The Inspiration Behind Mind Over Mind
Way back in 1986, when green monochrome fish screen savers were cutting edge technology, I took an honors seminar for which I had to read Frogs Into Princes. This is the seminal book about a branch of psychology/communication called neuro linguistic programming. The basic idea, psychology-wise, that Bandler and Grinder proposed is that it really didn't matter what a person's delusions were; the key was whether they can function in society or not.
Communication-wise, they theorized that you could guess a person's thought processes by watching the movement of the eyes - whether they were making something up or remembering a truth, if they were seeing or hearing the thought, etc. They gave lots of examples from their own experiences treating patients.
I was fascinated by the book, but as a mathematics major, I never thought beyond what a cool idea it was. However, of all my textbooks, this one stayed with me as I graduated, went to the Air Force, then got out and had kids.
Another thing that followed me all those years was the novel I'd written about a psychic in college and his roommate accidentally teleporting to another planet. It wasn't horrid, though now I blanch to think I sent it to a publisher. That, too, got packed away through all the moves and career changes.
In 2001, I decided I wanted to rewrite the novel. I liked Tasmae and the idea of the planets at war, but the psychic was too cool, too easy. Too shallow. As many of you know, I kept torturing the poor guy with "what if?" until he ended up in an asylum. But how to get him out?
Even after twelve years, Frogs Into Princes had stuck with me, so I found the book and reread it, thinking what fun it would be to apply the principles to a young, troubled man who didn't just believe he was psychic, but truly was psychic. Oh, what fun it was! I loved the challenge of thinking of my characters in terms of how they thought--visually or verbally?--and how that affected Deryl. The case study where they worked with a catatonic patient (which reminded me of a story called, "Son, Rise" about an autistic child whose mother reached him by following his rocking rhythm) gave me a terrific idea for a very tense scene. Deryl retreats into a catatonic state to escape a disturbed man's violent thoughts, and Joshua has to bring him out using NLP.
Looking at Amazon, I see that Frogs into Princes was the book that started NLP and, as one review put it, "introduced the still cutting edge technology of human communication and cognition...a seminal book in the field of human communication, linguistics, perception, cognition and psychology."
I'm a writer, not a psychologist, but I'd like to thank Richard Bandler and John Grinder for sharing their ideas and experiences, and to my honors professor who assigned the book. You helped transform Mind Over Mind from bleah to yeah!
Mind Over Mind came out in 2011, and the characters did end up teleporting to another planet and saving it and the neighboring world, but through it all, you'll see Joshua using the psychology he'd learned as a student and intern. I hope you'll check it out.
Communication-wise, they theorized that you could guess a person's thought processes by watching the movement of the eyes - whether they were making something up or remembering a truth, if they were seeing or hearing the thought, etc. They gave lots of examples from their own experiences treating patients.
I was fascinated by the book, but as a mathematics major, I never thought beyond what a cool idea it was. However, of all my textbooks, this one stayed with me as I graduated, went to the Air Force, then got out and had kids.
Another thing that followed me all those years was the novel I'd written about a psychic in college and his roommate accidentally teleporting to another planet. It wasn't horrid, though now I blanch to think I sent it to a publisher. That, too, got packed away through all the moves and career changes.
In 2001, I decided I wanted to rewrite the novel. I liked Tasmae and the idea of the planets at war, but the psychic was too cool, too easy. Too shallow. As many of you know, I kept torturing the poor guy with "what if?" until he ended up in an asylum. But how to get him out?
Even after twelve years, Frogs Into Princes had stuck with me, so I found the book and reread it, thinking what fun it would be to apply the principles to a young, troubled man who didn't just believe he was psychic, but truly was psychic. Oh, what fun it was! I loved the challenge of thinking of my characters in terms of how they thought--visually or verbally?--and how that affected Deryl. The case study where they worked with a catatonic patient (which reminded me of a story called, "Son, Rise" about an autistic child whose mother reached him by following his rocking rhythm) gave me a terrific idea for a very tense scene. Deryl retreats into a catatonic state to escape a disturbed man's violent thoughts, and Joshua has to bring him out using NLP.
Looking at Amazon, I see that Frogs into Princes was the book that started NLP and, as one review put it, "introduced the still cutting edge technology of human communication and cognition...a seminal book in the field of human communication, linguistics, perception, cognition and psychology."
I'm a writer, not a psychologist, but I'd like to thank Richard Bandler and John Grinder for sharing their ideas and experiences, and to my honors professor who assigned the book. You helped transform Mind Over Mind from bleah to yeah!
Mind Over Mind came out in 2011, and the characters did end up teleporting to another planet and saving it and the neighboring world, but through it all, you'll see Joshua using the psychology he'd learned as a student and intern. I hope you'll check it out.
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