THINKING ABOUT THINKING

While NLP is a Communication Model below or behind or above communicating a message or the meaning of something is thinking. First you think, then you speak (or at least that’s the best sequence even though we know people who reverse it). Given that, we can say that NLP is essentially about thinking— it’s a model of how we think which creates our sense of reality.

When you study NLP, you study the representational systems as the components of thinking. We think visually, auditorially, kinesthetically, as well as with the other sensory systems. And with that, we can ask the modeling question, “How are you representing X? What are you seeing, what sounds are you hearing, what sensations in your body are you experiencing, and what are you saying to yourself?” Of course, the last one is linguistic thinking— we also think in words. Above the representational systems (the VAK for short) there are the cinematic features of the pictures and sounds that you create. Sub-modalities, although they are not “sub” at all, they are actually meta-modalities. But that’s another story. (Sub-Modalities Going Meta, 2005).

When you study NLP, you study the Meta-Model about how words work as a meta- representational system. You learn that words work by evoking internal VAK movies. These movies may be in conscious awareness or unconscious. Either way, when a word works, it evokes an internal trip to whatever you are referring to (called a transderivational search). You also study the Milton Model and how you can use words to invite those internal searches which cause people to transition from the sensory awareness world to the world inside — to go into a trance for resourcing and healing.

When you study NLP, you study how you think sequentially about something— how you have a thinking strategy for each and every experience you experience. That’s the Strategy Model of NLP and how we do more formalized modeling. Next is the perceptual thinking model that we call the Meta-Programs Model. This provides 60-plus distinctions in how you think through various filters or lens.

Finally, there is the thinking about thinking model, the Meta-States Model that explores how your self-reflexive consciousness thinks a second time, a third time, a fourth time, etc. to create the patterns of your systemic thinking that sets frames (usually unconscious frames) that make up the hidden assumptions and presuppositions that influence your thinking. You think in layers and as you add layers of thoughts, you create your own unique logical levels.

That’s a lot of thinking about thinking! To summarize, NLP presents thinking in multiple dimensions:

Representation thinking — the VAK of the sensory systems.

Linguistic thinking — language, descriptive words, evaluative words.

Editorial thinking — cinematic features that code the VAK.

Strategic thinking — the steps in a thinking strategy that creates an experience.

Perceptual thinking — the formats of our thinking lens.

Reflexive thinking — the self-reflexivity of systemic thinking.

Thinking is the black-box that Behaviorism would not touch. Yet we know we do it, that is think. So Cognitive Psychology delved into thinking with Miller’s 1960 work that culminated in the TOTE model which, in NLP, became the Strategy model. We know we think, but you can’t see it or hear it. Thinking itself is completely intangible. Yet it feels so close to us— so immediate that it seems most real. Now the thinking that I’m speaking about is not apart from emoting, speaking, or acting. As a system, all of these are linked together and interact. Yet thinking is the driver. “As a person thinks, so he (and she) is.”

Because of all of the above, in 2016 after completing the Meta-Coaching System series of books and trainings, I began thinking about thinking. That has led to a series of books on various aspects of thinking itself.

Executive Thinking — the neurology of our pre-frontal lobes that enable us to engage in a much higher level of thinking— which allows us to plan, anticipate, remember, establish patterns, frame, decide.

Thinking as a Modeler — the kind of thinking that enables a person to model expertise in identifying the conscious and unconscious patterns that comprise a high quality competence.

Hypnotic Thinking — the kind of inner thinking, trance thinking that allows us to construct internal worlds of wonder and amazement.

Humorous Thinking — the kind of thinking based on noticing incongruency, exaggeration, and playfulness, foundational to framing and reframing.

Decision-Making — the kind of thinking that makes decisions, makes up one’s mind, and that anticipating the future, makes smart plans, that can think wisely if so used.

Metaphoric Thinking — the kind of thinking that enables us to use references from some source domain and map it across to a target domain of our choosing.

Thinking is our glory as human beings and it is also our agony— our nemesis. Do it well and the world is yours. Do it poorly and inadequately, and you will be a victim. In Neuro-Semantics, one of our essential focuses is on enhancing and enabling a person’s thinking capacity and competency. We started “Brain Camp” for that purpose; it is about critical thinking and yet it is about so much more.

What is thinking? Thinking is a skill. It is a capacity that is yours by birth— but it has to be developed, enriched, enabled, and cultivated. If you don’t, your thinking can go disastrously wrong so that you suffer cognitive distortions, fallacies, and biases.