A thought on the NLP.

[electricat]

Ericsson was a successful and innovative hypnotist. Heller was successful and innovative hypnotist. And just adopting their beliefs and patterns of speech won't make you any more successful or innovative than you are already, perhaps even make you clumsier. Because they're beliefs and patterns of somebody else, not your own.

I've read a book a year or so ago, and there was an interesting research result described there. I don't have it on hand, so I can't look up the exact details of the study or proper citation, but basically it went like this: A group of med students was presented with a faux article on psychology that contained blatantly fallacious reasoning, like "people are getting sleepy because their sleepiness factor increases." Another group was presented with essentially the same article, circular logic and all, but with strategically placed neurological jargon and a few pictures of a fMRI scan. You can guess the result, although the extent of it surprised me.

But let's think ahead. What would happen if this result would've been widely known? There would be basically two large groups of people: one would start consciously pepper their speech with neurobabble in hopes to sound more convincing, another would just be conditioned into complete dismissal of any text containing the word "amygdala" as quackery. The effect would vanish, and yet continue a zombie life of sorts, - thousands of lazy people parroting a "very effective pattern" that no longer applies. Isn't that what happened to orthodox hypnosis? Did NLP reach this stage already? It did for me, seriously, I just can't stand seeing people who are consciously "using NLP" on me or anyone else. Who do they think I am?

And why, understanding all this, I still sometimes drop into NLP-speak when trying to sound more convincing? :lol:

[MN_FriendlyGuy]

Hi, electricat. You've been a member of WMM for almost two months as of today (13 June). In that short period, you've posted interesting material in the forum, including a script. It's clear you've done some studying.

Before responding and agreeing with you, I'm going to provide background information. This is for readers who are unfamiliar with the history of NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming).

Firstly, the cast of characters:
Milton Erickson - Considered to be the father of modern hypnosis because of his use of trance as part of psychotherapy.
John Grinder - A professor at the University of California Santa Cruz; the linguistics faculty.
Richard Bandler - A student at the University of California Santa Cruz. He had a gift for seeing what a person did and then repeating it.

Secondly, the premise:
Student Richard Bandler and professor John Grinder collaborate on speech patterns used by experts in the field of therapy (Satir and Perls). By studying the speech patterns used by these experts, Bandler & Grinder proposed a model they call "transformational grammar".

This pattern of therapeutic babbling evolved to become the "Meta Model" in NLP. Within this model, the client is asked questions that become increasingly specific; increasingly detailed. The client is invited to use reasoning that is deductive.

In the early 1970s, Richard was introduced to Milton Erickson (another expert in the field of therapy). The pattern of therapeutic babble used by Milton turns out to be completely different - almost opposite. The client is invited to use reasoning that's inductive. Ambiguity and confusion are used to generate unconscious change. This pattern of "transformational grammer" evolves to become the "Milton Model" in NLP.

There's legend that Milton Erickson would refer to Bandler & Grinder as "Bandit & Swindler". Regardless of whether it's true, their book is still available: Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson.

End of history lesson!

This is the point where I get to agree with you, electricat
It's unimportant whether a hypnotist follows any NLP model. The thing that's important is continuous improvement (Kaizen).

Before traveling to the Netherlands for the first time, I studied to learn the language. It was preparation for attending a banquet. Midway through dinner, the man seated to my right expressed surprise when he learned I'm a citizen of the USA. He had guessed I was German, because of the pronunciation I was using. I should have spent more time practicing my pronunciation. And that's another kind of speech pattern, isn't it?

So, the next time you catch yourself dropping into the foreign language of NLP-speak, maybe you'll smile - confident about getting the pronunciation right.

And I'll leave it to you to decide whether this response is simply ambiguous and confusing, or whether you can't stand having someone "using NLP" on you.

[electricat]

A nice demonstration. And while it is thought-provoking, the problem here is that it's not really a thought in itself. Just a pattern for somebody else's thought, mine, in this case. I thought that thought, yes. But did it do anyone any good?

A well-known nietzschean metaphor of a development of philosophy and philosophers, "a camel, a lion, a child" sums it up nicely, I think. Back in the 70s NLP was a child, all new and creative, and now it's a camel's burden, something one "learns" only to discard later. And I'm trying to be that lion, maybe a bit too early. I just want to see what else there is, and so need to fight everything that is there already. Which is still not exactly anything new. But it will be one day.

Maybe, it would be still the same species of "constant improvement" where no one really improves anything, by and large talk therapists and hypnotists and shamans and all sorts of people-convincers and mind-changers are as (in)efficient now as they were back in Neolithic... Or maybe there is a way out. Or maybe, "adjusting" people to the environment is doing it wrong in the first place, no one really believes Dr. Pangloss, after all, if we did we'd still be a weird species of ape.

Still, hypnosis is a valuable tool, and so is NLP. It really shows a difference between critical thought and critical conditioning. Between rejecting something "just because" and rejecting something because you know why you're doing it. And thanks for reminding me of that. ;)

[MN_FriendlyGuy]

Words are clumsy representations of thoughts and feelings.

As soon as a better method for communicating is discovered; one that's faster and more complete than talk; at that point, I wonder whether poets, priests and politicians will become pointless.

In the meanwhile, the philosophy of Kaizen (continuous improvement) teaches us to embrace the discipline of standardization (shitsuke).

I could tell you the word "habit" is a form of standardization. But that's a clumsy representation of my thoughts. It's more important for me to acknowledge the lion; acknowledging it because you're not alone in the quest to improve.

The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they’re too heavy to be broken.

[lew897]

Lol. All this stuff is way to complicated. To me it seems the only true history, is present history. What has all been said seems not at all what I found Bandlers stuff to be. Or Ive seen more maybe.

I think Bandler uses humour to shield people from their problems. My favorite is when he says people tell him their problem and then he says thats a bad plan. They sorta laugh a little and say well Im stuck this way. Then he says thats a bad plan too. He says hes a mind decorator. If I put the most horrible piece of art on your wall, youd get rid of it. The same should apply to the mind as well.

All I know is that Im a better person because of his stuff. A faster way to communicate would be too invasive right? I mean wed all be sharing each others thoughts all the time. Reminds me of dark city. lol.

[MN_FriendlyGuy]

Hi, lew897 -

You've wandered into a conversation between two hypnotists. And, you've let us know you have some experience with NLP through Richard Bandler. Thanks for volunteering!

Before we get started, I'm going to ask a few questions. I'll wait for you to, lew897, post a response here in the forum. And, I'll also wait for you to answer background questions that electricat may have before starting.

First Question:
Are you willing to be our volunteer?

Second Question:
What would it take to learn how Richard Bandler does what he does? What would it take to become a mind decorator?

[sfhole2stretch]

Speaking as a subject and aspiring hypnotist, it is interesting to read criticism of NLP as a technique. Why pray tell is it generally so effective?

I was introduced to NLP in my business career via classes to help me "sell my ideas to management". It was a cockamamy class for certain but I did learn some interesting approaches to word use.

For my mind it's about having ideas presented in views I had not previously conceived. The mind decorator idea being a great example. Before reading this today I had never considered getting rid of bad ideas or assuming new ones to be simple as changing wall art.

It's that new perspective that drags me into hypnosis and creates real change. Food for the brain I guess. Or at least something that creates a good mental picture.

[MN_FriendlyGuy]

Welcome to the party, sfhole2stretch.

I'm finding this almost as much fun as attending Hypnocon where the exercise we're going to do here can be done face to face.

I hope you'll participate too, sfhole2stretch. You have background with NLP - a practical, business approach. That makes it possible for you to practice skill as an aspiring hypnotist.

Are you in?

[sfhole2stretch]

Absolutely in. Please help me by defining your goals and the path you envision to take us there.

[electricat]

Just in case: I'm not a "hypnotist" by any commonly accepted measure. It would be extremely Walter Mittyish of me to pretend otherwise.
But trance in myself and others is one of the most interesting, fun and helpful things I ever found. Which means I think about it a lot, and practice it when I can.

Absolutely in. Please help me by defining your goals and the path you envision to take us there.

My own goal was to learn how to think about hypnosis and NLP in a skeptical way. It's very difficult to do proper skepticism, at least for me. It's too easy to forget the difference between skepticism and denial. (Or, as I dubbed them, for these purposes, "critical thinking" and "critical conditioning." )

For me this whole thing started with a re-interpretation of an example from "Monsters and Magical Sticks," Do you really think 2+2=4 only because a teacher convinced you it is? Or are there other ways you can get there? It couldn't be teacher turtles all the way down, so someone somehow did it. S/he had a novel thought, and evaluated and accepted it (and rejected the thought that 2+2=3) without any suggestion from anyone. And that someone was a great skeptical philosopher. A naysayer who just said something along the lines of "Bah, I just don't trust that newfangled 'numbers' thing" was just a "not very suggestible guy." Possibly with "analytical mind" susceptible to confusion.

Speaking as a subject and aspiring hypnotist, it is interesting to read criticism of NLP as a technique. Why pray tell is it generally so effective?

Same reason any form of talk is effective. Because people let it to be.

Read that obligatory story of "how a 'non-suggestible' subject was hypnotized" that is in that book (it doesn't really matter which one, it's in every book on hypnosis, often several times, and it's generally the same story) and it's fairly obvious. Not being in trance when talking to someone is a skill that takes learning. ADD: Asch conformity experiments are a good example of how the majority of people would say, believe, or even actually hallucinate that the wrong answer to a simple question about a picture is correct, simple because they saw a lot of people (experimenter stooges) agreeing it is.

And people generally learn not to go in unwanted trances in two ways: The denial way is basically a post-hypnotic suggestion run backwards. This "critical conditioning" just skims what you see/hear/feel for simple "red flags" and when it finds them, it reclassifies the source of this input as "The Opponent" who cannot possibly be right or even worth listening to on any subject, with elaborate rationalizations if needed.

And once something makes it to the Red Flag List of enough people, it's worthless, whatever its inherent merits. The thought is simply suppressed before it has any chance. And, of course, since everything "bad" is denied uncritically the rest is accepted uncritically.

True critical thinking isn't like that, it can use methods like proof by contradiction or even think it through and decide that The Opponent has a point after all. Unlike critical conditioning it doesn't start with the premise that "your team" is always right. But, for most people, it takes years to develop it to any useful degree in a few very limited fields. Which is another problem with it, it's not just a mindset you can learn, it's not just some "data" you can memorize, it's a discipline one practices. Knowing it's not perfect, and it may fail you.

To illustrate, there was a test on the Internet some time ago that asked you to tell if what you saw was a piece of genuine abstract art or just some random nonsense. Anyone who knows anything about art can actually score pretty high on that test, even if they don't know the paintings in question, and even if the art they actually studied was photography, by just knowing some rules of composition and color theory. They won't score perfectly, but they will do better than random guess.

But it's much easier to dismiss all abstract art as nonsense, or wax lyrical about random doodles. It's psychologically safer.

[lew897]

Well I dont really want to tell all of his stuff without you actually buying his book. lol. but one of my favorites is learning how to draw. one of his stories is about a guy he saw on the river drawing a house. bandler asked him how does he make it so detailed? and the guy smiled and said it wasnt me who was drawing. bandler then said but i saw you draw it. the guy said i see gods hand fall out of the sky and draw the painting. lol. basically you see your hand draw whatever it is you want to draw. im happy with this since its awesome to draw manga characters!

As far as being able to do what Bandler does is asking for a lot since people have called him everything from scam artist to genius! As for the other stuff, it all seems too complicated for me, lol. got lost in the goat cat and bird stuff. lol. generally if you dont want to buy his book then Id suggest asking people how they do, what they do. and figure out what they do that makes them great. i know alot of what people do to be great and use a lot of it. another favorite is thinking as a winner where you take the whole number and take one down at a time. example I love chess and i play ten games a day, when one is over with i say nine left, eight left, etc. This can be applied to anything basically.

Then again, this can all be a moot point since what I really love is being in ultra depth. My theory is the small amount of stem cells in our noses and ears are used all over our body to make heal us. Then again the hallucinations are also amazing part of it as well. To me, it seems like the more I learn with some understanding what the brain can do it makes me feel like we;re all some freak alien experiment gone wrong. How do we know what electricity is? Magnets? Our brain? If its all some joke by some omnipotent god out there Id be very mad! lol.

[Endo]

I've followed this thread with a moderate interest so far, but now I'm going to jump in. I've always preferred to learn by doing. I read just a wee bit of information about hypnosis before starting to script and record, and I never really thought about a style of speech pattern or whatnot. My first file (and all the ones to follow) have mostly been laid out in a story-like fashion, based on what I had gathered from listening to some files before. I slowly describe something and add details one at a time. A good example of this would by my "Ultimate Plugs" file. It starts off with just a plug. That vibrates. And stretches. And shocks. And cums. And then there's another one. It does the same stuff the first one does. And so on and so forth.

That was the start. I read the thread about analytically minded people, and while that helped how I approached the listening side of things, it didn't change my scripting too much. I also read (maybe it was the same thread) another thread that I'm forgetting what it was about, but I know it contained some stuff about subtlety, like how "You can feel x" instead of "Feel x" is more subtle and is thus more effective. I picked up a little of that and it's seeped into my scripting a little bit, but not much.

So what's the point of this wall of text? What I'm trying to say is that I never really gave that much care to flow and patterns and such. What I think is what I say. How it comes out is how it comes out. And so far, I know it's worked for at least one person, and worked really well.

What do those of you who are formally trained 'tists think of this?

Also, is Richard Bandler OUR Bandler? As in, the one on this site.

[MN_FriendlyGuy]

Alright then, here's the first challenge - Setting an anchor.
I hope you'll find this fun. I also hope it'll challenge creative thinking that you'll incorporate into future trance.

- For this exercise, we're using the NLP definition of "anchor"... an external stimulus that triggers a particular internal state or response.

- The term "setting an anchor" refers to the action of establishing a mental link between the trigger (word/stimulus) and the resulting action or emotional response.

When a hypnotist uses trance to 'set an anchor', the result can be pretty powerful. Example: Here on WMM, there are a few mp3s that anchor an emotional state to the phrase GOOD BOY.

First Challenge: Name a word/phrase/action you'd like to use as a trigger. Then, describe the action or the emotional state you'd like associated with that trigger. It's fine to name an anchor you've already heard in an MP3 here on WMM. It's equally fine to make up your own. Make it fun by thinking of something that will WARP MY MIND.


Here's preparatory reading for the next challenge:

1) Get clear about the emotional state you want the client to be in - how you're going to describe it.

2) Invite the client to remember a specific occasion in the past when they've been in that emotional state - comparable experience

3) Invite the client to relive the experience as vividly as they can - invoking the sensory

[MN_FriendlyGuy]

Since no responses have been posted, this exercise is closed (ended).

The original forum posting by electricat questioned the value of following verbal patterns established by the NLP framework and/or established by historic hypnotists. With this exercise I showed one specific pattern that can be incorporate into the toolkit of an aspiring hypnotist.

This pattern was chosen for two reasons.

Firstly, it's easy to use. It can be used without memorizing "neurobabble" or "NLP-speak".

Secondly, it can be used as fuel. This pattern allows hypnotists and practitioners to use a client's happy memories as fuel that warps minds toward obedience, toward feminization, toward diapers, toward...

You're limited only by your imagination and your willingness to try.

My thanks to all who contributed to a thoughtful discussion.

[electricat]

Sorry about abandoning this. Just when I thought I'm going to have some time, some important RL stuff happened that would keep me way too busy for a month or two :(

[HypnoCactus]

I just found and read the entire thread. There is one point that some may find interesting and that's the speed at which people text. In the past it was rather slow, but it has increased in speed to the point that twitter can now at times be regarded as pre-thought, mapping the thought process as they are developed. Something to look at maybe. I imagine it's like quarks to protons/neutrons. The gluon would be twitter itself? Anyway, kudos to all involved in this wonderful thread!