From: HANKINS@PKEDVM8.VNET.IBM.COM
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 09:37:46 EDT
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: NLP info wanted

This is a long posting, so please bear with me.

I've been interested in NLP since I was first made aware of it via an
internal newsgroup several years ago.  I've tried some of the
techniques I've read about.  Some have worked, some have not.  At
present I don't know which outcomes are due to NLP and which are due
to other factors (for instance my admittedly low competence level in
applying the model).

Therefore I'd like to ask some questions about NLP both practical and
skeptical, soliciting the comments of persons knowledgeable about the
model.


SKEPTICAL:

1. If NLP is so effective, why is it still so obscure after 15+ years?

2.  Why are the seminars and books so #%$#& expensive?

3. Is Tony Robbins for real, or is he just a huckster using the idea
   of NLP to enhance his sales pitch?  (I lost considerable confidence
   in him after finding out that he buys half-hour infomercials)

4. It seems to me that the story of Richard Bandler is evidence that
   it isn't a panacea, particularly when applied to oneself.

5. Some acquaintances have mentioned that the charisma of the
   facilitator may be a major factor in the success of NLP workshops,
   due to a phenomenon where all kinds of things work in front of an
   audience that don't outside.  In particular, a phenomenon was
   men-tioned where the participant will experience what the
   facilitator is looking for in order to please or avoid embarassing
   him.  Is this a significant factor?

6. I get suspicious when it is suggested (as one poster did) that a
   technique cannot be learned except by apprenticeship to an expert
   (which the apprentice pays for) or by an expensive workshop.  I'm
   well aware that the bandwidth of workshops is much bigger than
   books or even videotapes (especially due to the interactive nature
   of a workshop).  But when I'm informed that that's the *only* way
   to learn the material, I grab my wallet and hang on tight - someone
   is getting ready to help me empty it.

   Yes, I apply the same criterion to education.  I didn't go to
   college to *learn*.  I can do that perfectly well on my own.  I
   went to college in order to get a sheepskin that would help me get
   a good job, and would enhance my social standing, and to take
   advantage of the opportunities college offers for socialization.


CURIOUS:

1. Why did John O. Stevens change his name to Steve Andreas?


PRACTICAL, WITH AN ADMIXTURE OF SKEPTICISM:

1. 5-step reframing - I have trouble identifying signals from
   unconscious parts.  What am I doing wrong?  Is this common?  I ask
   the questions, and I notice no real change in my kinesthetic,
   auditory or visual internal experience.

   When there is a change, I'm not sure whether it's the result of a
   conscious act (i.e. making my hands warmer.  I suspect I can do
   this con-sciously), external circumstances (was the tingling in my
   leg caused by an unconscious part or by the way I'm sitting?), or a
   genuine communication from an unconscious part.

   I suspect B&G would say that that's a statement about the clarity
   of my observation rather than the clarity of the signal.
   Never-theless, I'd like to know a little more about how to identify
   a real signal from something else.  Sometimes I'm not even sure
   whether there's a signal or I'm just hallucinating it as a result
   of redirecting my attention.

2. It seems to me that the idea of reframing is just too easy...  talk
   to some unconscious parts for a while, they do all the work, I get
   all the benefits.  Will my incredulity hamper the effectiveness?

3. The one thing I've tried to reframe is procrastination.  It seemed
   to work for a while, but only in the environment where I originally
   did the reframe.  Eventually the old avoidance-of-task behavior
   returned.

4. If, as B&G say in FiP, one can get any behavioral change one wants
   with reframing, why bother with all the other techniques such as
   eye and voice cues, strategies, TOTEs, anchors, double-dissociation
   and so on?  Why go to an NLP practitioner when one can reframe
   oneself?  Why practice these techniques on a client when one can
   simply teach them to reframe, then have them reframe themselves
   into reframing whenever they need or want a change?

5. Can NLP be used for self-change, or is it strictly for
   client-programmer relationships?  Or is it some mixture of
   techniques, some of which are suitable for self-programming and
   some which are not?

6. Perhaps instead of always requiring outside assist-ance, perhaps
   such assistance is only needed until the techniques are
   well-learned, or until you've suc-cessfully modeled the outside
   input to the point where you can have it without the assistant
   being present, in much the same way that you hear your mother's
   voice when you see that your bedroom is messy.

   Hmmm.  I wonder if a computer program could be written to help out
   with this sort of thing.

7. The importance of having someone outside oneself to do the
   programming suggests to me that something like an 'NLP club' of
   local amateur and professional prac-titioners would be useful (kind
   of like co-counseling).  Then folks could exchange hints and tips,
   and practice the techniques on each other.  Kind of like computer
   clubs back when all computer owners were either hardware or
   software hobbyists.

8. Many of the accessing cues that programmers pick up are outside the
   awareness of the programmee.  How can one elicit one's own
   strategies, particularly when they go by rapidly and contain
   components that are outside awareness?  Do I need a videocam?

   It seems to me that attempting to become aware of one's own
   responses alters one's experience so that the strategy is
   interrupted and what you're observing is no longer the strategy
   that you wanted to observe.  And trying to remember the strategy
   you just used is a pretty poor substitute for direct observation.

   Example:  Someone is doing a PET scan of your brain, and you're
   asked to think of your grandmother.  So you go inside and access
   visually (your attention is now inward) and a certain cerebral
   activity pattern shows up on the scan, which you can look at later.

   But suppose that you're watching the scan in real time and try to
   think of your grandmother -and-observe the scan at the same time.
   You'll find you can't; as soon as you pay attention to your
   external visual input (the monitor), you're no longer thinking of
   your grandmother and the pattern changes.  Like a will o' the wisp,
   you can't look directly at it and see it.  At best the monitor will
   show some mixture of grandmother-thought and
   watching-monitor-showing grandmother-thought.  But then since the
   monitor shows the mixture, the mixture will change to a mixture of
   grandmother-thought and watching-the-first-mixture.  The feedback
   cycle will continue, resulting either in divergence and brain
   jamming (probably a petit mal epileptic fit), or convergence to a
   stable mixture pattern.

   So you can't think of your grandmother and watch yourself thinking of
   your grandmother at the same time.

   I think a very similar thing goes on when trying to observe your own
   strategy; you can do the strategy, or you can observe your input, but
   you can't do both.

   So.  How do I get information about my own (partially unconscious)
   strategies?  Do I need a videocam+recorder?  Or another NLP
   practitioner?  Or is there some way to observe my own mental
   processes?


FAR-OUT IDEAS

1. It seems to me that since NLP is about "pretending effectively for
   the rest of one's life," I should be able to make reframing even
   *easier*.  B&G say in "Frogs into Princes" that if one doesn't
   think one has a part, one can -create-it out of experiences such as
   TV, movies, books, imagination - anything that allows one to see
   how such a part *might* be.

   If this is the case, I should be able to create a part that knows
   how to do six-step reframing.  After creating this part, reframing
   anything should be as easy as identifying the pattern I'd like to
   create or extinguish, and asking the reframe part to go and handle
   it - and it would even be able to re-do the reframe if the new
   behaviors didn't work!  And all this would be done without any
   conscious awareness.

   I should be able to reframe myself into being a genius, or getting
   the answers to math problems presented in consciousness, or solving
   some programming puzzle, and getting all this with very little
   effort and unconsciously.

   Like I said before, it seems too easy...  or are there limits?

2. It occurs to me that B&G and other NLP practitioners are not
   exploiting the full power of the model.  They do a little magic here,
   a little there, fix this phobia, model that ability, etc., etc.

   Thinking big, it seems to me that by means of strategy elicitation
   and other methods of gaining information about a person's mental
   organization, one could essentially download significant portions
   of a person's entire mental program, and then do modifica-tions
   where desired.

   For instance, one could download a scientist and then program oneself
   to essentially -be- her.

   This could open up a whole new industry:  persona software, programs
   designed to help you reprogram yourself into a desired persona.  Am I
   being ridiculous enough yet?

3. There are sensors (commonly used by the military in attack
   helicopters) that can tell which way one's eyes are pointing.

   VR equipment allows (via a helmet-mounted display) visual data to be
   presented in a fixed place in the field of vision.

   Other sensors can track skin temperature, moisture, and so on (I'm
   thinking about such sensors attached to the face).

   Yet others which I've experienced firsthand can detect muscle tension
   by electrical means.

   Heartrate and breathing can be tracked, as can voice tone/tension,
   posture, etc.

   It occurs to me that with the right software and VR setup and
   sensors, one could set up NLP programming software that could
   elicit and reprogram an individ-ual's strategies, either to his own
   specifications or someone else's.

   If NLPers used this to elicit the main strategies of certain
   'geniuses' in various fields, this could be used in conjunction
   with a NLP-based learning soft-ware to achieve rapid assimilation
   of skills and knowledge in various disciplines; I know something
   like this is possible, because I use NLP techniques as a memory aid
   today (I first learned a form of these techniques from
   memory-technique books by Jerry Lucas and Harry Lorayne; they're
   also consistent with standard behaviorist conditioning).  For
   instance, I regularly install strategies in which the sight of a
   cover of a book is an anchor for a vision of the page number I'm
   currently on - a mental bookmark.


Dan Hankins
hankins@pkedvm8.vnet.ibm.com
dan-hankins@cup.portal.com

"Revenge is a dish best served with a side order of fries."
                                              - Klingon proverb