Vol. 37 – September 18, 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 37. Unspecified Verbs
When it remains unspecified how the action is being performed.
If we hear someone say something like the following sentence, “She went to the store,” we would have no idea exactly how she went to the store. Of course there are other things in this sentence we’re can’t be sure of either, like who she is, etc., but for our purposes here, we are focusing on the unspecified verb.
So, as the listener employing the meta model, we might be tempted to ask precisely how she transported herself to said business establishment. When we are the speaker and our outcome is to be artfully vague, we deliberately can say things like the following, all of which contain unspecified verbs:
“Go into trance now.””People can learn these patterns rapidly.”
“You may enjoy a delightful experience.”
“And you can drop down into that good feeling.”
Have I mentioned lately how much I like your hair? It really looks good that way.
Oh, and by the way, practice using these patterns this week – won’t you?
And Have Fun.
See you next week.
