A Pragmatic Guide To Communication & Change.pdf - NLP Info Centre

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referential index with an appropriate Meta Model response are:
Speaker: "I need help."
Response: "What do you need help with."
Speaker: "I'm being pushed into this mess." Response: "Who is
pushing you?"
Speaker:
him?"
"He's not respected." Response: "Who doesn't respect
In situations where a person is uncomfortable with the possiblility of being
confronted but still wants to express displeasure, this violation is often used. It
allows the person to say something which may be controversial or cause conflict,
like, "I'm being pushed into this mess," (deleting "by my boss"). Thus, the
individual who might respond in an unpleasant way (his boss) has been deleted. This
"safe" linguistic pattern is typically used by individuals operating from the auditory
and digital representation systems.
2. Unspecified referential index occurs when the noun or noun phrase does not name
a specific person or thing. Words like "this," "that," "it," or even "thing-a-mabob"
are all examples of unspecified referential index.
Whenever a person leaves out or does not specify important elements of a sentence,
he runs the risk of being misunderstood. The following illustration demonstrates the
?s
kind of problems which can arise. In this example, the woman expresses an
emotional response to something that does not necesarily relate to the man. She
may, for example, be "mad" about a run in her stockings. His response to her
original statement, however, indicates that he has chosen to take it personally,
setting the stage for what follows. Had the woman been more specific to begin
with, the whole scene would have changed dramatically.
Other examples of this Meta Model violation are:
Speaker: "That just won't work." Response: "What specifically
won't work?"
Speaker: "This is important." Response: "What is important?"
Speaker: "I don't want to talk about it." Response: "What don't you
want to talk about?"
As with the previous Meta Model distinction, Your goal in asking for the missing
information is twofold: First, you are asking for information which will help you to
better understand the speaker. This can aid in more effective communication.
Second, asking for the information which is missing from the speaker's SS is one
way of determining whether or not that information is even in the speaker's
awareness. For example, if the speaker responded to the first question above with,
"I don't know, specifically. It's just a vague sense that things aren't clicking," you
immediately know several important things. You know, for example, that the
individual is operating from the auditory representational system (see "Predicate
Preference" in Chapter II). You also know that the original stimulus for the "vague
sense" is outside of his conscious awareness, and, therefore, beyond his control.