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This page provides the links to the backnumber
issues of the newsletter
written in Japanese by Taiten Kitaoka, a Japanese NLP trainer/facilitator.
Note: This "provocative" title of the newsletter is meant to suggest
that Taiten
Kitaoka's NLP work is the first attempt for the integrated NLP in the
Japanese market.
It is not meant to claim that his NLP work is genuine in a more general
sense.
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Issue #7: 2003.12.14.
'This is the Genuine NLP!'
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The author, who has been formally trained by the four most important co-developers
of NLP (Grinder, Bandler, Dilts, and DeLozier) will send newsletters containing
a variety of information concerning the advanced communication psychology/
pragmatic psychology known as NLP.
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"Expansion of Identity through NLP"
Hello everybody! I am Taiten Kitaoka, a Japanese NLP trainer/facilitator.
In this issue of the newsletter, I would like to expound whether our identities
can be changed or expanded in the first place, and if so, whether it is
necessary to change or expand our identities:
First of all, one of the NLP presuppositions (these presuppositions are
like mathematical axioms, which cannot be proved to be true by themselves,
and are a certain number of statements aimed at reframing our ways of
thinking) is "The Map is Not the Territory". (This statement is a pre-NLP
one, and was made by the general semanticist, Alfred Korzybski.)
This presupposition means that our own model of the world, or map of the
world, a construction based on the already filtered data entering our
own brain through our sensory channels is not the raw reality itself,
as something actually happening out there. That is, using the computer
metaphor, when raw data enters the computer system, the data itself can
never be displayed on the monitor as it is; it must necessarily be processed
first by a certain program residing in the system, before it can be displayed
on the monitor. For instance, the entry of sound is displayed as visual
effect diagrams on the monitor after being processed by sound effect visualising
software. Even if the entry is sound and it is listened to with the computer,
that sound must be first be transformed into digitalised electronic signals,
before being played with specialised software.
If the same metaphor is continued, we usually become happy or unhappy
about what is happening on the computer monitor (i.e., the map), and hardly
decide to check what kind of raw data (i.e., the territory) is actually
happening in reality (that is, supposing that we can come to know reality
itself). What can become an extremely serious problem here is that there
is a possibility that, despite the fact that different pieces of raw data
are entered into the system, the same images and sounds may be repeated
again and again due to the limitation of the programs processing the data.
For instance, the computer keyboards are case sensitive when entering
English text, but some of the dialog boxes may display the entered text
always in the upper case. In this case, although data with important information
with different values enters the system, that information may be lost
on the monitor. Also, in the case of sound effect visualising software,
the sounds which visually look the same on the monitor may have been completely
different ones before they entered the system (in this case, the possibility
for these sounds to have been the same before entering the system must
be very low).
For this reason, if we fail to make efforts to continue to check the actual
"territory" and to update the latest "map" accordingly, Batesonian "logical
typing errors" may occur, and people who are trapped in such traps may
continue almost forever the life in which they never can achieve what
they really want, whatever things they may try. It seems that these logical
typing errors are the reason why we usually continue to cling to the identities
which we happen to have acquired in our childhood, and cannot change or
expand them in the ways we want.
With regard to this topic, Robert Dilts, who is practically the Number
Three of NLP, presents a very interesting and important model. This model
is called "Neuro-logical Levels" and can be referred to at the following
Web page:
http://www.creativity.co.uk/creativity/magazine/library/identity1.htm
According to Dilts, human beings operate on five different logical levels,
when processing information. These neuro-logical levels are, from bottom
to top, 1) Environment, 2) Behaviour, 3) Capabilities, 4) Belief/Value
and 5) Identity.
In other words, human beings consist of several logical types of inner
perception or consciousness and can be said to be choosing, or identifying
themselves with, one of these logical types of consciousness at any given
moment of time. For instance, the fact that human beings are flexible
on this point can be illustrated by the examples of your driving a car
or of a blind person using a stick to guide himself or herself. In the
former case, when you steer the wheel of the car to turn on a curve on
the highway, are you just your body? Or is the wheel not a part of you?
Or do you not feel tangibly the interface between the tyres of the car
and the road, as if it was the boundary between the "inner" and the "outer"?
etc. Or, in the latter case, can you tell whether the blind person's identity
is just up to his or her hand or extends to the edge of his or her stick?
etc. In fact, while our consciousness can identify itself with our hand
or stomach, it can also be identified with a family, a company, a race,
a religion, mankind, etc.
The most important point we have to pay attention to here is the fact
that the upper logical levels include and transcend the lower levels,
and that changes in what is happening on the upper levels necessarily
affect and change what is happening on the lower levels, while changes
in what is happening on the lower levels don't necessarily affect and
change what is happening on the upper levels.
The implication of this model is that it is an extremely powerful model
enabling us to recognise that our "real self" is neither the environment
we happen to be in, the behavioural patterns we acquired in our childhood,
the capabilities we have been accumulating, the belief we have been clinging
to, nor the identity which we believe we are. Also from the point of view
of NLP, this model enables us to clearly understand that the problems
as "content" happening on lower logical levels cannot be solved on the
same (content) level, but can be solved only by changes or manipulations
on higher levels, as "context", than these lower levels. This mechanism
also serves as the theoretical background for "Brief Therapy" which has
recently become popular in Japan.
Incidentally, this model of neuro-logical levels can be mapped almost
perfectly with the model of "hierarchy of five levels of basic needs"
proposed by Abraham Maslow, a humanistic psychologist, as well as with
the "Five Sheath" model found in the psychology of Ancient India.
If viewed in the above way, our identity is not something which is absolute
and unchangeable, to be maintained perpetually forever, but something
we could "freely" change like the skin of a snake (of course, if we don't
want, we don't need to change it). In this connection, John Lilly, who
did experiments on communication with dolphins, isolation (floating) tanks,
etc., made the following statement in his "The Centre of the Cyclone":
"What one believes to be true, either is true or becomes true in one's
mind, within limits to be determined experimentally and experientially.
These limits are beliefs to be transcended."
The idea that our identities can be changed usually gives us a feeling
of release, but as the same time may tend to make us feel great unease,
but such uneasy feeling may be ameliorated if the following metaphor I
wrote in the fourth issue of the newsletter is pondered over:
"Unless we are able to know how to change the single disk or CD-ROM which
has been used for our whole life since our birth, we will never be able
to see the data which we want to see, hear and feel on the computer monitor.
That is to say, the scope of our experience that we can have on the monitor
is pre-determined by the nature of the inserted CD-ROM (or disk), and
if we don't know how to change the CD-ROM (or disk), or if we don't want
to change it, then we will be destined to repeat the same banal experience
on the monitor again and again for ever. The psychotherapeutic schools
before NLP can then be said to have naively believed (probably to the
extent that their naivety may be "criminal") that the traumas which the
clients have been suffering from can be automatically solved, simply by
making them do catharsis in the process of re-experiencing the past scenes
of the traumas again and again on the monitor, which are accessed from
the CD-ROM (or disk) where the data has been saved. On the other hand,
NLP teaches us how consciously not to insert the CD-ROM (disk) containing
the data related to the traumatic scenes into the drive, and/or how to
create a plural number of CD-ROM's (or disks) containing the data related
to the scenes which we want to see, hear and feel, in order to always
consciously insert into the drive one of these CD-ROM's (or disks) which
is the most suitable to the situation we face at any given moment in time."
That is, the "CD-ROM" mentioned in the above metaphor can be equated with
our identity, and it can be reasoned from the metaphor that we can create
a set of new identities (CD-ROM's) and use some or all of them according
to the needs we have (if we choose to do so). Of course, because we could
continue to keep the existing CD-ROM as an option, if we want to do so,
the fear that the expansion of our identity necessarily completely extinguishes
our old identity is beside the mark.
As the means to change or expand our identities, NLP Personal Editing
techniques turn out to be very effective. Especially, with regard to the
technique exercise called "Alignment of Neuro-logical Levels", I have
seen practitioners of the exercise experiencing very important emotional
changes during their exercise.
Incidentally, knowing that we could change our environment, behaviour,
capabilities, belief, and identity enables us to have very relative perspectives.
And there is a very interesting academic report in this regard:
Namely, one of the most prominent anthropological professors in Japan,
Prof. Masayuki Nishie, once gave the following account of the results
of an anthropological study in one of his university lectures in the past.
A research team of anthropologists made a comparative study of different
civilisations using a combination of interviews and field work. They first
asked Japanese students the question "Which do you think is superior,
the Japanese civilisation or the Bushmen's civilisation in Africa? And
Why do you think so?"
The almost ubiquitous answer from them was, as can be expected, "Of course,
our Japanese civilisation; we can build skyscrapers, high speed 'bullet
trains', computers, etc., but the Bushmen cannot." (Incidentally, it is
quite interesting to notice that these students were referring to the
Japanese nation as a whole; none of them were by themselves able to build
any of the things they had enumerated!)
However, these researchers went on to study Bushmen's civilisation, and
they found out in their field work that these people can tell the direction
in which a herd of giraffes had been going, how long ago they passed,
and how many there were, simply by examining the excrement left by the
animals on the ground; that they can wash their face, body and clothes
with only a glass of water; that they are able to see clearly what is
found on the horizon, etc. It was obvious that all of these achievements
were beyond the reach of the Japanese. From this point of view, therefore,
the Bushmen's civilisation could be considered superior to the Japanese.
For the scientific purposes of their study, the anthropologists used 20,000
items of comparison (criteria) to reach as "objective" a result as possible,
and when they came to the end of their exhaustive research comparing the
two civilisations in question, it turned out that the Japanese civilisation
was "superior" to the Bushmen's according to 10,000 criteria and that
the latter was "superior" to the former according to the remaining 10,000.
The scientists therefore had to come to the logical conclusion that neither
of these civilisations can be said to be superior to the other, i.e.,
that they are equal.
They continued to apply this method of research to civilisations around
the world, and whenever they compared two given civilisation A and B,
they always arrived at the same conclusion that A was superior to B by
10,000 criteria, and vice versa. This meant that all civilisations are
equal.
Here, I would be inclined to stretch this astonishing discovery of modern
anthropology a little further to say that the people living in the 20th
century are equal to so-called primitive men who lived in caves during
the prehistoric age. I am further inclined to accept the possibility that
any living systems including human beings, animals, plants and amoebas,
should be, as far as they are independent and self-regulating systems,
deemed to be equal to each other.
Such relativism is something related to the basic principles of NLP, and
there is in fact a statement "The positive worth of an individual is held
constant, while the value and appropriateness of internal and/or external
behaviour is questioned" as one of the NLP presuppositions.
I personally think that the best way of training ourselves to incorporate
such relative perspectives is to assimilate ourselves with another culture
to our own, and to master the language used in that culture. Usually,
we are surprised to know that not only our gesture and posture, but also
our capabilities, belief, and identity sound and look different between
when we speak our native tongue and when we speak another language.
With regard to speaking foreign languages, Japanese are seemingly quite
bad at it, while young people walking on the street in almost all European
countries including the emerging former Eastern Europe and even Russia
can more or less manage to speak English. (The nation worst at speaking
English in Europe seems to be Italians as far as I know. The fact that
their vowels are similar to those in Japanese may be the reason for this
fact.) It is true that Europeans may easily speak English because their
own languages are structurally similar to English, but I have actually
seen a number of Chinese, Taiwanese, Hong Kong people and Singaporeans
managing to speak fluent English.
I would like to add one more thing in relation to changes/expansion of
our identities:
One of the NLP FAQ (frequently asked questions) is "Even after learning
NLP technique exercises, I don't know how to apply them in my real daily
life. What should I do?" I personally have never encountered people asking
this question in my experience in therapy and NLP in the West for the
last 20 years, and have never thought of this question myself, so I think
that this question is very probably peculiar to the Japanese mind.
I can think of two possible reasons as to why the patterns learnt in the
NLP exercises cannot be automatically applied in the daily life. The first
reason may be that NLP practitioners of course must consciously repeat
these learnt patterns in their daily lives to a certain extent before
they become automatic, but this situation may be equally the case with
the West and with Japan, which makes me suspect that the real reason may
be the second one:
That is, I once gave the participants of one of my past workshops a simple
task to "imagine a tough negotiator", but they seemingly couldn't make
head or tail out of my instruction, and asked me to give them an example.
When I said to them "I several years ago negotiated with someone as his
seminar trainer, but he lacked for flexibility, and was not at all ready
to accept my demands, so I finally came to accept the initial price he
gave me for my fee for the training", and asked them "Is this example
OK?". They unanimously said in a satisfied way "Yes, this is exactly what
we wanted to hear".
Now, after experiencing the above strange incident, I am now inclined
to believe that the very real reason why "Japanese practitioners of NLP
exercises don't know how to apply them in their real daily life" is not
that they don't know "how" to do so (I don't think that Japanese lack
for creativity to that extent), but rather that they may not be able to
"feel sure and/or safe as to whether what they are doing is really a correct
thing", whenever they try to apply the learnt NLP techniques to their
real daily life.
Incidentally, if I emphasise the matter, I think that Western people found
in a similar situation would rather think "only what I do is the correct
thing(!)", and therefore would not be able to consciously think of such
a FAQ in the first place.
If my assumption that the fact that these Japanese people don't feel sure
and/or safe as to whether what they are doing is really a correct thing
is the main reason why they have difficulty in applying the learnt NLP
techniques to their real daily life, then I am reminded of an interesting
story:
According to the story I recently heard from someone, the fact that NLP
has not been widely recognised in Japan, which I suggested in the second
issue of the newsletter, is not limited to the case of NLP, but is also
applied to Psychoanalysis and all the following Western psychotherapeutic
schools. And the reason for this is closely related to the archetypal
unconscious patterns of the Japanese people, which was based on the "Onryo-shinkou"
(the belief that dead people's souls may curse living people) imported
from China at Himiko's epoch during the Yayoi age. According to this belief,
all the members of the community must always maintain the mutual harmony,
and must not say anything which may jeopardise this harmony within the
community, lest they should be cursed by the dead souls. It is then well
understandable that Western style individualism could not have been born
in Japan with such an archetypal mind, that Japanese still need to surrender
their individualism to their community as a whole, and that they need
to feel sure and/or safe by always securing psychological endorsement
from someone they consider to be an authority about whatever they do (like
getting from a workshop trainer authoritative reassurance that what the
participants are doing is correct behaviour).
Yet, as I pointed out in the third issue of the newsletter, the West needed
2,500 years until NLP was born, in order to be freed from Aristotle's
"spell", and I think that it is high time for Japanese people to free
themselves from the spell lasting from Himiko's era 1,800 years ago, using
the panacea-like NLP. Otherwise, I think that the Japanese people could
not make the Japanese spirit ("Yamato- damashii") known to the whole world
in a real sense, in this very global communication age.
How did you find this current issue of the newsletter? If you have questions
and feedback, please contact me at magazine@creativity.co.uk.
Go to Taiten Kitaoka's Official Web site.
Go to the
site in English: Taiten Kitaoka's Newsletter: "This is the Genuine
NLP!".
Go to the
site in Japanese: Taiten Kitaoka's Newsletter:" ".
(c) Copyright 2003, Taiten Kitaoka. All rights reserved.
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