SYSTEMIC EXCELLENCE #4 Systemic NLP

I’ve written the descriptions of the four meta-models of NLP and the factors that make up a systemic model (Meta Reflections 46-48) to provide a general idea of what we’ve been calling Systemic NLP in Neuro-Semantics. What this describes is not the “pure” NLP that we hear about in some quarters where certain persons seem to want to go back to the year 1985 and put constraints on NLP so that nothing learned or developed after 1985 counts as NLP(!). And this is certainly not the eclectic NLP that mixes (or contaminates) it with other psychologies or psychological processes, or various New Age activities, or Religion, Philosophy, and any other thing that happens to be in fad at the moment, thereby creating Woo-Woo NLP.

Pure NLP is far too limited, Eclectic NLP is too watered-down and weak, and Woo-Woo NLP is too unrealistic and full of superstitions. For me, these forms of NLP end up denying the theoretical foundations of the model as frameworks for a scientific approach to human functioning. And that’s our focus in Neuro-Semantics and why, rather than being eclectic in our approach, we seek to be more systematic with the models that we already have.

So if Neuro-Semantic NLP is anything, it is Systemic NLP. And our intention is primarily to keep it from being contaminated in these ways. We want to use it as a system and to work systemically with individuals and organizations. And that’s why the focus on structure, on being systematic, thorough, rigorous in benchmarking the intangibles that we work with, and constantly re-examining the working assumptions of the models and patterns.

What does this mean for learning NLP in practical terms?

• It emphasizes learning the cognitive-behavioral structures of NLP and use them for the modeling of experience. [Cognitive— mind, semantics; Behavioral— body, physiology, neurology.]

• It emphasizes learning the systemic nature and structure of NLP, how to think systemically, and how to use it in systemic way. So we use the Matrix Model to guide us as we following the energy/information loops within the system.

• It focuses on learning to recognize the key elements of the mind-body-emotion system, the neuro-linguistic system, and work with it in terms of the feedback and feed-forward processes or loops.

• It focuses us to be able to answer the question: How do you know what to do, with whom, when, and why?

The fact is— NLP originated from foundational works in systems and from system thinkers.

Most obvious is the fact that Virginia Satir was the founder of Family Systems and wrote extensively about how to work with a family system, what to look for, etc. Then there’s Gregory Bateson’s work in the same, in cultural systems, in the mind-body system, and his description of “mind” as a system. And there’s more. Korzybski’s work was about “a Non-Aristotelian System” for understanding how we take the information that’s outside of our nervous system and processing it through our multiple nervous systems.

Systems— is the foundation in NLP. The person who doesn’t know that, does not fully understand Neuro-Linguistic Programming, where it came from or the models that are at its heart. This offers one viewpoint for what I along with many others have been doing in Neuro- Semantics as we have been recovering the systems foundation of NLP and then, thinking about it as a system, learning how to use it systemically. For us, that is what Systemic NLP is— what Neuro-Semantics is.

As a model and system, the elements are the inter-dependent variables that make up the whole. And in NLP, given that we have four redundant systems for working with human experience as a system. We have linguistics (the Meta-Model), we have strategy representations (Sub- Modalities and the Strategy Model), perceptual and thinking patterns (The Meta-Programs), and layering frames (the Meta-States Model). Together these provide us the key leverage points for working with the neuro-semantic system when we work with individuals or organizations.

So I ask rhetorically: What else do you need? When you know this, when you know how Systemic NLP works and have developed your skills so that you can work it, why add bits and pieces from other models? The good news is that this is fully sufficient to accomplish 99 percent of what we seek to accomplish in facilitating individuals and organizations to unleash their highest and best and create new levels of excellence.

And again, that’s why to mix this with bits-and-pieces from other models, other psychologies, from woo-woo new age stuff, from the non-sense of trying to restore the so-called “pure” of 1985, actually undermines full systemic NLP. And that’s not a very wise choice. To do that is to create an inferior product, to limit one’s understanding and competency, and to cheat both ourselves and those we work with.