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What is Neurolinguistic Programming
From the NLP Glossary, NLP is described as: " . . . a behavioural model and set of explicit skills and techniques founded by Dr. John Grinder and Dr. Richard Bandler in 1975. Defined as the study of the structure of subjective experience, NLP studies the patterns or "programming" created by the interaction amongst brain (neuro), language (linguistic) and body that produce both effective and ineffective behaviours. The skills and techniques were derived by observing the patterns of excellence in experts from diverse fields of professional communication, including psychotherapy, business, hypnosis, law and education."
What is “Ericksonian" hypnosis?
Milton H. Erickson, relatively unheard of outside of the hypnosis and NLP communities developed innovative therapeutic strategies that improved upon the rigid procedure orientated methods that formed traditional hypnosis and psychotherapy. With an emphasis on flexibility of the therapist and of therapeutic interventions, Erickson was repeatedly able to demonstrate changes in his patients that others were unable to achieve.
How does NLP and Ericksonian Hypnosis relate to medical practice?
Many physical illnesses and some treatments have significant psychosocial implications. The ability of the patient to adapt to their conditions and treatments can vary enormously, sometimes to the degree of affecting patient compliance and rates of recovery. In addition, how are we to free those patients who present with the so-called psychosomatic, neurotic, factitious disorders (and "regular attenders") from their dependence on the hospital services that they (inappropriately) attend.
The NLP model suggests that we view physical symptoms existing as a communication from within, a communication that has a positive purpose and intention. The NLP processes of 'reframing' do not challenge these communications (an excellent method of creating "resistance") but provide a method by which these intentions are fulfilled by more appropriate behaviours, leading the patient to construct more effective strategies in life.
Ericksonian hypnosis and NLP also demonstrates the ability of the sick patient to adapt to his condition, bringing relief from psychological/physiological distress, in addition to psychosocial adaptation to illnesses and their treatments.
Unlike conventional practice, NLP does not demand the flexibility of the patient instead demands the flexibility of the practitioner to meet the patient at his model of the world. Institutional health care appears to be orientated towards the median needs of its users/patients. However far too many patients fall outside of the parameters of the median and health care practice can lack the flexibility to meet those individuals needs. All too often those individuals can fall into a 'game without end' engaged with health care services whereby the practitioners can find themselves having to stretch their patience to new limits.. Or, practitioners can end up playing the favourite 'games' of "Referring them on" (preferably to a colleague they don't like,) "Refer back to GP" or "Giving advice knowing full well that the patient will ignore it (but at least I've covered myself)."
In my own experience, in some cases I have frequently found myself having to refrain from giving the very thing needed, honesty, lest it be considered unprofessional.
Towards the end of the 16th Century, Giordano Bruno aroused the groggy world, asking it to fling its mind far beyond the planets. He speculated that the cosmos extended into infinity.
This in itself was not so shocking: but Bruno went considerably further - He postulated a multiplicity of worlds: Suns and planets with life, unseen companions for the race of man. He toyed with mans conception of himself. For this, and for magical claims and political entanglements he was burned in 1600.
Charles Witney. The Discovery of our Galaxy
So Just who does Andrew T. Austin think he is?A registered nurse, who completed his training in September '92, who has gained experience predominantly in Accident and Emergency and Neurology/Neurosurgery.
He started private consultation work during the hot summer of 1994, after the completion of his diploma in Ericksonian hypnosis and NLP with British Hypnosis Research, at the Royal Masonic Hospital, London. Keen to share his interests and experience with others, he soon formed the Southampton Hypnosis Research and Study Group, giving weekly seminars to the group that was to develop into The West Sussex Hypnosis and NLP Study Group.
In his private practice, Andrew has a specialist interest in anxiety and depressive disorders and reads extensively from the research articles and manuscripts from the Palo Alto institute. Notably writers such as Watzlawick, Jackson, Weakland, Leary and Laing.
Placing communication and linguistic patterns (such as the “double bind") as the prime causative agent behind such conditions as the "schizophrenias." He openly suggests that medical practice and research leans too heavily on biological/genetic presuppositions of mental distress. He notes with regret that this has enabled a widespread and lucrative market to open up in dubious alternative 'therapies' that offer little more than panacea or placebo relief.
His adopted mantra: "Therapy means CHANGE not conformity" reflects his attitude that too many psychiatric interventions are aimed at getting to conform to the therapists' own model of the world. This realisation came from detained psychiatric 'patient' face a review panel to assess grounds for release or further detainment. The patient's declaration that, "If i am calm, you will tell me that I am faking it; if i rage against this injustice you will tel me that pathological. The patient was declared paranoid and further detention ordered.
When working with his students Andrew frequently cites George Orwell's 1984:
"We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic; as long as he resists us we never destroy him... ...we convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all the evil and illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul, we make him one of ourselves..."
During his training as a counsellor and as a youth worker for recidivistic young people, Andrew became dismayed at the quality of training available and the absence of training in linguistics and communication systems theory. He finds this position peculiar as language is the only tool available for non-medical practitioners.
He often quotes Erickson:
"You are going to use words to influence the psychological life of your patient today; you are going to use words to influence his organic life today; you are going to use words to influence his organic life and his psychological life twenty years from now. So you had better be willing to reflect upon the words you use, to wonder what their meanings are, and to seek out and understand their many associations."
Milton H Erickson, Life Reframing in Hypnosis
The Influence of R.D. Laing & Gregory Bateson et al on Clinical Practice.
The well known 'anti-psychiatrist', RD Laing worked endlessly to demystify the nature of 'madness', placing 'insanity' into an interactional social framework rather than as biological entity. Controversial in both his approach and writings, in "Sanity, Madness and the Family", he and Aaron Esterson wrote:
'We do not accept 'schizophrenia' as being a biochemical, neurophysiological or psychological fact, and we regard it as a palpable error, in the present state of the evidence, to take it to be a fact. Nor do we adopt it as a hypothesis. We propose no model of it."
With Bateson et al., Laing popularised the notion of the double bind, a theme that recurs throughout his work, the most common example cited is as follows:
(From an interview with a mother and her 'schizophrenic' daughter) Mother: "1 don't blame you for talking that way. I know you don't mean it.
Daughter: "But I do mean it!"
Mother: "Now dear, I know that you don't, you can't help yourself."
Daughter: " I can help myself."
Mother: "Now dear, I know you can't because you're ill. If I thought for a moment you weren't ill, I would be furious with you."
. . .during a first meeting with the psychiatrist he conceived of an intense contempt for him. He was terrified to reveal this contempt in case he was ordered to have a leucotomy and yet he desperately wanted to express it. As the interview was going on he felt it more and more to be a pretense, and futile, since he was only pretending a false front and the psychiatrist seemed to take this false presentation perfectly seriously. He thought the psychiatrist was more and more of a fool. The psychiatrist asked him if he heard a voice. The patient thought what a stupid question this was since he heard the psychiatrist's voice. He therefore answered that he did, and to subsequent questioning that the voice was male. The next question was, 'What does the voice say to you?' To which he answered, 'You are a fool.' By playing at being mad, he had thus contrived to say what he thought of the psychiatrist with impunity.
From 'The Divided Self", RD Laing.Bateson et al suggest that in the process of schizophrenia, the 'schizophrenic' experiences difficulty distinguishing between the 'logical types' of communication (Bertrand Russell: "Principia Mathematica.") As a consequence he demonstrates weaknesses in three areas of communication:
1. He has difficulty in assigning the correct communicational mode to the messages he receives from others.
2. He has difficulty in assigning the correct communicational mode to those messages which he himself utters or emits non-verbally.
3. He has difficulty in assigning the correct communicational mode to his own thoughts, sensations and perceptions.
Bateson et al suggested that this position can be arrived at by repeated and expected exposure to the 'double bind' situation. The double bind manifests in a variety of manners and forms, however Bateson suggested the following essential ingredients:
1. Two or more persons are involved. One is designated 'victim' and is in the 'one-down' position (Watzlawick et al). The other is involved in some power-based relationship with the 'victim' (ie. is in the 'one-up' position.)
2. Repeated experience. It is assumed that the double bind is a recurrent theme in the experience of the victim. The hypothesis suggests that the double bind structure in communication comes to be an habitual expectation.
3. Primary Negative Injunction. This may take two forms. (i) "Do not do so-and-so, or I will punish you." Or "If you do not do so-and-so, I will punish you." The emphasis is on the avoidance of punishment rather than reward seeking. ('Punishment' may be withdrawal of love/ affection, expression of hate/ anger or "the most devastating- the kind of abandonment that results from the parents expression of extreme helplessness.)
4. A secondary negative injunction conflicting with the first at a more abstract leveL Like the first injunction the secondary is enforced by punishment or signals that threaten. The secondary negative injunction is difficult to describe but often occurs as a meta-communication (a communication about the communication: "...and that's an order, Corporal!" )
The secondary injunction frames the initial injunction incongruently and can take the following forms:
(a). "Do not see this as punishment."
(b). "Do not see me as the Punishing agent."
(c). "Do not submit to my prohibitions."
(d). "Do not question my love (of which the primary prohibition is/is not an example.)"The conflicting injunction is usually defined or implied by the context ("Meta-frame") in which the communication occurs and is non-verbal.
5. A tertiary negative injunction prohibiting the victim from escaping from the situation. For example: A child who cannot escape the fact he is/feels dependent on mother; A prisoner in the interrogation room; An employee with (asshole for a) boss.
6. Finally, the complete set of ingredients are no longer necessary when the 'victim' has learned to perceive his universe in the terms of the double bind. Almost any part of the sequence may be sufficient to precipitate a severe reaction.
The Presuppositions of NLP.
Focusing on changing the structure of (negative) subjective experience, the NLP model regards dis-ease as a cybernetic process rather than as a 'thing'. This provides a development of the 'holistic' approach currently being emphasised in health care practice.
As an example, I would regard it as a fundamental error to consider 'depression' simply as a chemical imbalance (medical model) or - the crassly stupid - "anger turned inwards" (contemporary counselling theory). Whilst the former position addresses the physical signs and symptoms, (ie. the patient achieves much needed physical relief but still runs the ineffectual psychoneurological processes,) the latter position is very good at producing angry depressives. Neither addresses the relationship the depressive has with the cybernetic communication system in which he exists.
As I wrote in the article It's Good To Talk I have observed many therapists continually attempting the absurd game process of "getting-the-client-intouch-with-his-feelings". This supposedly therapeutic position is rendered absurd when we consider the patient with suicidal ideation - I mean, just how "in touch" does a guy have to be?
Repeatedly I have taken on clients who have been subjected to far too many hours of 'therapy' only to fail at getting well!! The therapist places these clients in the untenable position of being "resistant clients." The client is told that whilst he may want to change (which is demonstrated by the fact that he is in the position of 'client') a person can only really change when he really wants to, only he can do it, and only when he is ready. Thus the therapist absolves himself from his failures by double binding and blaming the client. When this description is true, the therapist has created a concomitant double bind he negates his own value - "I can't do it for you" - whilst suggesting the client still needs the therapist basically saying: "You need me but you shouldn't need me."
(Counsellors who try to evade this position by calling themselves 'Facilitators' can be swiftly cured by beating them repeatedly around the head with a small puppy until one of them screams.)
"There are no resistant clients, only inflexible therapists!" Dr Richard Bandler.
...In Chicago, Laing was invited by some doctors to examine a young girl diagnosed as schizophrenic. The girl was locked into a padded cell in a special hospital and sat there naked. She usually spent the whole day rocking to and fro. The doctors asked Laing for his opinion... Unexpectedly, Laing stripped off naked himself and entered her cell. There he sat with her, rocking in time to her rhythm. After about 20 minutes she started speaking, something she had not done for several months. The doctors were amazed "Did it never occur to you to do that?" Laing commented...
John Clay. R.D. Laing -A Divided Self
The Principals and Philosophy of NLP Practice.
The map is not the territory.
1. We do not act on the world directly, but rather act on the 'map' of the world as filtered through our senses.
2. Everybody is a unique individual with a different map of the world. Everybody has different perceptual filters.
3. Mind and body form a linked (cybernetic) system. This system is intrinsically linked to and affected by other systems: "No man is an island"
4. If what you are doing does not work, do it differently. Flexibility is crucial.
5. Choice is better than no choice. One choice. You're a robot. Two choices. You've gotta dilemma. Three (or more) choices. You've got choices!
6. We are always communicating. You cannot not communicate.
7. Communication is filtered by three primary processes: Distortion, deletion, generalisation.
8. The meaning of your communication is the response you get. What we intend by our communication is not always what is heard. NLP provides effective models for communication and emphasises the use feedback loops.
9. There is no failure, only feedback. "Losers apportion blame, Winners find solutions."
10. Behind every behaviour lies a positive intention.
11. Anything can be understood/accomplished if it is broken down into small enough step~chunks. Achievement becomes easier if activities are manageable. Problems (such as 'schizophrenia') become intelligible if the behavioural processes are chunked down.
Conclusion
It has been my experience whilst working in health care settings, that too many patients use health care services inappropriately. From my observations, an 'inappropriate attender' is not always attempting a 'secondary gain' from their attendance. For example, in Munchhausens syndrome, where the patient is establishing an incongruent (double binding) relationship; "Be mother/father to me (but I'm staying in control of this relationship.") Other attenders are attempting 'primary' gains, establishing the relationship: "Help ease my suffering (because I don't understand it.")
Too many times I have witnessed such patients forced into playing a 'game' whereby health care practitioners attempt to catch out or prove to the patient that his symptoms are not genuine. The NLP "meta-model" would question "Genuine in relation to what, specifically?" This 'game' (more often than not) can lead to situations like the following:
A man visits his doctor. He looks pale and harried, "Doctor, you've gotta help me man! I'm dead! I'm a corpse!"
The doctor sighs- this isn't going to be easy. "Well," says the doc, "you look quite alive to me."
"No, doctor," he replies, "you don't understand, I only look alive, but I know that I'm really dead, a corpse!"
The good doctor sighs again. He has an inspiration. "Do corpses bleed?" He asks the man.
"Good God, Doctor!" The patient replies, "1 don't know where you trained but of course corpses don't bleed!"
"Well then, if I prick you with this needle and you bleed, will that be sufficient to convince you that you are alive?"
"Oh yes, doctor," says the man. "That will do!"
The doctor take the man's finger and pricks it with a needle. It bleeds.
"Fuck me!" exclaims the man, "corpses do bleed!"
. .. ... Richard Bandler raises a very good point on his training courses. He talks about physics. Now, he suggests, physics has ru1es, and if, as a physicist, you always construct your experiments according to the rules, you will only ever replicate the same resu1ts that everyone else gets.
Interesting point. It certainly does seem that the great discoveries come about when it all goes 'wrong'; when something happens to add in the 'fudge factor'.
If we change all the ingredients around in what we do, we will discover new ways of being. I encourage everyone to daily participate in thought crime, to become agents of entropy, infiltrating the mind sets of those 'professionals' around them.
I challenge all therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, in fact, each and every single person working in the mental health field. I challenge them to wake up and to dare examine the things they do in the name of 'professional practice'.
I offer this challenge because time and time again I repeatedly observe such a huge disparity between what these 'professionals' say that they are doing, and what they are in fact doing. It is time to end this nonsense, to end the games of psychiatry, to end the games of "It's-not-myresponsibility". It is time to end all these games. The resu1ts are just too damned predictable.
It is time to wake up.
Andrew T. Austin. 2007
A Closing Story.
A certain man was believed to have died and was being prepared for burial when he revived. He sat up but was so shocked at the scene surrounding him that he fainted. He was put into a coffin and the funeral party set off for the cemetery. Just as they arrived, he regained consciousness, lifted the coffin lid and cried out for help.
"It is not possible that he has revived," said the mourners, "because he has been confirmed dead by competent experts.""But I am alive!" Shouted the man. He appealed to a well known and impartial scientist who was present.
"Just a moment." Said the expert. He then turned to the mourners, counting them. "Now, we have heard what the alleged deceased has had to say. You fifty witnesses tell me what you regard as the truth."
"He is dead!" Said the witnesses. "Bury him!" Said the expert.
And so he was buried.
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Andrew T. Austin is a Licenced NLP Master Practitioner and Clinical Hypnotherapist in Chichester, West Sussex, UK
He was formerly a registered nurse for the NHS specialising in Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery.
His clinical hypnotherapy and NLP treatment services are available on the NHS where PCT funding is available.Andrew T. Austin, Clinical Hypnotherapy and Neurolinguistic Psychotherapy
Tel: 07838 387580 email: diggingahole@hotmail.comBournemouth, Southampton, Fareham, Portchester, Portsmouth, Winchester, London, Hayling, Havant, Chichester, Worthing, Brighton, Woking, Basingstoke. Manchester, Bristol, Hereford, Salisbury, Isle of Wight, Hastings
www.neuro-logic.info | www.freshbraincompany.com | www.andrewtaustin.com | www.nlpstudygroup.com | www.gettingitwrong.com | www.23NLPeople.com | www.chichesterhypnotherapy.com
©2006 Andrew T. Austin, Blue Transcendence Ltd