i was just wondering peoples views about whether a problem is best to be addressed with 'how' they 'do' the problem and just ignore any reasons and why they do it vs finding the root cause and resolving it by facing it as an adult with new resources and understandings and also finding positive intentions behind the problem behaviour and maybe avoiding possible consequence problems developing through ignoring it?

root cause to all life issues is being born, so that's the root cause- even if you knew the so-called why, you would not be able to change that because its already happened- so the next best place is to know when something is triggered- and then you can change the how you respond.

Yes, like never, never, never eat Oreos. That is the root of cause some serious trouble for lots of folks. It tends to make you very tired. And, bingo! Before you know it...you've gained quite a bit of weight and simply can't remember what happened to cause it all! Lol! :-D

How would you ever know if the 'issue' you are working with is actually the root cause?

Michael

That's a good question, Michael.

How would *you* know?

Venus

According to Richard Bandler, NLP was created because looking for the 'why' you have a problem (as in traditional psychotherapy) didn't help solve it in most cases.

From a different perspective.... every person has a global structure (interaction between several programs/processes) and that is the "root" cause of what we do and don't do, say and don't say, etc.

That structure is product of life experiences, genetic programs, etc. We can't change life experiences but we can modify how we interpret them and we can change the existing programs product of that personal history.

Modifying the symptom helps... but modyfifying the global structure which is the "root" cause of several symptoms is not only possible but desirable.

Note: If we find the minimum common denominator between behaviors (both good and bad) we can find patterns which allow us to point to "root" causes.

This is what I've been teaching for a while in programs like Therapeutic Specialist. However for some people that is not NLP... plus, I have been also researching and answering "why" people build structures as they do and I fully understand that is entirely unacceptable in NLP... so I created a different field.

So, while some might think what I suggest here is not right or not good or not whatever.... there is the possibility of answering why people are as they are and working with the "root" cause which in a way is also how you do several problems.

Please see my post at Public Forum here, titled: "Adding Brilliance."

It shows the path to Finding Root Cause to A problem faced by the Villagers and the wise old-man also the young lad at Khartoum....

Complete the story, it will see you find the answer you are searching.

This is for soul searchers only.
Faint-hearted please stay away from my post,...lolz.

nlpfiend wrote:

i was just wondering peoples views about whether a problem is best to be addressed with 'how' they 'do' the problem and just ignore any reasons and why they do it vs finding the root cause and resolving it by facing it as an adult with new resources and understandings and also finding positive intentions behind the problem behaviour and maybe avoiding possible consequence problems developing through ignoring it?

I don't know how you find the positive intention without first engaging with the "Why" - which gives you the belief structure, and then chunking up to find the values and positive intention.

Also you client is likely to want to talk about "Why" and so at least for the sake of rapport it's best not to ignore it. A better reason for not ignoring anything from the client is that everything is potentially a resource.

SeanOM wrote:

Also you client is likely to want to talk about "Why"...

So explain to them at the beginning of the session that if the problem is eliminated then the why becomes irrelevant

tim_cook wrote:

So explain to them at the beginning of the session that if the problem is eliminated then the why becomes irrelevant

Relevance is surely the client's decision.

nlpfiend wrote:

i was just wondering peoples views about whether a problem is best to be addressed with 'how' they 'do' the problem and just ignore any reasons and why they do it vs finding the root cause and resolving it by facing it as an adult with new resources and understandings and also finding positive intentions behind the problem behaviour and maybe avoiding possible consequence problems developing through ignoring it?

Through experience when clients come to me they have generally done quite a bit of self analysis or asking themselves why and I do listen to them as they are explaining what their problem/issue is. I use this to calibrate to the client, I start pacing their breathing, matching/mirroring body language, noticing predicates in their language etc.

I think that some of the why is important and it does put the presenting issue into context and some background information is a good idea.

Richard Bandler when asked has said that Moshe Feldenkrais was a great body worker because he was also a physicist and judo-ka (someone who practices judo) and so understood the application of physics on the human body when performing body work.

I remember being told (from a very reliable source) of a guy on an NLP training who approached one of the trainers to ask for help with his anxiety in approaching women.

The trainer being an excellent NLPer said OK and did some change work and hey presto! the approach anxiety was a thing of the past.

Later on in week in one of the breaks a pretty young female student approached the same trainer and asked him if it is correct that when anchoring kinaesthetically it is best to use a womans breast to do this.

To which the trainer replied that he had not said this and being a bit intreagued and concerned ask why she thought this.

She then told him that a fellow male student had been demonstrating anchoring to her and had told her it was best done kinaesthetically on a womans breast. Then proceeded to anchor and have a good fondle of her prized assets.

Now as you can imaging this annoyed the trainer who then demanded that she point out the male who did this. The young woman pointed to the guy who had presented approach anxiety and had been helped by the trainer!!

Jason

Yes,

You never know what someone is going to do with the tools that you give them -- unless you first do a scan of their belief system.

Then you might think twice about giving them the tools in the first place.

Of course, there's no need for conflict...you can always distract them away from the topic or, if they seem particularly diligent within that context, you can give them something shiny to play to with (so they think they've got it) and send them on their way.

Venus

Jason,

It was not on the same program... it was three programs later and it was not the same trainer, it was a second trainer who was asked by the attractive female if that was the right way and btw the second trainer witnessed when the first trainer did the original job getting rid of the symptom.
BTW after the second trainer heard this he researched a little and found out the "anxiety guy" had done the "special anchoring" with at least 4 ladies already on different programs since he was "cured", he convinced some of them he knew secrets of how to do powerful anchors. The second trainer then banned the guy from programs and installed (hopefully still works) a nasty thing if the guy ever does the same kind of thing.
Now I hope I don't blow my cover as "repliable source".

I know several other stories like that when the help included only "let your unconscious blah blah" (trusting the unconscious will always always pick an ecological option) or treatng the symptom by developing a powerful state without taking the time to know the person and why the person has the problem and why he/she wants to get rid of it. I know... I know I am not to say such things. I too was a true believer in the "perfection" of content-free no questions asked NLP. And I still think it is great for a few things. No more herecy from me for a while... I hope.

Gabe,

I was applying chatham house rules when I posted my story and modified it a little so as not to incriminate anyone.

I do use content free applications of NLP too as a demonstration of the power of NLP and more so the flexibility and power of the individuals own mind to fill in the blanks but I have found with experience that some additional information just enables me to build a better context and be more precise in what change work I do with individuals so you and I are in the same corner on this subject.

My friend you are a very reputable source of information in my eyes thanks for filling out the events a little more.

Jason

Thanks Jason,

I knew (or at least suspected) what you were doing, I just like blowing my cover so if there are questions about what specifically happened they get "the source" and witness of what happened.
And I am sure we are on the same corner on nthis one.

Ryan,

I recall a story from Bandler. I forget where it was from, but it helped me understand the issue a lot better myself. He was recounting the experience of woman who had a phobia of elevators. It turns out this phobia was "caused" by her childhood fear of going to the dentist, where she would ride the elevator to see him. Her fears of course attached to the elevator.

What does it really do for her to know the cause of her phobia? It isn't anything profound or revelatory because she is an adult who is no longer afraid of dentists! Knowing the origin and cause doesn't tell her how to stop being afraid of elevators.

Traditional therapies like psychoanalysis attach profoundness to such revelations, but the reality is frequently that they are created by accident - with nothing really profound behind it. The girl was afraid of the dentist and her fear got anchored to elevators because that was what was around. The attachment itself is not profound - neither was the original fear. She outgrew the original fear on her own. The original cause is no longer relevant.

Dasein

I don't know if this post is redundant, but if it helps:

It seems to me that the phrase 'root cause' is open to two interpretations.

Let's say an IT company builds a website for a company. Let's say it runs too slow. The customer asks: Why? What's the root cause?

You could answer it like this: because there's are faulty lines of code in programs 'X' and 'Y'.

You could answer it like this: because you didn't give us enough time to do the development, you cut the testing budget and you put our developers under too much stress due to your deadlines and constantly changing requirements.

In a way, both may be right.

The difference is that one points to the structure that's producing the dysfunctional result. The other points to 'interpreted reasons'. You might call them the 'conditions'. You might even call them the 'excuses'.

With the past unchangeable, the only useful one in terms of getting a different result is the one that looks at the code. But it is still a 'root cause' in the way some people think. It is still an answer to the question 'why' in the way some people think.

Now, if you turn your attention to the 'functional' cause, you still have two choices. You can 'patch it', i.e. add a bit of code to the programs that deals with the symptom. Or you can go in and change the programs at source, so they behave properly in the first place. The first might be a quick fix for now. The second is clearly more elegant.

Does that help?

Cheers

There is a "Soar, fly, crash, burn" syndrome that can affect people who have been through an NLP change process where they feel fantastic initially, then they feel great for 2 to 3 weeks and then the old behaviour patterns reappear. More often than not it's caused by beliefs that were unaddressed by the change work. The client's story including his/her view of root cause is a way in to understand the beliefs at work.

If we are using Bandler stories as a source for plausibility let me tell the one about the client who didn't respond to the phobia cure. She was afraid of fire. Bandler looked into it and found out she had died in a fire in a previous life or something like that.... so he worked with that and the problem was solved!
Now, are there really past lives? Why didn't the phobia cured worked if it seemed as a phobia? and why he had to go back to work with an event from a previous lifetime?
I was not there since it happened in the late 80's (as I was told)... maybe the story is not even real or 100% accurate as it was told to me, but if it is..... there is a big problem with using "stories" as a source of facts even if those stories come from my friend Richard.
Anyone who has the Andy tapes/dvds and listens to Richard tell the story of how he worked with him can tell there is a huge difference between the metaphor and the facts.

I usually teach there is a difference between cause and origin. One thing is what happened and when that created the existing structure and its interaction with other structures, something that still exists in the present time.
More importantly how can we know the relevance of something if we don't consider it? I am still wondering knowing Bandler so well, why he even found out the dentist thing unless he was figuring out what was relevant or not. He is not the kind of guy who would let the client tell him irrelevant stuff and not interrumpt him/her. Perhaps he was figuring out how the client generalized experience to use that in generalizing the new response.... and I love it when people write "frecuently/usually/most times" it doesn't matter... doesn't that pressupose it DOES matter some times? How would you know when it matters and when it doesn't unless you explore it?

How about physiological causes (including genetic)? Bandler still has diabetis and I paraphrase him "it is a genetic cause". So does it or does it not make a difference?

Sure he terrible risk of looking for a root cause is to land in interpretation-land and developing theories without doing anything to change what is happening. I suggest looking for a cause from a "sort of" NLPer attitude and perspective.

Before some "friend" of Richard jump into defending him, it is not needed. I am his friend and I am not attacking him or underestimating his work and ideas. I learned from him to question what others say (even if that other is him) in order to continue learning and developing ideas. He didn't took without questions what he learned from Erickson or Satir. I love Richard and I've learned a lot from him. But if this is to become a serious debate that considers both pros and cons of each posture then we should be open to explore the other options.