Vol. 33 – August 21, 2005
Ericksonian Hypnotic Language Patterns
Reverse Meta Model
In NLP the “meta model” is Bandler and Grinder’s name for the wellformedness conditions of the surface structure of the English language*. (*See their book “The Structure of Magic.”) In Hypnosis we sometimes chose to deliberately violate these wellformedness conditions (“reversing the meta model”) in order to be purposefully and artfully vague.
Pattern 33. Modal Operators of Necessity/ Possibility
Should / shouldn’t / must / mustn’t / can / can’t / have to / etc.
Example:
“You don’t have to listen to every word that I say, you can just listen to the sound of my voice as you drift down deeply into trance.”
Here’s an example from Milton, after his client said he didn’t want to come back from a trance:
“No, you don’t want to come back from a trance, you don’t want a charming movie to end, you don’t want a flower to wilt, but you do like reality!”
33.A. Chaining Modal Operators
Example:
“I know you think you can’t do it on your own, but when you feel you can’t, you must try, and if you try you’ll find that you can find new possibilities opening up to you that you will be able to take advantage of.”
You could practice your language skills and have fun, or your mightpractice your language skills and feel confident that you’re improving rapidly. Either way, you must admit, practice makes perfecter, don’t it?
See you next week.
