Calibration

Learning to recognise visible, auditory and kinaesthetic clues to an individual's use of their mental processes. Defining that individual's expressions by comparing their present behaviour with their previously observed behaviour.

Capability

A context specific skill that can be broken down to its component behaviours.

Chain of Excellence

An essential element of the New Code of NLP developed by John Grinder. The Chain of Excellence has four stages.

Breathing - a leverage point for change. It affects Physiology. Change physiology and shift State. Change state and affect Performance.

Choice Points

Moments of subjective experience which generate significant consequences thereafter.

Chunking

Grouping information by class and sub-class, especially useful when combined with the principles of logical typing order. Chunking develops meaning and thereby facilitates memory. (See Logical Levels).

Cognitive/analytical modelling

The conscious elicitation of the components of the skills of an expert. May include verbal descriptions of beliefs, values, outcomes, intentions, sequences and processes used by the expert. This form of modelling is outside the scope of NLP as it is of a different logical type from the patterns of excellence that make up the field. Analytical modelling depends on conscious recognition of elements of expertise by the expert and the person modelling and on conscious uptake by the modeller. See NLP Modelling.

Cognitive Psychology

Cognition is defined by Strobe, Codol and Stephenson in their book Introducing Social Psychology as "the activity by which information is received, selected, transformed and organised by human perceivers so as to construct representations of reality and to build knowledge."

Cognitive Science

A multi-disciplinary field of inquiry into the perceptions of the mind. Cognitive science draws on methodology and learning from linguistics, psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence and computer science.

Complex Equivalent

The individual's cognitive map or sensory representation of a particular word, label or expression; the meaning they assign to an abstract form of words. A different experience or action that has the same meaning for an individual as the experience they are considering. Misunderstanding occurs when two individuals each assign meaning to an abstract word or phrase and then act as if they were using a shared, defined meaning.

Congruence

The match of a person's body language (gestures, posture and voice patterns) with their verbal output (auditory digital) while they are communicating. Congruence in communication is one of the patterns found in charismatic people. Note though, when a person is communicating with congruency, this is not necessarily an indicator of truth, rationality or sensibility in terms of the content communicated. It means that in the moment, they believe what they are saying. Eg. Hitler communicated congruently, yet many of his ideas (content), were unecological in their effect on third parties.

Conscious awareness

The conscious mind is limited in terms of the amount of information that can be held at any one moment in time to seven plus or minus two chunks. The size of the chunks is variable. A metaphoric description is the experience of shining a torch around a darkened room. As the light beam moves from one place to another, you notice different items. You can never see the entire contents of the room with the torch light. Like the torch, conscious attention shifts from one experience to another.

Content Reframing

Can be of two forms; either changing the response to an experience by changing the meaning of the experience in that context, (meaning reframe), or leaving the meaning of the behaviour the same and placing the behaviour in a different context (context reframing).

Context

The situation, time and place within which designated activity takes place. Criterion (Sing.), Criteria (Plur.) An individual's or organisation's definition of what is important to them in terms of their particular standards and values.

Cross-pacing

Taking any repetitive behaviour on the part of the subject, and matching that behaviour through a different communication channel. You could speak in time to the subjects breathing. If the person is blinking, you could tap a pencil in time to their blink rate. Cross-pacing builds rapport with the person's unconscious mind and is a subtle, less noticeable approach to building or maintaining rapport than mirroring the subject's behaviour directly.

Cultural conditioning

The assimilation of beliefs, values and ways of one's culture of upbringing is sometimes referred to as cultural conditioning. We have all been shaped to a greater or lesser extent by the social context in which we grew-up, and by the social, political, economic and cultural contexts in which we live subsequently. One of the benefits of the models Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Ericksonian hypnosis is the capability to evaluate the various belief systems that one adopted, and to update, change and enrich those maps of reality if so desired. This process brings added flexibility and choice into one's life.

Culture

The generally agreed upon maps within a particular community of people which guide behaviour. These agreed upon maps form collectively a consensus reality for the group and generally operate outside conscious awareness.

Cybernetic epistemology (systems epistemology)

An orientation to pattern and the relationship between parts of a system, rather than using quantification, and reductionism as in Newtonian physics. Cybernetic epistemology is based on the premise that living systems such as a person, family or ecology function on different rules to the world of physics. (See Epistemology and Systems Thinking).

Cybernetics

The study of communication systems in both man and machines. Cybernetics has been traditionally applied to machines, computer systems and computer software. Cybernetics can also be applied to the individual, the family (as in the family systems models) and social systems such as communities and societies.