Properties of Thoughts: Submodalities

In the 1970s, John Grinder and I introduced the idea that people form mental representations. Our idea wasn’t entirely new—Gregory Bateson and Marshall McLuhan had discussed it before—but we formalized it. We defined thinking as thinking in images, thinking in words, and thinking in feelings, tastes, and smells. Since then, I’ve taken it a step further by breaking each system down into individual components. The properties of images, sounds, and feelings are called submodalities.

Humans have five senses through which they receive information about the outside world. Then, they represent the world internally using five internal senses. One way people think is through images, which can be static or dynamic. For example, when someone explains directions to you—or you explain them to someone else—it all depends on your ability to focus and mentally picture how to get to the desired place. When creating something, people must first create it in their minds, picturing exactly what it should look like.

These images have certain properties. For instance, think about what you did yesterday. As you imagine your day, you’ll mentally see yourself doing or seeing something. You might see a static picture of your actions or remember them as a dynamic movie. Either way, this is one way to receive and analyze information about the world around you.

We can also hear internal sounds. When recalling something someone said to you, a song you heard, or anything else, you hear the voice of the person, the singer, or even your own voice. These are examples of internal sounds, and they have different properties. If you pay attention, you’ll notice they vary in volume, tone, and resonance.

Internal feelings are no different from sounds and images. When experiencing a feeling, you might sense it in a specific part of your body. The feeling starts somewhere, and when you focus on it, it may move to another spot. People often use such descriptions when talking about fears.

They might say things like, “I had a knot in my stomach, then my mouth went dry, and my head started spinning.” People constantly talk about what’s happening in their internal reality. When we think about something, we imagine it in a specific place. The image has a certain size and is located at a certain distance. When we examine internal—mental—images, we realize they aren’t identical to images of the external world. However, we believe they represent something in front of us with a certain size. We might see ourselves in the image, which means we’re looking at it from the outside (dissociated). Or we might not see ourselves, experiencing it through our own eyes (associated).

When you hear an internal voice, it might be your own or someone else’s. It can come from the right or left, be directed inward or outward. Sometimes the internal voice is very loud, other times very quiet. Sometimes there’s complete silence. It doesn’t really matter where it comes from or what qualities it has. What matters is noticing the differences in internal voices that occur in different states.

In psychology, people have studied feelings for a long time. Early in my career, I met with various counselors, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists who worked with patients. I was always surprised by how often people were asked, “How do you feel about that?” And patients would often reply, “I feel depressed.”

They answered without thinking about what the word actually meant. Patients couldn’t stop and see that the word describing a state turns into a word describing an action. When people say they “feel depressed,” they use a verb. But when they say, “I have doubts,” they turn the verb into a noun, making it an event or a thing. When someone says, “I have frustration,” it doesn’t mean they have a basket full of something—they are in the process of being frustrated.

When you turn a state into a process, you learn much more about it. When therapists ask their patients, “What do you feel when you’re frustrated?” or “What do you feel when you’re disappointed?” they miss the most important information. We know there’s another way to process information about the world. Understanding how the brain works suggests that the connection between all organs is as complex as the connections within the brain itself. Only this allows us to think in feelings.

I want to emphasize that our body is not separate from our brain. The body’s organs are an “extension” of the brain. When people say they feel frustrated, it’s important to ask guiding questions: “Where do you feel this emotion? Where does it start? In what part of your body does it appear? Where does it move?” Feelings can’t be static—they always move in some direction.

I know that sometimes, when people feel fear, they sense their insides twisting into a tight knot. But in reality, the twisting process goes either clockwise or counterclockwise. Whenever someone tells me something like this, I ask where this process is happening. They answer that the feeling appears in their stomach or chest. It doesn’t really matter where it happens. What matters is what the person does with that feeling.

Sometimes I ask, “In which direction does the sensation move?” and they reply, “It’s not moving.” Only by taking the patient’s hand and making them move it clockwise or counterclockwise, right or left, can we determine the direction of their bodily sensations. These are the only truly accessible measurements.

When a person starts thinking about their feeling, they realize that only one of these directions is correct. From this, people usually conclude that the sensation moves, even if only slightly. The fact that the feeling moves means you can make it move faster, slower, forward, or backward. Our feelings are not beyond our control. Most people need to gain control over their feelings, because once you have control, you can change them.

The properties of your thoughts—the submodalities—determine how those thoughts affect you. When you make large movements with feelings you’re associated with, you feel those emotions more intensely. When you make the movements smaller and dissociate from the feeling, you notice they become weaker. We can learn to control submodalities to evoke the necessary feelings at the right moments. I call this process managing your own brain.