Submodality (NLP)
Encyclopedia
Submodalities in neuro-linguistic programming
are distinctions of form or structure (rather than content) within a sensory representational system
. For example, regardless of the content, both external and mental images of any kind will be either colored or monochrome, and stationary or moving. These parameters are submodalities within the visual sense. Similarly, both remembered and actual sounds will be mono or stereo when experienced internally, so mono/stereo is a submodality of sound.
NLP asserts that far from being arbitrary or unimportant, these submodalities often perform a functional role, as a means by which emotion
s, related memories
, felt-sense perceptions such as "importance", and so on, are presented to consciousness
by the unconscious mind
, along with thought
s or memories
. The metaphor of "distancing oneself" is taken quite literally, the mental representation
of something unimportant is "farther away" than something important.
NLP asserts that amongst the many possible submodalities, there will often be a handful of so-called "critical" submodalities which can functionally effect large-scale change, and that they differ between people, and can be identified by observation and inquiry. NLP states that a change within these critical submodalities will often correlate with a near-immediate subjective change in the emotion or other felt-sense with which a mental impression presents itself.
Submodalities are therefore seen in NLP as offering a valuable therapeutic insight (or metaphor
) and potential working methods, into how the human mind internally organizes and subjectively 'views' events. Anthony Robbins, a motivational speaker and NLP proponent, states that "our ability to change the way we feel depends upon our ability to change our submodalities."
(NLP), that human beings 'code' internal experiences using aspects of their different senses.
Specifically for most people, research within NLP states that the brain
often uses these structural elements as a way to 'know' how it feels about them, and what they signify internally. The link is stated to be bilateral - that is, emotions attached to a mental experience are affected by certain submodalities with which it is associated, and specific submodalities can also be affected if the emotional significance changes.
. For example, in visual terms, common distinctions include: brightness, degree of colour (saturation), size, distance, sharpness, focus, and so on; in auditory: loudness, pitch, tonal range, distance, clarity, timbre, and so on.
Ordinarily, one can establish these by asking questions:
A more extensive list of common submodalities is given below.
For most people, there will be a handful of such distinctions which are 'critical' to emotional perception, and thus to their mental processing. For example, these might be submodalities that distinguish optimistic thoughts from depressive ones, or which distinguish compelling and important thoughts from less compelling ones. For any given individual, a submodality that turns out to be critical in how a given memory or thought is subjectively experienced, is known as a critical submodality.
The discovery that the emotion associated with a thought is often functionally linked to the submodalities with which that thought is presented to consciousness, led to a variety of brief therapy
NLP interventions based upon change of these key submodalities. In effect, voluntary change of submodalities on the part of the subject was often found to alter long-term the concomitant 'feeling' response, paving the way for a number of change techniques based on deliberately changing internal representations. NLP co-originator Richard Bandler
in particular has made extensive use of submodality manipulations in the evolution of his work.
To match these subjective distinctions, Eric Robbie (an NLP trainer) demonstrated in 1984 that submodalities can be reliably distinguished from external behaviour - in the case of visual submodalities, subtle changes in the eye and facial muscles surrounding the eye are good indicators of specific visual submodalities; in the case of auditory, subtle changes in the muscles surrounding the ears perform the same function for auditory submodalities, and in the case of kinesthetic, subtle changes in the musculature of the body reveal subjective variations in that modality too.
Neuro-linguistic programming
Neuro-linguistic programming is an approach to psychotherapy, self-help and organizational change. Founders Richard Bandler and John Grinder say that NLP is a model of interpersonal communication and a system of alternative therapy which seeks to educate people in self-awareness and effective...
are distinctions of form or structure (rather than content) within a sensory representational system
Representational systems (NLP)
Representational systems is a neuro-linguistic programming model that examines how the human mind processes information. It states that for practical purposes, information is processed through the senses...
. For example, regardless of the content, both external and mental images of any kind will be either colored or monochrome, and stationary or moving. These parameters are submodalities within the visual sense. Similarly, both remembered and actual sounds will be mono or stereo when experienced internally, so mono/stereo is a submodality of sound.
NLP asserts that far from being arbitrary or unimportant, these submodalities often perform a functional role, as a means by which emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
s, related memories
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
, felt-sense perceptions such as "importance", and so on, are presented to consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
by the unconscious mind
Unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is a term coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
, along with thought
Thought
"Thought" generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination...
s or memories
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
. The metaphor of "distancing oneself" is taken quite literally, the mental representation
Mental representation
A representation, in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality, or else a mental process that makes use of such a symbol; "a formal system for making explicit certain entities or types...
of something unimportant is "farther away" than something important.
NLP asserts that amongst the many possible submodalities, there will often be a handful of so-called "critical" submodalities which can functionally effect large-scale change, and that they differ between people, and can be identified by observation and inquiry. NLP states that a change within these critical submodalities will often correlate with a near-immediate subjective change in the emotion or other felt-sense with which a mental impression presents itself.
Submodalities are therefore seen in NLP as offering a valuable therapeutic insight (or metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
) and potential working methods, into how the human mind internally organizes and subjectively 'views' events. Anthony Robbins, a motivational speaker and NLP proponent, states that "our ability to change the way we feel depends upon our ability to change our submodalities."
More
The concept of submodalities arose in the field of neuro-linguistic programmingNeuro-linguistic programming
Neuro-linguistic programming is an approach to psychotherapy, self-help and organizational change. Founders Richard Bandler and John Grinder say that NLP is a model of interpersonal communication and a system of alternative therapy which seeks to educate people in self-awareness and effective...
(NLP), that human beings 'code' internal experiences using aspects of their different senses.
Specifically for most people, research within NLP states that the brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
often uses these structural elements as a way to 'know' how it feels about them, and what they signify internally. The link is stated to be bilateral - that is, emotions attached to a mental experience are affected by certain submodalities with which it is associated, and specific submodalities can also be affected if the emotional significance changes.
Definition of a submodality
Submodalities refers to the subjective structural subdivisions within a given representational systemRepresentational systems (NLP)
Representational systems is a neuro-linguistic programming model that examines how the human mind processes information. It states that for practical purposes, information is processed through the senses...
. For example, in visual terms, common distinctions include: brightness, degree of colour (saturation), size, distance, sharpness, focus, and so on; in auditory: loudness, pitch, tonal range, distance, clarity, timbre, and so on.
Ordinarily, one can establish these by asking questions:
- "This image - is it bright, or dim? Coloured or black and white? How much colour? Is it big or small? Is it near or far? In focus, or out of focus?"
- "This sound - is it loud or soft? Is it high pitched or low pitched? Does it have a range? Is it near or far? Is it one point source or spread out? Where is it coming from? Is it clear or muffled?"
- "That feeling in your body - where is it? Does it have a size? A temperature? Which direction does it move? Does it have a texture? Is it hard or soft? What colour is it?"
A more extensive list of common submodalities is given below.
NLP views of submodalities
According to core NLP research, each person's brain seems to code emotional significance differently through variations in mental "image" or representation. Examples found include people whose unconscious minds place black borders around bad memories, people for whom visual images seen dimly are less compelling than those seen brightly, people for whom a subjectively "good" memory is accompanied by one kind of sound whilst a "bad" memory is accompanied by another, and so on.For most people, there will be a handful of such distinctions which are 'critical' to emotional perception, and thus to their mental processing. For example, these might be submodalities that distinguish optimistic thoughts from depressive ones, or which distinguish compelling and important thoughts from less compelling ones. For any given individual, a submodality that turns out to be critical in how a given memory or thought is subjectively experienced, is known as a critical submodality.
The discovery that the emotion associated with a thought is often functionally linked to the submodalities with which that thought is presented to consciousness, led to a variety of brief therapy
Brief therapy
Brief psychotherapy or Brief therapy is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches to psychotherapy. It differs from other schools of therapy in that it emphasises a focus on a specific problem and direct intervention...
NLP interventions based upon change of these key submodalities. In effect, voluntary change of submodalities on the part of the subject was often found to alter long-term the concomitant 'feeling' response, paving the way for a number of change techniques based on deliberately changing internal representations. NLP co-originator Richard Bandler
Richard Bandler
Richard Wayne Bandler is an American author and trainer in the field of self-help. He is best known as the co-inventor of Neuro-linguistic programming , a collection of concepts and techniques intended to understand and change human behavior-patterns...
in particular has made extensive use of submodality manipulations in the evolution of his work.
To match these subjective distinctions, Eric Robbie (an NLP trainer) demonstrated in 1984 that submodalities can be reliably distinguished from external behaviour - in the case of visual submodalities, subtle changes in the eye and facial muscles surrounding the eye are good indicators of specific visual submodalities; in the case of auditory, subtle changes in the muscles surrounding the ears perform the same function for auditory submodalities, and in the case of kinesthetic, subtle changes in the musculature of the body reveal subjective variations in that modality too.
List of submodalities
Examples of distinctions that are embedded within sensory impressions include:| Representation system | Examples of submodalities |
|---|---|
| Visual Visual perception Visual perception is the ability to interpret information and surroundings from the effects of visible light reaching the eye. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight, or vision... (sight, images, spatial) |
|
| Auditory Hearing (sense) Hearing is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations through an organ such as the ear. It is one of the traditional five senses... (sound, voice) |
Monaural Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path... / stereo STEREO STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth... Pitch (music) Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,... , tempo Tempo In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:... , rhythm Rhythm Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or... , pace, duration, intensity, harmony |
| Kinesthetic (propreceptive, somatic) |
Proprioception Proprioception , from Latin proprius, meaning "one's own" and perception, is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement... : Somatic sensation, location in the body, movement direction Thermoception Thermoception or thermoreception is the sense by which an organism perceives temperature. The details of how temperature receptors work are still being investigated. Ciliopathy is associated with decreased ability to sense heat, thus cilia may aid in the process... : temperature |
| Olfactory/Gustatory |
Taste Taste is one of the traditional five senses. It refers to the ability to detect the flavor of substances such as food, certain minerals, and poisons, etc.... Olfaction Olfaction is the sense of smell. This sense is mediated by specialized sensory cells of the nasal cavity of vertebrates, and, by analogy, sensory cells of the antennae of invertebrates... |
See also
- Neuro-linguistic programmingNeuro-linguistic programmingNeuro-linguistic programming is an approach to psychotherapy, self-help and organizational change. Founders Richard Bandler and John Grinder say that NLP is a model of interpersonal communication and a system of alternative therapy which seeks to educate people in self-awareness and effective...
- Sensory systems
- Representational systems (NLP)Representational systems (NLP)Representational systems is a neuro-linguistic programming model that examines how the human mind processes information. It states that for practical purposes, information is processed through the senses...