The Law of Requisite Variety
Some of you may know that in addition to being a hypno-psychotherapy and clinical traumatologist, I am also a master trainer of NLP. NLP, for those of you who may not know it stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming. The model was developed in the 1970’s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. These men modelled people (predominantly therapists) who excelled where others failed. They developed what is know as the presupositions of NLP. One of these suppositions is the law of requisite variety. This simply put means that the person with the most behavioural flexibility runs their particular system.
For both a therapist and a client the need for behavioural flexibility cannot be overstated. In order to move from ones present state to ones desired state requires a degree of imagination and flexibility in order to make it happen. The most successful therapists do not feel obliged to be tied down to one method of work or another. These practitioners tend to be far more open to new and novel ways to work. This gives them behavioural flexibility, but if a client does not do the same it is unlikely that the therapeutic dynamic will be successful. If you are struggling with something today, why not try to be more behaviourally flexible. You might well be surprised by the results.
