NLP & Representational Systems

The term refers to how we use our five senses of smelling, tasting, hearing seeing and feeling to represent or experience events.

Clues to a persons inner activity

NLP is renowned for the attention we give to the use of representational systems. And this is because everything we experience is represented internally in our nervous system. Without our being consciously aware of it our five senses are constantly receiving and processing information about the world about and within us.

And, since the mind and body are part of an interactive system, anything that happens in one part of the system affects all parts of the system. We cannot, for example, have a thought without having a physical response to that thought. 

So in NLP we recognise that  we are continuously communicating information about what we are doing internally - our inner processing. And this information is available for those who have the ability to discern it – who have taken the time to develop their sensory acuity and their ability to calibrate to, or recognise the personal significance of, our external behaviour.

The types of cue/clue

These are the cues, clues, or signals that we can use to establish what a person is doing internally - whether they are remembering or making pictures, talking to themselves, remembering or making sounds, or attending to their feelings.

The two main categories of cues which we pay attention to in NLP are predicates and non-verbal accessing cues.

The Predicates

These are the adverbs, verbs, and adjectives which indicate which a person uses and that  provide clues as to which senses or combinations of senses they are paying attention to.

A person’s use of predicates indicates the aspects of their experience about which they are likely to have more conscious awareness.

Non-verbal accessing

These are the behavioural cues which provide indicators about their internal processing. Of these the easiest and most useful to begin with is their use of their eyes. When you have developed some skill in this area move on to recognising the other non-verbal cues.  

Non-verbal accessing - eyes

The eye accessing movements are the directions in which they habitually look when they 'go inside' to access and process information from their memory, imagination, or feelings. 

Non-verbal accessing - other

The eye movements patterns are the easiest accessing cues to observe. However you can also gain information about a person's processing from their voice rate and tempo and tone, breathing patterns, typical postural, gestures, leg movements, and the sound of their voice.

(The skills to recognise these behavioural signals and to interpret them in terms of the person's individual style is a key part of the NLP Practitioner Certification Programme)