Accessing Cues The ways we tune our bodies by breathing, posture, gesture, and eye movements to think in certain ways.
“As If” Frame Pretending that some event has happened, so thinking “as if” it had occurred, encourages creative problem-solving by mentally going beyond apparent obstacles to desired solutions.
Analogue Continuously variable between limits, like a dimmer switch for a light.
Anchoring The process by which any stimulus or representation (external or internal) gets connected to and triggers a response. Anchors can occur naturally or be set up intentionally.
Associated Inside an experience, seeing through your own eyes, fully in your senses.
Auditory To do with the sense of hearing.
Backtrack To review or summarize, using another's key words and tonalities.
Behavior Any activity that we engage in, including thought processes.
Beliefs The generalizations we make about the world and our operating principles in it.
Calibration Accurately recognizing another person's state by reading nonverbal signals.
Capability A successful strategy for carrying out a task.
Chunking or Stepping Changing your perception by going up or down a or logical level. Stepping up is going up to a level that includes what you are studying. Stepping down is going to a level below for a more specific example of what you are studying. This can be done on the basis of member and class, or part and whole.
Complex Equivalence Two statements that are considered to mean the same thing, e.g. “He is not looking at me, so he is not listening to what I say”.
Congruence State of being unified, and completely sincere, with all aspects of a person working together toward an outcome.
Conscious Anything in present moment awareness.
Content Reframing Taking a statement and giving it another meaning, by focusing on another part of the content, asking, “What else could this mean?”
Context Reframing Changing the context of a statement to give it another meaning, by asking, “Where would this be an appropriate response?”
Conversational Postulate Hypnotic form of language, a question that is interepreted as a command.
Criterion What is important to you in a particular context.
Cross over Mirroring Matching a person's body language with a different type of movement, e.g. tapping your foot in time to their speech rhythm.
Deep Structure The complete linguistic form of a statement from which the surface structure is derived.
Deletion In speech or thought, missing out a portion of an experience.
Digital Varying between two different states like a light switch that must be on or off.
Dissociated Not in an experience, seeing or hearing it from the outside.
Distortion The process by which something is inaccurately represented in internal experience in a limiting way.
Dovetaling Outcomes The process of fitting together different outcomes, optimizing solutions. The basis of win-win negotiations.
Downtime In a light trance state with your attention inwards to your own thoughts and feelings.
Ecology A concern for the overall relationship between a being and its environment. Also used in reference to internal ecology; the overall relationship between a person and their thoughts, strategies, behaviors, capabilities, values, and beliefs. The dynamic balance of elements in any system.
Elicitation Evoking a state by your behavior. Also gathering information either by direct observation of nonverbal signals or by asking Meta Model questions.
Eye Accessing Cues Movements of the eyes in certain directions which indicate visual, auditory or kinesthetic thinking.
Epistemology The study of how we know what we know.
First Position Perceiving the world from your own point of view only. Being in touch with your own inner reality. One of three different Perceptual Positions, the others being Second and Third Position.
Frame Set a context or way of perceiving something as in Outcome Frame, Rapport Frame, Backtrack Frame, etc.
Future Pace Mentally rehearsing an outcome to ensure that the desired behavior will occur.
Generalization The process by which one specific experience comes to represent a whole class of experiences.
Gustatory To do with the sense of taste.
Identity Your self-image or self-concept. Who you take yourself to be. The totality of your being.
Incongruence State of having reservations, not totally committed to an outcome, the internal conflict will be expressed in the person's behavior.
Intention The purpose, the desired outcome of an action.
Internal Representations Patterns of information we create and store in our minds in combinations of images, sounds, feelings, smells, and tastes.
Kinesthetic The feeling sense, tactile sensations and internal feelings such as remembered sensations, emotions, and the sense of balance.
Leading Changing your own behaviors with enough rapport for the other person to follow.
Lead System The representational system that finds information to input into consciousness.
Logical Level Something will be on a higher logical level if it includes something on a lower level.
Map of Reality (Model of the World) Each person's unique representation of the world built from his or her individual perceptions and experiences.
Matching Adopting parts of another person's behavior for the purpose of enhancing rapport.
Meta Existing at a different logical level to something else. Derived from Greek, meaning over and beyond.
Metacognition Knowing about knowing: having a skill, and the knowledge about it to explain how you do it.
Meta Model A model that identifies language patterns that obscure meaning in a communication through the processes of distortion, deletion, and generalization, and specific questions to clarify and challenge imprecise language to connect it back to sensory experience and the deep structure.
Metaphor Indirect communication by a story or figure of speech implying a comparison. In NLP metaphor covers similes, parables and allegories.
Metaprograms Habitual and systematic filters we put on our experience.
Milton Model The inverse of the Meta Model, using artfully vague language patterns to pace another person's experience and access unconscious resources.
Mirroring Precisely matching portions of another person's behavior.
Mismatching Adopting different patterns of behavior to another person, breaking rapport for the purpose of redirecting, interrupting, or terminating a meeting or conversation.
Modal Operator of Necessity A linguistic term for rules (should, ought, etc.)
Model Operator of Possibility A linguistic term for words that denote what is considered possible (can, cannot, etc.).
Model A practical description of how something works. whose purpose is to be useful. A generalized, deleted, or distorted copy.
Modeling The process of discerning the sequence of ideas and behavior that enable someone to accomplish a task. The basis of accelerated learning.
Model of the World Each person's unique representation of the world (Map built from his or her individual perceptions and experiences. The sum total of an individual's personal operating principles.
Multiple Description The process of describing the same thing from different viewpoints.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming The study of excellence and a model of how individuals structure their experience.
Neurological Levels Also known as the different logical levels of experience: environment, behavior, capability, belief, identity and spiritual
New Code A description of NLP that comes from the work of John Grinder and Judith DeLozier in their book Turtles All the Way Down.
Nommalization Linguistic term for the process of turning a verb into an abstract noun, and the word for the noun so formed.
Olfactory To do with the sense of smell.
Outcome A specific, sensory-based, desired result that meets the well-formadness criteria.
Overlap Using one representational system to gain access to another, for example, picturing a scene and then hearing the sounds in it.
Pacing Gaining and maintaining rapport with another person over a period of time by joining them in their model of the world. You can pace beliefs and ideas as well as behavior.
Parts Sub-personalities with intentions, sometimes conflicting.
Perceptual Filters The unique ideas, experiences, beliefs, and language that shape our model of the world.
Perceptual Position The viewpoint we are aware of at any moment can be our own (First Position); someone else's (Second Position), or an objective and benevolent observer's (Third Position).
Phonological Ambiguity Two words that sound the same, but there/their difference is plain/plane to see/sea.
Physiological To do with the physical part of a person.
Predicates Sensory-based words that indicate the use of one representational system.
Preferred System The representational system that an individual typically uses most to think consciously and organize his or her experience.
Presuppositions Ideas or statements that have to be taken for granted for a communication to make sense.
Punctuation Ambiguity Ambiguity created by merging two separate sentences into one can always try to make sense of them.
Quotes We read a definition of this once that said, “Linguistic pattern in which your message is expressed as if by someone else”.
Rapport The process of establishing and maintaining a relationship of mutual trust and understanding between two or more people, the ability to generate responses from another person.
Reframing Changing the frame of reference around a statement to give it another meaning.
Representation An idea: a coding or storage of sensory-based information in the mind.
Representation System How we code information in our minds in one or more of the five sensory systems: Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Olfactory (smell), and Gustatory (taste).
Requisite Variety Flexibility of thought and behavior.
Resources Any means that can be brought to bear to achieve an outcome: physiology, states, thoughts, strategies, experiences, people, events, or possessions.
Resourceful State The total neurological and physical experience when a person feels resourceful.
Second Position Perceiving the world from another person's point of view. Being in tune and in touch with their reality. One of three different Perceptual Positions, the others being First and Third Position.
Sensory Acuity The process of learning to make finer and more useful distinctions about the sense information we get from the world.
Sensory-Based Description Information that is directly observable and verifiable by the senses. It is the difference between “The lips are pulled taut, some parts of her teeth are showing and the edges of her mouth are higher than the main line of her mouth” and “She's happy”—which is an interpretation.
State How you feel, your mood. The sum total of all neurological and physical processes within an individual at any moment in time. The state we are in affects our capabilities and interpretation of experience.
Stepping See Chunking.
Strategy A sequence of thought and behavior to obtain a particular outcome.
Submodality Distinctions within each representational system, qualities of our internal representations, the smallest building blocks of our thoughts.
Surface Structure Linguistic term for the spoken or written communication that has been derived from the deep struture by deletion, distortion, and generalization.
Synesthesia Automatic link from one sense to another.
Syntactic Ambiguity Ambiguous sentence where a verb plus “ing” can serve either as an adjective or a verb, e.g. Influencing people can make a difference.
Third Position Perceiving the world from the viewpoint of a detached and benevolent observer. One of three different Perceptual Positions, the others being First and Second Position.
Timeline The way we store pictures, sounds, and feelings of our past, present and future.
Trance An altered state with an inward focus of attention on a few stimuli.
Triple Description The process of perceiving experience through First, Second and Third Positions.
Unconscious Everything that is not in your present moment awareness.
Unified Field The unifying framework for NLP. A three-dimensional matrix of Neurological Levels, Perceptual Positions, and Time.
Universal Quantifiers Linguistic term for words such as “every”, and “all” that admit no exceptions; one of the Meta Model categories.
Unspecified Nouns Nouns that do not specify to whom or to what they refer.
Unspecified Verbs Verbs that have the adverb deleted, they do not say how the action was carried out. The process is not specified.
Uptime State where the attention and senses are committed outward.
Values What is important to you.
Vestibular System Representational system that deals with the sense of balance.
Visual To do with the sense of sight.
Visualization The process of seeing images in your mind.
Well-Formedness Criteria A way of thinking about and expressing an outcome which makes it both achievable and verifiable. They are the basis of dovetailing outcomes and win/win solutions.