Modeling
Автор:S. Andreas
Источник: The Model Magazine, Spring, 2006
In a recent article, Robert Dilts introduced a statement by Carmen Bostic St. Clair and John Grinder proposing a distinction between "NLP modeling" and "Analytic Modeling." Every field progresses by making new distinctions, so it is always interesting to examine them to find out what they can offer us, and how they fit in with existing knowledge. St. Clair and Grinder write:NLP Modeling, in the creation of the initial models that founded the field of NLP, at present and in the future of NLP, references an appreciation of and respect for two criteria that apply to modeling in NLP:
We further note that all modeling work products failing to meet these criteria are to be classified as some other logical type of model-we suggest Analytic Modeling as a general term for such work products; employing the patterning and the distinctions available in the technology of NLP applications but failing to respect the definition of NLP modeling. (6, p.2)
I What St. Clair and Grinder call "NLP modeling" is something that every normal child does when they play "dress up," learn language or acquire any other behavior unconsciously through observation and imitation. With the discovery of "mirror neurons," we are learning more about the neurological basis of how we learn new behavior in this way. Because this process is not unique to NLP, and because I believe that other kinds of modeling deserve to be included in the category "modeling," in this article I will use the term "unconscious acquisition" for this process.
I am not sure that the term "analytic modeling" adequately describes the wide variety of different modeling processes that have been used in the field by means other than unconscious acquisition. The term "analytic" sounds very "mental," as if there was no utilization of observation, and behavioral testing, or unconscious participation, etc. in the process. As long as it is clearly understood that this term encompasses a broad spectrum of modeling processes, I am willing to use that term until someone suggests a better one.
Paragraph 1 above requires that acquisition is done unconsciously, prior to explicit and conscious codification. Paragraph 2 specifies the results: that the modeler can duplicate the pattern of excellence demonstrated by the expert model.
The first criterion specifies the process of creating a model, while the second criterion specifies the outcome: the modeler can duplicate the pattern of excellence.
The field of NLP has always been focused on outcomes, and it has always valued having as wide a range of choices as possible in reaching those outcomes. The test of a good model should be the outcome that it enables, not how the model was derived.
The new requirements of unconscious acquisition, and that the modeler be able to personally duplicate the behavior modeled, were not mentioned previously. At this point we can distinguish four separate processes:
Unconscious acquisition is done implicitly and unconsciously as the first step. In analytic modeling, codification is done explicitly and consciously as the first step.
Since all behavior and communication has both conscious and unconscious aspects, even if modeling is done "consciously," there will be many unconscious aspects, and unconscious acquisition will also have some conscious aspects. As St. Clair and Grinder point out, "These two extremes define a continuum of possibilities." St. Clair and Grinder propose that unconscious acquisition is superior because it does not impose the bias of the modeler on the explicit codification into a model.
The essential difference of consequence between the process of NLP modeling and Analytic modeling is the relative contributions of the model and modeler to the final work product.
Firstly, this statement seems to assume that the unconscious does not have "perceptual and analytic categories." I think there is ample evidence from hypnosis and experimentation that the unconscious does have these, and they can be at least as biased as conscious ones. So even the "minimal imposition" of the modeler in unconscious acquisition will be substantial.
Secondly, any relevant imposition will be evident and discernable in the outcome: the behavior of the person acquiring the model will be different from the behavior of the original expert model.
Thirdly, any "imposition" can be either harmful or beneficial. If the modeler degrades what the expert model does (either through conscious or unconscious imposition), the person acquiring the model will not be able to produce results that are as effective as the behavior of the original expert model.
On the other hand, if the behavior of the person acquiring the model is the same or better than the expert model, we can conclude that any imposition either was irrelevant to the outcome, or improved it. If the modeler's bias improves the behavior modeled, then that will also be evident in the results of teaching the model to someone else. Either way, the effects of any bias will be evident in the results, and the process of eliciting the model is irrelevant, unless it can be shown by experimentation that one is superior to the other.
St. Clair and Grinder's description also presupposes that a single expert is adequate for generating a model. Unconscious acquisition is limited to replicating what an expert has already learned to do, and this is usually somewhat less than optimal. No matter how well an expert model can do something, their behavior nearly always includes aspects or steps that are redundant, useless, or even detrimental to the effectiveness of the behavior modeled. Different experts differ in how they accomplish the same task, and every expert will have elements or aspects that other experts do not have. Some of these will support the excellence of the behavior, while others will be detrimental or irrelevant.
Notice that in all the alternatives discussed above, the only criterion that is useful in evaluating the model is the outcome: the results that the model produces (as St. Clair and Grinder stated clearly only four years ago). This leads us to consider the second process, demonstration.
The outcome of modeling is to use a model to transfer a set of behavioral skills to some other person who does not already have the skill. If a modeler can demonstrate behavior that is equivalent to (or better than) that of the original expert, that is one way to satisfy the criterion that the model works. This criterion of being able to transfer a skill to someone else is essential. However, that person need not be the modeler; it can be anyone else, and the best test of a model is that it can be used to teach a wide range of people. There are situations in which it is clearly inappropriate for the modeler to acquire the behavior modeled. For instance, if I, at age 70, were to model an expert skier or diver, my arthritic knees would prevent me from duplicating that behavioral skill, even if I had a perfect model of a perfect expert. Those same arthritic knees would probably also prevent me from using unconscious acquisition to develop the model, but would not prevent me from doing some other kind of modeling.
In analytic modeling, this phase comes first. Through observing an expert, questioning, and noting the expert's responses, an explicit conscious model is developed and repeatedly tested, first in the expert's experience, and then in the modeler's experience, and later in the experience of someone who is taught the model.
Many of the very effective submodalities methods developed by Richard Bandler were the results of modeling that did not utilize unconscious acquisition (swish, phobia cure, compulsion blowout and other threshold patterns, etc.). My wife, Connirae, and I used a different kind of modeling in the early 1980s to discover the structure of timelines, how to adjust the relative importance of criteria, internal/external reference, and how to respond resourcefully to criticism.
More recently I have modeled the fundamental foundation of all our experience and thinking in my forthcoming book, Six Blind Elephants: understanding ourselves and others. (1) In this two volume book I model the nominalization called "generalization," using a distinction between scope and category. Scope is the extent of what we attend to in sensory-based experience (and/or memory or forecast), which can then be categorized in a wide variety of ways, which we then respond to. Although it is a simple distinction, the ramifications are endless, and it provides a way to understand all change method--in or out of the field of NLP--using the same paradigm, a sort of "unified field theory" of change.
In addition, most people are notoriously unable to report accurately on their own inner processes--whether skill or problem--because they are so familiar with them, making self-modeling even more subject to the modeler's biases. As an old saying goes, "If you have flies in your eyes, you can't see the flies in your eyes." Usually it is much easier for someone else to model their behavior by asking questions and observing, which is one way to do analytic modeling.
Any explicit conscious model can be examined to identify any harmful or useless aspects in order to modify them. This process is likely to be more conscious than unconscious, but ideally will include an ample measure of both, as St. Clair and Grinder describe. (7, p. 180) When an original expert is taught how to omit or improve any harmful aspects or steps, their behavior becomes even better than it was originally. I have often used this benefit as an inducement to an expert to agree to modeling of their behavior.
If St. Clair and Grinder propose that this kind of modification can occur unconsciously, that indicates that unconscious biases are also significant in creating the resulting model, and at least some of those biases are likely to be detrimental. In my modeling of self-concept (3), I used many different "experts," because I found that each one had aspects of self-concept that worked very well, while other aspects did not. If I had modeled any one of these people--either consciously or unconsciously--the resulting model would have been seriously flawed. By combining the superior aspects of many different people, I was able to create a model that was far better than any one of the people who contributed to the model.
If a pattern can be transferred to another person who is not the modeler, that is an even better indication of a successful model than whether the modeler can demonstrate the skill, since another person would not have the same "perceptual and analytic categories of the modeler." The transfer of a behavior to any other person should be adequate evidence of successful modeling of that behavior. An even more stringent test is that someone else who has acquired the model can use the model to teach the same behavioral skill to a third person.
When a new model is offered to people who do not yet have the behavioral skill, often the model needs to be adjusted so that it fits smoothly into the rest of who they are. These adjustments can then be incorporated explicitly into the model itself, as additional optional steps to deal with these contingencies. I have described this process of repeated testing and modification in more detail elsewhere.
In conclusion, the proposed distinction between unconscious acquisition and analytic modeling is an interesting one for those who want to have more choice in how they model, but any implication that one is better than the other is specious. Good modeling utilizes both conscious and unconscious processes. Sometimes unconscious acquisition may produce a better model; at other times analytic modeling will. The evidence for this will be in the results, not the process. The only test of a model is that it works, as St. Clair and Grinder themselves stated clearly only four years ago. Now lets compare the criteria for modeling provided by St. Clair and Grinder to their statements about the major NLP models.
Bostic and Grinder present "NLP modeling" as the kind of modeling that began the field. "NLP Modeling, in the creation of the initial models that founded the field of NLP." (6, p. 2) In their book, Whispering in the Wind (7), which is largely devoted to modeling, St. Clair and Grinder repeatedly bemoan the lack of modeling in the field, and belittle most of what has been described by others as modeling.
There is considerable discussion about the difference between NLP modeling, application, design, variations, and training, and the difference between a new model and an application of an old model is given particular attention. (7, pp. 50-56) However, no criteria are presented for clearly and unambiguously distinguishing between the different terms listed above.
The meta model is described as "the first model in NLP" (7, pp. 142-163), so it presumably satisfies their criteria for a new model. However, they repeatedly describe it as an application and adaptation of a model already existing in transformational grammar.
The meta model can, for example, be usefully understood to be an application of the modeling of linguistic patterning inspired by Transformational Grammar (7, p. 51). There already existed an explicit code for capturing verbal patterning: the descriptive and formal vocabulary for syntactic studies used by professional linguists .
Important advances in knowledge are often made by applying a model that has been developed in one field to another field, and I think that the application of the meta model to the context of personal change work was an excellent and very important example of this. However, the statements quoted above make it clear that the meta-model was not an original model by St. Clair and Grinder's own definitions, and that it was not developed by unconscious acquisition. In short, the meta model does not satisfy their own definition of modeling.
The Milton Model is described as "NLP's third model" (7, pp. 173-183) and also as the "inverse of the meta model." When we examine the code required to explicate Erickson's verbal patterning, we find precisely the same distinctions that occurred in the meta model. Thus the meta model and the Milton model are often presented as inverses. (7, p. 261) If the distinctions are "precisely the same distinctions that occurred in the meta model," the Milton model is also an application of an existing model, rather than a new model. Since this model already existed, it could not have been elicited by unconscious acquisition, despite St. Clair and Grinder's claim to the contrary, and again does not satisfy St. Clair and Grinder's own criteria for modeling. (7, p. 180)
Representational Systems is described as "NLP's second model." (7, p.164) It was discovered by noticing that the predicates (verbs, adverbs, and adjectives) that people used to describe their experience could be categorized by sensory system, and realizing that they were literal descriptions of the speaker's experience. Although that was a very important foundation for many of the distinctions and processes in the field, that too, is an application of an existing linguistic model. The description of the discovery of representational systems (7, pp.164-172) was again not an example of modeling according to St. Clair and Grinder's own description. To summarize, none of the first three fundamental models in NLP described by St. Clair and Grinder satisfy their own criteria for "NLP modeling," a major contradiction and incongruence.p>
St. Clair and Grinder's book Whispering in the Wind states, "Our intention is to provoke a professional high quality public dialogue among the practitioners of NLP, as an integral part of these developments," (7, p. 348) In my review of their book (2) I pointed out the some of the incongruences and contradictions above, as well as many others. I sent my review to St. Clair and Grinder months in advance of publication to give them an opportunity to respond to it. When my review was published they promised in writing to respond to it in a later issue. It is now three years since my review was published, but they have not yet responded. Their failure to participate in a dialogue contradicts their stated intention to provoke a "professional, high quality public dialogue among the practitioners of NLP," yet another incongruence. Given the incongruences noted above, these statements by St. Clair and Grinder refer to themselves, and are paradoxical as well as incongruent. I invite them to clarify these contradictions.