THE FIRST NEURO-LOGICAL LEVELS

This post responds to the several people who have recently written to ask about the relationship between Meta-States and the Neuro-Logical Levels.

“What is the relationship?” “Do they fit together or do they conflict?”

When Robert Dilts took Gregory Bateson’s work on the “logical levels” of learning and change and began developing a way to think and work with logical levels in NLP, he came up with a model that he designated, “The Neuro-Logical Levels.” This model has 7 distinctions sorted out in 6 levels: environment, behavior, capabilities, beliefs and values, identity, and spirit. To give some structure to this list of 6 items, Robert came up with 6 questions which each of the levels addresses and answers:

Levels Questions

Environment Where and When?

Behavior What (is the person doing)?

Capabilities How (skills and strategy)?

Beliefs & Values Why?

Identity Who?

Spirit What else?

Now for years in the NLP community there have been many articles and workshops about whether this is truly a “logical level” model. Wyatt Woodsmall wrote several extensive critiques in NLP World as I did and others. Nearly every review argued against it being a consistent model, in terms of logical levels. Wyatt and I noted that first of all it is not an integrated system in spite of the questions that neatly tie them together. And that’s because there is not a mechanism that organizes these levels. Unlike “learning” or “change” that integrated Bateson’s levels, there’s no thematic concept that ties this set of levels together. There is no inner thread tying them together. Which also explains how Robert has been able to apply this list of levels to so many diverse areas. Further, “behavior” is not a larger category than “environment,” actually the reverse is true. Every “behavior” occurs within an “environment” as the context for the behavior.

[For the articles and chapters I’ve written about logical levels, see Meta-States (2007), NLP Going Meta (2003), also the articles on “Logical Levels” on www.neurosemantics.com.]

From the perspective of the Meta-States Model, the first three “levels” actually all occur within the primary state level. That is, consider any experience and you will find that it involves “behaviors” occurring in a certain way (the how of “capability”) within a certain “environment.” Behavior, capability, and environment are all facets of a primary state. None of these involve a higher “logical level” to an experience. They describe an experience itself as it shows up in the world.

After the first three distinctions (behavior, capability, and environment) begins the logical levels. Beliefs and values are actually two levels about the experience— What do you believe about it? Do you value it as important and if so, what is the importance to you? Identity is next, Who are you when you do this? What does this experience or activity say about you? Then there is spirit or purpose which speaks about your mission and vision. What is your vision and mission in the experience?

Now with beliefs and values, identity, and spirit we can ask if there’s a flexibility so that we can apply any one of these to each other. Can you have a belief about your vision? Can you value this even more? Can you have a belief about your identity? These questions highlight that these levels are not rigid or hierarchical, but fluid and interactive. Each levels refers to a process of thinking and feeling which can be applied in any order.

These three logical levels above and about any experience, however, is just the beginning. There are a lot more. We have identified a hundred such logical levels in Neuro-Semantics. Yes, 100! There is Decision, Permission, Meaning, Frame, Memory, Imagination, Model, Intention, etc. If you’ve experienced the basic Meta-States training (APG) or other Neuro-Semantics trainings, you have seen the lists of 26 levels (called meta-questions) or 39, or 76 in various training manuals.

What the Neuro-Logical Levels pattern began, Meta-States now extends and completes. Meta- States also refines the list by identifying that the first three are expressions of a basic primary state and all of the rest are non-hierarchical frames for that state. In this, Meta-States does not contradict the Neuro-Logical Levels model at all; it complements it and expands it. That’s why you will find the use of these seven distinctions in many if not most Meta-State patterns. I have also used the distinctions specifically in such patterns as the Meta-Alignment pattern which closes the APG program.

And why? Why are beliefs, values, identity, and vision–mission in so many Meta-State patterns? Simple. Because they are such fundamental and essential frames that play an obvious role in almost every experience. So in these distinctions, Robert has modeled and designed some fundamental states (meta-states) as logical levels that arise from our neurology and that inform and govern our neurology.

The only myth about the Neuro-Logical levels model is that a few people somehow think it is the last word about logical levels. Obviously, it is not. In fact, instead of being the last word, historically in NLP it was the first word. There is much, much more to say about logical levels, and many more models that governs this area. Thanks to Robert Dilts for his pioneering development in his Neuro-Logical Levels distinctions and his support of the Meta-States Model.