How are Presuppositions used in the Milton Model?

Presuppositions are the most powerful of the language patterns, when used by a communicator who presupposes what she does not want to have questioned. A general principle is to give the person lots of choices and yet have all of the choices presuppose the response you want.

What is an example of Presuppositions?

The simplest kind of presupposition is existence. Let's clarify that with an example. In the sentence "Jack ate the food." it is is presupposed that "Jack" and "food" exist. If you negate the sentence and say "No, Jack didn't eat the food.", the fact that Jack and the food exist is still not questioned.

What parts of Presuppositions can you recognise?

Presuppositions consist out of the following flavors: Subordinate Clauses of Time, Ordinal Numerals, The use of "Or", Awareness Predicates, Adverbs and Adjectives, Change of Time Verbs and Adverbs and Commentary Adjectives and Adverbs.

NLP Presuppositions

Q: What are Presuppositions in NLP?

We have learnt in the Meta Model that Presuppositions are basically – “What is the person assuming to be true, underneath what they are actually telling me?” Presuppositions are not necessarily true, but even if the are not, by holding something not-yet-true as being true, we can help to bring that to fruition.

We know you want more. And here it comes! In this article we will treat you on what NLP Presuppositions are and provide you some examples. Besides that we have an exercise for you in store. And you want to exercise, don’t you?

What are NLP Presuppositions?

Simple! In NLP Presuppositions are basically – “What is the person assuming to be true, underneath what they are actually telling me?”. Presuppositions are not necessarily true, but even if the are not, by holding something not-yet-true as being true, we can help to bring that to fruition.

Presuppositions usually appear in the deep structure of language and not in the actual surface structure, though they can be obvious sometimes. You can usually find many clues to what people’s presuppositions really are. Presuppositions are beliefs or assumptions, which support the language we hear from others or use ourselves. Presuppositions can be in the surface structure, allowing us an obvious clue. Or, they can be in the deep structure and only suggested by the surface structure of language.

Presupposing you take a look at the following example of NLP Presuppositions

Take the following example: “You are not going to believe this …”. Some presuppositions in this text are that I am about to say something to you. You are listening to it. Next, I know something you do not and you will believe this automatically. Also you will believe in other things as well other people might believe in it. Questions you can ask to explore this pattern more, is going to rely on your intuition than on a specific formula of questions. One of the methods for determining presuppositions is to consider each word by itself. Determine the terms of its unique meaning. Then open the perspective up to consider each word within each natural phrase that the word occurs in. While, in terms of the found composite meaning, seek out the implications of which each separate meaning offers or implies. Then start to consider that word in the context of the whole sentence. See if what you learned at the more detailed level still holds at the broader found information.

Take this example of NLP Presuppositions

In the example: “When do you want to have the goods shipped, today or tomorrow?” – the keyword is “or”. “Or” here implies a choice, that implies options and the options given here are “today or tomorrow”. The presupposition here is that these options are the only two worth mentioning. Bottom line, you must want to have the goods shipped today or tomorrow if you want to make that choice.

And of course some exercise for today with NLP Presuppositions

As an exercise today, write out all the presuppositions you can find in the following sentence. “We cannot provide you that information now, as we have to discuss this with the team first.”. Besides that, listen to every discussion you hear today and scan for the presuppositions made therein. Have fun!

In NLP Presuppositions are part of the higher chunk called Generalisations which is part of the Meta Model.

Last but not Least

Remember, to increase your efficiency as a NLP Practitioner, know your positive intention for the message you want to convey, build rapport and pay attention on what and how you use language. Leave people and business in a better place that where you found them, every day!

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