Modal
Operators
by Steve Andreas
With the multitude of specific patterns and general understandings that
have been developed in the field of NLP over the past 25 years, it is
useful to recall that the root and foundation of it all is in the Meta-model.
I have often heard Richard Bandler say that those who really understand
the Meta-model are those who use the NLP methods with a high degree
of skill and precision.
Over the years I have often seen the usefulness of returning to an old
distinction and reexamining it to see what else can be learned. In the
late 1970’s, submodalities were used simply as ways to enrich a description
of an experience. In the early 1980’s, submodalities were recharacterized
as basic parameters of our internal experiencing, and, like accessing
cues, also ways to alter that experiencing directly. This insight resulted
in the plethora of powerful submodalities interventions available today.
In the late 1980’s, Connirae Andreas reexamined the three perceptual
positions, and found a detailed way to align and organize the chaos
of our internal experiencing of ourselves and others in relationships.
Aligning Perceptional Positions is a very gentle, yet powerful, way
to directly clarify our relating with others, and to develop understanding
and compassion for both ourselves and others. In retrospect, this process
uses many small and subtle differences in the submodality of location
to achieve this.
There are nine fundamental distinctions in the Meta-model (Can you name
them all?), and one of them is called Modal Operator. Recently I have
been reexamining them and have gained some useful understandings. Rather
than simply present them (and make it very likely that readers would
simply accept them, instead of finding ways to question them or improve
on them) I thought it would be more interesting to pose some questions
to point the reader's thinking in some of the directions that I have
been exploring.
I have often benefited from asking questions and finding out that other’s
answers were considerably better than my own. (On occasion I have even
asked questions that seemed likely to produce interesting answers, even
though I had no useful answers yet.) I hope that this can be an opportunity
for readers to follow these leads into some interesting discoveries.
I invite you to follow the leads in the questions below. The best source
for answers will be in your own experience. I further invite you to
respond to me by email or snail mail with what you find. A follow-up
article will appear in a future issue of Anchor Point.
Modal Operators (MO)s
1.
What are they anyway? What do they do, and how do they work?
2. How many kinds, or categories of MO are there, and what would you
name each kind?
3. How are they linked to, or related to, each other? (I have found
two major ways, one inherent, and one that is optional.
4. What kind of motivation is indicated by each MO?
5. How can each kind of MO be understood as indicating a specific kind
of incongruence?
6. What kinds of incongruence is indicated by a person when they use
one kind of MO verbally and express a different one nonverbally?
7. How it can be useful to change a person's experience by suggesting
replacing one modal operator with another, and why is it useful?
8. What MO is operating in an experience of complete and total congruence?
9. What else can you predict about a person's experience when they use
a MO?
Enjoy!
Originally published in Anchor Point, Vol. 14, No. 1, January, p.
22.
Modal Operators
by Steve Andreas
In the January, 2000 issue, I pointed out that the meta-model was the
foundation and origin of NLP. All the many specific methods and techniques
that have been developed over the last 25 years have evolved out of
asking questions based on it, and it still remains a foundational understanding
for the entire field. I also discussed the value of returning to old
distinctions to reexamine them to see what more can be learned from
them, and gave two examples, submodalities and aligning perceptual positions.
Finally, I posed a set of questions about modal operators, one of the
distinctions in the meta-model, and invited readers to respond to them.
I think it is curious (but perhaps not too surprising) that despite
so many people teaching modeling, and claiming to be modelers, I got
only two responses. And it is much easier to answer questions than it
is to figure out what questions to ask!
Here again are the questions (in italics), and my answers (not the answers).
Ultimately the answer is in your own experience. The words that follow
are my best attempt to point to your experience, and offer you ways
to think about it, organize it, and expand it. I hope that you will
find it useful. I'm sure that that this can, and will be, improved on,
and I welcome suggestions for additions, reformulations, etc.
Modal Operators (MO)s
1. What are they anyway? What do they do, and how do they work?
A MO is “mode of operating,” a way of being in the world and relating
to part of it, or all of it. A MO is a verb that modifies another verb,
so it is always followed by another verb. “I have to work.” “I can become
successful.”
Since a verb always describes an activity or process, a MO is a verb
that modifies how an activity is done. A MO functions in the same way
that an adverb does, and perhaps should be called an adverb. An adverb
sometimes precedes the verb that is modified, and sometimes follows
it, while a MO always precedes it, and this is part of the power of
a MO. A MO sets a general orientation or global direction before we
know what the activity is. Often a person says simply, “I can't,” or
“I want to,” since the content is specified by the context. However,
since the words themselves do not specify a content or context, it is
very easy to generalize the statement to a wide range of content/contexts.
A MO modulates our experience of much (or all) of what we do in very
important ways. Think of any simple neutral activity, and describe it
in a brief phrase, such as “looking out the window.” Next say the following
sentences to yourself, and become aware of your experience of each of
them, noticing how your experience changes with each sentence, particularly
where your attention goes, and how you feel:
“I
want to look out the window.”
“I have to look out the window.”
“I can look out the window.”
“I choose to look out the window.”
The “mode of operating”
in the first is to be pulled toward the activity, with a sense of pleasure
and anticipation. The “mode of operating” in the second is to be pushed
toward it, usually from behind, and usually also with some sense of
not wanting to do it. (Thanks to John McWhirter for pointing out this
push/pull parameter of motivation.)
The last two are somewhat different; “Can” simply directs your attention
to alternate avenues of possibility. In addition to “looking out the
window,” other possible directions get my attention. “Choose” presupposes
these alternatives, focusing more on the internal experience of selecting
between the alternatives.
2. How many kinds, or categories of MO are there, and what would
you name each kind?
I would list the four categories below, grouped into two pairs (with
examples):
Motivation: The first two have to do with being motivated.
a.
Necessity: “should,” “must,” “have to,” etc.
b. Desire: “wish,” “want,” “need,”etc.
Options:
The second two have to do with options that can be chosen in order to
satisfy the motivation.
c.
Possibility: “can,” “able to,” “capable,” etc.
d. Choice: “choose,” “select,” “decide,” etc.
Desire and/or necessity
motivates us to act and change, and possibility and/or choice makes
this possible. Grouped in this way, one can readily notice that people
most often begin with motivation, and then search for options. Starting
with options, and then testing for which ones are desirable is much
less frequent.
Take a moment to experience this basic difference. Imagine for a moment
that you always started with motivation and then scanned options. .
. .
Now imagine that you always started by scanning options, and then tested
for motivation. Those are very different worlds. . . .
MOs of necessity and (im)possibility are the ones given most emphasis
in many NLP trainings, because very frequently they are the basis for
significant limitations. People often feel stuck and trapped by “have
to's,” and limited by “cant's,” and these are the most obvious kinds
of limiting beliefs that people have.
MOs of desire and choice are often de-emphasized, or even ignored, but
they are equally important, and they are a mirror-image to necessity
and impossibility. For instance. when someone experiences a “have to,”
usually it is unpleasant, and s/he wants to have other choices. Put
another way, “have to” and “not possible” are equivalent to “not possible
to choose other more desired alternatives.”
Importance: Since choosing between alternative possibilities,
in alignment with our needs and desires, is fundamental to our survival
and happiness, any limitation or reduction in these abilities will significantly
limit our ability to live well. Every belief in our capabilities will
have a MO in it, and many limitations will have either a MO of necessity
or a negation of another MO.
This is the kind of difference that MOs not only describe, but also
create as we talk to ourselves internally. It can be the crucial difference
between someone who lives a life feeling as if they are an incapable,
helpless victim of events, and one who experiences a world full of anticipation
and opportunities for satisfaction of needs and desires.
Working at the level of MOs, and the beliefs that they are embedded
in, is usually at a considerably larger chunk size than working at the
content level of a particular limitation, and because of this, any changes
that are made will generalize much more widely.
Intensity: Each of these categories includes different words that
express various degrees of intensity--even though people often limit
themselves by reducing this wide spectrum to a crude either/or digital
distinction. In addition to the words used in each category, the nonverbal
intonation can also indicate the degree of intensity, and this nonverbal
message is often much more dependable than the words.
a. Necessity has
a relatively narrow range of intensity, but there is a definite difference
between “absolutely must” and “should,” or “ought to.” Since many
people think they “should” do things that they seldom or never actually
do, there are “necessities” that are less than absolute.
b. Desire has perhaps the widest range of intensity, ranging from
a faint inclination to smoking lust!
c. Possibility is not a digital either/or distinction as it is often
taught, (possible/impossible) but can vary through a wide range, from
very likely (nearly certain) to very unlikely, (improbable, but still
possible).
d. Choice, too, can be artificially reduced to a simple limiting either/or
(and there are a few circumstances in which this is perhaps an accurate
description of the situation). But usually there is a wide range of
choices, a multiplicity of options, not only of what to do, but of
how to do it, where to do it, when to do it, with whom to do it, and
why to do it.
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