NLP and "reframing"
NLP (neuro linguistic programming) is a psychological science and method of reprogramming our thoughts and feelings that many therapists such as myself use in their practice on a regular basis. For those of you not familiar with NLP one of the techniques is called reframing which on a very basic level is looking at an event in a different light and taking a positive view out of it instead of a negative one.
Well here is a true story that could be called reframing by default.
In 1937 a young man joined the 6th Battallion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers but in 1941 he took and failed a medical on the grounds of having epilepsy.
In 1941 medical opinion took a rather different view of this condition and asked him what he would do now that he had an “abnormality” and would have to give up his post in the army.
The doctor’s advice was that with an “abnormality” such as this it was advisable for the young man to avoid using his brain! But fortunately he didn’t leave it at that and suggested that to help him avoid using his brain was he take up art. (The logic of that is certainly lost on me!)
So the young man took the advice and enrolled at the Slade School of Art.
Kyffin Williams died at the beginning of this month aged 88 – one of Wales most popular painters.