Kinesthetic Representational System

The representational systems of NLP include the kinesthetic system, or feelings.

When we talk about kinesthetic in NLP we include any feelings, both sensory (touch, weight, temperature, balance etc) as well as emotional (happiness, sadness, confidence fear etc).

We include both sensory and emotional feelings in the same category as we believe that the two are closely linked. What we mean by this is that we know we are feeling confident because, well because of how we feel.

So confidence has a particular set of sensory feelings associated with it. As does fear, as does happiness or sadness.

When we realize the truth of this, we can begin to change our emotional state by changing the way we feel on a sensory level.

Shawn

NLP training NYC

Time-line techniques

Temporal Predicates

Visual Representational System

The representational systems of NLP are Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic VAK.

The visual representational system includes the things we see around us, the visual memories we have of things we have seen, and other pictures that we make up or fantasize in our minds.

When we "see" the real world around us we are actually taking in visual data through our eyes and converting that data into meaningful representations in the visual cortex and other areas of the brain. So when we are looking at the face of a loved one, light enters our eye and triggers receptors in the eye. Data from these receptors travels along the optical nerve to the brain.

Once the data reaches our brain we begin to spot patterns and recognize that this is the face of a loved one. We also begin to make associations, remembering other times that we have seen that face, and we see what we see as a representation including all the memories and associations that we have.

Try a thought experiment now. 

• Think of a person you love, think of their face, and notice how you feel as you look at it.
• Now think of a person you dislike, think of their face. Notice how you feel as you do so.

The chances are you felt good when thinking of the face of the person you love, and not so good when thinking of the face of the person you dislike. There are emotional states attached to the simple visual image you see.

Shawn

NYC NLP training

Driving submodalities

A driving submodality is a submodality that creates a change in the intensity of the state associated with a particular Internal Representation (IR).

An example of a driving submodality

Think of some pleasant memory. Perhaps a time of fun and excitement. Get a picture in your mind's eye of the event. Notice the details of the picture, where it is, whether it is in color or black and white, how big the picture is, how close it is, and so on.

Now make the picture bigger. Notice how this changes the feelings associated with the experience. Now return the picture to its original size.

Now make the picture brighter. Notice how that changes your feelings. Now turn the brightness back to how it was.

Go through each of the submodalities in turn. See which one makes the most difference to the feelings associated with the experience. This is the driving submodality.

Shawn
new york nlp training

Sliding Anchors

Anchoring is a stimulus-response tool that we generally use in NLP to get a client into a resourceful state. Essentially we use a certain word/tone or touch when the client is in a resourceful state. Then by saying that particular word in that particular tone we can make the client feel resourceful again.

A sliding anchor is a specific anchoring technique intended to increase the power of an anchor. A sliding anchor is an anchor that we move or slide as the intensity of an experience increases.

Let's give an example: 

• Say we want to use a kinesthetic anchor, we would get our client to think of a time that they felt particularly resourceful, say confidence, and then touch the client with our hand, perhaps on their wrist.
• As we continue to get the client to think of that time that they felt confident building that feeling up we begin to move our hand from their wrist, further up their forearm.
• The client's unconscious mind begins to associate their level of confidence with the touch on their arm, the higher the touch the greater the confidence.
• Therefore when we fire the anchor by touching the client's wrist they will begin to feel confident, and as we slide our touch higher up their wrist and forearm the feeling of confidence will increase.

Shawn

NYC NLP

Auditory Representational System

NLP representational systems include visual, auditory and kinesthetic VAK.

The auditory representational system refers to the sounds that we hear. These may be actual sounds in the world around us, memories of sounds that we have heard, or imaginary sounds that we can hear.

There is a special type of auditory experience and that is words which we refer to as auditory digital or Ad. Ad is special because it includes words that may themselves have emotional meaning for us, as well as the normal submodalities of the auditory channel.

Shawn

NLP training in New York

Report of NLP Thursday practice group Thur May 22, 2008

The practice group meeting on Thursday May 22 practiced moving time using temporal predicates.

Temporal predicates allow time-line techniques to be used to help a client change, in a conversational manner.

Melissa Tiers Practice Group Wednesday May 21, 2008

Melissa Tiers held her regular hypnosis and NLP practice group on Wednesday.

The session began with Shawn Carson of International Center for Positive Change giving a summary of his weekend Master Practitioner course. Shawn briefly explained the NLP concept of Strategies  and Logical Levels.

The group then practiced using eye accessing or eye movements to calibrate and reset a strategy. Melissa explained that a strategy would be reflected in a person's eye movements under NLP principles. Therefore by asking a client to move their eyes in a different pattern while thinking about a problem (especially a more resourceful pattern) will disrupt the old strategy.

The group then practiced mapping across submodalities for motivation.

Collapsing anchors

Anchoring is the process in NLP of attaching a stimulus to a response, a sort of kindly Pavlovian conditioning.

So for example, we ask a client to imagine a positive experience then touch their arm or hand as that experience reaches a peak of intensity.

Collapsing anchors is a process whereby we anchor a negative experience to one stimulus, say our client is in a negative state:

• we touch the knuckle on the index finger on their right hand to anchor the negative state.
•  We then ask them to think of a positive experience and when that experience peaks we touch the knuckle on the middle finger on their right hand.
  
• We then fire both anchors at the same time. The positive and negative states both seek to be present in the client's physiology at the same time.
• Typically we will see the client go through a state of confusion.
• If the positive state is large enough, the client will end up in a positive state.

Collapsing anchors is a principle that is used in the NLP coaching model, and the NLP Meta pattern.

Shawn Carson

NLP Training New York

We then fire both

Representational Systems

A representational system is simply the NLP term for a sensory system

The five representational systems are:

• Visual (seeing pictures)
• Auditory (hearing sounds)
• Kinesthetic (feelings)
• Olfactory (smell)
• Gustatory (taste)

The representational systems are sometimes referred to as VAKOG (i.e. the first letter of each system).

The three systems which are used most in NLP are visual, auditory and kinesthetic systems, sometimes called VAK.

Many NLP patterns are based on changing how we represent the world around us in VAK.

Shawn

New York NLP

Hypnosis Inductions and NLP

At our recent Thursday practice group, we discussed with our good friend Caty Shannon the type of hypnotic induction (the sort that we learned in our hypnosis training in New York with Melissa Tiers) one would use for particular NLP patterns.

For example, if one decided to lead a client through the visual squash, (a staple technique in NLP practitioner trainings) what would be an appropriate induction? As the visual squash aims for parts integration through movement of the hands and arms, then an induction that pre-frames the unconscious to control the hands and arms, such as arm catalepsy and/or arm levitation.

It is interesting to consider which inductions are most suited to which NLP patterns, perhaps you have some ideas?

Shawn Carson

NLP training in New York