The Meta Model
Therapeutic Questioning
| Pattern |
Response |
Prediction |
| Distortions |
| 1. Mind Reading: Claiming to know someone's internal state. Ex: "You don't like me." |
"How do you know I don't like you?" |
Recovers Source of the Info. |
| 2. Lost Performative: Value judgments where the person doing the judging is left out. Ex. "It's bad to be inconsistent." |
"Who says it's bad?" "According to whom?" "How do you know it's bad." |
Gathers evidence. Recovers source of the belief, the Performative, strategy for the belief. |
| 3. Cause/Effect: Where cause is wrongly put outside the self. Ex: "You make me sad." |
"How does what I'm doing cause you to choose to feel sad?" (Also, Counter Ex., or "How Specifically?" |
Recovers the choice. |
| 4. Complex Equivalence: Where two experiences are interpreted as being synonymous. Ex: "She's always yelling at me, she doesn't like me." |
"How does her yelling mean that she..?" "Have you ever yelled at someone you liked?" |
Recovers Complex Equivalence. Counter Example. |
5. Presuppositions: Ex: "If my husband knew how much I suffered, he wouldn't do that."
There are 3 Presuppositions in this sentence: (1) I suffer, (2) My husband acts in some way, and (3) My husband doesn't know I suffer. |
(1) "How do you choose to suffer?" (2) "How is he (re)acting? (3) "How do you know he doesn't know?" |
Specify the choice & the verb, & what he does.
Recover the Internal Rep., and the Complex Equivalence |
| GENERALIZATIONS |
| 6. Universal Quantifiers: Universal Generalizations such as all, every, never, everyone, no one, etc. Ex: "She never listens to me." |
Find Counter Examples. "Never?" "What would happen if she did?" |
Recovers Counter Examples, Effects, Outcomes. |
7. Modal Operators: a. Modal Operators of Necessity: As in should, shouldn't, must, must not, have to, need to it is necessary. Ex: "I have to take care of her."
b. Modal Operators of Possibility: (Or Impossibility.) As in can/can't, will/won't, may/may not, possible/impossible. Ex: "I can't tell him the truth." |
a."What would happen if you did?" ("What would happen if you didn't?" Also, "Or?"
b. "What prevents you?" ("What would happen if you did?") |
Recovers Effects, Outcome.
Recovers Causes |
| DELETIONS |
| 8. Nominalizations: Process words which have been frozen in time, making them nouns. Ex: "There is no communication here." |
"Who's not communicating what to whom?" "How would you like to communicate?" |
Turns it back into a process, recovers deletion, and Ref. Index. |
| 9. Unspecified Verbs: Ex: "He rejected me." |
"How, specifically?" |
Specifies the verb. |
10. Simple Deletions: a. Simple Deletions: Ex: "I am uncomfortable."
b. Lack of Referential Index: Fails to specify a person or thing. Ex: "They don't listen to me."
c. Comparative Deletions: As in good, better, best, worst, more, less, most, least. Ex: "She's a better person." |
a. "About what/whom?"
b. "Who, specifically, doesn't listen to you?"
c. "Better than whom?" "Better at what?" "Compared to whom, what? |
Recovers Deletion.
Recovers Ref. Index.
Recovers Comparative Deletion. |
Related Articles
Back to the NLP Guide
Four Ways To Learn More NLP
At Transform Destiny, we have something for everyone. You'll find the materials that meet your budget and desire for knowledge. That's why we have these four resources for you:
Learn the foundations of NLP for self-improvement and communication. This is an introductory video course will give you a great taste of NLP and tools that you can use immediately. Visit www.freenlphomestudy.com for more info.
2. Live NLP Certification Trainings
Get certified in our live NLP trainings, where you'll learn to master all the skills of NLP at the Practitioner level. Ours are the best trainings in the industry, because, while other institutes train to the lowest required standards, we do more! Our trainings go above and beyond to deliver the most amazing, life-changing experience you've ever attended.
Click to learn more about our Live NLP Home Certification Training
3. Online NLP Certification Trainings
Or get certified from home more in our online NLP trainings, where you'll learn to master all the skills of NLP at the Practitioner level. Ours are the best trainings in the industry, because, while other institutes train to the lowest required standards, we do more! Our trainings go above and beyond to deliver the most amazing, life-changing experience you've ever attended.
Click to learn more about our Online NLP Home Certification Training
4. Continue Reading the Free NLP Guide and Get Our Free Hypnosis and NLP Newsletter
Our NLP Guide is entirely free, and you can browse it for scripts and instructions on all the Practitioner level NLP material. Visit the free NLP Guide at www.transformdestiny.com/nlp-guide.
Our monthly newsletter is also free, offering you lessons, tips and advice on hypnosis and NLP. You can sign up for our newsletter here.
