Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming

Every psychotherapy that I know of has an acute mental illness within it. Each one thinks that their theory, their map, is the territory. They don't think that you can make up something totally arbitrary and install it in someone and change them. They don't realize that what they believe is also made up and totally arbitrary. Yes, their method does elicit a response from people, and sometimes it works for the problem you're working on. But there are a thousand other ways to go about it, and a thousand other responses.

For example, TA has a thing called "reparenting" in which they regress a person and give him a new set of parents. And if it's done appropriately, it will work. The TA belief is that the person is messed up because when they were a kid they didn't get certain kinds of experiences, so you have to go back and give them those experiences in order for them to be different. That's the TA theology, and accepting that belief system constitutes the mental illness of TA. TA people don't realize that you can get the same result a thousand other ways, and that some of them are a lot quicker than reparenting.

Any belief system is both a set of resources for doing a particular thing, and a set of severe limitations for doing anything else. The one value in belief is that it makes you congruent. That part is very useful; it will make other people believe you. But it also establishes a huge set of limitations. And my belief system is that you will find those limitations in yourself as a person as well as in your therapy. Your clients are going to end up being a metaphor for your personal life because you are making the ultimate tragic mistake. You believe that your perceptions are a description of what reality actually is.

There is a way out of that. The way out of that is to not believe what you're doing. That way you can do things that don't fit with "yourself," "your world," etc. I recently decided that I want to write a book titled, When you discover your real self, then buy this book and become someone else.

If you simply change your belief system, you will have a new set of resources and a new set of limitations. Having the choice of being able to operate out of different therapeutic models is very valuable in comparison to only being able to operate out of one model. If you believe any of them, you will remain limited in the same way those models are limited.

One way to get out of that is to learn to go into altered states in which you make up models. Once you realize that the world in which you're living right now is completely made up, you can make up new worlds.

Now if we're going to talk about altered states of consciousness, we first have to talk about states of consciousness. You are at this moment in time conscious, true or not true?

Woman: I think so.

OK. How do you know that you're conscious at this moment? What are the elements of your experience that would lead you to believe that you are in your normal state of consciousness? I want to know what it is about this state of consciousness that allows you to know that you are here.

Woman: Ah, I can hear your voice.

You can hear my voice, so you have auditory external. Is anyone talking on the inside at this moment?

Woman: I may have some internal voices.

Do you? While you're listening to me talk, is anyone else speaking? That's what I want to know. And I'm going to continue to talk so that you can find out.

Woman: I... yes.

Is it a he or a she or an it? Woman: A she.

All right. So you have some external and internal auditory experience. All TA people have that. They have a "critical parent," saying "Am I doing this right?" No one else does, though—until they go to a TA therapist, and then they have a critical parent. That's what TA does for you. OK, what else have you got? Are you visualizing while I'm speaking to you?

Woman: No, I'm seeing you on the outside.

OK, so you have some visual external experience. Are you having any kinesthetic experience?

Woman: Not until you mentioned it.

OK. What was it?

Woman: Ahhhhmmmm ... I can feel a tightness in my jaw.

Another way to get this would be to say "What are you aware of?" And you would tell me about your state of consciousness at that moment in time. So we have specified auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. You weren't perceiving any smells or taste, were you?

Woman: No.