Reader Questions: Could you explain the distinction between process, pattern, and content?

Sally emailed me asking me to clarify the process, pattern, and content distinctions.

These three terms confuse beginning and advanced NLP students alike, primarily the process / content distinction.

I will share my definition with you. Other coaches are VERY likely to disagree. Adopt it if you find it useful.

Pattern

In the context of NLP, a pattern is a predictable unit of sequence of behavior.

Now what the heck does that mean?

Gregory Bateson defines the pattern as follows in Steps to an Ecology of Mind:

Any aggregate of events or objects (eg, a sequence of phonemes, a painting, a frog, or a culture) will be said to contain a “redundancy” or a “pattern” if the aggregate can somehow be divided by a “bar mark “such that an observer who perceives only what is on one side of the bar mark can guess with better than random success what is on the other side of the bar mark … Or, again, from From the point of view of a cyber observer, the information available on one side of the slash will restrict) that is, reduce the probability of) incorrect guesses.

Okay, now that we’ve got the lingo and summary out of the way, let’s try this in English.

Let’s say you touch James’s hair and he gets mad. Hmmm, interesting … Then, you notice later that Tim touches James’s hair and gets mad again. Wow, what’s going on here? On another occasion, Tara touches James’s hair and he gets angry again.

At this point, you have noticed a pattern. How can you know? Because you can semi-accurately predict that every time someone touches James’s hair, they get mad.

That is the structure of a pattern. Every time x happens, Y happens. Every time someone touches James’s hair, James gets mad.

To use Bateson’s bar brand, it looks like this: Someone touches James / James hair gets mad.

Now if you had to watch only half of the movie (someone touching James’s hair) and stopped it, you could accurately predict the second half of the movie (James gets mad).

You are surrounded by patterns. The chorus of a song is a pattern, which you can predict over and over again. You will probably brush your teeth and dry your body after showering in a pattern, knowing precisely what is coming after each stroke.

Every time x happens, Y happens.

Process vs content

Now to the fight! Here we go …

If John Grinder were to speak to you, he would undoubtedly argue that this IS the distinction of NLP in therapy.

Once again, let’s give an example to make this more obvious than Leonardo DiCaprio walking through Uganda.

Karl needs therapy, according to him. The reason for this, he tells you, is that his father beat him when he was a child.

This last information is content.

A psychotherapist trained in most modalities would likely dabble in content to deliver an intervention. This would involve exploring Karl’s relationship with his father, reliving some of the beatings, trying to understand why his father hit him that way, etc.

Enter the NLP-trained therapist.

This therapist will explore how Karl represents the problem situation. In other words, what does Karl do to feel bad? Do you take photos? Do you talk to yourself? Do you hear certain voices? Do you experience kinesthetic sensations?

Once you have identified that Karl talks to himself and then feels bad, the therapist will explore HOW SPECIFICALLY he talks to himself. How strong is the voice? Where does it come from in space?

Then the therapist will guide Karl to modify the way he talks to himself. It will lower the volume. It will move the voice in space. It will speed up the voice. It will change its tone. All the way until Karl realizes that he doesn’t feel bad anymore when he continues to say the exact same things to himself that he used to.

In other words, Karl is now processing content differently.

NLP-trained therapists can perform an intervention on a client who is absolutely content-blind, that is, without having a clue as to what the problem is. You can read many examples of this on Frogs Into Princes.

Then happy is what happens. Process it is the way we represent what happens.

Summarizing everything

There you go. Process, pattern and content.

Process: the way we represent what happens.

Pattern: Whenever x occurs, y is most likely to occur.

Content: What happens.

Simple, huh?

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