Detecting presuppositions
So far we've loosly defined what linguistic presuppositions are and considered how presuppositions differ from mind reads.
Having the ability to recognise mind-reads assists us in avoiding the common mistake of paying attention to what we think we know and instead to focus on the true meaning of another person's communication.
Detecting the presuppositions inherent in a person's communication can be as simple as asking the question -
What would have to be true (in this person's model of the world) for this person to say this?
Or, in short -
What would have to be true?
Notice the caveat contained in the brackets - in this person's model of the world.
We must always remember that every aspect of a person's communication, including the presuppositions, arises from their unique model of the world and thus 'true' in the world may differ from 'true' in their model.
And whilst it's important to respect the other person's model of the world, the ability to challenge and thus assist them in usefully enriching their world model is just one of the ways NLP techniques can be used to assist people to gain more flexibility in their behaviours and thus operate in more effective and appropriate ways on that world.
For example - when a person says that there is something they would like to be able do but just cannot do or a particular skill they are unable to acquire we can examine the presuppositions inherent in their statement by asking the question what would have to be true?
One of the things that would have to be true, would have to be presupposed, is that something is stopping them from doing the thing they want to do or having the skill they want to have.
It may also be true that this person is unaware of specifically what is stopping them and thus has not recognised the opportunity to focus their energy on getting over, under, around or through this obstacle that's getting in the way of them having that thing that they want.
It's just possible therefore that if we ask them a Meta Model question - What specifically stops you from having (X)? we can cause them to focus upon the obstacle which previously lay outside their conscious attention and begin to work towards a solution which will assist them in gaining their desired outcome.