EXPERIENCE CAN BE MODELED

If experience is structured, and if structure is the only source of knowledge (Korzybski), then when we see someone do something at a high quality level or especially at a level of expertise, we can model that experience. We can examine that behavior or activity, explore how it is formed, how it works internally (the inner game), and then replicate it at least to some degree as we copy the structure. Isn’t that great news? The achievements and accomplishments of the best among us can be replicated and perpetuated through the process of modeling.

This is a basic NLP concept. And it was an accidental discovery. It occurred after young Bandler was mimicking Perls’ voice and language patterns by listening to the tapes. He was apparently just fooling around and having fun with copying the way Perls talked. But then he and others discovered, to their surprise, that he could replicate much of the results that Perls was able to achieve. Now that was weird!

“How is this possible?” was their question. And at first, they did not know. Ultimately they discovered what is today a basic NLP concept: there is inside of every “experience” an internal structure that makes up of both what and how a person is thinking-feeling and doing. They first looked at language patterns themselves. There was something special about how Perls dealt with language. There were certain words that caught his attention and that he would systematically respond to. That led to the Meta-Model of Language (the NLP communication model). Then they looked at all of the supporting activities of the use of language— one’s tone, tempo, pitch, gestures, etc.

Today we use five basic models of NLP to model experience. Those following the Meta-Model are the Strategy Model (#5, the last post), Sub-Modalities, Meta-Programs, and Meta-States. These are redundant models. They all speak of the same thing— the experience— they differ in that they view it from different perspectives and so present different facets of the same thing.

Now to burst one myth. The developers of NLP did not invent modeling. In fact, they took most of what they created of the Strategy model from the blossoming Cognitive Psychology Movement. The two persons credited with founding that movement, Noam Chomsky and George Miller gave NLP the Meta-Model and the TOTE model. Interesting enough, it was John Grinder who knew both and who even worked for Miller in his laboratory. Miller’s book, Plans and the Structure of Behavior (1960, Miller, Galenter, Pribram) provided the TOTE model which NLP enriched by adding to it the representational systems.

Sub-Modalities was also added and provided more details to the modeling process. though a mis- nomer, “sub-modalities” actually describe the cinematic features of our representational thoughts.

Sub-modalities is a false term because they are not members of the class of a modality, instead they operate as a classification themselves. The three primary modalities as modes of thinking give us the ability to code our thoughts in terms of pictures, sounds, and sensations. It was not until 1997 that Bob and I discovered that the cinematic features of these sense modalities (“sub-modalities”) work symbolically. As symbols they stand for meta-level concepts. By these cinematic features we can make new distinctions in our experiences because they are actually meta-modalities or meta-frames that we can use in modeling experience.

How does an expert make a difference between things? It could be in language, it could be in representations, it could be with different cinematic features. How does a person face an event that one finds disturbing? She probably does not step into the movie, but stays out of it just observing it from a state of interest and curiosity. Yet distance and association are concepts, you cannot see hear hear or feel these categories.

What is the difference between what you imagine as “real” and what you imagine as “imaginary?” Most people will code the movie in color for “real,” and as a black-and-white snapshot. One codes it close, the other as far off. Recognizing that we think using these structural features gives us the ability to replicate experiences of expertise. Again, color is a classification, members of the class would be red, green, blue, black-and-white, etc. Distance is a category, and within it are be close and far that could be ten meters, one block away, one mile away, a thousand miles away. The original sub-modality model failed to distinguish classification and members of the class. Brightness is a category: various degrees of light and/or dark would be members of the class.

This is where the Meta-States Model took modeling to an entirely new level and opened up new dimensions for modeling. The basic NLP idea of identifying the internal structure of human experiences worked wonderfully for mini-behaviors—for behaviors that occur in the moment. So modeling short behaviors such as getting up in the morning, making a decision, spelling, buying, etc.—all of these immediate activities can easily be tracked and their structure identified. How? Follow the representational steps! Watch eye accessing cues, listen for predicates, induce the person into the state, ask questions between original trigger and final output. It’s not a “piece of cake,” but it is a learnable skill.

All of that kind of modeling was based upon representational and linear thinking. But what about when a person’s experience is more complex? What about when it involves self-reflexive moves to beliefs and then beliefs-within-beliefs (belief systems) and when it transpires over years, even decades? What about strategies that include multiple strategies for multiple actions and contingencies? For simple states, you can ask the person to “go into state,” and then you can do “an unconscious uptake” on the person’s kinesthetics. But for complex states, this does not work. “Go into the healthy state.” “Go into the leadership state.” “Go into the entrepreneurial state.” Even forgiveness, self-esteem, resilience, magnanimity, etc. are not simple kinesthetic states. To model these complex and long-term states, you need to model the self-reflexive consciousness that governs them —and that’s what you can do with the Meta-States Model.

Interested in modeling? Then see NLP, The Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience (Dilts, 1980), NLP Going Meta (1997), Meta-States (2005), The Matrix Model (2016), etc.