English Book Review - March 22

Heart of the Mind
Engaging Your Inner Power to Change with
Neuro-Linguistic Programming
By Connirae Andreas and Steve Andreas
Real People Press/263 pages



Is it possible to change? Depends on what you're seeking to change and what you're seeking to change to, would be a logical half-response. It also depends on who is expected to bring about the change. Going back, for a moment, to the dealers in telephone systems we mentioned last week, a miraculous change has taken place in their standards of service.

From being concerned merely with carrying out their individual tasks, they have looked at what Connirae and Steve Andreas call 'the goal of the goal'. They have realised that performing their jobs is the means to reach their ultimate goal, and not the ultimate goal itself. For the ultimate goal is to gain and retain customer satisfaction and loyalty. And so, a smiling customer service professional stepped in, expertly smoothed out our ruffled customer feathers, and converted, in the process, the shambled ruins into a new foundation, holding forth the promise of further development in time.

Remarkable? All rather simple, the Andreas twosome would probably say, if looked at from the perspective of the 'powerful and gentle approach to overcoming life's problems', Neuro-Linguistic Programming (or NLP, for short), a relatively new science that has studied how the mind works, with verifiable and often astonishing results.

Proceeding, essentially, from the premise that consciously focussing on one's problems can help best to address and resolve them, Connirae and Steve Andreas offer effective techniques to counter a wide range of problems, including unwanted habits, guilt, grief, weight loss, abuse, criticism, shame, stage fright and phobias. They also explain how to use NLP techniques to enhance self-esteem, improve relationships, become more independent, create positive motivation, eliminate allergic responses and promote self-healing.

Heart of the Mind is divided into 21 chapters, with each focusing on developing a different skill. Using real life examples involving individuals who grappled with and overcame their specific 'deficiencies', the authors seek to demonstrate the effectiveness of the system and its methods.

All of which makes for interesting reading, of course, as in the case of the 'goal of goals' concept referred to above. Part of the final chapter of the book, entitled 'Knowing What You Want', the authors speak in it of 'Frank' (most certainly not his real name), an individual whose apparent goal was to gain acceptance from other people. Despite feeling a strong desire for this, he had not been very successful in getting it.

This was so because, although he did not recognise it at first, Frank sought the acceptance of others so that he could then feel good about himself. In other words, 'the goal of his goal' was to feel good about himself, although he had not realised that feeling good about himself was really a separate goal.

Once he discovered this, however, he realised that it is much easier to gain acceptance from others by starting with feeling good about himself. By shifting goals from 'gaining acceptance from others' to 'realising my own self-worth', he shifted to something more attainable and more worthwhile.

There is, of course, a flavour of the overly simplistic in all this. But that is not surprising, verbalisation often tends to have such an effect. When put into words the most complex situations and conditions can seem pitifully facile, occupying a finite space and appearing to have definite causes, effects and solutions. Life, as we know, is woven from a million wondrous threads and identifying a few frayed ends does not amount to mastery of the weaver's art. But what's the harm in trying? It could result in change, loose or otherwise.