Neuro–Linguistic Programming: Volume I. The Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience

All of our overt behavior is controlled by internal processing strategies. Each of you has a particular set of strategies for motivating yourself out of bed in the morning, for delegating job responsibilities to employees, for learning and teaching, for conducting business negotiations, and so on. Yet our cultural models do not explicitly teach us the specifics of the strategies that are required to achieve the behavioral goals expressed or implied by each model. Until the advent of neurolinguistic programming this has been left almost exclusively to personal trial and error.

We may succeed magnificently with particular strategies (making money, for example), yet fail completely with others (personal relationships, for example). What, precisely, is it about strategies that generates successful outcomes in some instances and disastrous outcomes in other instances? By applying the techniques and procedures developed and described in NLP, individuals in many walks of life and professionals in many fields have learned to modify existing strategies or to create new ones for themselves and their associates to achieve exactly the outcomes they desire. The magic of success is a matter of employing the most effective strategies. Most strategies can be easily learned or modified to accomplish goals of our own choosing.

2. TOTEs and Strategies

The basic format we will use to describe a specific sequence of behavior is the TOTE (Test–Operate–Test–Exit), a model proposed by George Miller, Eugene Galanter and Karl Pribram in their book Plans and the Structure of Behavior (1960). A TOTE is essentially a sequence of activities in our sensory representational systems that has become consolidated into a functional unit of behavior such that it is typically executed below the threshold of consciousness (see Patterns II). As an example, a handshake for adults in western cultures is a single unit of behavior that often has the status of a TOTE.

The behavioral sequence that makes up a TOTE can range from the simple to the complex. For the beginning musician, the playing of a single note may be the largest chunk of behavior that he or she can handle. As the musician's skill increases, however, the performance of an entire scale or melody may be comfortably undertaken as a single unit of behavior — a complex sequence of activities that has become incorporated as a TOTE.

In our experience, the advantages of TOTE over other models for analyzing behavioral units are its elegance (it requires the fewest distinctions) and its incorporation of the important properties of feedback and outcome. Developed by Miller, Galanter and Pribram as an extension of the "reflex arc" (the stimulus–response concept) in behaviorist theory, the TOTE model retains the basic simplicity of its predecessor but far surpasses it in usefulness as a neurological model of the formal internal processing sequence triggered by a stimulus. That is, it extends the "reflex arc" model to include a feedback operation as an intermediate activity between the stimulus and the response. As Miller, Galanter and Pribram explain:

"The test represents the conditions that have to be met before the response will occur." (p. 24)

If the conditions of the test phase (a comparison of present state and desired state) are met, the action initiated by the stimulus exits to the next step in the chain of behavior. If not, there is a feedback phase in which the system operates to change some aspect of the stimulus or of the organism's internal state in an attempt to satisfy the test once again. The test–operate feedback loop may recycle many times before the test is passed and the action exists.* Miller, Galanter and Pribram write:

*The TOTE will also exit if, after many trials, its operation phase fails to have any significant effect on the outcome of the test, although not to the same behavior as it would have if it had passed the test.

"… the response of the effector (the output neuron) depends on the outcome of the test and is most conveniently conceived of as an effort to modify the outcome of the test. The action is initiated by an "incongruity" between the state of the organism and the state that is being tested for, and the action persists until the incongruity is removed. The general pattern of the reflex action, therefore, is to test the input energies against some criteria established in the organism, to respond if the result of the test is to show an incongruity, and to continue to respond until the incongruity vanishes, at which time the reflex is terminated. Thus there is "feedback" from the result of the action to the testing phase, and we are confronted by a recursive loop." (pp. 2526)

A simple example of a TOTE's test phase would be that of a threshold test. In this example the stimulus must be above or below a certain quantitative threshold value to satisfy the test for congruity before the TOTE will exit to the next step in the chain of behavior. If it is not, the organism will operate to increase or decrease either the stimulus or its own threshold level in order to pass the test. When you adjust the volume dial on your radio or stereo, you are performing a TOTE of this type. As you turn the knob, you continually test the sound volume by listening to it. If the volume is too low, you operate by turning the knob clockwise. If you overshoot and the volume becomes too loud, you operate by turning the knob counterclockwise to reduce the intensity of the sound. When you have adjusted the amplifier to the appropriate volume, you exit from the "volume–adjusting" TOTE and settle into your comfortable armchair to continue reading.

We can illustrate this example of the TOTE process in the following way:

The three–step process we described earlier as the most general description of NLP, of applying resources to a present state of behavior in order to achieve a new outcome state, may also be represented as another example of the TOTE process:

In this generalized illustration, the NLP practitioner repeatedly tests the present state of an individual, group or organization against a specific desired outcome state, continuing to access and apply resources to the system until the two states become congruent. The present state and the outcome state will be defined in terms of the distinctions available to the client (individual, group or organization) in each of the two states. The resources available to the client will be made up of the strategies in the client's repertoire and those in the programmer's repertoire, including the programmer's meta strategies for modifying or replacing the client's strategies when necessary to achieve congruity in the two states. The operations involved in indentifying, accessing and applying resource strategies will be presented in the following chapters on Elicitation, Utilization, Design and Installation.

2.1 Nested TOTEs

An important aspect of the TOTE model is that the operate phase of one TOTE may include other TOTEs — with their own tests and operations — nested inside it. TOTEs may exhibit a hierarchic structure, then, with respect to one another. A simple example of this "nesting" arrangement, offered by Miller, Galanter and Pribram, is that of hammering a nail.

A carpenter, for instance, may start with a very abstract form of TOTE that we'll call "making a table." The operate phase for this TOTE requires a number of subroutines or subTOTEs including "attach legs to table surface." This TOTE, in turn, is composed of other subTOTEs such as "hammer nail through table surface into leg." The test for this TOTE is that the nail head must be flush with the table surface before the carpenter can exit to another step. If this test is not satisfied, the carpenter will go through a somewhat noisy operate phase called "hammering," which involves two subTOTEs, "lifting hammer" and "striking nail." The specific TOTE sequence of hammering a nail is described as follows by Miller and his co–authors:

"If this description of hammering is correct, we should expect the sequence of events to run off in this order: Test nail. (Head sticks up). Test hammer. (Hammer is up). Strike nail. Test hammer. (Hammer is down). Test nail. (Head sticks up). Test hammer. And so on, until the test of the nail reveals that its head is flush with the surface of the work, at which point control can be transfered elsewhere. Thus the compound of TOTE units unravels itself simply enough into a coordinated sequence of tests and actions, although the underlying structure that organizes and coordinates the behavior is hierarchical and not sequential."

The compound of "nested" TOTEs described in the above excerpt can be represented visually in the following diagram:

2.2 Refining the TOTE Model With Representational Systems.

The neurolinguistic programming model refines the TOTE concept by specifying the components of TOTES in terms of representational systems and strategies. NLP asserts that for behavioral processes (including cognitive activities) the test conditions and the operations of the TOTE can usefully be described as taking place through our representational systems. We are able to identify and assign with precision some representational system, or combination of representational systems, for each step in the TOTE sequence.

In the above example of hammering a nail, for example, the test of whether or not the nail is flush may be made by comparing the incoming visual experience of the position of the nail with some stored internal visual representation of what the nail looks like when it is flush. To make our TOTE analysis simpler we will borrow from the 4–tuple and abbreviate visual experience which comes from external sources as V^e. Internally generated visual representations will be abbreviated as Vⁱ. The formal aspects of the testing of the nail in the hammering example, if it is done by looking at the nail, involves the comparison of external and internal visual representations — or V^e /Vⁱ.

This same comparison could also be made through tactile kinesthetic experience — the feelings in the carpenter's hand and arm will be different when s/he hits a nail that is flush than they will when s/he hits a nail that is still sticking up. The comparison here will take place between external kinesthetic sensations and internally generated kinesthetic experience — or K^e/Kⁱ. The same type of comparison may also be made auditorily in that the sound of the blow of the hammer against the nail will be different when the nail is flush and when it is not. The formal aspects of this particular comparison would involve auditory external (A^e) vs. auditory internal (Aⁱ); that is, A^e/Aⁱ.

An experienced journeyman carpenter can probably make the test easily and comfortably through any of these three representational systems; the inexperienced carpenter may not be able to do so. The ability to substitute different representational systems during a particular task may serve as a reliable measure of competence, experience and flexibility for those involved in many different occupations.

The operations of the carpenter, in this case, will be represented through the external kinesthetic system since they involve only the lifting and striking actions of the carpenter's arm. (We class motor responses as kinesthetic external (K^e) because it is through the tactile and proprioceptive systems that such movement will be represented to the individual.)

The experience of "congruence" (the exit point in the TOTE) and of "incongruence" (the operate point in the TOTE) as the result of a test will also be represented through one of the representational systems. When the carpenter tests the nail, for example, and notices that it is not flush, the incongruence between the incoming experience of the nail and the stored representation of what the nail should be like (that causes the carpenter to operate) may be represented through an image, sound or feeling. He may get a certain feeling in the stomach area that initiates the "hammering" subroutine. He may actually hear a voice in his head that says, "No, needs more hammering," or he might see an internal image of his hammer hitting the nail again.[9]

Notice that a test need not take place only between externally and internally generated representations. A test may also take place between two internally stored or generated representations. The two compared representations, however, will often remain in the same representational system. A visual representation will most accurately be tested against another visual representation; auditory with auditory; and kinesthetic with kinesthetic. (It can be postulated that the simultaneous pairing of two different representations within the same representational system is one of the functions of the two cerebral hemispheres in human beings.[10])

Not all tests, however, involve the comparison or matching of two representations; some may be tests of the intensity of particular representations. That is, some feeling, sound or image may be required to reach a certain threshold value (due to the operation procedure) before the TOTE will exit. In this kind of comparison a representation from one system is often "tested" against a representation from a different system — for example, when something looks good but just doesn't feel right. This kind of test often takes place in decision and motivation strategies. Depending upon the nature of the behavior involved, the "incongruence" resulting from this kind of test is often experienced as stress or internal conflict. The conflict is resolved when one of the representations becomes strong enough that it assumes prime control by initiating the next step in the chain of response, or when the individual, through his or her operations, changes, balances or compromises the representations so that they become congruent with one another.

Other examples of this multi–representational testing would be instances where a particular behavior feels good but something tells you that you shouldn't be doing it; or when an option sounds like a good idea but you can see there may be negative consequences. Operations for assisting people in dealing with the "incongruence" caused by these sorts of conflicts have been presented in our other works (Patterns II and Structure of Magic II).

2.3 Applying the Representational Analysis of TOTEs.

2.31 Matching Representational Systems to Task.

As we pointed out earlier, some representational systems are more suited to the test and operation procedures of specific tasks than others, for achieving effective outcomes. The representational systems analysis of TOTEs provides an extremely useful way of sorting effective behavioral strategies for particular tasks. This offers a reliable and powerful means for increasing individual or group effectiveness in any occupation or endeavor.

Let's start out with a simple example from elementary education, of two different spelling strategies: the visual approach and the phonetic strategy. We have observed that a "visual" speller, when presented with a word (an external auditory stimulus — A^e), will go through a synesthetic operation in which s/he constructs a visual image of the letters of the word from the sound. This constructed visual image (Vⁱ_c — the "c" stands for "constructed") is then tested against a remembered visual image of the word written out somewhere that the individual has seen it before (a remembered visual image is notated Vⁱ_r). The congruence or incongruence of the two images is represented as internal kinesthetic feelings (Kⁱ). If the constructed image does not "look right" the speller gets a negative feeling and operates to construct another image. If the two images are congruent the student gets a positive feeling and exits to a TOTE in which the image is vocalized.

The operate phase of this particular TOTE will probably consist of some synesthetic sequence in which the speller repeats the word to be spelled, or some problematic syllable, internally or aloud, and another image is constructed. This loop continues until an image is generated which, when tested (Vⁱ_c /Vⁱ_r), initiates a positive feeling (Kⁱ₊).

The "visual" spelling TOTE is shown in Figure A:

Figure B shows the TOTE of a phonetic speller:

The phonetic speller tests the spelling s/he has constructed by finding out if it "sounds right." This requires comparing the sound of the word s/he has generated with the sound of the word originally presented. The operation phase of the phonetic speller involves "sounding out" the word by breaking it down verbally into syllables, and sounding out individual letters from there. The breaking down process may be done either aloud or internally. Once each of the letters has been sounded out, the individual then repronounces them in sequence, and tests the pronunciation against that of the word originally presented. We have abbreviated the process of sounding out as A^i,,e →Aⁱ. The "i,e" superscript to the auditory component tells us that the original word may be broken down internally or aloud. Sometimes the phonetic speller will even have an operation phase in which the student makes a visual image of the letters in each syllable or phoneme. To test the spelling, however, the individual pronounces the image (aloud or internally) and compares it with the pronunciation of the presented word. We have abbreviated this operation as A^i,,e →Vⁱ_c→A^i.: break word down into syllables or phonemes —construct image of letters in syllables—pronounce spelling.

Although the incongruence between mismatched pronunciations could be represented kinesthetically, as with the visual speller, we have chosen to show that it could be represented auditorily in this TOTE. Here, the speller may actually hear words such as "That's it" (Aⁱ₊) in his/her head if the pronunciations match, or "No, try again" (Aⁱ_-) if they do not. The student may alternatively hear a separate harmonious (Aⁱ₊), or discordant (Aⁱ_-) sound as a representation of congruence or incongruence.

It has been our experience that, since the visual coding of the English language frequently does not follow phonetic rules, individuals with a visual strategy are consistently much better spellers. "Their", "there", and "they're", for example, may all be pronounced the same although visually they are different. For the phonetic speller, "ghoti" may be the appropriate spelling for the word "fish" — that is, "gh" as in laugh; "o" as in women; and "ti" as in mo/zon! The sounding out or phonics strategy may be very good for oral reading presentations where what is important is that the words are pronounced clearly; but for the specific task of spelling, it is inappropriate. The name of the system itself — "phonics" — cannot be spelled accurately with a phonetic strategy.

In most educational institutions, children are not yet taught the formal aspects of task–specific learning when they are learning to spell — they are simply given gross feedback for whether they have spelled "correctly" or "incorrectly." The children are left on their own to come up with a strategy (of which those previously described are only two of a large number of possible permutations)

which may or may not be the most effective for the task of spelling.[11] They are not taught strategies, but rather simply content.

What we hope to accomplish by making such formal strategies explicit through the neurolinguistic programming model is to increase the effectiveness of education in all disciplines. Many types of outcomes, to be achieved effectively and efficiently, involve the utilization of specific representational systems in specific sequences. Others are more flexible with respect to which representational systems occupy which nodes in the TOTE sequence. By using the elicitation and design techniques of NLP these distinctions may be made explicitly available.

The goal of TOTE and representational systems analysis is twofold:

a) To find the most appropriate representational systems for the TOTE steps that lead to a particular outcome (such as using the visual representational system for spelling).

b) To be able to use all representational systems as resources for learning and performing. This means that in cases where more than one representational system may be used for a particular step in a task (such as testing the nail in the hammering example), that one may choose to substitute another representational strategy should it be appropriate or necessary for the context. This serves to greatly expand one's flexibility and repertoire of choices requisite variety.

2.4 Modifying TOTE Notation for Strategies.

The TOTE is the basic unit used to identify a particular sequence of behavior. A strategy is the basic unit of analysis of a particular TOTE, or set of TOTEs. Strategy analysis breaks a TOTE down into its representational components and describes the order of the particular representational activity that leads to the specific behavioral outcome.

We have found TOTE diagrams to be somewhat laborious and impractical as a notational format for strategies. Moreover, it is often inefficient and sometimes arbitrary to try to identify the specific function, within the framework provided by the TOTE, of each step in a sequence of behavior. As we mentioned earlier the test phase of one TOTE may be part of the operation phase of another TOTE. Making this functional distinction is sometimes just a matter of how you punctuate the sequence; that is, it depends on where you choose to start analyzing the sequence, and which representations you decide to put where in the TOTE framework. Spending too much time on such issues when you are communicating with an individual or group can be counterproductive.

In neurolinguistic programming we have chosen to streamline this TOTE framework into a linear string of representations that we call a "strategy." The two most important aspects of a strategy are:

a) The representational system in which information is coded.

b) The sequential relationship between representations.

With the strategy, of course, we will presuppose the underlying TOTE framework: every strategy will be assumed to perform some tests on the input experience of the individual and to contain an operate point and an exit point. Some strategies, though, will be complex and lengthy, incorporating many strings of TOTEs. The functional significance of each individual step (that is, whether it is a representation involved in a test, operation, indicating an incongruence, both a test and an operation, etc.) will not always be specifically identified unless, of course, it is important for securing the outcome. And even though we will be primarily using linear notation for strategies, we will feel free to employ the TOTE diagram when it is useful to illustrate important aspects of some behavioral sequence.

Thus, we could notate the diagram of the visual spelling TOTE shown in figure A as:

This shows that the individual inputs auditorily, by listening to the word presented (the "e,i" superscript indicates that this input may come from either external or internal sources—this may also be indicated by putting no superscript above the A, showing that it is not specified whether the auditory stimulus comes from internal or external sources). The individual next constructs a visual image from the auditory input (Vⁱ_c) and tests it against some remembered image (Vⁱ_c / Vⁱ_r). If the internal feeling (Kⁱ) the individual derives from the test is negative (-) the individual loops back to the beginning of the strategy and processes the word again; if the internal feeling is positive ( + ) the individual exits.

Depending on what one intends with the strategy, notation can be streamlined even more, simply showing the basic representational progression:

This indicates that, for spelling, the individual begins auditorily (whether the stimulus comes from external or internal sources is unspecified), derives an internal image from the sound, and from the image derives a feeling which will either send the strategy back through the loop or allow it to exit.

Both diagrams above carry most of the information shown in the TOTE diagram. Each demonstrates strategy analysis at a different level of detail. It will be up to the programmer to choose which level of detail will be the most appropriate for achieving the outcomes desired within the particular context with which s/he is dealing. In general, the programmer will choose the most elegant level of detail — that is, the one that employs the fewest number of distinctions and is still capable of eliciting all the outcomes desired in that situation. This will, of course, be dependent on the types of outcomes involved. We will expand on the issues and aspects of strategy notation further in the Elicitation Section of this book.

2.5 The Implications of Strategies.

One way to talk about strategies is to suggest that they are, in many ways, like using a telephone. Representational systems (both of internal and external orientation) are like the digits on the telephone keyboard. The way we sequence and order the activity of these representational systems leads us to different outcomes, just as the use of different combinations of numbers on the phone will get us different localities and people.

A telephone number, like a strategy, is a means to access resources. One must, of course, select the appropriate number to reach the appropriate resource. If we want to call an ambulance, find out about repairing a car, order musical equipment or make reservations for dinner, we must know which numbers to use. Changing or mixing up one digit leads to an entirely different outcome. Some places have more than one telephone number, and it will be possible to dial several different sequences to reach them. Others will have one number and one number only.

To contact the appropriate party long distance, it is necessary to prefix the number we are attempting to reach with an area code sequence of digits. So it is with strategies — every step in the strategy, and the eventual outcome, is dependent on the steps that have come before. In certain contexts individuals and groups may need to prefix their operations or strategies with other actions or representations as a necessary preparation toward securing the outcome they desire or need. If they do not test for certain important conditions in the beginning of the strategy before they have initiated some later operation they may run up against interference or blocks to achieving their outcome that could have been more easily dealt with earlier in the sequence. Some people and organizations get stuck in strategies similar to that of an individual who keeps punching only the last four digits of a seven–digit phone number and wonders why he keeps ending up with only the dial tone. Others may needlessly and inefficiently overprepare like the individual who uses the area code for telephone numbers in his own locality.

People may also fall into situations in which they forget about an important or appropriate strategy, or the representational sequence of a strategy, as one may forget a phone number or mix it up with numbers that they use frequently. Applying often used or highly valued strategies in contexts in which they are inappropriate is one of the most common difficulties people experience with strategies. Applying a habitual strategy in an inappropriate context would be like moving from California to Alabama then dialing your old California fire department number when you have a fire at your new home because it's the only number you know.

The well known Peter Principle in the business world, that people become promoted past their level of competence, is an example of what happens when a person is inflexible with his strategies. The strategies that will make a person successful at a lower level in a corporate hierarchy may be inappropriate for the tasks that confront that person when he is promoted. A good strategy for managing people in a face–to–face situation may be a poor strategy for designing fiscal policy. If the individual who is being promoted does not have the variability to adapt his or her strategies to the new tasks created by the change in their job they will become incompetent.

A good example of a representational mismatch in a strategy as the result of applying a highly valued or habitual strategy in an inappropriate context is that of a woman, with whom one of the authors was working, who had trouble with mathematics because as a child she had learned arithmetic by coding numbers kinesthetically instead of visually. Each digit from zero to nine she represented to herself as a particular feeling that matched the way she felt about herself and other people in her environment at that time. For example, "four" had the feelings of a potential prodigy that was always being suppressed for some reason; "eight" was a particularly passive number and "seven" felt very energetic to her. "Nine" was a strong feeling that matched how she felt about her mother at the time — very powerful and protective.

As she performed various arithmetic operations, these feelings would combine with one another additively or multiply to form other feelings of differing degrees of complexity and intensity. As a result, she had always found mathematics fascinating but was unable to become adept at it. For instance, she encountered difficulty in adding certain numbers together because the feelings were not compatible, and she would have to count by ones on her fingers to get the answer.

When she began to mature, her relationships and feelings changed, and her sense of particular numbers changed with them. In later years she couldn't understand why working with numbers often made her feel greatly perplexed. This strategy seriously interfered with her professional life until she began working with one of the authors to develop a new strategy for arithmetic that substituted internal visualization of the digits.

This example has its parallels in many kinds of learning situations, including how we develop personal relationships with friends, family members, business and professional associates and so on. Troublesome behaviors like phobic responses, losing one's temper, jumping to conclusions and many of those behaviors we call "bad habits" are examples of how we may generalize strategies that are or were appropriate and adaptive in certain past or present contexts into situations in which they become inappropriate. Quite often people don't incorporate into these contextually problematic strategies an adequate test to indicate when it is appropriate to operate with the strategy in question. Rather, such persons typically find themselves suddenly involved in their responses, too late to change their behavior. These individuals need more appropriate and adequate operations in their repertoire of choices to be able to deal resourcefully with life situations.

A good example of how a representational system which serves as an appropriate testing mechanism in some situations may become mismatched for a particular task is found in the behavior of ants. The most highly developed representational system of ants, as with most insects, is the olfactory sense — the information in this sense tends to preempt the ant's other sensory input. Dead ants, for instance will be groomed and treated by other workers as if they were still alive for a day or two until chemical decomposition products accumulate and stimulate the workers to drag the corpse to the refuse pile outside the nest. The crumpled posture and complete immobility of the dead ant will by themselves produce no response in the other ants. When other innanimate objects or even living worker ants are daubed with chemicals from decomposed ants they are immediately carted off to the dead pile as well, despite the struggling of the living ants. Live workers will climb down from the refuse pile and return to the nest only to be dragged back to the pile over and over again until the scent of death is finally worn off.

Incredible as the above example may seem to some of you readers, we have found counterparts almost as striking in human behavior when people refuse to change highly valued but inappropriate test criteria.

One of the authors once worked with a woman who was consistently verbally and physically abused by her husband. She had intended to leave the relationship after each incident (which were getting more and more violent) but her husband would always buy her something or do something to make up with her so she wouldn't go. After a few days or weeks, however, her husband would again become violent and the pattern would repeat itself much to the dismay of the unhappy and confused woman. After listening to the woman's description of her problem the author told her a story that he had been told as a child. The story was about a man who worked in a saw mill. The man was in one part of the mill stacking some freshly cut boards when he suddenly heard a terrible cry coming from the other room. He immediatly rushed in the other room to investigate and came across one of his co–workers standing by an enormous circular saw. The co–worker was clutching his hand and in great pain, and had obviously just severed a finger from his left hand. The man who had just entered the room ran up to him exclaiming, "Oh my God, what happened?" To which the other responded, "Well I was just reaching for that board like this and OUCH … THERE GOES ANOTHER ONE!"

The woman left the author's office somewhat dazed by the story but called the author back about a month later with the news of the great changes she had made in her life. She had been abused by her husband again but this time she had moved out, gotten herself a job, thwarted his attempts to lure her back and was living happily in another town. She finished her triumphant account with the comment, "I didn't want to cut off another finger."

2.6 The Mechanics of Strategies

We have mentioned a number of times that during the securing of a particular outcome, whether it be developing a particular skill, making or keeping oneself healthy, learning a new task, communicating with a particular individual, etc., it is necessary at certain points in time to tune into the information in one particular representational system to a greater degree than information in the others. The order in which we do this and the way in which the information we tune into initiates or modulates information in our other representational systems is also of extreme importance. An individual learning to compose music, for example, will probably pay more attention to the auditory class of sensory experience than would an individual learning chemistry or juggling. In fact, an individual who composes music effectively will probably sequence his/her representational systems differently than an individual who effectively performs music. The two are essentially different tasks and involve different strategies.

Those attempting to apply the same perceptual–motor tests and operations for learning something like mathematics (which tends to be a primarily visual skill) to tasks like learning football or gymnastics (which require much greater attention to tactile and proprioceptive sensations) will experience difficulty.

When we talk about "paying attention to," "tuning in to," "relying on" or "valuing" a particular representational system, we do not, of course, mean to imply that the others stop working at that time. We are simply implying that the behavioral significance or signal value of the activity of the selected representational system increases with respect to the others. The 4–tuple stipulates that all of our senses are processing some representation, both from internal and external sources, at any point in time. Obviously, your visual cortex does not stop functioning while you are listening intently to music or to an internal dialogue. Rather, at each step in any strategy the activity in one representational system will have a higher intensity or signal value than the others and will assume what we might call "prime control" for that particular duration of time.

In reproducing the behavioral sequence required to achieve some outcome that we are motivated to secure, whether it is an ability we have admired in someone else or a resource that we now have infrequent or irregular access to, we may need to employ varying degrees of representational activity in the system we are accessing. Some strategies involve the achievement of a very sharp signal for a particular representation; others may require rapid and complex transitions and representations. Sometimes people experience difficulty accessing a representational system with the appropriate strength, clarity and resonance. Others may tune in to a representational system too strongly.

In Patterns II we introduced a concept we call the "R–operator," which operates on 4–tuples at various points in time to single out one representational system as more significant in consciousness than the others. The "mechanism" of the R–operator is a combination of what we call "accessing cues" and previously established synesthesia patterns.

Accessing, or tuning in to a particular representational system, is in some ways like tuning a radio. All of the various radio stations are always transmitting through their own signal frequencies, but by adjusting the internal works of our receiver, we can tune in to one signal or frequency in such a way that we pick up little or no interference from the others.

Accessing cues are behaviors that we develop to tune our bodies and affect our neurology in such a way that we can access one representational system more strongly than the others. Just as we prepare to execute any overt behavior independently from the other choices available to us, like jumping, laughing, running or talking, by flexing our muscles and changing our breathing rates and eye scanning patterns in the specific ways that single out that behavior from all others, we operate similarly with cognitive behavior and complex internal processing. Each of us must systematically cycle through specific and recurrent behavioral cues to perform our strategies.

Right now, stop and image as vividly as possible the color and pattern on your bedspread… .

If this isn't in your direct line of vision, you had to just now tune your bodily and neural systems to access an internal visual image of your bedspread over the other incoming sensations in your visual, auditory, kinesthetic and olfactory systems. If it is in your direct line of vision you would still have had to tune your body and neurology to accept and focus on the external visual experience of color and pattern over your other sensory experiences. If you made an internal picture in your mind's eye, you may have noticed that to do so clearly you defocused your eyes momentarily as you stared at this page in the book, so that the words and other external visual input became blurred. Perhaps you looked away from the book to break visual contact, shifting your eyes up and to the left (or perhaps it was up and to the right, if you are left handed). You may have even closed your eyes. Did you notice any alteration in your breathing pattern? Perhaps it shifted higher up in your chest and became more shallow or stopped altogether for a moment. You might also have experienced a slight tension in your shoulder muscles, and perhaps became aware that your shoulders hunched slightly forward. To look clearly at your bedspread externally would require observable behavioral adjustments as well. You would have to orient your head in the appropriate direction and tighten or slacken certain muscles around your eyes to allow you to focus closely on the object.

Now take some time and get in touch with the last time you felt soaking wet… .

To access this modality–specific experience you again had to tune your body and neurology, however slightly, to make that particular representation stand out. Some of you will have noticed that to do this you had to go through a memory strategy — perhaps you started by asking yourself internally, "Now when was the last time I felt really wet?" and proceeded to create a series of internal images or looked around externally to see possible places in your external environment where you might have gotten wet, before you were able to achieve the outcome of accessing the feeling. Perhaps you began right off with visual images. You might have been able to access this feeling immediately, but noticed that for the task of seeing your bedspread you had to first feel yourself standing in the room before you could see the color clearly.

Irrespective of your initial experience, however, many of you probably noticed that when the feelings finally came up strongly, your breathing became deeper and shifted down into your stomach area. Your shoulders were probably more relaxed, perhaps drooping slightly, and your eyes had defocused and moved down and to the right (to the left if you are lefthanded).

Now think of the voice of a close friend or associate so that you can richly and resonantly hear the pitch, tonal qualities and tempo of their voice when s/he speaks… .

To completely achieve this outcome you probably noticed that again you had to make several physical adjustments. Perhaps your breathing shifted to your diaphragm and you became aware that your head was cocked slightly to one side and your eyes had shifted laterally and to the left or down and to the left (again this might depend on handedness). You may have leaned back in your chair, throwing your shoulders back slightly, maybe folding your arms.

We have observed that behavioral cues, such as those listed here, consistently accompany the representational steps we go through for our strategies. Some cues seem to be quite specific to the accessing of a particular representational system and are probably genetically programmed since they are found to be consistent cross–culturally. Other cues are developed as personal triggers by each individual.

As you completed the simple tasks listed here, you may have been aware that you had an easier time accessing certain representational systems, in terms of speed and clarity. Similarly, many people are more adept at making specific synesthetic transitions from one representational system to another. This results largely from the accessing cues you have set up for yourself. If you experienced difficulties in accessing the experiences called for in this exercise, try the task again, using the behavioral processes we described following each task. You may find that using them will assist you in getting better results.[12]

One important aspect of accessing cues is that by carefully observing them you can gather a great deal of information about the steps to an individual's strategy. This aspect will be treated in detail in the next section of this book.

2.7 Denning the Strategy.

A strategy, then, is a series of overlapping 4–tuples in which, at each step, each 4–tuple is acted upon by the R–operator through accessing cues and synesthesia patterns, giving one representational system more behavioral significance than the others. The results of this process determine which 4–tuple will be triggered or anchored next, the sequence of 4–tuples and, ultimately, what behavioral outcome will result. We can show this in the following way:

How finely we tune or calibrate our neural and physiological systems to accept the information from a particular representational system, as we go through the steps of a strategy, will determine the amount of overlap or interference we get from our other representational systems.[13]

Sometimes, of course, it is useful and important to overlap the information from our different representational systems, as in multi–representational testing. Many people overlap accessing cues to contribute to the synesthetic combination of two representational systems, or to assist the process of changing synesthetically from one representational system to another. At other times, however, this kind of overlap will cause interference with, or the overriding of, important information from one particular representational system.

2.8 Strategies and "Consciousness”.

It is probably obvious to most of you readers that all of the steps in a particular strategy need not be conscious in order for them to be operative. In fact, generally just the opposite is true: the more habitual and less conscious a behavior becomes, the more we can be guaranteed that we have completely incorporated it.

In neurolinguistic programming, consciousness is simply considered to be the result of the relative intensities of the activity within our representational systems. It is an indication of how much a particular representational system is being used rather than an entity in itself (as many others conceive it). In NLP consciousness is treated as an emergent property of neural system activity, not an initiator of that activity. To say that our consciousness or awareness controlled or affected our behavior would be like saying that the properties of "wetness" or "iciness" controlled or affected the structural combinations of the H₂0 molecules from which these properties are derived. Consciousness is rather a side effect, an indicator of a portion of what is going on during representational processing.

We have pointed out that the behavioral significance of a particular representation will be determined by the intensity of the representation with respect to the intensity of all other ongoing representations. Our claim is that a representation becomes conscious only when it reaches a certain level of intensity. This, however, says relatively little about its behavioral significance. Consider the following graph:[14]

This is a graph of hypothetical fluctuations in intensity of the three basic representational systems over time. These fluctuations are contributed to by accessing cues & synesthetic neural interconnections. The center line indicates the threshold of consciousness. Representations only become conscious when their intensity rises above that value. The graph indicates that at point 1 the auditory representational system has the highest relative signal value and is conscious. At point 2, the visual representational system has the highest relative intensity and is conscious. At point 3, the kinesthetic representational system has the highest intensity and is conscious. At point 4, the auditory representational system again has the highest relative intensity, and thus the most behavioral significance, but it has not reached the level of consciousness. Similarly, at point 5, the kinesthetic system takes prime control at that particular time but is below the conscious level. At point 6 both the visual and auditory representational systems are in consciousness, but since the visual system has a slightly higher signal, it will be most highly valued for that step. At point 7, the visual system again assumes prime control but this time is out of consciousness. At point 8 the visual and kinesthetic representational systems overlap out of consciousness, perhaps performing some multi–representational test.

The graph essentially plots a portion of a strategy, which we have chosen to divide or punctuate into eight steps:

Four of the steps, however, are below conscious awareness; 4, 5, 7, & 8. Yet this does not detract from the behavioral significance of these steps.

It is important to point out here that behavioral significance is determined by relative intensity of the representations and the interaction of the system as a whole. A subliminal representation of low intensity at one point in time will still contribute to the overall conditions of the system and may cause changes in the system making it or some other representational system rise to the highest relative intensity at the next point in time. If the signal values are close enough, it is possible for a multiple response to occur. This would happen in the case of the individual who says "Yes", but whose head is at the same time unconsciously shaking "No." It is also possible for two strategies to take place simultaneously, causing split responses and behavioral incongruencies if neither strategy is strong enough. This is where the importance of calibration enters in.

It is also possible, since behavioral significance is a function of relative values of intensity, that the activity of one representational system, even though it reaches consciousness, may be relatively insignificant. This is illustrated in the following graph:

This graph shows that, even though the kinesthetic representational system has reached an intensity level high enough to enter consciousness, it has stabilized, changing very little with respect to other representational systems. Because the visual and auditory representational system signals show larger variations in amplitude with respect to one another and with respect to the kinesthetic system in this case, it is their activity which will have the most relative behavioral effect.

A person in this kind of state would be very conscious of his/her feelings. Most of their important internal processes, however, would take place below the level of awareness.

Strategies and representations which typically occur below an individual's level of awareness make up what is often called or referred to as the "unconscious mind."

In Patterns II we discussed some of the relationships between consciousness and learning:

"Each of us as a human being is constantly subjected to enormous amounts of information. A portion of this stimulation is the result of the contact we have with the parts of the world which we are able to sense with our sensory channels. The amount of information available from our ongoing experience greatly exceeds our ability to sense our experience consciously. In fact much of the process of learning and growing is our ability to sense regularity or pattern in our experience and to develop programs within ourselves to cope effectively with the world at the unconscious level of behavior. For example, your ability to read and understand this very sentence is a program which at one point in your life you were unable to perform. You went through the task of learning to recognize first the letters, then the words and finally the phrases and sentences of English. Associated with each of these steps were the specific eye scanning patterns which were appropriate. Learning to associate a certain visual input with a set of meanings which they represent was a relatively long and arduous task. Your skill in reading rapidly and meaningfully depends in large part on your ability to operate those lower level patterns of eye scanning and letter recognition unconsciously. The vast bulk of our everyday lives is occupied with the execution of tremendously complex patterns of unconscious behavior. The ability we have to enjoy our experience and engage in the activities which each of us find interesting and pleasing would in large part be lost if we did not have the ability to program ourselves to carry out certain complex patterns of behavior for execution at the unconscious level of behavior. Imagine how cluttered our experience would be, for example, if it were necessary for us to consciously maintain the rate and depth of our breathing, the tonus of our muscles, the level of our blood sugar …

"The process of creating programs which are useful to us — the learning process — is an ongoing process of change. We refer to this process as modeling. Modeling occurs both at the conscious and the unconscious levels of behavior. The process of learning to understand and speak our native language is an example of the process of unconscious modeling. The process of learning to read and to spell is, for most people, an example of conscious modeling. Notice, however, even in the case of conscious modeling, much of what is learned is the sequencing and organization of lower level patterns of behavior already available at the unconscious level of behavior. For example, children learning to spell are not explicitly taught to form mental images of the words they are learning — that is, to employ their visualization strategies — yet, children who succeed in becoming excellent spellers employ this skill unconsciously.

"A young athlete learning to run the 100 meter dash is learning how to sequence and utilize patterns of muscle movements already available at the unconscious level of behavior. His ability to run the 100 meter dash at maximum speed will depend in large part on his ability to make unconscious the patterns of sequencing of those patterns of unconscious behavior already available.

"… consciousness is a limited phenomenon. Specifically, as humans we are limited to representing to ourselves in consciousness a small finite number of chunks of information. In his now classic paper called The Magic Number 7 plus or minus 2, George A. Miller (1956) carefully presents the outline of the limits of consciousness. Essentially, his research leads him to the conclusion that we are capable of entertaining in consciousness 7 plus or minus 2 chunks of information. One of the most interesting implications of Miller's paper is that the size of the chunk is variable. In other words, the limitation of 7 plus 2 applies not to the number of bits of information, but rather to the number of chunks. Thus, by carefully selecting the code by which we organize our conscious experience, we have a great deal of latitude in increasing the amount of bits of information we can represent to ourselves consciously. Miller is artfully vague in his discussion of what a chunk is. If we identify the term chunk with the notion of a pattern of behavior which has not yet achieved the status of an unconscious TOTE, then the interaction between the function of consciousness in the learning process and chunking becomes useful. As we learn to identify and respond systematically to patterning in our experience, we are able to make unconscious portions of our experience which we previously had to cope with at the level of consciousness. A chunk in consciousness is a patterning or regularity in our experience which we have not yet succeeded in making unconscious. Thus, at the beginning of the learning of a particular task, the size of the chunk will be rather small — encompassing a relatively short patterning or regularity in our experience. As this size chunk achieves the status of a TOTE — thus becoming unconscious — our consciousness is free to attend to larger level patterns which are composed of the sequencing and organizing of the TOTE's which they are composed of, or to attend to patterning in other representational systems or areas of experience.

Consider an example from your own experience. For those of you who at one time learned to ride a bicycle, remember how complex it was at first. Your first time up was overwhelming. You had to think about balancing, pushing pedals up and down, steering and watching where to steer. This was certainly more than you could handle, so perhaps your father or a friend held the rear of the bicycle so you only had worry consciously about steering and pedaling. And if you were one of the fortunate ones who already had an unconscious program for pedaling from riding a tricycle, then the task was reduced to learning to coordinate steering and pedaling. Once these skills had been drilled into your behavior they happened automatically, then perhaps when you weren't even looking your father let go and just ran behind and off you were, learning to coordinate the pedaling and steering with balancing. After a time you had so programmed yourself to operate the bicycle that all aspects of the task dropped outside of consciousness, leaving you free to enjoy the scenery or talk with a riding companion. No matter how long it has been since you have ridden a bike, the program will be there and if you climb on a bicycle the program will activate and you will be able to ride once again without ever thinking even for a moment about all the steps in this complex process. They are all chunked and sequenced at the unconscious level leaving you free to enjoy your ride. If they were conscious you would have to think about pedaling, steering, balancing every movement and your consciousness would be so cluttered you would either fall or run into something. The learning of patterns of behavior such as bicycle riding as unconscious programs is both useful and necessary to allow us as humans to do the varied and complex things we do every day."

Some people have tests in their strategies which require them to insure that every representation in the steps of their strategy reaches the signal value necessary for consciousness. Requiring such high signals may be adaptive in some cases, but too often tends to slow the process down because the individual has to keep operating to increase the signal value.

Other people, however, distract themselves consciously to insure that the strategy will take place at the unconscious level. Consider, for instance, the following strategy of a skilled mathematician. This man regularly displayed an unusual skill in adding tremendous columns of numbers rapidly and without error. When asked how he was able to perform such feats the mathematician replied that he didn't have to do anything. He maintained that all he did was to make an internal image of a blackboard, and after a series of numbers was presented to him, he merely watched the blackboard in his mind's eye until a hand came into the picture and wrote down the answer. He would then simply read the answer on the blackboard.

All of this is not to say that the internal activity indicated by the property of consciousness is not important in the learning process. A high signal value in a particular representational system is in most cases very important for the initial establishment of that step in the strategy. Once the pattern is established, however, it helps to streamline the strategy if the signal habituates. Once one has learned to ride a bicycle, for example, it is a hindrance rather than a help to continue consciously attending to balance, steering, pedaling, etc.

2.9 Unpacking Unconscious Strategies.

In a TOTE that has already habituated, like the mathematician's strategy mentioned above, the fact that the signal level of the various steps is below consciousness makes it difficult for the individual to consciously communicate these steps to someone else who wishes to acquire the skill. It also becomes hard to change the various steps of a particular unconscious strategy, should it become maladaptive at some point, because the details of the steps are not explicitly known. One of the most important tasks that a neurolinguistic programmer faces is how to make unconscious strategies explicit when the individual who displays them is unable to consciously report the steps to another. This is where close observation of the accessing cues used by an individual to tune in to specific representational systems will become extremely useful. The next section of this book will be devoted to presenting explicit means with which to unpack unconscious strategies.

This skill of making unconscious strategies explicit gives the programmer access to the most effective and appropriate strategies for the specific outcomes that an individual or organization desires.

2.10 The Formal Power of Strategies.

Strategies are purely formal structures completely independent of content. The strategy identifies only the class of experience in which the representation takes place and the sequential relationship each representation has to others in the same strategy. In most cases the content of particular representations within the strategy will only determine the specifics of the outcome; it is the form of the strategy that will determine which outcome is achieved and how efficiently and effectively that outcome is obtained.

People often confuse "experience" with competence — that is, it is thought that the more time someone spends practicing or doing a particular task determines how well the person is able to perform the task. If we consider the two spelling strategies discussed in the previous chapter, however, it becomes evident that the strategy used plays a much more important role than the amount of time invested. We have come across thousands of Americans who have been spelling words almost daily for thirty years and more who, because they spell auditorily by sounding words out, consistently make the same recurrent errors in their spelling, and who spell much worse than a child with a visual strategy who has been spelling for less than five years.

Because strategies are purely formal an individual may use the same decision making strategy that she uses to select an entre from a menu to decide what kind of house to buy, how to discipline her child and who to vote for in the next election. That is, she may employ the same sequence of representational systems for test and operate procedures to make any kind of decision; only the content changes.

The same will be true of strategies for learning and motivation. A banker may employ the same motivation strategy he uses to get out of bed in the morning to become motivated to buy a particular kind of car, invest a sum of money, change his lifestyle or get out of the hospital. Once the programmer elicits the individual's motivation strategy for one particular situation, s/he may run any content experience through this strategy and end up with the appropriate outcome, that the individual will be motivated for the particular content experience specified.

The neurolinguistic programmer may utilize any strategy in this way to help the client access resources for the specific outcome that s/he desires. The strategies we have found to be the most useful and generative in our work are those for learning, motivation, creativity, belief (also called the convincer strategy), decision making and remembering. We have found that this small battery of strategies includes most of the basic operations for accessing resources needed to achieve an outcome, no matter what the particular content of the situation is.

Each of these strategies will also be important to anyone wishing to organize a group or organization of individuals to work as an efficient, harmonious and functional system. Every political, industrial, legal, economic or domestic system is composed of a number of individuals. The development, operation, efficiency and usefulness of the system will depend on how each individual's strategies for decision making, motivation, belief, etc., interrelate with those of other individuals in the system to contribute to the outcomes and goals of the system as a whole. Having the tools with which to guide and assist individuals to learn, make decisions, motivate themselves, create and so on, one can greatly increase the potentials of any system and of one's own potentials within that system.

The tools and methods for utilizing strategies effectively will be presented as we move through the remaining sections of this book.