NLP Metaphors - are they what you think? |
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NLP metaphors are an interesting if often misunderstood concept. In its simplest form the therapist simply transfers the clients problem onto another animate or inanimate object, then explains how the object solved the problem - ‘The rock was sad, but then the rock though 'ah screw it!'. Now, I don’t know you, but I'm sure you couldn't really fall for it! | |||||||||
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On a more complex level, spoken metaphors are covered wonderfully in David Gordon's book 'Therapeutic Metaphors', and in this case his metaphors are wonderfully deep and well woven, and his text better than anything I could manage. If you really want to understand how to develop deep and complex NLP metaphors then there is no better place to start the Davide Gordon's book. Since I became interested in NLP I realised that there are many other elements of NLP that are never referred to as metaphors, but I believe clearly are metaphor based and these are used thoughout many NLP techniques such as submodalities and content interactions as well as timeline work. For instance, the use of a catapult or slingshot (see the NLP exercise - Mommy, make it go away!), to internally send an image away - isn't that a metaphor? The way a client takes a resource into the future on their timeline? Isn't that a metaphor? |
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Neither of these concepts 'do' anything, but your brain calculates what the meaning should be. Let me give you an example that happened to me many years ago. I was doing an exercise based around strength testing - hold your arm out and imagine a rood of iron or whatever. The interesting concept was in using a laser beam. 'Imagine a laser beam coming from your finger tips and right across the room. This created a nice strong arm, but within the metaphor lies its weakness, If the other person cups their hand around the clients fingers cutting the beam, then the strength disappears. One of the keys with this kind of NLP metaphor is that you must be sure of the implied rules. I remember listening to someone deal with a person who felt that their feelings were overwhelming. The therapist had them imagine their feelings contained within a slot machine as a large number of balls. They asked the client to pull the handle of the slot machine to release a single ball. Of course I (and the client's unconscious) were well ahead of the game here. When the client stated that they pulled the handle and ended up waist deep in balls, neither I nor the client were surprised. Strangely the therapist was confused but it was quite obvious really. So what NLP metaphors (language or otherwise) can you design today? |
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