Representational (rep) systems are sometimes referred to as modalities. Submodalities are the distinctions we make within each modality.
Submodalities are aspects of the structure of internal representation and are independent of content. They are significant because the meaning of a representation is encoded in its submodalities.
Working with submodalities can be a very quick way to get some control over what goes on in your mind. There are simple techniques we can use to increase motivation, change habits and attitudes or stop something from continually haunting our thoughts. The reason why submodalities techniques are quick to use is that they intervene directly with your internal representations.
Think of something that is on your ‘to-do’ list. As you think about that task, notice the picture in your mind’s eye (it may not be a very clear picture – that’s okay).
Notice if the picture is a still picture or a movie. Notice if it’s in colour or black and white. Notice how bright it is and notice how big the picture is.
Now, just for fun, make the picture bigger. Put it in really vivid colour. Make it very bright. Make sure it’s moving at a lifelike speed.
What effect does that have on how keen you are to do the task?
As you can see, when you change the way something is represented in your mind, you can change your attitude towards it. The more you practise this, the more you’ll understand about how things work in your own head and the easier it will be for you to have choice about the way you think.
Submodalities checklist
In the example above, we used four different submodalities, all of them relating to the visual modality (or rep system):
• Size of picture
• Brightness
• Colour or black and white
• Movie or still
There are many more submodalities that can be used, including auditory and kinaesthetic submodalities. Here is a list of the main submodalities used in NLP techniques:
When we consider location in visual submodalities, it means the location in your visual field: is the picture straight ahead, for example, or above eye level, or off to one side etc. Obviously the picture is actually inside your head, but what we’re considering is where it appears to be when we look at it with our mind’s eye. Similarly, the distance is how far away we seem to be seeing the picture from, is it close up, at arm’s length or further away?
Association and dissociation in this context can be detected from the viewpoint. An associated picture will be the view through your own eyes as if you are there, reliving the memory (in first position). In a dissociated picture you will be able to see your own face and/or body in the picture (as you would from third position). In general there will be stronger feelings with an associated representation.
The meaning of the representation is encoded in the submodalities. This means that the submodalities are your brain’s way of tagging thoughts and filing them.
Pick two memories of meetings you attended recently. Choose one that was a really interesting, stimulating meeting that achieved something tangible and that you feel good about having been part of. Choose another that was dull or difficult, that didn’t achieve anything and that you feel was a waste of your time.
Now, one at a time, focus on the memory and notice how the internal representation is structured. Make a note of the submodalities as they relate to the two memories and then compare them. Pay particular attention to the location in your visual field, as this is often the key to meaning.
When you focus on representations of contrasting experiences, it’s usual to find that there are differences in their structures. For example, the positive memory might be large, bright and/or colourful and straight ahead whereas the other one might be smaller, dimmer and/or in black and white and lower down.
What you have discovered in the exercise above are the ‘filing codes’ that your brain uses to tag ‘memories of good meetings’ and ‘memories of bad meetings’. Everything you might think about is tagged in this way through its submodalities.
Since we’ve already seen that it’s possible to change your internal representations at will, it won’t surprise you to discover that we can use submodalities to change our attitudes to tasks, people, memories or anything else, simply by changing the ‘filing codes’.
Mapping across
‘Mapping across’ means changing the submodalities of one representation into those of another representation that has a different meaning, for the purpose of changing your experience of, or attitude to, the first representation.
This technique is worth mastering, because once you’ve learned to do it, you can use it to make changes in a matter of moments. Here’s how to do it:
1. Identify what you want to change (e.g. ‘I want to stop eating chocolate’ or ‘I want to be motivated to make phone calls’).
2. Specify the category in your mind that currently holds the thing you want to change (e.g. ‘things I like to eat’ or ‘things I’m not motivated to do’).
3. Note down the submodalities of the thing you want to change (e.g. when you think about chocolate, or making phone calls, do you have a picture in your mind’s eye?).
4. Specify the category in your mind you want to move the thing to (e.g. ‘things I eat occasionally’ or ‘things I don’t like to eat’ for the chocolate; and ‘things I enjoy doing’ or ‘things I can do easily’ for the phone calls). Be mindful of ecology in making your choice.
5. Think of something that is currently in the category identified in step 4 (e.g. ice-cream or Brussels sprouts – depending on the desired outcome – in the first scenario; and ‘checking my email’ or ‘attending meetings’ in the second scenario).
6. Elicit the submodalities of the thing identified in step 5.
7. Compare the two sets of submodalities; identify the differences.
8. Change the submodalities of the thing you want to change (elicited in step 3) so that they match the submodalities elicited in step 6.
9. Test.
You can use the worksheet opposite to help you through the ‘mapping across’ process.
