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Bart,

You are right! There is a danger with that specific technique since many people don't really push all the way into the threshold. However most people who won't push themseleves that far usually won't even attempt to do it. Yet there is the danger of someone doing it, I agree with that.

I wouldn't really consider that (what is written on the book) a problem with ecology but I do get your point. I think instructions could be more precise and even a warning could be added so that anyone using that technique really go all the way out into the threshold.
In Richard's defense it says "intensifying it until it snaps" not "intensify it and if it doesn't snap just stop", so IF (big if) the person actually follows instructions there should be no problem.
Richard when working with someone live would make sure it works but a book has no eyes and ears to calibrate so it is all on how precise the reader follows instructions.

While I do teach in my therapeutic specialist to do something that could fit into some poeple's definition of ecology, I am not sure ecology check is either a good name or how to do it to get the best possible results.

Note: I think this is a good discussion for most NLPers to figure out what they understand as "ecological change" and "ecology checks" and to point out a few more things as some have already done it.

Anyway, my opinion on a larger (chunk) topic is... people should look for a professional for face to face help when the situation is serious enough that it could lead to "getting stuck". If it is small or even medium size problem perhaps working it by yourself with a book is perfectly do-able. But people don't make good decisions otherwise they most likely would not have the problem in the first place.

Just my thoughts

What I happen to do, is a multi layered part. After the change I do sort of a timeline, first dissociated and then associated, going in the past with the changed state in a few different situations then go to the future again in a few different situations.

Besides generalizing the change, it's also part of the TOTE sequence and what you might call an ecology check.
If the change doesn't feel right at that moment. I go back a few steps, and change what's necessary.

Have fun

Bart

I'd agree that it can be used to evade, but I wouldn't consider it unnecessary.

A story of one of my teachers comes to mind - he worked with an alcoholic (guy's been drinking for 15 years or so), and helped him to get rid of his alcoholism. So the guy comes back to his life, and one month later, the guy's wife calls with complaints. Because now that he's not drinking anymore, he wants to be with her - and she, after years of waiting for him to sober up, had found herself a lover - and wants to raise their son together - and, although the three of them lived together, she had been the one raising him and now is not accustomed to the husband trying to interfere. So the coach invited them together and negotiated a solution that would fit them both.

In the example above, the actual problem - alcoholism - was tackled and tackled effectively. However, through the 15 years of the husband's drinking, the family had set up their lives around that. So even when his problem was solved, this did create another problem - because now the whole family system had to be restructured around father no longer drinking, having more time, etc. He could do it on his part, but they needed to adjust as well - and this is, for me, where ecology comes up.

Imaging having a hole in the middle of your front yard for many years. Everyone walking there has learned to walk around the hole. After many years, you've finally filled the hole, so now everyone can walk straight -but aside from you, everyone is still, habitually, walking around the spot. If you walk there alone, it's not a problem - but if you walk with a couple of people, and you want to walk straight and they want to walk around - confusion is bound to appear. That's what checking for ecology is supposed to work out.

At least that's my view

Bart,

I suggest to my students a similar thing with a couple of extra things (for example multiple timelines with multiple scenarios on each one and an evaluation kind of like: "if a or b or c or d then w or x, or y or z") except there is one major difference... why wait until after the change if we have such a marvelous mental simulator! How about doing that before the change to DECIDE what, when and how to change.

Artur's example is a good one of something I do not consoder at all ecology but still I do consider a very important thing. I tell all my students and patients "if you change, really change drastically, the world around you won't be prepared and then you'll need to deal with that." It is a next step... many times a necessary next step.
Sure it has to do with systemic thinking and I agree it is very important, it is just not something I label under "ecology check". I talk about that to the therapeutic specialists when developing strategic and systemic thinking to decide better what intervention to do, when and how.

If I am not teaching people to become therapeutic specialist and it is just about their own lives, I call it learning to make good decisions.

Potato... potato.... tomato.... tomato.... labels are just labels, the important thing is what we do and how we do it.

I like threads like this because when people work in such different ways, you cannot easily compare the steps (especially when there aren't any steps).

I like Artur's post and I think he explained really well why an ecology check can sometimes be important, whether you call it an ecology check or something else.

I also think Gabe's therapeutic work - and Richard's - is so much about how systems relate, some people might even say it's a meta-chunk ecology check (amongst other things too). It doesn't need a discreet ecology check at the end because ecology is at its heart all the way along.

It's worth remembering that only a few people in the world do things the way Gabe and Richard do - and Richard even teaches most people to do things differently to how he does them himself. I think that's a shame and it's true anyway. Most NLPers learn different techniques to make different changes, and then they do an ecology check at the end of each session to try and find out why it didn't work. I know a lot of trainers and even master trainers who do that. It's a shame and it's true anyway.

Why does Richard get better results than most NLPers? Because he doesn't do what most NLPers do.

I haven't read the book so I can't say for sure but it does sound like a set of the kind of exercises Richard tells other NLPers to do with their clients and not what he does himself with his own clients.

Gabe and Richard's approach is based on how beliefs, values and metaprograms link together - and how changing one thing will change other things - and how making a few small changes will cause everything else to tumble into place - and that's a different way of working to how most NLPers work. You can't so easily put that into a book. It's much easier to just give people a few linear steps to follow. And maybe those steps should come with an ecology step... but actually I don't think that's the real problem.

The real problem with books is they tell you the same thing they tell everyone else and you can't talk back. (Well you can, but the book doesn't hear you... probably.) If you have a question, what do you do? If something doesn't feel right, what do you do? That's why I think if it's almost always better to work 1-2-1 or in small groups with a real person. And real people don't need to be expensive - you can go to a free practice group and lots of people there will be happy to help, and some very experienced people still go to practice groups. You can learn to cook step-by-step from a book, but I don't think it's really a good way to get the life you want.

Yes. That illustrates my point that a problem or a solution can be but doesn't have to be "ecological" to be successful or stick. He still stopped being an alcoholic successfully despite it not being an ecological situation. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to me that you are using "ecological" then when I would say negotiating a better deal between people or even just making some better choices. I object to the therapy myth that a way of doing something has to be ecological to stick. I would say it just has to be possible, able and committed to make it stick. Capitalism is a way of running human affairs that is obviously very successful in terms of memetics and as a way of conceiving it dominates the world in such a way that people can hardly even imagine doing anything different now but I would not say its a very "ecological" system.

Which brings me to another therapy "pet hate" of mine, that people make the best choices available to them. I certainly have made many stupid choices in my life that despite having better options available (even if I was aware of them) and them being unecological and still they stuck! The choices were simply resilient enough to withstand environmental pressures until I chose differently. I think of resilience rather than ecology. For instance it might be a better choice in a bad relationship to get out rather than attempt to negotiate a more ecological relationship. We can't control a lot of external circumstances so going for "ecology" where other parts of the system would have to change too is not always viable (unless of course the other members do want to cooperate) and a good choice maybe just exit from that particular system.

Brief note just to let you guys know I'll be all day traveling today and the next few days I won't be around as much because I'll be teaching DHE in south america. So if something great comes up here or in other threads... wait for me!!!!!! hahahaha

Yes, I've had a bit of a problem with this as well - because accepting this would mean that people either
1) have no free will (cannot choose a worse choice among these they have available) - which I personally have trouble accepting
or
2) we retroactiely label each decision made as "the best" - which is simply redundant, except for the small miniority of situations where you can use it to help someone get over guilt/shame of doing sth.

If there are other explanations, I haven't found them - but if anyone has, please share.

It's a cute way of making people feel less shitty for doing dumb stuff.

I'd put it slightly differently, Adrian, but yeah. "People make the best decisions they perceive as being available to them at the time" can also take into account those times we look back and can see we knew both choices and took the one that led us where we now don't want to be. Having that presup in mind can be really helpful to quiet trash-talking internal dialogue. That's the long form of what you said so much more succinctly above.

In cases where "parts" are at loggerheads, as with a smoker / drinker / addict who really wants to stop but keeps on doing it anyway, I might suppose there's some dissociation going on, and the "part" who wants to change isn't the part who's making the decision to drink / smoke / use. The person - not being aware of the dissociation - might find it hard to believe they made the best decision available to them if they fell back into the addiction, but I'd assume there was a functional intention being met anyway, and again I'd find that presupposition useful.

So yes, it's an opportunity forgiving ourselves, forgiving others, a new understanding from which change can happen like that.

Well everyone does things in their own way... so?

.. most NLPers don't have 35 years of experience for instance.

so when you mentioned 'most' NLPers... who are you talking about... skilled practitioners and practicing practitioners, those who integrated NLP in their being and daily life.. or those who just took a 7 day course and are now labeled as an NLPer.

then

I wonder if 'the hypnotist' video's are a show of what you claim getting 'better results'...

Indeed he doesn't do what most NLP'ers (would) do, ...

Have fun

Bart

If you choose to chunk it that way, you will lose the point of what was interesting in the context we were in before.

It's true that we each communicate differently because we each have our own unique lungs and tongues, and we each create individual intonation patterns when we speak... and so on. Of course. But that doesn't change the fact that some people speak in English and some people speak in French (and some can speak in both).

We are all unique - and we are also all members of different and multiple sets.

You say "most NLPers don't have 35 years of experience" but actually most NLPers are more than 35 years old. It's not how long you've been alive but what you've done in that time. It's not how long you've known about NLP but how you've used it and developed your understanding of it. Gabe Guerrero and Eric Robbie and Paul McKenna, to give three examples, all began co-training alongside Richard Bandler - sharing a stage with him - within a few years of meeting him. It didn't take them 35 years to get good enough. Look at Jamie Dixon - he's only 24 years old and has studied NLP for only two years - but already he has endorsements from top trainers such as John La Valle because Jamie not only did a couple of courses - he also went away and thought about things, came back with good questions and then went away again and thought some more. And he not only copied someone else's accent but started to speak several different languages... and make up his own languages... and learn about the structure of languages... and... and...

Most people run a simple program when it comes to learning NLP - I have a belief that Mr X is good; Mr X says that I should do A, B and C; therefore, when I have done A, B and C, I will believe I am good too.

In other words, they hand over responsibility for their own learning to a salesman!

I'd rather learn how the salesman is so good at selling.

C'est la vie.