Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning [Paperback]

Richard Bandler (Author), John Grinder (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Real People Press; First Edition edition (1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0911226257
• ISBN-13: 978-0911226256
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #528,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 101 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An NLP Trainer's review - "Good book sometimes misguided.", February 24, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Mahwah, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning (Paperback)

Reframing is the art of shifting meaning. Bandler and Grinder put their attention on using communication, verbal and non-verbal, to shift meaning in their client's models of the world. An emphasis is on using language and language patterns. In this regard they succeed admirably. However, where I think they go off track is in their descriptions of "parts" and what they call 6-step reframing, even one of the authors - Richard Bandler says he doesn't do this anymore. I agree and add that it introduces fractionation and fragmentation in clients which isn't useful or suggested. This has bred a continuing controversy in the NLP(tm) community of professionals. Some still use the "parts" model and some are beginning to move away from it in favor of more integral and wholistic methods. There are other books that do a better job of presenting reframing and utilzation of language patterns, but with this caveat in place I recommend the book to anyone seeking to deepen and widen their knowledge of the NLP(tm) model. If you want to go further in understanding where the model has gone since the authors wrote this book try some of the later books, especially "Time for a Change" by Richard Bandler and "Persuasion Engineering" by Richard Bandler with John LaValle. Both of these present the new forms of hypnotic language usage quite well within a more integrated model.

20 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still relevant and a gold mine., April 1, 2002

By 

John P. Schertzer "Caefu" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning (Paperback)

A careful reading of this book will unearth a wealth of information, not only about remedial and generative models developed in early NLP, but also how and why models were designed as they were to begin with. If one keeps that in mind, as well as the primary presupposition (map/territory), there will be no vast discrepancy between old and new NLP, nor even DHE. You can see the roots right here. The authors themselves make a point in saying that the Six Step Reframing pattern, for instance, was only structured the way it was as a teaching tool, and that it should be forgotten once it was integrated with other communication processes. The Parts metaphor, they say, is only a one of a number of ways of mapping "as if," perhaps only a way of "chunking" behavior. Bandler is cleverer than everybody thinks: if he doesn't use parts as a metaphor, then what are all the "machines" he's talking about? What about the spacial/visual representations of decision making strategies, et al? Aren't they essentially the same thing? The problem is people tend to forget that these are not actuallities but only useful ways of talking.

This book takes the simpler version of reframing from "Frogs" and really opens it up, describes how it can be used in conjunction with anchoring and linguistic patterns, until it begins to disintegrate as a specific and separate model and becomes a direction.

For another possible view of these issues, see Anti-Oedipus: capitalism and schizophrenia, by Deleuze and Guattari, which dances along to similar music, including the contradictions...

30 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Step for NLP, March 19, 2001

By 

Karl (England, Great Britain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning (Paperback)

I think it sometimes helps to think of Bandler and Grinder as intrepid explorers.
That is to say, much of the early development of NLP consisted of tracking known experts - Perls, Satir, Erickson, Korzybski, etc. - sifting through a wealth of information and finding those vital bits that provided the key to everything else.

In the case of reframing, this was already a well-established concept in certain circles when B&G started to develop NLP. The three founders of the Brief Therapy unit at Palo Alto (Watzlawick, Weakland and Fisch) had brought out "Change", which also covers reframing in some detail, back in 1972, for example.

But the value of the B&G book is not to be measured by how well it tallies with earlier works. It's importance lies, I suggest, in what it tells us about how NLP developed as it did.

As you can see from earler reviews, the idea of "parts" (partly! derived from Virginia Satir's "parts parties") is not to everyone's taste.
Joseph Riggio, a well respected NLP trainer, suggests that this approach can produce "fractionation and fragmentation". Yet there are lots of people who find that dealing with "parts" fits very well with their view of the world.
And after all, NLP is first and foremost about what works *for you*.

Over the last few years it has become clear that there is no such thing as "bog standard NLP". Everyone who gets involved will have their own ideas, views, techniques and methods.

My advice would be that this book is just one of several key texts that trace the history of NLP. Whether or not, in the end, you decide that the ideas herein are suitable for you, I think this book will inevitably help you to gain a greater understanding of what lies at the heart of NLP.