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

Several years ago, I had a client who demonstrated perfectly the duality in function of the
universal human modeling processes. What follows are highlights from some of our
sessions that exemplify these processes in action.
As a child, Sharon had several very pleasant experiences in a particular reading group.
These experiences were soon generalized to all reading, and Sharon became an enthusiastic
"bookworm." This can be considered a positive example of the process of
generalization.
One of the reasons Sharon decided to come in for counseling was what she termed "a fear
of men." This "fear" kept her from relaxing enough to have any close, affectionate
relationships. In her words, "Men frighten me. I'm afraid all they want is to take
advantage of me." We quickly uncovered where her fear had come from: Sharon
recounted a severely traumatic experience she had had with a man when she was a young
teenager. From this one terrible experience she had begun to generalize about the
"motives" of men. These generalizations had become a part of her model of the world and
effectively prevented her from enjoying the close, loving relationship that she so dearly
wanted. As with her experiences with reading, this modeling process occurred
"automatically," completely out of her conscious awareness.
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concentrate, to plan and learn, and to dream. They become evident to the trained observer
through a person's speech and behavior, and learning to detect and utilize these universal
processes is a central theme of this book.
Generalization
The process of generalization provides part of the explanation of how we are able to learn
as rapidly as we do. Many "new" behaviors, for example, are actually composed of bits
and pieces of previously experienced behaviors which are similar to the new behavior.
Because of this similarity, we are able to generalize from the experience of the old
behavior, alleviating the need to learn the new behavior "from scratch." The ability to
generalize from past experiences means that it is not necessary to expend great amounts
of time and energy learning new behaviors. This same process is utilized in the learning
of new concepts and in other activities associated with what we call "thinking." In
essence, generalization eliminates the necessity to relearn a concept or behavior every
time we are confronted with a variation of the original.
Deletion
It has been reported that the human central nervous system is being fed more than two
million pieces of information euery second. Just in terms of efficiency, if every bit of this
information had to be processed and used, the time and energy necessary would be
astronomical! This is where the process of deletion comes in. Our central nervous system
actually operates as a "screening mechanism" enabling us to function at peak efficiency.
As Alders Huxley says in The Doors of Perception, experience "has to be funneled
through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out the other
end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the
surface of this particular planet." (p. 23)
Obviously, our ability to delete portions of the barrage of input is essential to our
survival.