Timeline Construction: An NLP Technique

Timeline construction is a visual method for representing a person’s memories from different periods in space around them. This concept brings together two philosophical categories: time and space. It turns out that all memories and ideas about the future are encoded by a person in a specific way using submodalities, and the sequence of this encoding can have both diagnostic and therapeutic value.

Diagnostic and Therapeutic Uses

From a diagnostic perspective, we may be interested in which periods of a person’s life are most important to them, and which they try to ignore or even erase. We can also determine whether a person is more oriented toward the past, present, or future, among other things. Therapeutically, this technique is effective when someone has issues with planning, short-term memory, repeating mistakes (“stepping on the same rake again”), a lack of clarity about the future, difficulty recalling the past, or other concerns related to the concept of time.

One particularly interesting use of the timeline is for creating false memories to help a person get rid of real ones. However, this technique is rarely used and will not be covered in this guide.

Technique Description

1. Ask the person to choose a neutral, repetitive daily activity: Examples include washing their face, brushing their teeth, opening a door, or riding an elevator. The activity should be emotionally neutral, repeated over a long period, and likely to continue in the future. Let’s say the person chooses brushing their teeth.
2. Have them recall brushing their teeth this morning: Ask where the image of this memory appears in space and how far it is from them. Have them describe the picture and its modalities.
3. Ask them to recall (or imagine) brushing their teeth yesterday: Identify the submodalities of this image. Continue asking about brushing their teeth two days ago, a week ago, a month ago, three months ago, six months ago, a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, ten years ago, and so on—as far back as they can remember. Each time, determine the submodalities of the images.
4. Ask about the future: “How will you brush your teeth tomorrow?” Identify the image’s submodalities as you did for the past. Then ask about two days from now, a week, two weeks, a month, etc., using similar time intervals as before. Each time, ask them to compare the submodalities of the new image with the previous one.
5. Ask about the present: How do they imagine the process right now? Pay special attention to whether they are associated (seeing through their own eyes) or dissociated (seeing themselves from the outside).
6. Connect the images with an imagined line: This becomes the person’s timeline.

The main purpose of this technique is to reveal the temporal connections a person makes in the space around them. By identifying these, we can make assumptions about their thinking patterns—how they view their life, recall the past, and predict the future.

Challenges and Observations

Sometimes, a person’s representations are limited to the walls of the room they’re in. For more accurate results, suggest they mentally step outside the room and use as much space as they can imagine.

Some people display their aesthetic tendencies by arranging images like paintings in a museum. To avoid this, ask specifically, “Where did this image appear?” Watch their eye movements as they recall or imagine each time period. If their gaze shifts from one place to another, clarify where the image actually appeared. Sometimes, this is because the person wants to impress the therapist but doesn’t understand the “rules of the game,” so they create their own.

Don’t be surprised if some images appear behind the person—this is possible.

Timeline Patterns

It’s interesting to observe the direction of timelines. Most often, timelines resemble the letter V: for right-handed people, the past stretches to the left and up, and the future to the right and up. The closer to today, the larger, brighter, and clearer the images. Usually, the submodalities of past and future differ significantly. This matches what we see in eye movement patterns: visual memories appear in the upper left, while visual constructions (future images) are in the upper right. However, a clear V shape is rare; timelines often have different directions, sometimes radically so. For example, the timeline might be a straight line passing through the person, with the past in front and the future behind, or vice versa. This indicates whether a person is oriented toward the past or future—young people often focus on the future (in front of them), while older people focus on the past.

There’s a simple way to analyze a timeline: what’s in a person’s direct line of sight is important to them and forms the basis of their life. What’s outside their direct view, on the periphery or behind them, is usually unimportant or even unpleasant—this is how people push away unwanted memories. If the timeline suddenly jumps to the side, it often means unpleasant experiences were triggered. Conversely, if the line bends closer to the center, it suggests that period was pleasant and interesting, often related to early childhood memories. For example, someone might recall learning to brush their teeth as a five-year-old on a sunny day, and this image stands out from the rest, appearing right in front of them. This shows that the person’s emotional state has altered the timeline. That’s why it’s important to choose a neutral memory to start with.

Sometimes, the past and future lines run close together, with similar submodalities, making it hard for the person to distinguish between them. In conversation, it may seem like they live in a single day, with all days blending together. This pattern is common among people with alcoholism.

In rare cases, some people can’t construct a timeline at all. If technique errors are ruled out, there’s usually one explanation: linear time is typical of Western, civilized cultures, where people plan and value what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow. But there’s another way of organizing time—so-called “Arabic time”—where a person is less influenced by civilization and more by nature and their surroundings. Such people don’t plan, and may not even remember when things happened. For example, in the movie “Crocodile Dundee,” the hero asks a tribal chief when he was born, and the chief replies, “In the fall.” That’s the only time reference. The absence of a calendar symbolizes nonlinear time and the lack of need to structure it. One such patient couldn’t create a timeline; he associated with any time suggested and, when asked directly, “What would your timeline look like if time could be turned into a line?” he spread his arms and said, “Time? It’s all around us; it can’t be a line.” This is a typical response from someone with a different organization of time.

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