Presuppositions
Although presuppositions are covered by the classic NLP syllabus, it is
often misunderstood. It’s a simple building block of the Meta Model -
but because of its use in hypnosis and suggestion I think the humble
presupposition deserves its own little chapter.What Is A Presupposition?
A presupposition is a structure of language that makes unverbalised
assumptions.For example, I could say to you “I’m not going to Burger King again!” which would make the presuppo-
sition that I had been to Burger King before.
A devious barrister in a courtroom might ask a man “have you stopped beating your wife?” to give the
presupposition that the man used to (or still does) beat his wife. These are obvious presuppositions
and are only really worth mentioning quickly to show an example of what a presupposition is.
Increasingly often you can hear people saying things like “I know MY religion is right! Why? Because
I feel it in my heart!” The subtle presupposition here is the word “why” which is intended to fill in
for us. By skipping over it quickly, we are prone to accept that we were probably going to ask “why”
ourselves. In fact, we did not ask why, and this kind of subtle presupposition is made very useful for
people who want to steer our conversations in a particular direction.
Presuppositions + Subtlety = Power
A presupposition gets much more powerful with subtlety. Ide-
ally, when someone is in a confused (suggestible) state, a
cleverly-worded presupposition can be used to make
the person believe your presupposed statement.
I saw a good example of this in the container
of a McDonald’s burger the other day. On
the inside of the box, under the lid, was
printed the following statement in large,
red lettering: “Unique? You might even
say it’s delicious!”