Preferred Representational Systems

"This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: We are given one life, and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind or whether to act and, in acting, to live." - Omar Bradley

We use all our senses externally all the time, although we will pay attention to one since more than another depending on what we are doing. In an art gallery we'll use mostly our eyes, in a concert, our ears.

What is surprising is that when we think, we tend to favor one, perhaps two representational systems regardless of what we are thinking about. We are able to use them all, however by the age of 11 or 12 we already have clear preferences.

Many people can make clear mental images and think mainly in pictures. Others find this viewpoint difficult. They may talk to themselves a good deal, while others base their actions mostly on their feel for a situation.

When a person tends to use one internal sense habitually, this is called their preferred or primary system in NLP; they are likely to be more discriminating and be able to make finer distinctions in this system and the others.

This means some people are naturally better, or "talented" at particular tasks or skills. They have learned to become more adept at using one or two internal senses and these have become smooth and practiced, running without effort or awareness.

Sometimes a representational system is not so well developed and this makes certain skills more difficult. For example, music is a difficult art without the ability to hear sounds internally.

No system is better in an absolute sense than another, it depends what you want to do.

Athletes need a well-developed kinesthetic awareness and it's difficult to be a successful architect without a facility for making clear, constructed mental pictures. One skill shared by outstanding performers in any field is to be able to move easily through all the representational systems and use the most appropriate one for the task at hand.

Different psychotherapies even show a representation system bias. The bodywork therapies are primarily kinesthetic; psychoanalysis is predominantly verbal and auditory. Art therapy and Jungian symbolism are examples of work visually-based therapies.

So whether you use pictures, sounds, or feelings. It's important for you to understand the power of Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic representational systems. Doors that once seemed locked will begin to open, exposing exciting new worlds.

The Best is yet to come!

David Martin.
Answer Concepts, S.A.
answerconcepts@msn.com

PS – for a one on one exploration of what NLP can do for you in your pursuit of excellence, email me at answerconcepts@msn.com. Include your phone number and I will call you to schedule.