Interesting?

[featherynscale]

OK. Everything's a meme or a game lately, for which I apologize. Back to your regularly scheduled steaming pile of monkey crap soon.

Here's the latest game I'd like to play, as kipped from lysana:

Go browse through my list of interests and pick one that either 1) you know nothing about but sounds intriguing, or 2) you know something about but can't fathom why yours truly would be interested in it, and request an explanation.

Comments

[lysana.livejournal.com]

Bandler & Grinder, if you would, please.

B&G

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Richard Bandler and John Grinder are (or were, I don't keep up on these things) therapists who did much of the pioneer-work on neurolinguistic programming. My interest in their work comes primarily from the books The Structure of Magic, vols. I & II. In these books, they lay out a meta-model for successful therapy based on the concept of mental modeling - they're basically about the idea that if we have an established set of expectations about reality("I'm not worthy of love", for example), that we tend to give selective attention to only those observations and facts that support our existing models, and ignore or distort what doesn't fit. Their model illustrates the use of directed questioning, language in the patient's preferred mode of perception and communication (visual, auditory or kinesthetic), and a handful of other really simple "tricks" to expand the patient's model (in the above example, to have the patient alter his perceptions of events to include times when s/he *is* worthy of love) so that the patient has more accurate information to work with when making decisions/choosing behaviors.

Now, I'm not a therapist, but I do find that a lot of their work is also applicable to the way I'm fine-tuning my own brain. These are books that I recommend to anyone who is working on any sort of self-growth program.