Towards a Theory in Transpersonal Decision-Making in Human Systems: A Neurolinguistically-Modelled Phenomenography by Joseph Riggio
This is Joseph Riggio’s doctoral dissertation so it’s not necessarily an easy read. If you’ve an interest in Joseph’s MythoSelf® process this is a must read though.
Here’s a quote:
“In 1987 I was first introduced to NLP. After finishing a Practitioner training program with two trainers of NLP I decided to continue on to the next level, Master Practitioner, and after that studying to become a Trainer of NLP. I also decide I didn’t want to continue studying with the same two trainers. I participated in an evening workshop during my initial Practitioner training led by Richard Bandler, one of the co-developers of the technology of NLP, and I was witness to what I can now only call transformational magic. I decided then I wanted to continue my studies with an NLP magician. Later in that year I saw a small ad in a local publication for a program called “Stalking Reality” by an NLP Master Trainer, Roye Fraiser. This turned out to be someone who would take alll the learning I’d accumulated in my years of diligent self-study an hone them into a cohesive and coherent from within, and by using, the technologies of NLP and hypnosis.
I began my studying with Roye by attending a three-day weekend training, where I spent the better part in various states of deep hypnosis. I had found a magician. He ran his training programs of a 16-acre parcel of land in Pemberton, NJ, a part of the Pine Barrens in NJ. The land itself was part of the magic of learning with Roye. It was part of an old farm that lay fallow. On it was a huge natural pond that was directly in the migratory path for many water birds travelling from the north to the south for winters and then back again in the spring. We would meet every weekend in the “Hypnotorium,” a building that Roye had dedicated to use as a training facility for his students playing and studying NLP and hypnosis. He would demonstrate techniques and patterns of his methodology to us in the Hypnotorium and then send us out to practice with one another. Given the chance and the favour of the weather I would sit on an old wooden bridge that crossed the pond with my partner for exercise. As we would practice what Roye had demonstrated the great herons would soar over us and land in the pond at our feet, bullfrogs would croak in rhythm to their own choruses, a pure white egret would itself be stalking with unimaginable patience, holding itself absolutely still in the reeds that lined the edges of the pond. Within this magical experience In was introduced to the possibilities contained in these technologies and the model Roye expressed them through.
In the early 1980’s Roye began developing a model for profound personal transformation referred to as the “Generative Imprint™ model”. The Generative Imprint extensively uses the technology and tools of NLP and hypnotic protocol operating at an ontological level with clients. Within the model the client is approached from the unique perspective of the “excitatory bias,” beginning by asking them “what is working extraordinarily in their lives,” rather than addressing the presenting problem. Building on the work of Konrad Lorenz, Joseph Campbell, Milton Erickson and Gregory Bateson, as well as many others, the model seeks to uncover the basis of the individual’s connection to their generative experience, what Roye specifically refers to as their Generative Imprint.
This imprint refers to the way an individual access and holds their connection to their life source, the most basic and primal driver of their personal experience and their way in which they code themselves as being alive and well. This connection, the Generative Imprint, is held as a “symbolic iconic representation” and is accessed through a hypnotic protocol utilizing a recursive loop developed with the client beginning from the excitatory bias. The result of following this thread, amplifying and intensifying the experience with the client within the loop and mediated space generated between operator and client, is the movement to a new logical level where the problem state does not exist - where “the problem is not.” The outcome of following the protocol of the model is profound transformational experience for the client allowing them to access, experience and sustain a Generalized Desired State (G.D.S.) of well-being that includes their mental, emotional and physical states. The G.D.S. is then aligned with the Generative Imprint and a massive directionality emerges for the client - an ontological representation of a way of being for the entirety of their life. This ontological representation, which Roye refers to as their “Intent,” then becomes the baseline for their actions and specifically for their decisions that lead to the actions they take.
Based upon my study and learning with Roye I began working with clients individually and later in small groups. Around 1995 I began exclusively using and refining an application derived from the Generative Imprint model that I’d developed, which I use in doing private personal work with clients, when facilitating organizational interventions and in the transformational learning and development programs I developed since then. I call this model the MythoSelf® process a shortened form of the original name, the Mythogenic Self™ process, that I’d given the model. In part this name was given in homage to the work of the late Mythologist Joseph Campbell who’s work has deeply influence my own, most especially his concept of the Hero’s Journey.”
