2. Prologue: offers some simple opening remarks about the
current context in which we find NLP and some typical
contemporary perceptions of it.
Chapter 1: Epistemology - an explicit presentation of the epistemology underlying NLP. The reader is warned that this section requires close attention. While it is possible to appreciate many portions of the succeeding material without an explicit understanding of the epistemology presented in this section, we consider it crucial to any serious student of the technology. We argue for a sharp distinction between the set of neurological transforms that process the incoming data stream from the world up to the point where we as humans first gain access to it (primary experience) and the set of transforms subsequent to that point, focusing on the linguistic mapping and their effects (secondary experience). Korzybski's famous map/territory distinction is challenged and refined. Some of the implications for NLP are explored.
Chapter 2: Terminology: a number of key terms in NLP and in particular for this book are defined with commentary.
Chapter 3: Intellectual Antecedents of NLP: here we identify and characterize the most influential sources of the strategies, methodologies and patterning that deeply influenced the co-creators, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, and the processes that they used during the creation of NLP.
Chapter 4: Personal Antecedents: a representation from the point of view of one of the two co-creators of NLP of the personal characteristics that played an important role in the discovery processes that created the field of NLP. The reader is reassured that the accidents of one person's tortuous personal history represents only one (and a quite unlikely one) way of achieving the skills necessary to engage in the modeling of excellence.
Chapter 1: Contexts of Discovery: a series of historical narratives with commentary in which the reader is invited to consider how specifically the initial modeling of genius and the associated activities that created the field of NLP occurred. Special attention is paid to the contexts and processes of discovery.
Chapter 2: The Breakthrough Pattern: we make explicit the features of NLP that distinguish it from other systems of change. We then offer a historical narrative, describing the emergence of the breakthrough pattern that casts a revealing light on certain unfortunate choices made by Bandler and Grinder in their enthusiastic initial coding of the patterns of excellence in the NLP's classic code. After an analysis of the breakthrough pattern, we offer a critical analysis of the classic code illuminated by the differences revealed in the breakthrough pattern.
Chapter 3: The New Code: we establish the historical context in which the New Code emerged. This is followed by a presentation of design strategy behind its creation and a teasing out of some of the implications. The new code change format is presented with a specific new code game. The topic of multiple perceptual positions with special emphasis on that privileged set of perceptual positions - Triple Description - is offered.
Chapter 1: Some Key Issues in NLP modeling
a. Coding issues: the presentation of a number of issues associated with coding, including the tension between elegance in Modeling and pedagogical requirements.
b. Ordering Functions: a study in the ordering relationships common found in NLP patterning. Distinctions are drawn between linear and hierarchical orderings and a number of different relationships by which such orderings are created are examined.
c. Logical Levels and Logical Types: a brief excursion in the historical development of the notion of logical type. This is followed by an analysis and a proposed reform of usage, given the distinctions uncovered and explicated
Chapter 2: Some Key Issues in NLP application and NLP training
a. Sorting functions: the beginning of an explicit strategy for knowing, given a specific presenting problem, how to select the appropriate pattern for an effective intervention.
b. Chunking and Logical Levels: the development of a careful argument beginning with ordinary chunking exercises and resulting in the precise sorting of two of the most common ordering relationships in hierarchies: logical level (generated by logical inclusion) and part/whole hierarchies. Several applications are described.
c. Form and Substance: Process and Content: a preliminary effort to make explicit one of the key differentiators in NLP activities, both modeling and application.
Chapter 3: Recommendations: an invitation to consider a series of specific recommendations to the NLP community of how specifically the quality of work in NLP can be improved and what specific steps we as a community might take to ensure that NLP takes its rightful place in making useful and insightful contributions to an appreciation of how we as humans function, with, of course, special focus on performances of excellence. This discussion is followed by a commentary on how the patterning of NLP might be applied in wider social contexts.
One final suggestion on the use of this book - one of the co-authors, Grinder, worked as a professional linguist prior to participating along with Bandler in the creation of NLP. In the tradition of linguist research, there is a tendency to put in the footnotes some of the most interesting observations, albeit ones that have yet to be adequately explicated. While footnotes in a book are typically considered something of a requirement and incidental to the material - we have chosen to follow the tradition of linguistics. Our footnotes offer commentary and description that are quite rich and we urge the reader to consider them carefully…