Mind-Lines: Lines for Changing Minds

In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), “Leon Festinger proposed that a person who experiences internal inconsistency is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance, by making changes to justify the stressful behaviour. adding new parts to their cognition.” (Wiki). Harnessing this neural propensity for change-making is to a certain extent what conversational neurosemantics is all about, and follows on from an all-embracing philosophy of “counteracting the black magic of the primary sensory cinema - the associated movie-mind.”According to Denis Bridoux (once a student of Dr Hall) who has his own contribution to make in discovering a number of “overarching symmetries” to Hall’s model. There are two ways for a client to learn the linguistic structure of a problem and resource a better map - based on whether a slant is placed on the pacing or leading aspect of the ‘in-syncing’ harmonisation between the client and practitioner: ‘communication’ (pacing) exquisitely matches the client to elicit the structure of the existing cognitive dissonance with a meta-model interrogative question, e.g. the universal quantifier challenge of “always?”; or ‘rapport’ (leading) exquisitely mismatches the client to install the cognitive dissonance to generate the shift, e.g. the ‘allness frame’ challenge of “You always think everyone (even your mum) - who shows up late does not care about you!?”To the casual observer the differences between these two approaches can seem quite minimal with a lot of room for cross-over, for example where does Groveian Clean Language and Rogerian paraphrasing fit into the either/or schema? However, what the dissimilarities amount to are distinctions between the application of ‘meta-model’ questioning derived from therapeutic contexts (courtesy of Satir) and the application of ‘mind-line’ utterances in coaching scenarios.I mention a demarcator between ‘neurolinguistics’ and ‘neurosemantics’ [The two terms were originally referred to by Korzybski who introduced both phrases in his 1936 papers] because it is one the authors propagate; and they do not hold back in critiquing the classic model which sometimes comes across as abstrusely pedantic and somewhat theoretically cosmetic IMHO. For example, at one point the proposed alternative for the finer modal distinction termed in NLP a sub-modality is better thought of a meta-modality. Seriously, why?The material contained within Mind-Lines is if nothing else tenacious in driving home the power of conversational framing, and promoting a set of pedagogical props to assist the learner. These consist of a magic cube, eight mind-line movements and a set of fairly intelligible mind-maps (with contributions by Bridoux). First and foremost it is important to understand the two implicit structures or levels of meaning: involving primary associations or linkages - how content is made inside the box - i.e. ‘this external behaviour leads to or equals that internal state’; and, secondly, the embedment of frame upon frame (up framing) - how contexts are formed outside the box - i.e. ‘idea x is embedded inside of idea y’.The secret sauce to the whole shebang is that for each of the two levels - building upon Korzybski’s theory of Structural Differential, (i.e. event-object-description-inferences) - there are a number of customary ways to tackle belief systems. Inside the box - corresponding to the deductive reasoning of sensory based descriptions (the movie mind) - mind-lines redefine the ‘content’ from one frame of reference to another using chunking down, strategies, reframes of external behaviour, reframes of internal state, (self) reflexive reframing and counter-exampling (with cartesian quadrants). Outside and above the box - corresponding to the inductive reasoning of evaluative symbolic systems (inferences) - out-framing refers to shifting the ‘context’ by artfully challenging the client into considering different frames of reference.These mind-lines are ‘directionalised’ through what Hall calls “the three spells of languaging” in explaining the effects on consciousness: ‘vertical shifting down’ patterns break the spell of universality by deframing via precision and clarity; ‘horizontal shifting across’ breaks the spell of evaluation by constructing new realities and reframing old realities. The ‘vertical shifting up’ pattern of out-framing creates the spell of embedded framing or multi-layering frames upon frames, in simple meta-projections, eg “I will never amount to anything”; then the vertical shifts further upwards to a meta-meta level (state about a state) and self-fulfilling prophecies, eg. “this is the way life is going to be”; and then upwards further still to the highest ‘up-frame’ (enhancing frame of reference) that out frames all lower frames into “mis-beliefs and erroneous conclusions of self-blame”, eg. “those are the ideas you built as a little child!”In summary, Mind-Lines (2002) is a considerable evolution on Bandler and Grinder’s ‘Reframing: NLP and the Transformation of Meaning’ (1982), and owes much of its debtitude to Dilt’s ‘Sleight of Mouth: The Magic of Conversational Belief Change’ (1999). It is not an easy read by any reframing of the imagination, not because the material is difficult, but in having so many options in changing beliefs to explore! Also the scalable simplicity of the magic cube as a mnemonic device means you only ever need to go as deep as you really want to and still not loose sight of the eight belief-busting mind directions - and lest not forget there is analogous reframing too which hovers somewhere off plan in Hall’s and Bodenhamer’s model of the world. What a world to discover!

This book is 5 stars as a reference work. However you would be better off starting off with something easier to get you up and running. I would recommend Doug O'briens audio (sleight of mouth Its called), you can find it via googleThe book itself can feel like hard work as its very dense. But it is very comprehensive and makes for a good reference book once you have a basic understanding of the patterns. Also I would recommend Dilts Sleight of Mouth book.One of the best things about the book is it teaches you the importance of deframing the belief first, that makes reframing much easier, as the logical flaws become more obvious.I recommend that you start by writing down your own limiting beliefs in a word document. Create a template with all the patterns listed and a space to write out the reframe. After you have done several you will start to become skilled with the patterns and over time you can go back and edit the document as you become better. You will start to notice results both in terms of improvement in your own thinking patterns and your reframing skills. Its a really wonderful experience when you feel a paradigm shift on a negative thinking pattern that has troubled you for years.This stuff really brings NLP to life and makes it practical

An excellent companion to the work of Roberts Dilts and Sleight of Mouth. It takes it on by looking at external actions and the internal states that it creates. Takes a bit of time to read and is more of a manual of reframing however some excellent gems in here. Magic if you are prepared to put in the time. I loved the frame they put around things that are "complex". Its true that your mind opens when the frame changes. Wish we could make this easy to learn for everyone and the world and your world would change, wouldn't it? That has to be is the bigger ambition for NLP. Mind lines is a skill to master over time and worth it.

Good book enjoying reading good tip have been play around with them and had lot of fun

i think its complex for the average jo its looked like some university assignment of theisis but great thought processes none the less

Terrific, thought provoking in the extreme, a useful, practical guide to getting the best out of change work - if you're NLP trained and haven't read it - read it now. Dive deep.

Doesn't really pin down the subject.Lots of NLP-like talk but not much essence.I was left with the impression that the two authors don't fully master the domain.Best is to get a 'slight-of-mouth' book from the source