SYSTEMS THINKING

NLP is a systems model. It came from numerous system models, it requires systems thinking to understand it, it depends on working systemically to do it well, and it is loaded with system premises through and through. Systems is built into the very fabric of Neuro-Linguistic Programming model and yet lots of people misunderstand this and present it in a linear way. First let’s start with the system models within NLP and count them.

• Gestalt as a system. Even the German word “gestalt” itself refers to a systems property, that of emergence. A gestalt is something “more than the sum of the parts and different from the sum of the parts.” When the parts are mixed, new properties emerge.

• Family Systems. Then there is Virginia Satir’s approach to families by looking at the family itself as a system and to the communication patterns within the family as a system of inter- locking patterns. That led to the Satir communication categories.

• Bateson’s Cybernetics. One of the original systems thinkers and developers was none other than Gregory Bateson who began with doing original research in anthropology, cultural systems, etc. then applied it to communication theory, to the development of cybernetics in the 1940s, then to mind as he sought to create models for systemic properties such as beauty, humor, schizophrenia, etc.

• Non-Aristotelian System. Alfred Korzybski sub-titled his classic work, Science and Sanity calling it a Non-Aristotelian system. Therein he related things that had been pulled-apart and dichotomized (polarized) from mind-body, to neuro-linguistics, to time-space and argued for the hyphen to put a torn-apart, polarized world back together again.

Given all of this, no wonder that we have several system principles as basic concepts in NLP. Here are the central concepts (presuppositions) that arise from systems thinking and enables us to engage in systems working:

• Mind and body are part of a single system and so inevitably and inescapably affect each other.

• The ecology of a system determines its health and robustness.

• The person with the most flexibility in behavior and responding will have the most influence in that system.

The Mind-Body System Normally we talk about "the mind" and "the body" as if they operate independently of each other. Yet they are not. Nor can we separate them. Korzybski in General Semantics describe separating such inseparable phenomenon as a "false-to-fact elementalism" and argued strenuously that the primitive thinking involved in elementalism works to our detriment. That’s why we need to put hyphens between terms we can create a more holistic and systemic understanding, hence mind- body.

While there is still a lot of mystery about how the mind-body system works, we know that a lot of our illnesses are just as much a function of our "mind" as it is of our “body”— our multiple nervous systems. Studies in “the placebo effect” have given us a much more extensive understanding of the mind-body interaction. And because every drug is tested against a placebo, an inert sugar pill to determine the effect of the drug, we now know a lot about placebos. What’s amazing is that while there are valid chemical effects within drug, there is also another valid chemical effect, the one created due to what a person believes about the false "medicine" of a placebo. Testing drugs against placebos, we now have an immense literature of comparison. Experiments have shown that placebos can produce significant reduction in symptoms. Generally placebos are between 30 and 50 percent effective. In some cases, even higher.

If mind-body is a single system, then what we do in our mind—the beliefs we develop, the understandings, identities, decisions, permissions, prohibitions, etc.—will affect our bodies. That’s why state is a wonderful systems term including state-of-mind, state-of-body, and state-of-emotion. This is also why we focus on integrating these variables in the system—for congruency and ecology.

Because what and how you think and believe influences your emotions and body, stress plays a significant role in most illnesses—ulcers, ulcerated colitis, migraine headaches, arthritis, asthma, allergies, cancer, etc. In NLP we have achieved very little in this area. Dilts, Hallboam, and Smith came up with an Allergy Cure Pattern, but that’s about it. We published in Innovations in NLP (2011) what some NLP medical doctors are doing regarding cancer in Tokyo, Japan. Yet with the existence of some 90 auto-immune system diseases, there is so much more for us to discover in this area.

System Ecology We speak a lot about ecology in NLP. This speaks about the overall health, functioning, and well- being of a system—individually or a collective system (family, company, community). We do that by checking the ecology of our words, actions, decisions, beliefs, etc. Does this or that action or choice enhance your overall system’s health and functioning? That is, is this ecological? This is shorthand for asking if a particular choice will ruin or mess up something else in your life that you value.

What we think, believe, feel, say, and do does not occur in a vacuum. None of these responses occur apart from the human system. So running an “ecology check” refers to taking the total system into account. How will this affect your health? Your finances? Your relationships? How will it affect your long-term success? Whenever you make a change in yourself, there will be systemic changes. What else will be affected? What unintended consequences may occur?

Running the ecology check enables you to evaluate a behavior, belief, change, value, etc. Doing this also raises your awareness of the potential impact that your actions can have. Because we are systems, when you make a change in yourself, there will have systemic changes. It will have consequences in other parts of the system. We say therefore that we need to consider the full “ecology” of the system when we work with any aspect of the human system. "Will this have any negative consequences that I need to consider?"

We can also extend ecology to the person's larger relational systems: "Would this change in a congruent way with the other people in this person's life?" By considering the larger frames of reference, you can at least begin to check on what will happen.

Systemic Flexibility and Influence The third premise speaks about flexibility within a system. The variable that has the most flexibility will have the most choices in that system and will therefore be able to exercise the most influence in that system. When you can only do one thing, you don’t have much ability to adapt to changing conditions. You are stuck with that singular choice. When you have the capacity to do many things, that increased flexibility offers you more choices and that means more options and that means you can have more influence.

Here then is a fundamental premise of NLP —and yet one that many people in this field do not understand very well, if at all. Sadly, there are many practitioners of NLP who think in linear ways rather than systemically, who posit things as polar opposites when they are variables in an interactive system, and who cannot even imagine how things can be occurring simultaneously rather than one at a time. To address this and to take NLP to a higher level, in Neuro-Semantics we have introduced two additional systems models, the self-reflexivity of Meta-States and the Matric Model.

For more about systems, see the books (on the website, www.neurosemantics.com): The Matrix Model (3rd edition, 2016) Systemic Coaching (2012 with Pascal Gambardella, Ph.D.)