Hello Everyone,

Was lovely to see all of you who were there on Mon 20th Feb!

We covered a process referred to as Neurological Levels Alignment.

As usual, the process summary is included below.

Practice topic was: Neurological Levels Alignment

The client has an issue, problem or situaton that they want more information or clarity on.

Prepare the client by informing them that they will walk through 7 levels / spaces that will give them an opportunity to look at the problem and that you will ask them some questions, and they can trust their unconscious minds to bring forth any information that may be useful for them at this time.
Starting off in the present, the here and now, being aware of the problem, ask the client to take a step into the space called Environment. In this space, ask the client to simply see what they see, hear what they hear and feel what they feel. Wait. Give the client time. Ask them what they notice. The client is free to verbalise or keep the information to themself.
Prepare the client to move to step into the next space - their Behaviour, as before, when the client has stepped into the area of Behaviour, ask the client to simply see what they see, hear what they hear and feel what they feel. Wait. Give the client time. Ask them what they notice. The client is free to verbalise or keep the information to themself.
Prepare the client to move to step into the next space - their Capabilities, as before, when the client has stepped into the area of Capabilities, ask the client to simply see what they see, hear what they hear and feel what they feel. Wait. Give the client time. Ask them what they notice. The client is free to verbalise or keep the information to themself.
Prepare the client to move to step into the next space - their Beliefs & Values, as before, when the client has stepped into the area of Beliefs & Values, ask the client to simply see what they see, hear what they hear and feel what they feel. Wait. Give the client time. Ask them what they notice. The client is free to verbalise or keep the information to themself.
Prepare the client to move to step into the next space - their Identity, as before, when the client has stepped into the area of Indentity, ask the client to simply see what they see, hear what they hear and feel what they feel. Wait. Give the client time. Ask them what they notice. The client is free to verbalise or keep the information to themself.
And finally, prepare the client to move to step into the final space - the Greater Whole, a place and space where they can just 'be', where there is everything and nothing and they can just relax, learn and grow, and here they can trust their unconscious mind to gather and store the information they need to allow them more understanding, congruency and peace / resolution with this issue. Let the client be here for about a minute, in silence.
Instruct their unconscious mind to store the learnings, and then begin the process backwards:
Step into the area of Identity, noticing what is different now. Client can either verbalise or not. Continue to remind the unconscious mind to store the learnings that will help them on their journey. And taking the learnings with them they can then step into the area of Beliefs & Values.
Step into the area of Beliefs & Values, noticing what is different now. Client can either verbalise or not. Continue to remind the unconscious mind to store the learnings that will help them on their journey. And taking the learnings with them they can then step into the area of Capabilities.
Step into the area of Capabilities, noticing what is different now. Client can either verbalise or not. Continue to remind the unconscious mind to store the learnings that will help them on their journey. And taking the learnings with them they can then step into the area of Behaviours.
Step into the area of Behaviours, noticing what is different now. Client can either verbalise or not. Continue to remind the unconscious mind to store the learnings that will help them on their journey. And taking the learnings with them they can then step into the area of Environment.
Step into the area of Environment, noticing what is different now. Client can either verbalise or not. Continue to remind the unconscious mind to store the learnings that will help them on their journey. And taking the learnings with them they can then step back into the present, the here and now.
In the present, the client can notice how they feel about that old problem, how it is different, or how they now have more clarity, more understanding, new information.
Invite the client to open their eyes when ready.

Test and future pace, as always.

All the best,

Natalie
___________________________
Natalie Dee
Lifestyle Management

Hi Natalie - thanks for letting us know how you have been getting on.

Formating text can be a little difficult on these boards - especially paragraphs.

There are a couple of ways around this one is the use of:// //
(which is double forward slash)
the other is to double space the returns.

I only point this out as your posts of what you have been doing are always interesting - however they are a little difficult to read as it all becomes one large singular paragraph.

Hiya, I just want to say this process was one I particularly enjoyed & personally got a great sense of fulfillment from during my practitioner course. Out of interest, our trainers also included the use of mentors at some of the levels and anchored a metaphor in the spirituality area which was quite nice. A realisation I came to by the end of my course was that our ''inner voices'' can either be our own voice or someone elses voice - but theyre all mentors so it doesnt matter. I used to suspect my inner cautionary voice was my sister which may have resulted in my fighing against it a little - no more! Nice exercise

'From Coach to Awakener' by Robert Dilts is an excellent resource for working with people at different Logical Levels.

Cheers

Paul

Cheers Paul, I might take a look at that then

Very much a Dilts concept (developed from work by Gregory Bateson) and I don't think either John Grinder or Richard Bandler teach it. Myself and other NLP trainers use it all the time though as it's just such a useful framework for thinking about different levels of thinking.

Cheers

Paul

It was in the April '05 London SNLP (McKenna, LaValle, Neill) Practitioner.

Michael Neill taught it.

It's also in the book ''My Lessons with Kumi'' along with a shedload of other techniques.

Cheers,

Martin.

These were indeed developed by Robert Dilts. And, as alluded to in a previous post, they've popped up in other NLP 'camps'.

I personally think that Dilts misinterpreted Bateson's logical levels of learning (from Bateson's 'Steps to an Ecology of Mind', great book BTW) and as a result, the logical levels are a flawed model. However, flawed though they may be, they can provide a useful framework for thought and change, so I’m not willing to toss out any babies along with their respective bathwater.

Flawed in what way specifically? There are a few problems. Without going into much detail, the biggest one that comes to mind is how environment or context (or interaction therewith) is a level of personality or psychology, since all of the other levels also exist in relation to an environment or context. There’s more, but that’s an example. I think it could and should be overhauled to make it work better, but that's just my opinion.

Dilts' Neurological levels are also based on an older understanding of neuroscience that has since been superseded. Again, I'm not saying it doesn't work as a framework for thought or change, but the science needs to be fixed.

So, where the Dilts' Logical and Neurological Levels are concerned, I'd just like to see the terminology changed a bit to better reflect newer neuroscience, psychology or philosophy.

I know I've seen the shortcomings of these models being debated on the web, so a Google search will be left as an exercise to the curious reader...

Be Well,

Michael Perez

I'm with you on ''Steps to an Ecology of Mind'' - probably the book with the most ''whoa!'''s per page bar none I think.

Bateson's writing style wasn't his strong point though.

I didn't know that Dilts based this exercise on Bateson's work - I can't see much relation, although I only practiced the exercise, rather than found out anything about Dilts' theory about it - it seems *very* far removed from Bateson's logical levels of learning though, I'd never have made the connection.

Zinger of a technique when it works though (about 60% or so of people were wowed by it at the prac I think, the rest didn't get the same effect).

Best wishes,

Martin.

Hi Martin,

With regard to Bateson's writing style (or lack thereof), I agree. He was a product of academia and unfortunately wrote like one... However, the book is, as you seemed to me to say, jam packed full of real brain-stopper level ideas, the kind you've got to mull over. Makes the book take even longer to read if you keep doing that though...

Dilts mentioned the derivation in 'A Brief History of Logical Levels'...

'The term logical levels, as I have used it in NLP, was adapted from Bateson's work, and refers to a hierarchy of levels of processes within an individual or group. The function of each level is to synthesize, organise and direct the interactions on the level below it.'

1st ed. P 300

I agree that the relationship between the two is difficult to see other than the fact that they're both hierarchies.

Like I said, I think the concept of the framework is great, it's just the hierarchy as constructed doesn't follow, er, 'logically' enough for me.

I also took a moment to Google for a well-documented article I found not so long ago on the subject that I had referenced in my previous post. The author seems to be somewhat more dismissive of the model than I am inclined to be, but at least proposes replacements and refinements of both the Logical Levels And Neurological Levels models, which is certainly more than I have done at this point...

Be Well,

Michael Perez

And I left out the url once more. If I were Freudian, I'd say my slip was showing...

http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/nlpfax07.htm