Lucas Derks

Self-publishing seems to be the way of the world at the moment and here we have another important NLP book available from its author. Lucas Derks has spent seven years exploring what he calls the ‘Social Panorama’ model and has created another powerful addition to the NLP field.

Richard Bandler called the exploration of our internal representations ‘interior decoration’ for the mind. In his DHE (Design Human Engineering) he explores the placement and sub-modalities of beliefs and values and of time – the familiar time-line. Lucas has instead explored the way we represent other people in our internal representations.
At the simplest level I am reminded of descriptions of Virgina Satir’s family sculptures. Who is nearby? Who is further away? How are the family members positioned in relation to each other?

Lucas goes much farther, it is not long before he has us exploring how we represent the whole of humanity; how we distinguish between individuals and groups – all Americans are loud and brash except for the ones I’ve met face to face; how we know ‘good’ people from ‘bad’ people; how we know our place in the hierarchy.

Here you will find one of the richest explorations of the special submodalities I have yet seen (plus colour shape and sound from time to time). For this alone the book is worth reading.

And yet there is much more. Lucas has interwoven his explorations of the Social Panorama with his knowledge of the ‘more traditional’ concepts of social psychology so here you will find rich material on ‘Personification’ (how do we know who’s a person); Self and Identity; Social Power; Social Attitudes; Family; the Spiritual; Training & Teams; and Metaphors of Power. In each case he sets out his thoughts and experience in using the Social Panorama with client experiences and instructions for practical exercises to shift your (or your client’s) social experiences.

I was prompted to read Lucas’ book after reading James Lawley and Penny Tomkins ‘Metaphors in Mind’. Whilst they are writing from radically different viewpoints it seem to me that these two books between them cast a strong light into the ways in which we use our internal representations of people, objects and symbols and the relationships between them to create ourselves and our worlds.

Do get your copy from Lucas and experiment for yourself.… (altro)