, but not as a change method with spatially-anchored problem and third states, unless another is there with me. From another area, Connirae Andreas’s Cognitive Behavioral Therapy sleight-of-mouth approach sometimes serves to help me or others. Also, her Core Transformation method beguiles me, but it’s quite a demanding method.

Now onto (1), yes you got it right, Dr. Pepper’s book Stress-Point Learning is engaging or helps convince me:

* to identify the feeder sources for useful or necessary methods called “nlp”. Most if not all such methods are better identified as belonging to other fields of psychology.

* to stratify psychology change methods so as to isolate general approaches and principles or separate out “don’t need to know/think/use” information as much as possible. There are many opportunities to do this with nlp methods.

* to identify the procedures used to decide between methods (for example, in the case of Pepper’s games, or their clarified New Code form, when to play what game) based on person’s i/o channels.

Intellectually, study of human behavior provides new possibilities for appreciating:

* human behavioral development.
* human potential for improvement.
* the significance of intuition.
* quantitative psychology models of human activity.
* the consequences of current human behavior in systems.

As a consequence of how it developed, NLP incorporated useful or unnecessary distinctions from many areas of psychology (some quite old). It is true that Mr. Bandler and Dr. Grinder stumbled onto several contexts in which their varying behaviors produced the evidence of positive change, and they were tenacious. Frankly, the less I have to know about NLP the better. Dr. Grinder is a minimalist, his partners might be as well, so I hope the New Code has simpler distinctions to apply more frequently with effectiveness. I don’t know yet.

The New Code “modeling” ideal seems to be a recognition of how see-feel, hear-feel circuits naturally engage between people or the relevance of those circuits to experiencing congruity and rapport. The part of modeling in developing NLP doesn’t interest me, it’s just more evidence of how nlp is really a bunch of stuff from other places, though I will credit Dr. Grinder with systematically pursuing the research motivation he set out in Structure of Magic II, that is, to pursue new avenues of explaining his (actually their) success with rep system manipulation by exploring the neurological mechanisms underlying those systems. Feedback from that research apparently led him further, for example, into the work of optometrists, so he continues to be a source of modeled expertise. That’s what’s good about the New Code, IMHO.

BTW, Thank you for the pointer to Dr. Seligman, he’s quite famous, and his work deserves praise.

Hi NJ

I’ve heard of Leaves Before The Wind - I think it’s referenced in Joseph O’Connor’s and John Seymore’s book, Introducing NLP. It’s one of many books I’d planned to get eventually but I may shunt it up the list as it sounds interesting.

With regard to the Alphabet Game, I’d be interested to know… if you ever decided to give this game a go without the pre-defined context/expectation of state interruption, what you might experience regarding change, or anything else for that matter?

I’m not familiar with Dr Pepper’s book but you seems to suggest in your first two points something akin to our own F2 filters inasmuch as what we don’t need (for our intention in a particular context) we exclude. I’m not sure this is specific to New Code but I’m very new to this NJ so I hope a more experience NLP-er sees this post and can offer some more enlightenment. I sense I’ve oversimplified it!!!!

I get a sense that your thrid point suggests a kind of pre-catagorising of games for, say, challenges, for want of a better word. As I understand it, with New Code, the games are a tool and the emphasis is on the skill of the practitioner to a)enter the coaching session without any preconceptions, b)be congruent and in complete rapport with his client c)to draw upon his experience and sense what activity might suit the client in that moment, d)to consistently callibrate his client’s response throughout and change his approach as necessary until he notices a change.  Again, I’m new to this and have almost certainly oversimplified it.

Regarding choosing whether to model or not, it’s a personal choice. We can choose to utilise what’s out there - and there’s nothing wrong with that - or we can choose to develop new patterns. And I suspect that in developing new patterns, unexpected ones pop up also. I also suspect that everyone models to some degree in their everyday lives, so perhaps it’s not a conscious choice to do it, but a conscious choice not to devote specific time to doing it? John Grinder talks about very young children learning in this way. Do you really feel that you don’t model? If so (and it might be a wrong assumption on my part, so forgive me if it is) I would ask you a question: If you spend a lot of time with someone you admire greatly, do you find you pick up some of their mannerisms? Does mirroring them enable you to make even the slightest shift in your output?

Some of your other comments a little beyond my current comprehension so I hope a more seasoned NLP-er jumps in and offers you more…

All the best!

Hi, not sure about F2 filters applied to first access, that’s not what I mean by “don’t need to know”. For example, if:

*spatial sorting for parts integration (from Structure of Magic II),
*aligning perceptual positions by the Andreas’s,
*triple description in the New Code,
*the new code game format in the New Code,
*timeline integration

all produce change for an individual, then one conceptual framework describes them all.
It’s use to describe them frees me from knowing the theories individual to each method.
But does it exist?

It’s not whether I notice differences in what the practitioners employing those methods do, it’s more whether those differences imply differences in the processes that make what those practitioners do successful.

No, of course I model, and enter rapport, and notice congruity and incongruity, on some level.

I’m not sure where you’re going about separating the alphabet game from context, but if you want to elaborate, I am interested in reading more..

btw, yes, I recommend the “leaves..” book, particularly the few pages on industrial accident prevention.

njsc - 18 October 2009 03:41 AM

Yeah, hello, hi, happy to converse, provided it’s to the point.

My short goal in posting here is to get a sense of what I have as reason to study the new code versus other methods I have more experience and affinity with or my own brand of change through state development games. I also try to pick up choices for what to do in more difficult times of life. I fall on the side of Mr. Carroll et al on most topics of nlp practice and performance, and do not have an agenda I won’t state if asked. So go for it, if you’re concerned.

njsc

Hi njsc do you mind if I asked what your intention for having a short goal is? My intention for asking is because you can only really get a “sense” of the reason when you have experienced new code with all of your senses. I’m really not sure what Michaels policy for attending his practice group is but that would be the shortest route and worth exploring? The danger with using language to “study the new code” is that you create a linguistic bull in an experiential china shop

Hi, Alistair.

I’m familiar with the New Code arguments against linguistic description, they’re excuses or confessions or accusations or just arguments. Poor description leads to misunderstanding, sure. That’s why decent descriptions work much better. You don’t know what I practice of what exercises, but I’ve no need to defend myself from your assumptions, do I. Anyway, I live too far to attend any British practice groups, but I’d probably enjoy doing the exercises with you all.

My goal is short because it won’t take long for me to discern how much more knowledge is available straight up from New Coders about the function and application of their games, etc.  Straight talk is hard to find about these topics, the mystifying jargon and the prioritizing of nonverbal or unconsciously received communication and the marketing nature of training hide the obvious in a veil of echoes and fog. For example, Dr. Pepper is not just a popular American soda.

Anyway, simple questions get ambiguous or useless answers for those reasons, or because intellectual rigor (aside from jargon memorization) is lost on the nlp modelers. This condition is offset by clueless nlpers who refuse to reanalyze their own successes in other frameworks, harping on about their version of why it works, because they staked their earnings on it somehow, or their professional reputation. Lost in all that are simple questions with clear, direct, answers.

So let me be clear with you, at least.

Apparently, Dr. Grinder took many of his recent games from optometrists. There’s a whole other field called Behavioral Vision Therapy, and in that field, optometrists play games that manipulate neurology. They write books, too, Alistair!  They include clear descriptions of how to play, and the only thing I wanna know is what strategies, what relationships of balance, eye movement, and internal state make which groups of games work, and make what New Code games work, because the optometrists didn’t think in those terms. Does that seem like proprietary information to you? Because experientially, I move my eyes, I experience my sense of balance, and all that knowledge doesn’t give a crap what practice group I attend or who certified me!!! 

The games certainly relate to well-formedness conditions for sensory modality access, and their refinements come out of trial-and-error applied to tests of behaviors required for certain accesses. So, to save time, getting those refinements in language terms (a training seminar) is way better than doing it yourself. Still, people move, talk, breath, look, eat, drink, and excrete in different ways. That’s all they do aside from process experience of doing those things and their environment. A lot of statements about complexity are really statements about how much time a person’s got, time to answer questions, time to think things through, time to create something valuable. I often feel I’m in a hurry, but I make time for linguistic descriptions. Do you?

Anyway, I’m hinting that you could do better than suffer along with someone else telling you to wait for experience to answer your questions. Not that descriptions will, I can’t escape that, but it’s just the relationship that deserves scrutiny.

You were just being nice with your suggestion, I know, but just in case, let me head off more of the same from less nice people with the following short rant.

***Warning: the following is a short rant***

The “congruity” expressed by trained students of NLP expresses more the behaviors consistent with what your trainers wanted you to do, NOT what there is to know or what was best to do. Look up where congruity got it’s real definition, the two volumes about Milton Erickson by those people, it’s just consistent expression of a message, it says nothing about the significance of that message. Yes, back when Milton Erickson was still acknowledged as the real source for hypnosis and unconscious work (aside from his predecessors), these authors got it down to “consistency”.  Did they mention you should be “congruent” with a school’s thoughts for you? Probably not in those terms, but anyhow, I don’t want to join your click, I just want to know, know, know!!!

You know who’s gonna be irate if you ask an insightful question that indicates you’ve already got what someone’s teaching you? Well, if it’s an NLP trainer, they’ll probably blow smoke at you unless you paid for that training. Mr. Carroll et al are excluded from that list, of course. But if that’s reality for you, don’t bug me about it. I’m not you.

And if I were you, I’d read the goddamn books on your list, watch the videos, study group theory, learn advanced logic,  I’d show an interest in what was painfully clear more than 30 years ago, and set down back when bandler and grinder were more naive, or maybe nicer. Have you read the structure of magic I and II? No. Volume I on strategies (OK, it’s short, I know)? No. And why not learn about what nlp really came from? Do you own the multiple volumes on Milton Erickson’s work that are available on-line from nlpco? No. Has anyone here watched videos of Virginia Satir working with families? No, no, no, of course you haven’t.  Read any treatises from the 1800’s on childhood sensory integration? Hm, no. Research papers published in the last 100 years on eye movements?  No. Books from any era about the sense of balance? No, are you kidding? Studies of behaviorism? No. Cybernetics? No. Cognitive Linguistics? No. Have you ever taken an anatomy or physiology class? No, no.

Well, I don’t read anyone urging me to do those things, so I guess I’ll just go on studying, taking as much time as I can for linguistic descriptions of what nlpers do. It reminds me of Connirae Andreas saying how the removed written tests from their practitioners trainings, because it didn’t fit with NLP. She had her Ph.D., she wasn’t scared of tests, she was scared of you. Test phobia is no excuse, you’re all nlpers.

...

Well, this is ridiculous for me, engaging in some sort of personal conversation, what a distraction, I’m totally unproductive, and I have so little time to do my own thinking and study, this takes away from my time to produce anything relevant and useful, and meanwhile, the rest of my life fritters away.

Any thoughts on Dr. Pepper, Alistair? Do you care about that, know about that, think about that? I’m guessing if I don’t ask, no one’s going to lift a finger about it to reply to my earlier questions. Am I being persistent enough? I noticed the book Stress-point Learning is not anyone’s must-read list around here….

Dr Pepper? So mis - un-derstood I am under the impression this forum is for the newly qualified and pleasantly curious, your questions go beyond what probably most of us can answer and even if I could I probably couldn’t be bothered anyway given the unnecessary level of aggression in your tone. As far as these books go there becomes quite the trade off between sitting on your bum reading and getting out there practicing. I will exit with the following little ditty from Bateson…

I am indebted to Dr. Anthony Forge for a quotation from Isadora Duncan: “If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no reason dancing it.”
  Her statement is ambiguous. In terms of the rather vulgar premises of our culture, we could translate to mean: “There would be no point in dancing it, be-cause I could tell it to you, quicker and with less ambiguity, in words.” This interpretation goes along with the silly idea that it would be a good thing to be conscious of everything of which we are unconscious.
  But there is another possible meaning of Isadora Duncan’s remark: If the message were the sort of message that could be communicated in words, there would be no point in dancing it, but it is not that sort of message. It is, in fact, precisely the sort of message which would be falsified if communicated in words, because the use of words (other than poetry) would imply that this is a fully conscious and voluntary message, and this would simply be untrue…
 

Take care njsc, watch that blood pressure, another huge part of New code is state management x

Well, one thing about the internet, is that people on it do what they like, but in this case, if you want to address New Code, and claim I’m a practitioner, as if New Code is all there is, and thus if I know anything, advanced or simple and stupid, it must have come from the “New Code”, well you couldn’t be more wrong, and I am going to tell you so. In fact, I dislike quite a lot about “nlp”, old and new, believe it. But as far as the practices, actually, I am new to Dr. Pepper’s book, new to Behavioral Vision Therapy, new to the Belgau balance board, and relatively new to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, for that matter.

Your insincere concern for my blood pressure, and whatever it brings you to comment on it, are yours to have, enjoy. Your communication that Dr. Pepper’s book is somehow advanced, when the only thing “advanced” about it is the thoughts created by contrasting his version of f1 and f2 with the new terms from Dr. Grinder and Ms. Bostic St. Clair, - why don’t you go read the book, it’s an interesting and easy read - well, you couldn’t be bothered to answer my questions, because you didn’t study! And, you follow, if you had, why, you’d not part with what you know! OK, I get it. But you didn’t get me, I’m not hostile at all, I think it’s sad that you’re worried about not being “advanced”, when the school you’re interested in takes pride in providing simple, comprehensive explanations for processes they employ.

Now with your attitude, you’re an easy mark, so beware. Long past your training here, you could be wasting your money on more trainings, certifications, “membership”, ew. NLP can be unnecessarily expensive to learn about, considering how much of it came from other places, is freely available, is scientifically studied, it’s almost depressing. Anyway, no rancor on my part toward you, please keep posting, I just wanted you to know there’s more out there than what you seem to think there is.

Nice mind readings njsc I counted a humongous 12!!! I notice you have taken the censored swearing out of your post as well. Why you would feel the need to edit your post nearly four hours after my “...” response I don’t know, I’m not a mind reader…

Obviously its all been done before - science etc etc. I wouldn’t even begin a new career in NLP if I didn’t think it had a sound academic and scientific basis whether they credit each other or not. I did my training in March and personally would like to learn to crawl, then walk, then run and finally travel through time at the speed of light in a shiny new Delorean. I wipe the sweat from my brow, breath a sigh of relief, count my blessings and take lion sized pride that my journey started with the NLP academy. It has been such an excellent starting point and the more I learn the more that is continually reinforced.

The only thing I ask of you in reading the following is please imagine it in a Mickey mouse voice, we may as well have a laugh the internet gets too serious sometimes (I’ve just read back over it and its making me laugh!!)

  As for being an easy mark and being ware well. Most of what you have divulged is extremely intriguing apart from maybe cognitive linguistics because I’ll go with Grinder when he says cognitive grammar its where its at so i’ll start with the advice from the man pitched as Chomsky’s successor. Thats what I am currently reading in my spare Sunday reading time. Apologies for the blood pressure jibe, I fell down there and it was immature but have learnt from it as I usually do. Thanks for the extended reading list though, saves me time in the future keep up the good work. In fact if it is freely available and you know where it all is why waste your time on here? I know what I would be doing and it wouldn’t be wasting my “free” time arguing, sorry mass debating with as many as you can entice to look your way. Would it not be better spent earning your rightful place as an individual to go down in history? Bandler did it, Grinder did it, everyone else is doing it and still are. Or if you are genuinely interested in widening peoples maps why not start your own forum I for one would be interested to glean the knowledge from people such as yourself. The more bookworms the better and that is not a jibe, I am one myself to my own pragmatic detriment. I can’t promise I wouldn’t twist it into new or classic code but I am biased. I studied Psychology for twelve years and taught it for 5. Every year I had to suffer my students faces sinking when I told them all they would learn to do is argue. On paper

Before I write about anything else,  I’ll write about the Belgau balance board for a minute. Dr. Belgau’s website is at learningbreakthrough.com, his work was imitated entirely by another company, who paid him nothing, gave him just a bibliography reference, and charged quite a bit more for a treatment useful for dyslexia and ADD/ADHD. And still do. Check it out, I encourage you to do so. His write-up of how it works is interesting, too, it gets your mental juices flowing a little, and his kit is really affordable. You might start mapping the descriptions he gives for how it works to ones that you have for how your methods work, and notice differences and similarities or look for an underlying pattern that makes both sets of methods work. There’s much more out there, too, things that could expand what you personally offer and what NLP New Code has to offer.

If you don’t like anything I’m writing, or you even want to let me know, that’s fine. I do have questions, and I’ll post them when I’m ready, I just got here. We’ve been having this discussion in my “introduce myself” thread, recall. Yes, I have questions, and research ideas and efforts, and things I’ve learned, all of which I’d like to introduce here, in other threads. So please be patient, and remember, my questions are not for you alone.

Anyway, Alistair, for the purposes of this forum, we’ve been introduced. Pleased to meet you. Sorry to say “goddamn”, I just can’t emphasize to you NLPers enough how much you trust your teachers to do your thinking for you.

Thats cool. I’ll refrain from dominating any threads, I did hang back. Look forward to your offerings njsc I like to have as wide a map as possible, pleased to meet you also