No, ecology is not the backbone of NLP. Although the process that the word ecology was used to describe did, and still does have it's place in some models that were taught in the early days. Therapeutic models that were elicited from some very skilled therapists. Namely, Milton H. Erickson M.D., Virginia Satre, Fritz Pearls, Frank Farley, and a host of others. The models themselves are not a representation of NLP, but rather an excellent example of how one could use NLP to reproduce excellence. The co-creators of NLP modeled these skilled professional so well, that many people in the NLP community have come to confuse these early models as NLP. Neuro Linguistic Programming was the set of tools used to elicit, map, and reproduce these models. Now if you said that ecology was the backbone of the six step reframe, or core reversal outcome, or some other model NLP was used to delineate, I would jump to an agreement with you.

Also, I am not saying that the notion of ecology doesn't have it's place, because if you design a subjective system where every outcome in every context was completely dovetailed so that they worked together perfectly while constantly considering all consequences of all behaviors prior to enacting any behavior, you would then have perfect ecology.

But, we do not live in a perfect world, and in order for evolution to continue as it will, there also needs to be times of incongruency and conflict, where the system can be forced to cycle through different logical levels as means of moving toward change.

I had this client once. A woman who had been shooting heroin for over twenty years. She had tried to quit using this drug over thirty times unsuccessfully. She tried cutting down, but failed. She had gotten to the point where she needed to spend five hundred dollars each day just to maintain her Homo static center. And although the most immediate ecological consideration might have been to take her down slowly, as she had built quite a physical dependence, I instead opted to dismiss any immediate ecological considerations for the long term welfare of this client. It was a horrible ride for her, but she got off. And here it is five years later and she is still drug free.

What has happened here is that many people in the NLP community have gotten hooked on this notion of ecology- just for the sake of ecology. There is little wisdom in that kind of thinking. Human beings are very complicated, and we have a situation where a lot of good people are making some very inexperienced guesses about other peoples lives. Sure, it is good to consider the whole when setting out to reorganize a system. But always? In some cases, and with some people, we just have to say the hell with ecology, and go for it. And if we can begin to have a measure of success with that person, we can take care of the ecological considerations later.

There is a place for everything when you are setting out to affect a person who has a real desire to move into a healthy, useful direction. I had a client once who had shot himself in the head, and lived. He was a mess, and when I started out with him I wasn't at all concerned with ecology. I knew that if I could find a way to open a door with him, any door, I could come back later and begin installing strategies that considered the system as a whole. This guy was pretty far gone. It was his second failed attempt at taking his own life. The first time he took 100 Quaaludes-- and lived! Then he shot himself in the head while looking into mirror.

I could go on for quite some time here offering you examples of when any consideration for ecology was secondary at best. If someone is to busy worrying about ecology, when will they have time for the rest of life? And if some NLP practitioner is worrying about being ecological who will be paying attention to the client? Sure, it's nice to be idealistic--To always shoot for the best in any situation. But it ain't going to happen every time on the first, second, and maybe even the third time. That is why I spend so much time developing/teaching models of flexibility. When something is not working you need to do something else. I wouldn't have wanted to tell either of the two clients I mentioned above that I couldn't yet help them because the immediate ecological considerations could not be met. But now, they are both making wonderful contributions to themselves, and to the world around them. If we should focus on any one word, it ought to be the question? With the question being, what do I need to do so that I can help this person live a wonderful, meaningful life filled with pleasure. Even if the answer you get is outrageous, ecological, or anywhere in-between. Perfection is always something we can all move toward, but truly something none of us will ever achieve.

Stay Well

Carmine