Andrew Austin

About me:

My website: NLP, Brain and Behaviour (23NLPeople.com)
Recently reaching it's 1,000,000 visitor landmark, www.23NLPeople.com has been one of the largest NLP websites since 1998 with over 150 articles covering all subject on NLP, hypnosis, neurology and psychiatry.

Trainer, NLP Master practitioner and Clinical Hypnotherapist, I was a Neurosurgical and Emergency nurse in my past life. Recently I have written and published, "The Rainbow Machine - Tales from a Neurolinguist's Journal" introduced and published by Steve Andreas.

“Most books about therapy could just as well be prescribed as sleeping pills. And they often sit unread by the side of therapists’ beds, after they have plowed through the first jargon-laden chapter or two. Not this book! Andy Austin’s Rainbow Machine will have you laughing, gasping in horror and awe, and wishing like hell that you lived close enough to him to get an appointment. He is the British Milton Erickson.” — Bill O’Hanlon, author of Change 101 and many other books about brief therapy.

"...In his book, subtitled 'Tales from a Neurolinguist's Journal', Andy takes us on a number of wonderful, scenic, sometimes hallucinogenic and occasionally dystopic walks through his world.

The book is divided up into short passages where he shares stories from various times in his life, slogging away under the NHS trying to actually help people who are only supposed to be warehoused or bringing a little joyful chaos to sick children in dire need of such, running an experimental hypnosis group with an emphasis on the word experimental and a streak of mad scientist running through it or his later work as a therapist using NLP to help people be happier and more functional in their lives.

And he brings together two important things in all these little passages in his life. The story is in and of themselves are worth telling and Andy's skill as a storyteller is powerful. He's a good writer telling stories that are worth the telling.

Here Andrew manages several things that would unhorse a lesser writer. He manages to be touching without being sappy or melodramatic. He manages to be funny and sarcastic without being artificial or slapstick. He manages to convey both skill and fallibility without coming across as either elitist or condescending. This is really well-written stuff, I think.

To that important mixture, which would really be enough to make the book worthwhile, Andrew adds an important third thing. He uses each of these stories to bring out insights into NLP that come from a place of both deep learning and study as well as a place of real experience.

And that's what I love about the NLP of this book. This isn't about step-by-step breakdowns of how to perform this or that technique. Rather,this is about distinctions, about differences that make a difference and about ways of thinking about things which can make anything more effective or more insightful..."

...And if you work as a therapist, counsellor, coach or change worker, this book is a must-have! You're going to see situations that you've been in, I hallucinate, and if you've not been in them yet, this book will be good practice for you, because this is the stuff that does happen sooner or later! By his own admission, Andrew didn't always handle things optimally (who does?), and the fact that he's willing to talk about those experiences as well and what he's learned from them make the book just that much more valuable..." -- Michael Perez - Trainer and Moderator for NLPConnections

See website for details of my other writings on neurology, psychiatry and NLP.
My website domain name collection grows, see also: http://www.westsussexhypnotherapy.com, http://www.chichesternlp.com, http://www.andrewtaustin.com
http://www.weightlosshypnotherapy.co.uk, http://www.harleystreethypnotherapynlp.com, http://www.phantomlimbpain.org, http://www.coretransformationtraining.com, http://www.anxietyhypnotherapy.co.uk, http://www.wineaddiction.co.uk, http://www.pornographyaddiction.co.uk, http://www.heartsinkpatients.co.uk, http://www.spiderphobia.co.uk, http://www.curephobia.co.uk, http://www.snakephobia.co.uk

Recently emerged from development is my two day training in Integral Eye Movement Therapy (tm) , details for upcoming workshops country wide (notibly: Bristol, Manchester, Chichester and Newcastle) can be found here: http://www.integraleyemovementtherapy.com

The Influence of R.D. Laing & Gregory Bateson et al on Clinical Practice.

The well known 'anti-psychiatrist', RD Laing worked endlessly to demystify the nature of 'madness', placing 'insanity' into an interactional social framework rather than as biological entity. Controversial in both his approach and writings, in "Sanity, Madness and the Family", he and Aaron Esterson wrote:

'We do not accept 'schizophrenia' as being a biochemical, neurophysiological or psychological fact, and we regard it as a palpable error, in the present state of the evidence, to take it to be a fact. Nor do we adopt it as a hypothesis. We propose no model of it."

With Bateson et al., Laing popularised the notion of the double bind, a theme that recurs throughout his work, the most common example cited is as follows:

(From an interview with a mother and her 'schizophrenic' daughter)

Mother: "1 don't blame you for talking that way. I know you don't mean it.

Daughter: "But I do mean it!"

Mother: "Now dear, I know that you don't, you can't help yourself."

Daughter: " I can help myself."

Mother: "Now dear, I know you can't because you're ill. If I thought for a moment you weren't ill, I would be furious with you."

. . .during a first meeting with the psychiatrist he conceived of an intense contempt for him. He was terrified to reveal this contempt in case he was ordered to have a leucotomy and yet he desperately wanted to express it. As the interview was going on he felt it more and more to be a pretense, and futile, since he was only pretending a false front and the psychiatrist seemed to take this false presentation perfectly seriously. He thought the psychiatrist was more and more of a fool. The psychiatrist asked him if he heard a voice. The patient thought what a stupid question this was since he heard the psychiatrist's voice. He therefore answered that he did, and to subsequent questioning that the voice was male. The next question was, 'What does the voice say to you?' To which he answered, 'You are a fool.' By playing at being mad, he had thus contrived to say what he thought of the psychiatrist with impunity.

From 'The Divided Self", RD Laing.

Bateson et al suggest that in the process of schizophrenia, the 'schizophrenic' experiences difficulty distinguishing between the 'logical types' of communication (Bertrand Russell: "Principia Mathematica.") As a consequence he demonstrates weaknesses in three areas of communication:

1. He has difficulty in assigning the correct communicational mode to the messages he receives from others.

2. He has difficulty in assigning the correct communicational mode to those messages which he himself utters or emits non-verbally.

3. He has difficulty in assigning the correct communicational mode to his own thoughts, sensations and perceptions.

Bateson et al suggested that this position can be arrived at by repeated and expected exposure to the 'double bind' situation. The double bind manifests in a variety of manners and forms, however Bateson suggested the following essential ingredients:

1. Two or more persons are involved. One is designated 'victim' and is in the 'one-down' position (Watzlawick et al). The other is involved in some power-based relationship with the 'victim' (ie. is in the 'one-up' position.)

2. Repeated experience. It is assumed that the double bind is a recurrent theme in the experience of the victim. The hypothesis suggests that the double bind structure in communication comes to be an habitual expectation.

3. Primary Negative Injunction. This may take two forms. (i) "Do not do so-and-so, or I will punish you." Or "If you do not do so-and-so, I will punish you." The emphasis is on the avoidance of punishment rather than reward seeking. ('Punishment' may be withdrawal of love/ affection, expression of hate/ anger or "the most devastating- the kind of abandonment that results from the parents expression of extreme helplessness.)

4. A secondary negative injunction conflicting with the first at a more abstract leveL Like the first injunction the secondary is enforced by punishment or signals that threaten. The secondary negative injunction is difficult to describe but often occurs as a meta-communication (a communication about the communication: "...and that's an order, Corporal!" )

The secondary injunction frames the initial injunction incongruently and can take the following forms:

(a). "Do not see this as punishment."
(b). "Do not see me as the Punishing agent."
(c). "Do not submit to my prohibitions."
(d). "Do not question my love (of which the primary prohibition is/is not an example.)"

The conflicting injunction is usually defined or implied by the context ("Meta-frame") in which the communication occurs and is non-verbal.

5. A tertiary negative injunction prohibiting the victim from escaping from the situation. For example: A child who cannot escape the fact he is/feels dependent on mother; A prisoner in the interrogation room; An employee with (asshole for a) boss.

6. Finally, the complete set of ingredients are no longer necessary when the 'victim' has learned to perceive his universe in the terms of the double bind. Almost any part of the sequence may be sufficient to precipitate a severe reaction.

The Presuppositions of NLP.

Focusing on changing the structure of (negative) subjective experience, the NLP model regards dis-ease as a cybernetic process rather than as a 'thing'. This provides a development of the 'holistic' approach currently being emphasised in health care practice.

As an example, I would regard it as a fundamental error to consider 'depression' simply as a chemical imbalance (medical model) or - the crassly stupid - "anger turned inwards" (contemporary counselling theory). Whilst the former position addresses the physical signs and symptoms, (ie. the patient achieves much needed physical relief but still runs the ineffectual psychoneurological processes,) the latter position is very good at producing angry depressives. Neither addresses the relationship the depressive has with the cybernetic communication system in which he exists.

As I wrote in the article It's Good To Talk I have observed many therapists continually attempting the absurd game process of "getting-the-client-in­touch-with-his-feelings". This supposedly therapeutic position is rendered absurd when we consider the patient with suicidal ideation - I mean, just how "in touch" does a guy have to be?

Repeatedly I have taken on clients who have been subjected to far too many hours of 'therapy' only to fail at getting well!! The therapist places these clients in the untenable position of being "resistant clients." The client is told that whilst he may want to change (which is demonstrated by the fact that he is in the position of 'client') a person can only really change when he really wants to, only he can do it, and only when he is ready. Thus the therapist absolves himself from his failures by double binding and blaming the client. When this description is true, the therapist has created a concomitant double bind he negates his own value - "I can't do it for you" - whilst suggesting the client still needs the therapist basically saying: "You need me but you shouldn't need me."

(Counsellors who try to evade this position by calling themselves 'Facilitators' can be swiftly cured by beating them repeatedly around the head with a small puppy until one of them screams.)

"There are no resistant clients, only inflexible therapists!" Dr Richard Bandler.

...In Chicago, Laing was invited by some doctors to examine a young girl diagnosed as schizophrenic. The girl was locked into a padded cell in a special hospital and sat there naked. She usually spent the whole day rocking to and fro. The doctors asked Laing for his opinion... Unexpectedly, Laing stripped off naked himself and entered her cell. There he sat with her, rocking in time to her rhythm. After about 20 minutes she started speaking, something she had not done for several months. The doctors were amazed "Did it never occur to you to do that?" Laing commented...

John Clay. R.D. Laing -A Divided Self