Presuppositions

The NLP is based upon “presuppositions”, the reason is because we “presuppose” that they are true, and we take them as guides that define our actions in the different contexts in which we perform. There is by no means a purpose to define this presuppositions as absolutely true or universal, but if they are taken as true or certain, they will give resources that will optimize our life and our relationship with others and ourselves. Acting as if these presuppositions were true will let us obtain the most of the NLP models. There are two fundamental NLP presuppositions, but there are also basic ones, and The Ericksonian:

Operative Presuppositions:

1. - Mind and body are part of the same cybernetic system: The name cybernetic is used in here to indicate that this mind-body system is characterized for interacting as an open circuit of communication. They both interact and influence each other. This can be confirmed with the fact that if there is a change in one, the other will be affected in one way or another; both are part of the human ecology.

2. – All behaviors have positive intention: Every conduct has as an objective to get a benefit. The NLP distinguishes the intention or purpose of a conduct, from the conduct itself. At the same time, a person is not his or her conduct. The behavior will only look negative, because we do not know its purpose. The NLP gives us the tools to reach those objectives, alternative resources that are more efficient that can expand our options as human beings, substituting the restraining behaviors or answers.

3. - Every behavior is useful in a determinate context: It is necessary to explore every behavior in the lens of the context or environment where it develops. Doing it in a different way, the behavior can be seen as illogical, irrational or out of place.

4. - People count potentially with every necessary resource to change and to act differently: Along our personal history we have been accumulating experiences, from them we can obtain the necessary tools to develop ourselves as people and deal with elegance and flexibility any event that gets in our path. There are specific NLP models that accomplish this function, to rescue resources from our experience and install the necessary tools to create them.

5. - The meaning of our communication is in the answer that we obtain: This has to do with our flexibility as communicators, and it means that we have to adjust and attune our communication in order to obtain the answer we desire, instead of assuming that the failure comes from the receptor in the communication.

6. - People respond to their map of reality and not to reality itself: Because of our filters or limitations of our perception, we can only create maps of reality in our inner representations, and based on those maps we act and respond.

Every person has a different experience; because of that, two human beings will not be able to have the same maps or models of the world. Therefore, each person creates a different model from the same world that they share, and for that matter, each one will experience a different reality.

7. - There are no errors in communication, only feedback: If the obtained answer is not the expected one, we need to take that answer as a useful one that can gives us feedback to be able to modify our execution and that way, get the results we are expecting.

8. - If it is possible for someone, it is possible for me: The detection and/or creation of efficient models take us straight to excellence. If someone has the ability to do something, the model and strategies that make that capacity possible, can be extracted and can be taught and installed in other person.

9. - We process reality through our own mind-body: We create our own experiences and are responsible for what those experiences provoke in ourselves. Quoting Marco Aurelio: "If you feel anxious for any external thing, the pain is not caused by the thing itself, but by your own estimation of it", so, you have the power to eliminate it at any time. Talking about the impact of our perceptions in our personal state, "The experience is not what happens to a man, but what he does with what happens to him".

10. - If something is not working for you, then why keep doing it: This presupposition has to do with the flexibility that we want to obtain in order to achieve our goals. If we constantly are reconfirming that the expected result is never reached, we need to start implementing other ways until we get what we set out for. Every unsuccessful attempt is not a failure, but a discovery of one more way of how not to get our goal, and it is simply a process of learning.

Bandler and Grinder tell us, that to be efficient in an action field, we have to count with the flexibility and elegance that having multiple options give us. About this, they say: "If you only count with an option, you are a robot, if you count with two options, you are in a dilemma; only with three or more options you can be flexible".