Second Attention

Another name for the Unconscious mind.

Second nature

Any behaviour, capability or belief which has become automatic in a person's experience and is performed without conscious attention.

Second Order Change

Any change which takes place at a higher logical level than the problem state. This allows the change to affect the system, thereby rendering the erstwhile problem harmless, irrelevant or useful.

Second Position

The experience of taking a description through one's senses of another's psychological state, perception and viewpoint. A second position description can be obtained by matching the other's breathing, posture, movements, voice patterns and language patterns. It is a way of obtaining information of another's 'model of the world', and is useful as a precursor to bridging agreements and building understanding during negotiation. Although a second position description is by definition the individual's own representation of another's state, if done with care, it provides very accurate information about the other's processes, and can give clues to the subject matter they are considering.

Sensory Acuity

The ability to make refined distinctions in what one see hears and feels. During a face to face communication, practitioners of Neuro-Linguistic Programming attend to changes or shifts in the other's skin colour, muscle tone, eye movements, breathing and posture, and to voice tonal patterns, rhythm and language used by the other. On the telephone, auditory information alone is available, and can be sufficient. This information is used to calibrate the other's internal state and cognitive processes. It is considered in the world of NLP that sensory acuity is a capability that can always be improved.

Sensory based Description

A description in terms of what one can see, hear and feel, either in the external world during an experience, or in the describer's internal experience.

Sensory Cues

The indicators we have through observation, listening and touch, of a subjects ongoing experience. These cues indicate that mental processing is taking place; they do not identify the content being processed.

Simulation Programming

Mental rehearsal of a future course of action with reference to a specific and expected situation, using internal representational systems to programme in the desired behaviours, capabilities and perceptual filters so that you can achieve the desired outcome in that situation. Also known as 'future pacing'.

State

This refers to the overall emotional physiological and psychological condition of an individual. It involves the beliefs, values, capabilities and behaviour within a context at a particular time. The concept of state can also be applied to a family, corporation or any social system.

State Choice

In the NLP model referred to as state control. The act of choosing deliberately to construct and inhabit a particular state in a given context, with the intention of achieving one's chosen outcome in that context.

Strategy

Any sequence of representations that leads to an outcome. The sequence and organization of representations (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gustatory) which together comprise a thinking pattern. An effective strategy includes a representation of an outcome, employs feedback from the environment, and takes the minimum number of steps in a choreographed sequence to achieve the particular outcome of the strategy. Examples of strategies explored in NLP include decision making, motivation, convincer, reality, learning and creativity strategies.

Submodalities

The sensory components within each of the modalities of the senses. Eg the sensory modality of visualisation is made up of components such as brightness, colour, hue, size and whether the image is framed of unframed etc. The auditory sensory modality has components such as stereo or mono, loudness, tempo and timbre quality etc.

Systemic thinking

Thinking in terms of pattern recognition, recursive manifestation of patterns, relationship between parts of a system, relationship between systems, patterns at similar and different logical levels, and patterns between logical levels.

Synaesthesia

When a signal is received or represented in one sense and is re- represented immediately in another representational system. The experience of sight/feeling, hearing/feeling etc. The test for a synaesthesia is to remove the first representation. If the second representation disapears at the sames time as the first represenation is removed, it is a synaesthesia.