Development of Modelling

The roots of Modelling go back to the early seventies. You can learn more about the development, dissemination, and fundamental questions of this topic here.

Modelling is the primary learning approach of humans. Young children learn through role modeling – that is, they model their adult caregivers. Modelling is also the process with which NLP began and forms the basis of many NLP applications.

In their student groups – whose most well-known members included Judith DeLozier, Leslie Cameron, Robert Dilts, Stephen Gilligan, David Gordon, among others – Bandler and Grinder developed this special psychological method, with which they were able to not only describe the unconscious skills of their "models" but also consciously apply and successfully pass them on.

In particular, the abilities initially modelled in the therapeutic context (F. Perls, V. Satir, M. Erickson) caused a great stir, as Bandler and Grinder were able to dissolve limiting states such as obsessions or phobias in just a few minutes.

By the late 1970s, the sales and management scene also took notice of NLP. NLP penetrated the executive floors of large companies as a training method. Top managers, leading salespeople, and their communication strategies were modelled, analyzed, and conveyed to others. This led to new approaches in sales, presentation, negotiation and employee management. Recruiting, personnel, and organizational development models were also derived from this.

The basis of modelling is the trainable ability to empathize as precisely as possible, both physically and verbally, into the subjective experience of the other person. This allows one to recognize how the other person consciously and unconsciously organizes and maintains their inner experience. How do these people think? About themselves, others, the world, problems, goals, and solutions? And what conclusions do they draw from it?

In modelling, three questions have proven to be particularly relevant:

• What is the inner state of the model person?
• How does the model person internally process sensory-specific information?
• How does the model person externally implement this behaviorally?

Successful modelling is based on as accurate a replication as possible of all three areas – always taking one's own values into account. Therefore, solid psychological or therapeutic knowledge is usually helpful for installing modelled structures.