About The Book
Written by Tad James and Wyatt Woodsmall, Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality is a compelling study of the important elements that make up a person’s core personality, and a detailed exploration of – and introduction to – how Time Line therapy works in practice. Utilizing discoveries made by Richard Bandler, Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality expands and updates our knowledge of how people actually store their memories, and sheds light on the effect that the system used for memory storage has on the individual. The authors contend that the concept of Time Line, or the notion of time that you have stored in your mind, shapes and structures your experience of the world, and consequently shapes your personality. Time Line therapy is therefore based on the premise that the client goes back to the first time they remember a particular problem, does change work – utilizing Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to eliminate irritating behaviors or issues – and, if necessary, goes to subsequent times when their behavior or response was a problem, and undertakes further change work to resolve it.
Written in an informative and engaging manner, Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality offers readers the opportunity to see how Time Line therapy works – providing a clear description of how to elicit the Time Line, and sharing step-by-step methods to subsequently help the client to release a limiting decision or trauma, remove anxiety, or set a future goal. All of these key aspects are explained using clear language and easy-to-follow steps, and the authors’ expert commentary is further complemented by examples, exercises and transcripts in order to help the reader transfer the theory into effective practice. In Section I, the authors explain the NLP Communication Model and share their in-depth analysis of the filters – values, beliefs, attitudes, decisions, memories and meta programs – which we subconsciously use as we process the world around us and which form the basis of our personalities. Section II provides a comprehensive description of the Time Line and how it works: laying down a theoretical basis for the technique before offering insight into its practice and application with a demonstrative transcript of Time Line elicitation and change work in order to illustrate the concepts explored. In Section III the authors move on to carefully survey simple and complex meta programs (and how they can be changed) before exploring the formation, evolution and changing of values in Section IV, which includes a helpful exercise that gives guidance on how to elicit values from the client. Exploring many interesting contexts and how personality can be positively changed to help people live happier lives, Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality is a worthy addition to any therapist’s or NLP practitioner’s library and is suitable reading for anyone interested in behavioral change. Sections include: Section I – Introduction; Section II – Time Line Therapy; Section III – Meta Programs; Section IV – Values. Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality was originally published in 1988 by Meta Publications.
Time Line Therapy reveals the answers you need from your past to move forwards without the baggage of negative emotions such as Anger, Sadness, Fear, Hurt or Guilt.
Gestalt Theory
The picture below represents what is called a gestalt: A chain of events linked to a specific emotion (E.g. anger).
Insights gained from Time Line Therapy have a far-reaching effect on your life, allowing you to gain new perspectives on issues that may have been plaguing you for decades. (See Gestalt Theory below).
Limiting Decisions
Limiting Decisions are decisions that we make unconsciously, and often while we are in a negative emotional state. Limiting Decisions that we may make about ourselves at a young age can often stay with us for the rest of our lives. Imagine a 6-year old child sitting in a classroom and not understanding something the teacher just explained. The rest of the class understands it, but for whatever the reason, this child did not. The child feels upset and emotional, then unconsciously decides that he is not as clever as everyone else, and that he “can’t do it”. Unconscious decisions like this, driven by negative emotions, can happen in a variety of situations and can have a negative impact on us for years to come.
There is no fault or blame in decisions like this, only responsibility to learn from our past and change limiting beliefs in future. Since the negative emotions are what influenced us to make such Limiting Decisions, can you imagine the difference we can make when we use TimeLine Therapy to go back and learn from these experiences without the emotions?
