Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming

Each time we do a seminar someone asks us that question. As far as I can tell, there is no research to substantiate the idea that there is eyed-ness. You won't find any research that is going to hold up. Even if there were, I still don't know how it would be relevant to the process of interpersonal communication, so to me it's not a very interesting question. Your eyes are split so that half of each eye is connected to each hemisphere. The tendency to look in a microscope with one eye or another has been noted as statistically significant; however, I don't know of any use for that information right now.

Man: What about a situation where one eye is measurably much better visually? One is practically blind and the other one is OK. Is there any correlation there with the handedness?

I don't know. I have no idea. Again, I've never found that a useful organizing principle in communication. If you know of something in that area, let me know about it.

Man: At what age do you assume that human beings establish hand dominance?

I don't. No assumptions. Linguists claim that it occurs somewhere around four and a half. I have no basis on which to substantiate that. Handedness is a dimension of experience which I know exists in the world, I have never found any useful connection to communication. There is an infinite amount of sensory experience available right here in this room. We consistently make unconscious choices about what we sample. If we didn't, we'd all be "idiot savants," who can't forget things; they can't not know things. When you ask them about anything, they have to give you a complete "dump" of all the information they have ever had on that particular topic.

Most therapy is founded on the presupposition that if you know how things came about, the roots where it all originated, that will give you a basis from which to change it. I believe that that's an accurate and limiting assumption. Yes, that is one way to go about changing, but it is only one out of an infinite number of ways to understand behavior. When people achieve handedness is in no way significant, as far as I can tell, in the process of doing therapy and communication unless what you really want to do is to teach children to be differently handed.

The only thing I've ever used handedness in is stuttering. That's the only time I've ever used it face-to-face, experientially with a kid to assist him in getting more choices. I simply noticed that if he were given a task in which it was specified he do it with this hand as opposed to that hand—and it didn't matter which hand—and he didn't have to talk simultaneously, he could do the task and then describe it. If he had to talk at the same time, or if the task involved both hands, so that there was hemispheric switching, he had difficulty.

Children do have accessing cues at a very young age, and that is relevant information to notice. There is something now that they are imposing upon children called "learning disabilities." Many of these "learning disabilities" are really functions of the educational system. For example, I was given a bunch of children who fell into the classification of "crossed hemispheres" and they told me that this was something that existed in the world. They wanted me to find out if there was any difference between these children and the rest of them, given accessing cues and so on. What I discovered is that they were all children who were trying to spell auditorily. When I said "How do you spell the word 'cat'?" they went inside and their eyes moved down and to their left. I asked the children what they were doing and they said "Sounding the word out," because they were taught to spell phonetically. You can't even spell "phonetics" phonetically!

Who here is a good speller? Somebody who used to win spelling bees? How do you spell the word "phenomena"?

Woman: I read it.

She sees it, she reads it, whichever word you use to describe it. Now, as you visualized the word "phenomena" you somehow knew that was correct. Now, change the "ph" to an "f" and tell me what changes in your experience as you see it with an "f" instead of a "ph."

Woman: It stops being a word.

It stops being a word. How do you know that it stops being a word? What experience do you have?

Woman: It makes the whole rest of the word fall apart in my visual—

The letters literally drop off and fall?

Woman: Yeah, they sort of fuzz out and disappear.

There are two steps to spelling. One is being able to visualize the word, and the other is having a system by which to check the accuracy. Try something for me. Can you see the word "caught"? OK, go ahead and leave it up there and change the "au" to "eu" and tell me what happens.

Woman: It became "cute," and it's changed its spelling. Did anybody who was near her notice what her response was? What did she do?

Woman: She winced.