Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Have you ever wondered why some people like to think about the big picture and others prefer to get down to the detail? Perhaps you've come across people who seem to find the flaw in every idea that's put forward, and others who focus on all the reasons why something will work. NLP explains these differences in terms of 'Meta Programs' or unconscious filters which help us deal with the huge amount of sensory-based information in the external environment. Because we're only able to handle seven (plus or minus two) pieces of information at any time, and in order to avoid sensory overwhelm, we delete, distort and generalize.

Leslie Cameron-Bandler identified around 60 different Meta Programs that help us organize our thinking and decide where to focus our attention; there are potentially many more. Whereas submodalities are concerned with the sensory detail of our internal representations, Meta Programs define the approach we take to issues we come across; they filter the types of things we let into our internal world and what we allow out.

Recognizing meta programs

Once we're aware of what Meta Programs there are it's possible to detect them by paying attention to what people say. If you drop a