Imprints according to conventional psychology is thought to be a type of phase sensitive learning, a type of learning that occurred at particular age or phase of life. One of the things that I'm good at is looking for patterns between different ways of thinking and being able to examine things by analogy.
Hence for the topic of imprints I will be breaking it down into several posts all examining the same subject through various different ways of working with imprints. Some of what I say might seem insightful and other things that I state might seem dead wrong. My intention here is not to get to the right answer as it is to convey different ways of viewing this phenomena and working with it.
It we were to think of an imprint in terms of memory it could be likened to something such as a flashblub memory in that they are often events that occur that are highly vivid to the individual that they occurred with in.
Something that does appear to be particularly interesting about Imprints is that they appear to effect the functioning of an individual for years to come unless appropriately altered. People that are familiar with Time Line work in NLP will see Imprints referred to as Significant Emotional Events (S.E.E.).
In one of the very first books on NLP, "Frogs into Princes" John Grinder and Richard Bandler detailed a pattern called, "Change Personal History" this pattern allows the user to track any in 'limiting feeling' that they might be experiencing back to the initial 'reference experience' (Imprint/S.E.E/Flashblub Memory).
After a brief 'break state' the individual receives the opportunity to conjure from their personal history any resources that had they had them back then the situation in question would not have been an issue.
I have had experiences in the past where I have had individuals say that had they had a sense of safety, security, confidence, etc... that they would have been able to deal with the situation in question more appropriately.
Utilizing anchoring techniques from NLP we were able to take those resources from various contexts in the individuals life and apply them to the problem context in order to transform the 'reference experience'.
What then is often done is that they are then instructed to take this new and altered perception of the event and to imagine moving forward and to notice what things they would have done differently given this new and transformed experience.
Often times the person being worked with will notice quite a few things.
Typically a person once they make it to the present moment what is then done is that the are asked to clear their mind and then to think of future contexts that will be affected by having made this change and to notice what they do differently.
This pattern "Change Personal History" is very useful for assisting people to clear up all kinds limiting experiences. I'm impressed at how often people are haunted by past experiences that were beyond there control. This pattern along with "Reimprinting" pattern developed by Robert Dilts work wonderfully in transforming limiting imprints into resources that allow people to move on with their lives using those past experiences in a way that serves them.
The book that I am recommending has both "Change Personal History" and "Reimprinting" patterns in them. I would suggest anyone check them out.
Self Concept is something that is thought about in a great number of ways. There are thousands of resources all over the internet all referencing different ways of influencing one's concept of themselves. Whether it's a person's sense of their social self, spiritual self, sense of self reliance, etc... all these qualities are made of the same stuff.
We form our sense of self based on the internal representations that we hold inside our minds. Think about it... if you were to think of your self image... what kind of picture would you see in your mind? Is it a big picture? A small one? Do you see yourself as if you are watching someone in a movie or do you see it through your own eyes? There are so many different distinctions such as the ones described above the comprise the 'stuff' of your self concept.
The difference between a useful self concept and an unuseful on is really the difference between how one codes the differences between the two. To influence change at the level of self concept is fairly simple to do so long as you have an effect model for how to do so.
Transforming Your Self by Steve Andreas is the culmination of a multi-year modeling project in which Steve set out to model the structure of self concept.
What I can say from Steve's work is that an amazing job!
If you ever said to yourself something to the effect of... that is just not something I can imagine myself doing... or that is just not who I am... if it's useful... and you really want to... by the time you are done reading this book you will be able to...
After reading this book and engaging in the thought experiments that Steve outlines you will be able not to only shift your self concept in a useful way but you will be able to assist others in doing the same.
I've been studying the field of psychology and personal development for over a decade. My experience is that when many get involved they do so under many preconceived notions. It was through a lot of trial and error, success and failure, that I finally learned what was what and what is wrong when it comes to working with people.
One of the things that I decided to do was to put on paper some of the things that I wish I would have known going in when I first decided to study human behavior and creating change. This book is a series of metaphors that each highlight a theme that I have discovered as being important when acting as an Agent of Change.
Regurative Mind... I found this clip on youtube while I looking for some clips on Elkhonon Goldberg (I wanted to see if there was anything explaining his books.) I don't normally post stuff by this guy because the angle he records his clips normally freak me out. (Makes it look like he has a freakishly large head.) But he does make some good points about the 'regurative mind'. I've found this incredibly prevalent in NLP and Hypnosis, not to mention in Academia.
And I do think that everyone is suspectible to this and in a way that is why it's so important for people to do research outside their chosen field in order to expand their insights.
This is a quick demonstration of a thought experiment that serves as an analogy for in the box and outside of the box thinking. And the importance of exploring possible options when encountering a problem rather than focusing on the problem itself.
I met a woman the other day at a networking event, an older woman. I think she may have been nice I don’t really know I really couldn’t get past the front she was throwing up. Met and introduced myself told her what I do to that she replied that she helps teach people to be millionaires and billionaires. She further went on to say what she does is cool and that she loves it. She said that she likes to work with people that want to live in palaces and have beach homes. Her preference is not to work with people that are complacent with just living in a house in the suburbs. She was looking for people that just want to retire.
I told her that I would love to have a house in the suburbs and as far as retirement goes what would I do with all that free time. I’d rather spend my time seeing clients and doing things I enjoy and that furthermore I hope to see clients for as long as I possibly can. I asked her if there was any area of her life that she would like better. To that she replied, ‘every area of my life is awesome, wonderful.’ First of all when I hear that I assume the other person is lying. I mean they may be telling the truth but most of the time not. I can think of at least one area of my life or at the very least an aspect of my experience that I would love to improve. For example sometimes walking to the mailbox is kind of boring. I would love to spice that up a bit.
That notwithstanding she could have been telling the truth and I would have believed her if it weren’t for the fact that she was so incongruent when she responded to the question that I asked. When she replied to me I noticed immediately a cracking in her voice where there wasn’t one before. Out of my peripheral I noticed her body began to shift and wobble in the same way people do when they aren’t really certain about what they are saying. From there she stopped looking at me directly whereas a second ago she was. To me something was not right about our interaction. I prodded her more about what she does and how it makes her feel. Her answers were, ‘I feel wonderful. Amazing.’ She said the organization that she was working for taught her the power of her thoughts and how they control her reality. And to that I asked her, ‘What specifically have they taught you? What do you know how to do now that you didn’t before?’
Her response to me was more about how wonderful her life was and how amazing she felt. But her words didn’t match what her non-verbals were saying. She was talking about feeling amazing when clearly she was in distress. It was very sad to see someone so incongruent about how they were feeling. I actually felt really bad for her. To me it’s heart breaking to see people that their only crime is wanting to improve their lives but they get sucked in by the brainwashers that work in the field of self help. They tell people about all the types of beliefs that they should have about themselves. They give them all kinds of clichés and slogans to rattle off. They convince them to reject how they currently feel in reality and to replace it with nonsense about how they should feel. Heart breaking.
What’s even worse though is that deep down these people have to know what they are doing isn’t working. Yet they persist ever vigilant. I ask myself, ‘Are these people incredibly resilient and have amazing perseverance or are they just plain stupid?’ I’m going to have to reflect on this question more before I make up my mind. No matter what you do if deep down you know it’s not creating for you the results you want let alone deserve. There is no shame in telling yourself that the emperor has no clothes.
Throughout life we develop and shed thousands of beliefs. Most of the time people do this in a haphazard way. Of the beliefs that we do acquire for the most part they serve us. However there are beliefs that we do pick up that in possibly one or more contexts they do not serve us. NLP offers individuals various step by step processes by which they may take themselves/others through in order to assist them in detecting and changing beliefs that they may have about themselves or anything else for that matter from something that may limit them in some way into an empowering resource in their lives.
Included in the clip below is a demonstration by NLP Trainer Terry Elston of a Submodality Pattern that was developed by Co-Founder of NLP Richard Bandler that allows a person to change their beliefs quickly and easily. Keep in mind while watching this demonstration that this is only one of many methods that one may employ in order to accomplish this change. Enjoy!
This is an interesting interview of Robert Dilts in it he lays his thoughts on the difference between Coaching and Therapy.
He further goes into his thoughts on Certifications and Associations.
He speaks about Bandler and Grinder's perspective on Process and Content when working with clients.
And many more interesting... topics and issues...