The Structure of Magic I: A Book About Language and Therapy v. 1 (Structure of Magic): A Book About Language and Therapy

This book is, I believe, essential to anybody who is going through or has been through NLP courses. I have given it 5 stars because the information inside which is about the Meta-Model is indepth, insightful and plentiful. The bad part of the book is that it is written in a style which makes it very difficult to make the information sink in and understand how everything fits together. This is NOT a book that your read from cover to cover and think "I get it!". You will be reading chapters and sub sections within those chapters anywhere between 4 and 10 times before you feel that you can move on. Once you do get it and it makes sense, this book will become an essential part of your toolkit. I think the book may have purposefully been written in such a hard way to convey the stature and gain the respect of the established therapists at the time it was written.

This is a great book for anyone who wants to get to grips with how to make the best use of language in a therapy situation. Some of the chapters may not to totally relevant, but many are a real gem.

I had heard much about this book, but having ordered and now read it, many people left much out! It really is a superb read, not a starter book but one will fills in the gaps. I'll definitely be looking for TSoM 2

It's early days for me to be competant enough to overview a book like this, I can only really attempt to describe a process of understanding that I am going through; reading a book of this nature, at least at the moment, feels complex, but that's down to my current level of understanding of this subject. The book is 'work' it requires reflection, the stretching of oneself and then finding a place to apply any gleaned knowledge in a context. It is not a book to merely read, though it needs to be re-read a number of times to be more and more fully understood.

These books are incredible expositions of the mechanisms of communication that facilitate personal remedial and generative change. An indespensible guide to the operation of the human mind. Do not buy anything from Wonderbooks USA. They will simply take your money and lie to you for 4 months.

great book

this is the mother load for those learning the meta-model. gets a little difficult to follow at times as the language used is extremely intellectual, especially in the later chapters when talking about the different forms of english language sentence structure.

Not the best read I've ever purchased but does include some useful information. Having been on one of John Grinder's NLP courses I am surprised just how badly written this book is, considering the man is extreemly clever. Unless you are really into NLP / Hypnosis I would look elsewhere for a read.

Io ringrazio Amazon per aver reso possibile e comodo questo acquisto. Io ringrazio il corriere per la consegna ben 5 giorni prima. Il libro corrisponde alla descrizione: è perfetto. Ci sono brevi sottolineature: può essere che siano quelle che avrei voluto fare io... Una cosa in meno da fare! Quindi io ringrazio chi le ha fatte. Io ringrazio i precedenti proprietari che hanno reso possibile il mio acquisto.

Looks like a cheap reprint and has some typo errors too. An excellent compilation of findings, both amusing and extremely informative. As an NLP Trainer, this book has been useful in understanding the foundations of the Course!

It’s unfortunate that this book is not marketed better because I believe everyone can benefit from reading it. Who am I to say this? I am not a professional psychologist or therapist — I don’t work in the field. I stumbled upon this book after reading “Introducing NLP”. That book offered me tools to break through situations where I used to freeze up or be inefficient by putting myself in the correct state to get things done. It also gave me tools to communicate more effectively with others by first building rapport and then communicating more in line with the other person’s mode of thinking. Having benefited from reading about NLP, I wanted to know more about it. The Amazon description for this book says its the seminal work in NLP but doesn’t really say much about what that means or what it can do for you personally. There’s no “look inside” option. Some of the reviews mention this book is for psychotherapists. I want you to know more about it so you can make a more informed decision as to buy it or not. This book is written for therapists but I understood it without being one. The authors explicitly wrote the meta-model so that anyone can use it. They describe how we as people cannot see the world for how it is because of neurological, social, and individual constraints — we create our own model of the world that we act on. They argue that every individual makes the best decision based on the choices from which they are aware; that successful people have many options to choose from in their model of the world while unsuccessful people have limited options to choose from. So the way to be more successful at doing something is to open up more choices to choose from. How? This is where the meta-model comes in to play. The authors describe the meta-model as a way of asking questions to uncover what is lost in a person’s model of the world thats preventing them from making effective decisions in their life. We think using language. Often in a way that deletes, distorts, generalizes, presupposes, and nominalizes events, which prevents us from seeing whats really there. The meta-model is a way of questioning our language so that we can work our way back to more raw perceptions of the world so that we can create more options in our model to make better decisions. There’s a lot more to this book then what I described, but that is the main piece. The authors also included conversations between therapists and clients using the meta-model to solve problems. This book has had a major impact on me. I’ve used the techniques on myself to work on my problems. I used the meta-model on myself to breakdown my generalizations on my career-outlook and personal life to create more opportunities for myself to achieve my goals. You don’t need to be a therapist or specialized expert to benefit from this book. Anyone can.

This is the best book I read on the subject of therapy. Whatever your techniques and your approach for therapy, this book will allow you to become more efficient, precise and confident. It provides you with the tools to get the person consulting you reveal what the real problem is, hence installing a climate of change with an opening to new possibilities, using language. It's basically an art of asking the right question to get the answer unveiling the structure of the map of your client's world regarding his/her own problem. A MUST FOR NLP PRACTITIONERS AND THERAPISTS OF ANY GENRE.

awesome, worth the read, thank you