Steve Andreas > Articles > Modeling with NLP

6. Testing and Refining Your Model

Some refining can be done conceptually, but trying out the model with yourself and others is the best way to learn how it can be improved. By trying out your model with additional clients, you can discover additional useful features.

1. Congruency. Try out your model with yourself. What problems could occur? How can you modify the process so these problems are excluded? Are all the positive functions of the problem state preserved? For example, if someone feels comfortable while public speaking by negatively hallucinating the audience, this will interfere greatly with a lively, connected presentation. An alternative way of feeling comfortable will be much more useful. Are there any supporting elements, or processes, reframes or preframes, etc., that you can add that would make this process even more positive, attractive, and beneficial for the person?
2. Streamlining. The process you modeled from the counterexample or exceptional model may have steps or aspects that are redundant or superfluous, and may even interfere with the desired outcome. Is there anything you can leave out, yet still get the desired result? Perhaps someone repeats a question inside, or shifts posture, etc., and this only delays the response.
3. Amplifying. How can you add to the process to make it more robust and enduring? This is best discovered by noticing exactly where the process fails with specific clients, and what you have to change to make it work. By building this into the process you can extend the range of successful applications. For instance, the phobia cure will not work well with some people because of postural anchors that prevent full dissociation. Perceptual position misalignment can also interfere. Adding these elements in, either as an earlier step in the process, or as "troubleshooting" followups can make the phobia cure work successfully with a much wider range of people. Sometimes the process can be amplified by changing the sequence of states or representations, or by changing the tempo of the sequence (or both).