Hi John, Carmen, Jim... This is not a specific reply to Jim...simply a continuation of the theme "modelling how to's". I have recently returned from a seminar with Steve Andreas where he presented what he terms his "modelling of self-concept" (hence my lack of recent posting to this forum...much catching up to do!). Steve has used mainly the tools of submodalities elicitation to formulate a very useful model of self-concept. He finds out how people build generalisations about themselves over time as related to identity (I am...kind, caring, persistent, patient, tenacious, thoughtful etc, etc.) From this positive template he then maps across qualities that are ambiguous (e.g. polarities), fine tuning them and resolving differences to build a strong quality across time. He has taken what was the old rather blunderbuss visual squash and markedly updated it with a very powerful set of processes acting at identity level. This has been one of the most stimulating and productive NLP seminars I have ever attended. During the seminar we also "tried on" (modelled) each others "models of the world", changing and rearranging our own, with great attention to unconscious feedback and communication, thus strengthening our own self-concept. My experience of the process is that of a greater sense of personal congruence and integrity across contexts, a theme which you both repeatedly stress in WITW (and discussed in another thread). As a by-product, the process seems to generate a high performance feed forward state which includes recursivity and feedback...again something you both prize highly. Now, according to WITW, you would not consider this to be a legitimate modelling project...more of a strategy elicitation with existing NLP tools. Yet Steve, in his many years of investigating how individuals organise their self-concept, has brought together an unique model which has great scope in application and the potential for profound ecological change (I have used it with some patients already). So, I am puzzled...why would this very useful model not be considered a product of modelling? Is he simply "messing around with content"? In the same hand we could also consider a much older, and greatly utilised tool...that of the Phobia Cure. My understanding of its development was that you (John) and Richard Bandler found some people who had successfully gotten over their phobias and elicited how they actually did this. The processes underlying this model have also been used to augment procedures such as re-imprinting and the counter-example process (allergy cure) both of which I have used to great effect. Is this (the phobia cure) something that you consider to have been modelled...or not. And if not...why not? (BTW I used it twice in the last two weeks to make a huge difference in PTSD). I suppose my point is that the above tools are extremely effective in getting results and are unarguably the product of NLP thinking. I would be most interested in your thoughts as to how they fit within your definitions of modelling...or not! It's nice to be back :o) Best wishes, Lewis.