I wanted to get peoples perspectives on core beliefs. Would you say that there are a few common ones that come up again and again for people. I heard somewhere that there are thirteen core beliefs that everyone should have although I can't remember where I saw this.

Is anyone able to give me a list of 'core beliefs' that people, somehow, lose in their life?

thanks

silverfox

The only thing I can think of that kinda-sorta fits what you're talking about are the NLP presuppositions. A quick Google search on "nlp presuppositions" should turn up several of those.

I wonder if you mean core values rather than core beliefs -- I have not heard of core beliefs but core values elicitation is a commonly used way of understanding what is important to a person and what makes them who they are

Surely at any core of belief would be a .., Belief? I am also unsure of the benefit of "knowing" 13 core beliefs as surely you may be in danger of imparting your belief in the 13 core beliefs in them because you believe they exist? I think there may be thirteen meta programs - thirteen patterns of common behaviours

silverfox wrote:

I wanted to get peoples perspectives on core beliefs. Would you say that there are a few common ones that come up again and again for people. I heard somewhere that there are thirteen core beliefs that everyone should have although I can't remember where I saw this.

Is anyone able to give me a list of 'core beliefs' that people, somehow, lose in their life?

Jus' being literal, but thirteen beliefs that everyone 'should' have? Sounds a bit "one size fits all" in a world of very complex individuals!

I'm with David on this - core values may be more revealing than core beliefs, eg, "I value courage" seems to me to be slightly more profound than "I believe in courage".

If a person believes they have lost a belief, then maybe asking them "how do you know that?" would reveal a clue to what's missing in the knowledge of the absence.

The 13 classic NLP core presuppositions are:

1. Mind and body are interconnected: they are parts of the same system, and each affects the other
2. The Map is Not the Territory: We all have different maps of the world.
3. There is no failure, only feedback… and a renewed opportunity for success.
4. The Map Becomes the Territory: what you believe to be true either is true or becomes true.
5. Knowing what you want helps you to get it.
6. The resources we need are within us.
7. Communication is verbal as well as non-verbal
8. The non-conscious mind* is benevolent
9. Communication is non-conscious as well as conscious.
10. All behavior has a positive intention.
11. The meaning of my communication is the response I get.
12. Modelling excellent behavior leads to excellence.
13. In any system, the element with the greatest flexibility will have the most influence on that system.

Hi Justus,

I don't know where you got your list from, but you or the providers of it have re-written a few. Chinese whispers and all that.*

But just for fun, this time I thought I'd give the source for each of the items on the list AS YOU GIVE THEM.

"1. Mind and body are interconnected: they are parts of the same system, and each affects the other." Bateson, 1972, 1979.

"2. The Map is Not the Territory: We all have different maps of the world." Korzybski, 1933.

"3. There is no failure, only feedback… and a renewed opportunity for success." Sorta Warzlawick, et al, 1974, as in reframing.

"4. The Map Becomes the Territory: what you believe to be true either is true or becomes true." Derived from #2.

"5. Knowing what you want helps you to get it." Not a presupp for me, nor is it in many of the original lists. And it's trite as well as obvious, like something out of Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, 1937. Feh.

"6. The resources we need are within us." Erickson, as interpreted by Lankton, 1983.

"7. Communication is verbal as well as non-verbal." Well, duh. Goes all the way back to Ray Birdwhistell in the 1940s.

"8. The non-conscious mind is benevolent." Really? And you can prove this how?

Anyway, a somewhat tendentious re-statement of Erickson. He was never that crass.

"9. Communication is non-conscious as well as conscious." Also Erickson, with a dash of Bateson on para-language.

"10. All behavior has a positive intention." Leslie Cameron-Bandler, 1978.

"11. The meaning of my communication is the response I get." You left out the phrase that should always precede this little trope - "It can be useful, SOMETIMES, to operate AS IF".

Without that all-important qualifier, it's a recipe for agreeing to do all the work, even when you're not working with difficult people. You're taking on all of the responsibility (for the communication), even when the other person is capable of being quite flexible (see your #13 below) and figuring out a range of meanings to fit what you just said.

And in terms of the law, for example, it's a recipe for anarchy.

Anyway, this one first popped up in Changing with Families, Satir et al, 1977.

"12. Modelling excellent behavior leads to excellence." Dream on.

"13. In any system, the element with the greatest flexibility will have the most influence on that system."

Well, if you change the word "flexibility" to the more technical "variance", then it's Ashby, 1956, and the law of requisite variety, which is to do with cybernetics.

As for the original question, I think it was to do with core beliefs that ordinary people have, not the "presupps" of nlp - in any form or version.

Eric.

* After many repetitions, "Send reinforcements - we're going to advance" gets mangled into "Send three and four pence - we're going to a dance".

Three shillings and four pence in old money, that is.

Thanks Eric, Very valuable feedback.

I grabbed the list off of the intertubes and was not as careful in looking at each item as I could have been. The list resembled quite a bit the NLP presuppositions that were handed out in my Practitioner course back in 1992. As my father used to say: don't mumble; speak out loud and if you make a mistake you'll likely find out right away and be able to learn and grow from it. : )

Here are some other variants floating out there:
1. People respond to their experience, not to reality itself.
2. Having a choice is better than not having a choice.
3. People make the best choice they can at the time.
4. People work perfectly.
5. All actions have a purpose.
6. Every behaviour has a positive intention.
7. The unconscious mind balances the conscious; it is not malicious.
8. The meaning of the communication is not simply what you intend, but also the response you get.
9. We already have all the resources we need, or we can create them.
10. Mind and body form a system. They are different expressions of the one person.
11. We process all information through our senses.
12. Modeling successful performance leads to excellence.
13. If you want to understand - Act

1. The Map is not the territory
2. Behind every behavior , there is a positive intention
3. The meaning of a communication is the response you get
4. The Mind affects the body and the body affects the mind
5. There is no such thing as failure, only feedback
6. People are equipped with all the resources they need to make the changes they want or achieve their desired outcomes
7. The law of requisite variety – the person with the greatest degree of flexibility will control the system/situation/circumstance
8. Respect every person’s model of the world.
9. You are in charge of your mind and therefore you are also in charge of the results – you have or want.
10. All distinctions you are able to make concerning your environment and your behavior are represented through the 5 senses

1. The map is not the territory.
2. Language is a secondary representation of experience.
3. Mind and body are parts of the same cybernetic system and affect each other.
4. Behavior is geared towards adaptation.
5. People have all the resources they need to make the changes they want.
6. It is useful to make a distinction between behavior and self.
7. The highest quality information about other people is behavioral.
8. Present behavior represents the very best choice available to a person.
9. There is no such thing as failure; there is only feedback.
10. The meaning of a communication is the response you get.
11. What other people can do is also possible for you. It’s only a matter of how.
12. In any cybernetic system, the element or person in the system with the widest range of behaviors or variability of choice will control the system.

ericrobbie wrote:

"8. The non-conscious mind* is benevolent." Really? And you can prove this how?

Anyway, a somewhat tendentious re-statement of Erickson. He was never that crass.

I'm not sure how anyone could come to that conclusion (that the "non-conscious mind is benevolent") after reading, say, Reframing or Trance-formations, where they talk about such things as "unconscious parts" giving people migraine headaches, myopia, severe tinnitus, hysterical paralysis, cancer, etc. Maybe there's a secondary gain, but that's hardly the mark of benevolence!

Chris Johnson wrote:

I'm not sure how anyone could come to that conclusion (that the "non-conscious mind is benevolent") after reading, say, Reframing or Trance-formations, where they talk about such things as "unconscious parts" giving people migraine headaches, myopia, severe tinnitus, hysterical paralysis, cancer, etc. Maybe there's a secondary gain, but that's hardly the mark of benevolence!

I'm pretty sure Eric wasn't agreeing with it either, Chris. In fact this thread is the first time I've seen a mention that this idea might be an NLP presupposition. On the other hand, formal reframing takes for granted that there was a FUNCTIONALLY positive intention behind any behavior at one time. Not benevolence, necessarily, but perhaps a useful function whose sell-by date has been passed, or as assumption based on incomplete understanding of the evidence, such as "a dog bit me, so I'll make sure I never go near another one. Those things are dangerous!"