Dr. Crew's NLP Lessons #16

USE OF "META" LANGUAGE (From Meta Model)


NLP teaches us not to speak in generalizations when giving feedback to others on their actions and our feelings. This is called "meta " language.

For example, if you are a teacher and a student gives an answer that is incorrect, it is more helpful to tell them that their answer is INCORRECT as opposed to "You are wrong." In this situation, the student sees that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with them as opposed to the answer they have provided.

Parents and other authority figures can label a child as "bad" when the child has done something inappropriate. Again, a child will have a better chance of developing positive self-esteem when he or she is told that they did a bad act and used poor judgement rather than taking on the trait of being bad.

This Meta language pattern ensures that others see clearly that WE ARE NOT OUR ACTIONS. Who we are as individuals, is a result of our continuous actions over time. This is a more precise definition of one's character and personality.

When we judge others by a particular act that we have witnessed at one particular time we cannot ever really know who this person truly is.

Using generalizations about others is always problematic. This person IS a certain way, or these people ARE a certain way. We can take the verb "to be" right out of these generalizations and communicate more clearly and precisely how we see things.

This would be the same as seeing one particular photograph of a person and deciding whether or not this is an attractive person. And we ALL know how bad we can look in one photo. (or how good!)