This is one of the many NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) presuppositions and one of the original 8 of Richard Bandler.

What does NLP mean with the presupposition?
This is a tough one. I have re-read this presupposition many times, and to be frank, it’s not an easy to understand statement. I’m cutting it in pieces to take a closer look.

The ability to change the process by which we experience reality
So there is a process by which we experience reality. Makes sense, this is acquiring and processing all the sensory information, consciously and unconsciously. The phrase ‘experience reality’ is a reflection upon another presupposition ‘The map is not the territory’. Our experience and reality are not the same.

is often more valuable than changing the content of our experience of reality
The tricky part is in the end of this sentence: ‘the content of our experience of reality’. There is a hidden assumption in this presupposition, that it is possible to change the content of our experience of reality. Can we do that? If we can’t, this presupposition won’t make any sense at all.

Changing the content of our experience of reality, this can be done in two ways I guess. Prevent and ‘forget’. First we can change reality by prevention. If for instance you always get nauseous riding a bus, stop taking the bus, and you won’t get nauseous anymore.

But we can also change our memory of reality. If the content of our experience is ‘nauseous’, we can do our best to change our memory to ‘uncomfortable’ or even ‘happy’. Some people are very good at reframing their memories. This is also changing the content of our experience of reality, but about the past.

Now that we understand what it is about, this presupposition states that changing the process is more valuable than changing the content. So this means that working on how we deal with reality is more valuable than avoiding reality or altering memories about reality.

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This is one of the many NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) presuppositions and one of the original 8 of Richard Bandler.

What does NLP mean with the presupposition?

Quite like it says actually. This presupposition tells us that we already have what it takes to change. We might not know how to use these resources or where to find them, but they are already within you. You have experiences, feelings and attitudes now and in the past, that you can use to change what you want to change.

This presupposition says that you have experiences where you felt strong, proud, assertive, caring, loved, inspired and so on. We can tap into those past experiences and use them as a resource for the change we want to establish.

In a way this presupposition says: ‘Yes you can…because you already have before!‘

This presupposition does not say that you have everything available. It’s quite possible that you don’t have any experience with a certain resource, but that a combination of other resources works for you as well. There is no generic answer to what resource is the best, that can only be determined by the individuals themselves. Click to continue »

This is one of the many NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) presuppositions and one of the original 8 of Richard Bandler.

What does NLP mean with the presupposition?
Often we define what we intend to say as the meaning of the communication. And although it is the intended meaning, people can react in very different ways to your communication. NLP suggests that the reponse to the communication defines its meaning. It takes the perspective of the receiving end.

If you intend to make a joke and someone responds by starting to cry, the intended meaning (sharing some fun) and the actual perceived meaning (crying) are very different. This presupposition says that ‘crying’ is the real meaning of the communication.

NLP focuses more on the subjective experience of the communication than on the content of the communication. This makes this presupposition more interesting, it may not be what you said, but how you said it that triggered the response.

Why is it necessary for NLP to believe this?
Our own communication can be changed by ourselves. We cannot change the perception on the other side, not directly anyway. So if we look for the response to our communication, we get feedback on how well the intended communication was received. If it was not received like it was intended, we can change our communication or the way we communicate to try another approach. Repeating the same behavior will give you the same response (but that’s another presupposition on its own).

Can I find proof or personal experiences that support the presupposition?
This is more or less an attitude instead of a belief. How do you prove an attitude? You don’t. This attitude is also aligned with Covey’s 5th habit: Seek first to understand and then to be understood. It’s taking the other’s perspective before taking your own.

Can I find proof or personal experiences that undermine the presupposition?
Along the same lines as the previous question, there can be no proof to an attitude. I do think that sometimes it’s impossible to get an understanding. Sometimes people are simply not interested or capable of understanding. So if you try to explain something and people look bored, puzzled or confused, you know what the meaning of your communication was

In conclusion, how do I feel about this presupposition?
I agree with this attitude and with this presupposition. This presupposition makes you responsible for the communication, not the other.

Time for you to talk
What do you think of this presupposition? Does it make sense to you? Do you have experiences or examples that might undermine this presupposition?

This is one of the many NLP presuppositions and one of the original 8 of Richard Bandler.

What does NLP mean with the presupposition?
The map is not the territory is also known as the menu is not the food. It’s a different way of saying it, but it comes down to the same. The map or menu is only a representation and not the same thing. If there’s a hamburger on the menu the representation of the actual hamburger (bread, meat, lettuces and so on) is the word hamburger made up of droplets of ink on paper.

This is a metaphore for the way we experience the world. The way we see and the memories we have are only a representation of what really happened. It is what we remembered and how we understood it that makes up this representation.

The same goes for words. If we take a word like “Success”, everybody knows what I mean. We all have “Success” on our menu, but what we really mean by it might (and probably will) differ from person to person.

Why is it necessary for NLP to believe this?
This presupposition is one of the underlying beliefs for the Metamodel. The metamodel deals with communication that’s not directly rooted in our sensory systems, communcation that’s generic or vague. I’ll come back to the Metamodel in a later article.

If words and memories are maps and not territories, we can also work on changing the maps. Since the map is a representation of the territory, we can “revisit” the territory and redraw the map. This is one of the techniques used in NLP as well, and we can change the structure of our experience by doing so.

Can I find proof or personal experiences that support the presupposition?
On a daily basis! Ever since I started with NLP and even before that, I have been very sensitive to words. I ask so many times what somebody means exactly with those words and match it with my own meaning. They’re often not the same and sometimes not even similar.

And my current Early Bird Challenge is a way of restructuring my map as well. One of my beliefs was that I was an evening person, a night owl. It was one of the maps of myself, but the territory is different and by changing my habit of waking late to rising early I have also made a new map of myself.

And on another field entirely, the best definition I have ever heard of what a theory is: “A simplified representation of reality”. Which, in a way, is another way of saying what that the map is not the territory as well.

Can I find proof or personal experiences that undermine the presupposition?
I thought hard about this one, but I can’t seem to find any.

In conclusion, how do I feel about this presupposition?
I can agree with this presupposition and actually belief it to be true.

Time for you to talk
What do you think of this presupposition? Does it make sense to you? Do you have experiences or examples that might undermine this presupposition?

Okay, this is a strange title. But it’s exactly how I feel at the moment. I was planning to do a series on the presuppositions of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). In my textbook for the NLP Practitioners training I’m following are 8 (eight) presuppositions, but they’re in Dutch. So I set out to find the correct English translations for them on the internet. I figured I could easily find them somewhere.

And I did. Boy I did, I found about 20 of them! And now I’m confused…how many are there? And why are there only 8 in my book, including one that I can’t seem to find anywhere on the net? I’m going to start discussing them anyway, there seem to be a handful that come back in every list, so they’re first. But I can’t tell (yet) where the series will end…

If anyone knows more about the presuppositions of NLP and their origins, I would be grateful if you let me know where I can find it. I’m eager to get the complete overview. Thanks!