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From our recent Certification weekend with our (now) Master Practitioners, these pearls of wisdom emerged, which I have strung into a pretty and impressive necklace.

Much of this is already known to experienced NLP Practitioner, but it is always useful to view something from a different angle so that new connections can be made.

Maintain state

• You know that the key state for a Guide in relationship with an Explorer is one of curiosity. How is this person particularly fascinating? What is it that you are about to discover? What new experience are you about to have? Get yourself poised to learn. Remove the labels that you have been given, or the ones you are in danger of slapping on to this Explorer.
• However stillness is also essential. This is the state where your own system has calmed down, distracting internal dialogue has disappeared and the focus of your body is on your senses alone. You are now at the conscious/unconscious interface that Judy Delozier describes, quiet enough to hear the coaching voice of your learned intuition as it directs your attention most usefully, and focussed enough to spot the shifts and nuances offered by your Explorer.
• When you are still on the inside and curious on the outside, you can place the bubble round yourself and the Explorer, and within this shared energy space, rapport is inevitable.
• Maintain respect throughout. Respect for yourself and for your Explorer. Respect for how your Explorer has been living with his issue. And respect for our methodology.

Be congruent

• Speaking with conviction and authority puts your Explorer at ease. She wants to feel that you know what you are doing, and that you are worth coming to see – and possibly to pay money to.
• If you doubt yourself at any level, this will show. It may not come out as being glaringly obvious, but it may leak in the hesitant way you approach a topic, or recap their experience. Or it may show up by the number of circles you both go round in without anything significant happening. Or you may find yourself being more aware of yourself than of your Explorer. Do a quick check up and down Dilt’s neuro logical levels to find out where the weak link lies. Once you have identified your source of incongruence, you can decide what to do.
• Give yourself credit and remind yourself of all that has brought you to this moment. If you need to, remind yourself of your successful interventions.
• Don’t be intimidated by labels that the Explorer comes with. Remind yourself that all behaviour has a structure, and your job is to find out what it is. Just because he has been to many other therapists, doesn’t mean that he is particularly ‘difficult’. They might not have your experience, mindset or flexibility.
• Don’t be seduced by the client’s induction, as Steve Gilligan puts it. Whilst you may choose to listen to the long tale that she presents, know that you are listening to patterns and structure – not story. The minute you start following the client’s story you have entered a very non productive trance!
• Remind yourself “I don’t have to ‘get it right’ in one go.”

Get that clear outcome

• Assuming what the outcome is, can be too easy. Given the presenting problem, you could be excused thinking what it might be. But assuming that without clearly checking it out and hearing it clearly spoken in the words of your Explorer does neither of you any favours. This is your first port of call.
• The danger is to be diverted by the presenting problem and assuming that the removal of it is the outcome. This may just be a current symptom of something else more significant.
• You also need to be aware of just how congruent she is when she states her outcome, and how long it takes the outcome to be expressed. Here will lie the basis of much of your time together.

Do a good second

• Being curious, still and in the bubble, plus personal congruence not only creates rapport automatically, it allows a deep second position to emerge. This is where you can gain intuition about the Explorer’s experience, and notice the quickening, quietening or faltering of energy, confirmed by their behaviour.
• Step into the System operating within the Explorer – and with the people around him. Where is the energy? Where are the blocks? What has to be in place for that to happen? What is preventing this from happening?
• From here, you feel the incongruence in your Explorer. By trying on his world, you will notice where the bumps are. You need to keep that congruence antennae system operating at all times. “Does what I’m hearing fit?” “What’s missing here?” What else?”
• Let the conscious part of you be wondering “What has to be true for this person to say this?” “How is it possible she is making this connection?” “What seems to be consistently missing?”
• Step into the statements that are being offered. Feel it – get a sense of its system and ask, “How is this ‘wrong’?”

There is always a larger, smaller, wider system

• First of all the trick is to notice which system you are paying attention to, at any one moment. If you are feeling bogged down, or confused, it is likely that you working in the wrong system.
• It is so easy to be limited by the limitations of the Explorer’s reality. Not only do you have to keep a mindful eye on others involved in the scenario at the moment, but also those in the past and the future.
• You might also become aware of the internal Parts which are operating systematically to provide the problem and present the solution.
• You could also choose to go deeper into smaller chunk levels as you excavate through the operating belief system, down to some fundamental cause/effects or complex equivalences.
• You also need to be aware of the Explorer/Problem/Solution System, and the Explorer’s relationship with their problem. This is where the realms of secondary gain come in and patterns of habituation and even addiction.
• Then there is the Explorer/ Problem/Guide System where you are now part of the problem. This could be merely the quality of the relationship between you, or it may be deeper where the Explorer is lassoing you into a role fraught with double binds as part of their own operating patterns, or you are imposing a dynamic onto the relationship which comes out of your operating patterns. – more of which later.

Stay in there

• NLP has earned a reputation for being quick, which possibly has spawned a smash and grab, hit and run mentality. Quicker than what? Certainly because we go for structure we can cut to the chase. And for something like a phobia, we have specific techniques that can make a quick difference.
• However, it is important not to feel pressurised to be quick, when the Explorer isn’t able to present his issues concisely, or that the operating system unfolds in many more facets than appears obvious at the start.
• Once you have a shared understanding of the desired outcome, use your meta model questioning to get to the nub of the problem. Stay in there to gather the ‘right’ information Wait till you reach that moment of his “Ah!” Without it you are still in his surface structure.
• With each response, ask yourself “What have I got?” “What does this now give me?”

Know your onions

• Once you have identified the outcome, and explored and expanded the problem space, and so identified that point in the structure which could usefully be addressed, you are possibly in the position to select an intervention.
• Don’t assume that an intervention is required. It may be enough that the exploration of the problem space has revealed a route forward. It might also be that he is not ready yet for the next step. It is enough for him to absorb and integrate the desired outcome and the greater awareness of the current situation.
• You need to consider whether you are going to be past referenced or future solution focused, or merely expand the current position. What resources are immediately available, and which ones to you need to reveal, strengthen or create?
• Should you opt for an intervention, you need to be aware of the relative merits of those available to you. What is each good for? How long will each take? What mindset, current awareness is most suited for this particular Explorer? How much energy is required? What depth of rapport is required?
• You also need to feel comfortable working with that particular approach. How familiar are you with your chosen intervention? Do you understand how the intervention works? Do you understand how the various components within the technique inter-relate, and what would happen if you left one out?
• Don’t panic if it doesn’t work! Or if the presenting problem doesn’t immediately match your repertoire of interventions! Do something else. Make it up. Busk. Be creative. You know the components. You know you can mix and match. Let the Explorer be your Guide.

Fran Burgess
July 2006