“PURPOSEFUL THINKING” Well, Almost ... Actually Just VAK Thinking, Again

I began studying Critical Thinking in 2015. In the beginning I collaborated with one of our Neuro-Semantic trainers. After he dropped out, I created the trainings that are now called Brain Camp I, II, and III. After three years of extensive reading and studying in that field, I wrote the book, Executive Thinking (2018) having also written scores of articles on “thinking.” Just recently I discovered that Richard Bandler began thinking somewhat along the same line after that. I discovered that when I got his book “Thinking on Purpose” (2019). Hearing some promotion for it, I thought that maybe it mighty be further development of the mysterious and wonder-fill phenomenon of “thinking.” But, sadly, it did not.

In fact, throughout the entire book, thinking is simply refers to as VAK-thinking, the thinking that works with into the components of your movie-mind. That’s all. It is the 1970s NLP model of thinking as only what we do at the primary level. Bandler has not even included the levels of thinking that Bateson and Dilts developed, or the meta-levels of thinking that I developed with Meta-States. It is all primary level thinking, and therefore the one and only “tool” is changing the qualities of your pictures, sounds, and/or sensations (to wit, sub-modalities).

If you have read NLP books by Bandler, there’s nothing new in this one. Like all of the other books, this one is exclusively focused on the modalities and sub-modalities. It is about good thoughts and bad thoughts (p. 69). It is about adding pleasure to whatever you do. When it comes to beliefs—still failing to recognize that beliefs are meta-level phenomenon, he still uses sub-modalities to alter them, which of course, does not work (97). He thinks of them as images to alter. He also thinks that decisions are “images.” “...and notice the image of that good decision” (115). Yet these meta-level abstractions are not pictures, they are concepts.

Meta-Stating: Now there is meta-stating in the book, but it is unrecognized. He talks about seeing a belief (which presupposes a belief is an image rather than a sentence!) And then saying to yourself with absolute conviction, “It is stupid.” That’s applying the state of “stupidity” to a belief (p. 96). He also does that with “This is smart” (p. 98). He notes that “confidence is not just a state.” It’s a modifier, but then he fails to realize that because you can be confident about being happy, about being hired, about not being hired, etc., it is a meta-state (163).

The following reveals the meta-state of knowing about a craving. “Your feelings don’t force you to act. Knowing you crave something should be enough to tell you to not do it.” (p. 201). The knowing is higher to and about the craving and therefore leads to a higher understanding. Then there is this: “As soon as you laugh at being afraid of something and you’re fed up with being afraid of going up in an escalator...” (p. 242). These are meta-states: laugh at fear; fed up about fear. But, of course, he doesn’t know that.

There are inspiring statements about thinking and learning: “We have to teach people how to be learning machines; this requires them become problem solvers.” (p. 16) “If you just think, you can think yourself into problems. It’s really easy.” (p. 30) “The biggest inoculation against our mental problems is a sense of humor.” (p. 34) “You forgot that the reason you have a brain is so you would have your own thoughts, not someone else’s.” (p. 42)

There are also some nice reframing which, of course, occur at a level meta to the primary level. I like this one: “When you feel bad exercising, the pain of exercising is weakness disappearing.” (p. 104). And this one: “Phones have become like pacifiers now.” (p. 158)

About acceptance, he got that all wrong. “... If you accept how you are, you are committing to your stupidity.” (p. 242). Here he criticizes those in the Human Potential Movement for urging “accept yourself the way you are.” But acceptance does not mean condoning or resignation. Not at all! No one in the Human Potential Movement ever said that.

Bottom line— If you know NLP, you will not learn very much about thinking in this book. You will mostly get a good review of Bandler’s take on NLP, and especially how we think in the sensory-systems and if you change the cinematic features (sub-modalities) of the images, sounds, and sensations that you use—you will change your thinking.

Thinking on Purpose could have been a breakthrough book. After all, purposeful thinking itself describes a meta-state. If Richard Bandler had read and understood the Appendix on Meta-States in The Spirit of NLP (1996), he would have known that. He could have then identified the higher level thinking which is involved at the meta-levels.