Presuppositions of NLP – The Map is not the Territory

The principles of NLP are called presuppositions because you pre-suppose them to be true and then act. It is not about whether they are true or universal.

NLP recognizes that you experience the world through your five senses :

• Sight,

• Hearing,

• Touch

• Smell

• Taste

These senses (the territory) and build an internal representation of this external input in our brain (the map). You – and everyone else - do not respond directly to the world, but rather to the ‘map’ or ‘model’ of the world you create. With the use of NLP techniques, the structure of this map and territory can be identified.

In the process of building your map, you filter information based on your values, beliefs, memories, culture and social background. You therefore respond to your maps, rather than directly to the world.

With the use of NLP techniques, your map is respected and with NLP you are then able to stretch the boundaries of your map and your views of the world.

“The Article of the Month” - Presuppositions by Robert Dilts, a prominent NLP Master Practitioner, states…

The Map is not the Territory.

1. People respond to their own perceptions of reality.

2. Every person has their own individual map of the world. No individual map of the world is any more "real" or "true" than any other.

3. The meaning of a communication to another person is the response it elicits in that person, regardless of the intent of the communicator.

4. The 'wisest' and most 'compassionate' maps are those which make available the widest and richest number of choices, as opposed to being the most "real" or "accurate".

5. People already have (or potentially have) all of the resources they need to act effectively.

6. People make the best choices available to them given possibilities and the capabilities that they perceive available to them from their model of the world. Any behavior no matter how evil, crazy or bizarre it seems is the best choice available to the person at that point in time - if given a more appropriate choice (within the context of their model of the world) the person will be more likely to take it.

7. Change comes from releasing the appropriate resource, or activating the potential resource, for a particular context by enriching a person's map of the world.

Words of (NLP) Wisdom…..

If your map is not properly oriented, you won’t get to your destination, but that is not the map’s fault." ~ Robert Cummins