This page provides the links to the backnumber issues of the newsletter written in Japanese by Taiten Kitaoka, a Japanese NLP trainer/facilitator. Note: This "provocative" title of the newsletter is meant to suggest that Taiten Kitaoka's NLP work is the first attempt for the integrated NLP in the Japanese market. It is not meant to claim that his NLP work is genuine in a more general sense. ************************************************************************ Issue #9: 2003.12.28. 'This is the Genuine NLP!' ************************************************************************ The author, who has been formally trained by the four most important co-developers of NLP (Grinder, Bandler, Dilts, and DeLozier) will send newsletters containing a variety of information concerning the advanced communication psychology/ pragmatic psychology known as NLP. ************************************************************************ "NLP Terminology Guide, #1" Hello everybody! I am Taiten Kitaoka, a Japanese NLP trainer/facilitator. Here are detailed definitions on some of the basic NLP terms: 1. Anchoring Probably the most important of the NLP models and techniques is "Anchoring". That is, "Anchoring" is the process in which a certain external stimulus (or internal stimulus) triggers a specific internal reaction. This external stimulus (or internal stimulus) is called an "anchor". For instance, an example of anchoring is that someone always begins to remember his/her old lover whenever he/she hears a certain song which they together listened to in the distant past. (In this case, the song as an auditory stimulus triggers a specific internal reaction as an anchor.) Also, at the beginning of "Remembrance of Things Past" by a great French writer of the 20th Century, Proust, when the hero tastes the cake called Madeleine dipped in the tea, he suddenly goes back to the moment of his childhood when he tasted the same cake, and immediately begins to remember all of his past memories, which Proust recounts over thousands of pages. This process is also a typical example of anchoring. (In this case, the external gustatory stimulus triggers a specific set of internal reactions as an anchor.) Incidentally, Proust himself calls the moment in which the hero begins to remember the past a "privileged moment". Although it is obvious that Anchoring is closely related to Pavlov's Conditioned Reflex, there is a clear distinction between the two; namely, the latter necessitates a certain number of repetitions of the loop of "stimulus/response (and possibly, reinforcement)" for its establishment, as shown in the case of Pavlov's experimental dog; while the process of triggering the specific internal experience of the former is usually established through only one single stimulus. (This difference is found because Conditioned Reflex is related to the conditioning of "external behaviour/external behaviour" [hearing the bell/salivating, in the case of Pavlov's dog], while Anchoring is connected rather with the conditioning of "external behaviour/internal behaviour"; further, it seems to be due to the fact that sensitivity towards internal behaviour [experiences] in human beings [and possibly, in dogs as well] is much greater than that towards external behaviour [experiences]; for instance, Heinz Von Foerster points out in "The Invented Reality", edited by Watzlawick, that the nervous system of a human being has 100 million sensory receptors and about 10,000 billion synapses, and therefore that we are 100 thousand times [!] more receptive to changes in our internal than in our external environment.) The above means that human beings are considerably more sensitive than Pavlov's dog, but anchoring can be a "double�]edged sword"; it may not be too exaggerated to say that human beings may come to have fewer behavioural choices than the dog, unless they can become conscious of anchoring processes. In fact, what conditions our inner states and experiences is an aggregate of such anchors (stimuli triggering the anchoring processes) which we usually are not aware of. Therefore, the more we can make each of the unconscious anchoring processes conscious, the more we have chances to control our own inner states. According to my study of human consciousness for many years, this "anchoring" process can be treated as equivalent to "Programming" in modern computer terminology, and is very closely related to a wide range of other concepts proposed by prominent modern psychologists; for instance, "SDMLB (state-depending memory, learning and behaviour)" proposed by Ernest L. Ross, the editor of "The Collected Papers of Milton H. Erickson", "d-ASC (discrete altered state of consciousness)" and "d-SOC (discrete state of consciousness)" according to Charles Tart, a transpersonal psychologist, Stanislav Grof's "COEX systems (systems of condensed experience)" proposed by Stanislav Grof, another transpersonal psychologist, and even Carl Jung's "Archetypes", seem to be indicating one and the same mechanism. Further, Gurdjieff's (whose disciple Tart was) "Many I's" may be understood more readily, if it is equated with these concepts. Further, interestingly, the most important single concept in the Indian philosophy/psychology of Vedanta is "Samskara", which is also very similar to Anchoring of NLP. Samskara is defined as "habitual patterns of psychophysical activity" by Alan Watts in his "Psychotherapy/East & West". (Watts was one of the gurus of the American counter-culture, and was a friend to Bateson, Jay Haley, etc., of the Palo Alt Group. It was he who described the Palo Alto Group's psychology as "Communication Psychology".) It also is sometimes defined in the tradition of meditation as "the sum-total of impressions left in the mind by past actions". It is extremely surprising that ancient Indian sages already knew, when computers were non-existent, that the brain of human beings also functions exactly like a computer, namely that our behavioural patterns are not defined and restricted by the input data, but by the "pre-installed" programmings, and, unless we change our in-built programmings, we will never be able to change our behavioural patterns, and get what we really want. Incidentally, among the terms enumerated above, the one which is the most representative of their underlying same meaning (or at least similar meanings) is probably SDMLB proposed by Rossi. Suppose that there is a brilliant actress who can exhibit her marvellous performance on the stage, but who is always nervous off the stage, and may often have even a "stage phobia" before going on to the stage. In this example, the concept of SDMLB enables us to understand that this actress would need to stand at the particular spot of the stage, and that, once she finds herself there, the whole memory, learning and behaviour which she has acquired in the past, and which was made associated with that spot, will automatically visit her, so that she may simply become a genius performer; she just cannot access the state (i.e., the spot) dependent memory, learning and behaviour (SDMLB) at all, unless she stands on the exact spot. Thus, an "altered state of consciousness" (a la Tart), on which a certain set of one's past "memory, learning and behaviour" enabling one's peak performance to be exhibited is "depending" (a la Rossi), or in which it is "condensed" (a la Grof) is no other than a "zone" which modern sport psychology has been more and more frequently referring to. I think that a "zone" here can be defined as a "delimited field of the altered state of consciousness, where a certain set of memory, learning and behaviour required to achieve peak performance, can be instantaneously accessed". Each of the NLP Personal Editing techniques is suitable for athletes and others to enter such a "zone" state, because, while these Personal Editing techniques are based on the TOTE process, as expounded in the sixth issue of the newsletter, it is nothing but the anchoring process that automatises these TOTE cycles. The relationship between anchoring and zone is visually diagrammatised at the following Web site: http://www.creativity.co.uk/creativity/magazine/library/anchor.htm That is, in this diagram, the range where the ship can move around (which represents our specific inner states like confidence, creativity, satisfaction, frustration, sorrow, or pain) is the field which is commonly called the "zone". It is obvious that this field is pre-determined by the position of the anchor (representing an internal or external stimulus) and by the length of its rope from the ship, and can never be outside of the pale of the positions where the ship can be found. Incidentally, this relationship between anchor and zone is closely related to the "theory of probability" proposed by quantum mechanics (and the "principle of uncertainty" proposed by Heisenberg based on this theory of Bohm). That is, according to this very powerful theory of quantum mechanics, the most minimal component of an atom can have the nature both of a particle and of a wave, and an observing scientist can tell in which probable field a supposed atomic particle should be at a given moment of time, but he or she never can pinpoint its exact position. This mechanism where the field can be predetermined, but the object to observe necessarily found within that field can never be specified in a pinpointing way is the same as the mechanism of the relationship between anchor and zone. Further, In the above context, it is very interesting to point out that all of the modern Western psychotherapeutic schools since Freudian psychoanalysis, e.g., Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, Encounter, Primal, Rebirthing, etc., turned out to be, without exception, the schools which sought to solve problems by changing the input data; namely, they were unable to change the programmings which define human behaviour. That is why, for instance, "Unfinished Business" a la Gestalt never seems to be able to be finished and got rid of. But fortunately, NLP is the very first "content-free" psychology, and deals, unlike other psychological schools, with our own programmings to change our behavioural patterns, instead of being entangled with never-ending details. (For this topic, please refer to Anthony Robbins' metaphor quoted in the fourth issue of the newsletter.) Here, there is one thing which we should be careful about: That is, the object of an anchoring process can only be something that the person in question has already experienced, either consciously or unconsciously. In other words, once one has experienced something in the past, the process of anchoring can trigger that specific experience (or "zone") in oneself in an instantaneous way, but it is obvious that whatever anchors may be used, the taste of a lemon can never be triggered in someone who has never tasted a lemon. On the other hand, it is also apparent that, if Proust quoted above had never tasted the Madeleine cake in his past, then that cake could never become an anchor which would begin to trigger memories of his childhood in himself. What is understood from the above is that Anchoring may be equated with the method of "Seishin-touitsu" (mental control) in Japanese, but the biggest difference between the two terms is that, in "Seishin-touitsu", the meditation teacher may tend to leave how to meditate to each of his disciples, and ask them to find the most appropriate way of achieving this mental control through their respective trials and errors (in this case, the teacher doesn't seem to be able to explain the explicit set of methods verbally to his disciples and not every disciple may be able to discover the most appropriate methodology themselves), while, in anchoring, that obscure, illogical methodology usually discovered only through trials and errors has been modelled in a logical way as an explicit set of learnable tools. There is a FAQ question related to Anchoring: "Why can the effects of an anchoring which is said to be established in one go start to fade out?". This question will be answered in a future issue of the newsletter. 2. TOTE It was suggested above that each Personal Editing technique of NLP is provided as a tool for the practitioner of the technique to access the zone as an altered state of consciousness where he/she can achieve his/her own peak performance anytime and anywhere on a continual basis, and that the mechanism of how these NLP Personal Editing techniques can be effective for this purpose can be explained using two NLP models of "Anchoring" and "TOTE". For the details of the TOTE model as the basic mechanism for NLP Personal Editing techniques, please refer to the sixth issue of the newsletter. Each Personal Editing technique of NLP, where Anchoring is used as the process of automatising the TOTE cycles is the most suitable for those who need to control their mental states in order to exhibit their peak performance, including athletes, musicians, etc. Among NLP Personal Editing techniques are "Meta Mirror", "Resonance Pattern", "Disney Creative Strategy", "Belief System Integration", "Time Line", "Alignment of Neuro-logical Levels", "Anchor Collapse", "Postural Editing", "Chart Editing", etc. 3. Submodalities In my opinion, the NLP model as important as, or more important than, "Anchoring" or "TOTE" is "Submodalities". Also, if there is anything which is authentically unique to NLP, then I think that it is the submodality techniques invented by one of its co-founders, Richard Bandler. It seems that everything else "discovered" or modelled in NLP had existed previously, either as part of the inner science of ancient India or as the modern discoveries made by such pre-NLP schools as Chomsky's transformational grammar, Korzybski's general semantics, Batesonian epistemology, Ericksonian Hypnosis, Fritz Pearls' methodology of Gestalt Therapy, etc., but that nothing similar to submodalities has ever existed in the past. Incidentally, my personal conversations with Bandler in Munich in 1995 when I was trained by him, revealed that the revolutionary concept of submodalities is a product of his long term study of the application of holography to the human brain. Usually I never put the procedure of NLP technique exercises in writing unless they are presented as auxiliary materials for my real sessions/workshops/courses (this is because doing such exercises alone without a proper NLP trainer may turn out as dangerous as learning Indian techniques of breath control only through books without being supervised by a properly trained Yoga practitioner. While the latter case may prove even fatal, the former may lead to a psychic disturbance), but in view of the important position the Submodalities model occupies in NLP, I would like to introduce a summary procedure of the Submodalities technique, as a very special case: That is, Submodalities are defined as the discriminating elements which compose each of the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc. representational systems (i.e., sensory systems, or modalities); for example, submodalities in the visual system are brightness, colour/black and white, contrast, size, distance, location, etc.; in the auditory system, they are tonality, volume, tempo, rhythm, pitch, location, etc.; in the kinesthetic system, they are warmth, tension, intensity, movement, direction, etc. Specifically, when you have visual images in your head, these images have a specific degree of brightness and specific size and are either in colour or in black and white; they may be distinct or fuzzy, flat or deep, close or distant, etc.; the internal voices of yourself or other people which you hear in your head have specific tonality, volume, tempo, pitch, etc., and may be heard from either your right or left ear or in stereo, etc.; similarly, your internal feelings and sensations have specific warmth, tension, intensity, movement, direction, etc. Usually, the specific degree of each of these submodalities is chosen unconsciously and, therefore, rigidly fixed. Simple exercises in NLP related seminars/workshops can demonstrate to you that each submodality has a specific effect on your internal state; for example, big and close visual images in colour, combined with voices with high volume and pitch may cause some people to have a "positive" internal state, while small and distant images in black and white, combined with voices with low volume and pitch may cause a "negative" internal state in them. While there are certainly advantages in all of these being done unconsciously (automatically), e.g., you don't need to adjust these complicated patterns of submodalities each time you have a set of internal experiences, their rigid and fixed patterns may have been one of the major causes for you to begin to feel automatically "sad", "depressed", "angry", etc. In other words, your internal states may have been anchored by the submodalities which are chosen outside of your conscious awareness. Metaphorically speaking, we as small children watched certain programs on the TV set, and adjusted the control buttons of Volume, Brightness and Contrast at the positions which we thought were the most appropriate at that time, and have never touched these three buttons since, so these buttons are now rusty and cannot be adjusted 20 or so years later. In addition, the adjustments of these buttons may have been set so that the volume may be very small, the brightness may be quite low and the contrast may lack any vividness (who knows?). With such "inappropriate" adjustments, we as adults probably may not be able to enjoy the current TV programs on the screen, even if they are very entertaining comedy programs. In this case, the process of placing lubricant oil on these three buttons, and of changing the adjustments of the buttons so that the brightness and colours of the TV screen, as well as the volume may become appropriate, to the degree that they make the programs enjoyable, may be equated to the mechanism of "Submodality changes" of NLP. Of course, if the screen is appropriately bright, the colours are vivid, and the volume is pertinent, then there is a chance that we may begin to be interested in the TV programs which we have been always thinking were not interesting. The surprising changes in our inner experience related to how the "scenario" of a past incident we have not been able to enjoy can be made interesting, by changing the "context" of the incident and leaving the content intact can be experientially demonstrated when one practices the Submodality exercise. (That is, one may not be able to obtain ideal effects if one tries to practice the exercise by reading in a book the procedure involved.) From the point of view of Personal Editings based on the TOTE and Anchoring models, once you can determine which specific submodalities (brightness and size of the images, volume and tonality of the voices, etc.) usually cause "undesired" internal states (= Present States in TOTE) in you, you will be able to train yourself to shift them consciously (= Applying the Resources required to achieve the Outcome States) so that the desired states (Outcome States) are produced in you. This process can become automatic after you have consciously practised it for a sufficiently long time. Incidentally, I pointed out in the above explanation of Anchor that "the object of an anchoring process can only be something that the practitioner of the exercise has already experienced, either consciously or unconsciously". In relation to this subject, I received a FAQ question "Anchoring can only duplicate what we have already experienced in the past. Does it mean that we cannot be creative using NLP techniques?" It is true that I have to admit that Anchoring can create the behavioural and thinking patterns which "seem" to be new, but that the elements composing these "new" behaviours and thoughts must be only the resources coming from the person involved. Also, if the submodalities of the inner experience of the practitioner of NLP Personal Editing techniques change and that inner experience becomes more positive, these submodality changes may be nothing but a secondary-gain like effect of the practice of the techniques. In this sense, the Submodality model may the biggest factor enabling NLP models to be creative, for the reason that consciously changing Submodalities influencing human behavioural and thinking patterns in a holographic way, can enable us to have inner experience which we have never experienced nor thought of. Also, from the point of view of developing potential abilities, the Submodality technique is especially the most suitable for those who need to create, change, distort and edit their two- or three-dimensional inner visual experiences and representations to enhance their creative performance, including visual artists, film makers, and advertisers. The most "conservative" Anchoring and the most "creative" Submodalities can be said to represent the two contrasting highest summits of the Himalayan mountains of NLP. How did you find this current issue of the newsletter? If you have questions and feedback, please contact me at magazine@creativity.co.uk. Go to Taiten Kitaoka's Official Web site. Go to the site in English: Taiten Kitaoka's Newsletter: "This is the Genuine NLP!". Go to the site in Japanese: Taiten Kitaoka's Newsletter:"". (c) Copyright 2003, Taiten Kitaoka. All rights reserved.