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

olfactory sensing organs between bites of food. The wine literally changes the
environment in our mouths so that each bite will taste just as savory as the first. Recurrent
inhibition is what underlies the tendency to cease paying attention to static, unchanging
aspects of our environment. It is interesting to speculate about how this neurological
mechanism might affect our experience of the world on a broader scale. Noam Chonr
sky (see Chapter Ill), quoting Vikhn . Shklovskij, writes:
"People living at the seashore grow so accustomed to the murmur of the waves
that they never hear it. By the same token, we scarcely ever hear the words
which we utter.... We look at each other, but we do not see each other any
more. Our perception of the world has withered away; what has remained is
mere recognition." (p. 24-25)
Our sensory systems provide us with very pleasant experiences in many ways. Movies,
which are actually only rapidly flashed "still" pictures, give us the illusion of motion. We
can also experience strong emotional feelings while sitting in a theater watching and
listening to a film. It is important to understand that these same abilities, these
neurological processes which enable us to have pleasant experiences, also operate at
times to give us pain by limiting our perceptions and our ability to adequately respond to
our environment.
As the discussion of these processes continues, I hope to demonstrate that there are
consistencies in how people experience the world and how they create their models of
what they experience. These consistencies can assist us in more effectively
communicating with them. By enabling us to predict and influence behavior, observing
and utilizing these consistencies can help us assist the people we live and work with in
making different choices about how to feel and how to respond, choices which will
enhance a positive and enriched perception of the world.
t
figure 1 - I shows the first step in the formulation of our nu'dels of the world. Raw
experience is filtered through our sensory organs (neurological constraints). The
experience is "tr ansformed" into a neurological model including four basic Pot rameters:
vision, feeling, sound, and smell and taste. he!°wmK the model proposed by Bandler
and Grinder,"
se are labeled, respectively, V for vision, K for feelings, A
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16
There are several ways you can "join" a person at his own model of the world. These will
be covered in following sections and chapters. As you acknowledge an individual's model
of the world by joining him with your language and with other behaviors that let him
know that you understand, you pave the way for highly effective and influential
communication to occur. This does not mean that you accept his model as your own, but
rather that you instill the trust and rapport so important in close or intimate relationships
and create the ideal climate for positive growth and change.
Constraints on the Model
the menu like we often treat our own models of the world - as if it actually is reality - we
would begin to eat the menu! As Bateson points out, "Expectably, communicating
organisms... will mistake map for territory. . . ." (p. 402) To take the metaphor a step
further, sometimes we are surprised by the food we have ordered from the menu. When it