• Magazine
• Edition 1
• Neurological Levels
• by Robert Dilts

Neurological Levels and the Nervous System

The concept of “neurological levels” assumes that the different levels of learning and change are a function of various types of neurological organization and successively mobilize deeper connections of neurological “circuits.” For example, the level of neurology that is mobilized when a person is challenged on the level of mission and identity is much deeper than the level required to move the hand. To perceive the environment, a person can passively adjust their sensory organs. To act in a particular environment, more of the nervous system must be mobilized. Coordinating these actions in a complex sequence, such as dancing or driving, requires even more neurological involvement. The formation and expression of beliefs and values about skills, behaviors, and the environment require an even greater use of the nervous system (including areas connected to the “heart” and “gut”). A sense of self arises from total mobilization of the nervous system across all other levels. Meaning requires the engagement and coordination of the individual’s nervous system in relation to others. In general, higher levels of processing mobilize deeper engagement of the nervous system.

"Watch your thoughts; They become words. Watch your words; They become actions. Watch your actions; They become habits. Watch your habits; They become your character. Watch your character; It becomes your destiny."

Lao Tzu

Chinese Philosopher

Environment

A particular environment consists of factors such as the nature of the external setting, weather conditions, food, noise level, etc., that surround a person or group. Neurologically, our perceptions of the environment refer to information from our sensory organs and the peripheral nervous system. To perceive a specific environment, for example, people use their eyes to see relevant objects, their ears to hear important sounds, their nose to detect smells, and feel the air temperature on their skin. We also make many subtle and unconscious adjustments to maintain balance, respond to changes in light and sound, adapt to temperature shifts, etc. The peripheral nervous system essentially relays information about the environment to the brain and vice versa. It is responsible for generating sensations and simple reflex reactions.

Behavior

Behavior refers to the specific physical actions and reactions through which we interact with people and our environment. Neurologically, our external behavior results from activity in our motor systems (pyramidal system and cerebellum). For non-reflexive behaviors, the psychomotor system is involved, a deeper neurological level than the sensory organs. The psychomotor system coordinates our physical actions and conscious movements.

Capabilities

Capabilities involve the mental strategies and maps people develop to manage their specific behaviors. While some behaviors are simply reflexive responses to environmental stimuli, most of our actions are not. Many of our behaviors are based on “mental maps” and other internal processes rooted in our mind. This level of experience goes beyond our immediate sensory perceptions. For example, you can create images of things unrelated to your current location. You can recall conversations and events from years ago. You can imagine future events that haven’t happened yet. Behaviors without a mental map, plan, or strategy are like short-circuits, habits, or rituals. At the level of capability, we can choose, modify, and adapt a class of behaviors to a wide range of external situations. “Capability” means mastering a whole class of behaviors—knowing how to do something under various conditions. Neurologically, the development of cognitive abilities is a function of the higher-level processing in the brain's cortex. In the cortex (or gray matter), sensory information is represented as mental maps, linked with other representations, or composed in imagination. This processing is usually accompanied by semi-conscious micro-movements or “access cues” (eye movements, breathing changes, posture adjustments, shifts in vocal tone, etc.).

Values and Beliefs

Values and beliefs relate to fundamental judgments and evaluations about ourselves, others, and the world around us. They determine how meaning is assigned to events and are the core of motivation and culture. Our beliefs and values provide the reinforcement (motivation and permission) that promote or inhibit specific abilities and behaviors. Beliefs and values relate to the question “Why?” Neurologically, beliefs are linked to the limbic system and hypothalamus in the midbrain. The limbic system is associated with emotions and long-term memory. While more “primitive” than the cortex, the limbic system integrates information from the cortex and regulates the autonomic nervous system (which controls heart rate, body temperature, pupil dilation, etc.). Because beliefs arise from deeper brain structures, they cause changes in basic physiological functions responsible for many of our unconscious responses. In fact, we know we truly believe something partly because it triggers physiological responses; it makes our “heart race,” our “blood boil,” or gives us “goosebumps” (all effects we normally can’t create voluntarily). That’s how a lie detector detects whether someone is lying. People show different physical responses when they believe what they say compared to when they lie or are incongruent.

It is this close connection between beliefs and deeper physiological functions that allows beliefs to have such a strong influence on health and healing (as in the case of the placebo effect). Because the expectations produced by our beliefs influence our deeper neurology, they can also have dramatic physiological effects. An example is the woman who adopted a baby and began to lactate—producing enough milk to breastfeed—simply because she believed that “mothers” feed their babies.

Identity

The identity level refers to our sense of who we are. Our perception of identity integrates our beliefs, abilities, and behaviors into a unified system. It also reflects how we see ourselves in relation to larger systems we belong to, and it defines our sense of “role,” “purpose,” and “mission.” In our neurology, identity can be linked to the nervous system as a whole, likely involving deep brain structures such as the reticular formation. The reticular formation is a large group of cells deep in the brainstem. Fibers from this region project through thalamic nuclei to large association areas in the cortex. The reticular formation regulates wakefulness; its destruction at the midbrain level leads to coma. (Conversely, large areas of the cortex can be destroyed without loss of consciousness.)

Identity also has a physiological connection to the immune system, endocrine system, and other deep life-sustaining functions. Therefore, a change or transformation in identity can have a massive and nearly immediate impact on a person’s physiology. Medical studies on individuals with multiple personalities (Putnam 1984) show that dramatic changes can occur when a person switches from one identity to another. For example, EEG brain wave patterns differ significantly across personalities. Some people with multiple personalities wear several different pairs of glasses because their vision changes with each identity. Others have allergies in one personality and none in another. One of the most fascinating examples of physiological changes between identities involved a woman hospitalized for diabetes who “baffled her doctors because when a personality that did not have diabetes was dominant, she showed no symptoms of the disorder…” (Goleman, 1985).

Purpose

The experience of a greater purpose relates to our sense of being part of something much larger than ourselves on a very deep level. It is the awareness of what anthropologist and systems theorist Gregory Bateson called “the pattern that connects all things into a greater whole.” As individuals, we are subsystems of this larger system. Our experience at this level is tied to our sense of direction and mission in life. It emerges from the questions: “For whom?” and “For what?”

Neurologically, the processes related to our sense of purpose involve a kind of “relational field” between our nervous systems and those of others, forming a type of collective nervous system. The outcome of this interaction is sometimes referred to as “group mind,” “group spirit,” or “collective consciousness.” This field may also include the “nervous systems” or information-processing networks of other living beings and even our environment. As Gregory Bateson put it:

The individual mind is immanent—but not only in the body. It is immanent in the pathways and messages outside the body; and there is a larger mind of which the individual mind is only a subsystem. This larger mind is comparable to God and perhaps what people mean by “God,” but it is still immanent in the total interconnected social system and planetary ecology.

To summarize, the neurological levels consist of the following “hierarchy” of neurophysiological structures:

• Purpose: Individual nervous systems forming a system of nervous systems
• Identity: Immune and endocrine systems – nervous system as a whole and deep life-support functions (e.g., reticular system)
• Beliefs and Values: Limbic and autonomic control system (e.g., heart rate, pupil dilation, etc.) – unconscious responses
• Capabilities: Cortical systems – semi-conscious actions (eye movements, posture, etc.)
• Behaviors: Motor system (pyramidal and cerebellar) – conscious actions
• Environment: Peripheral nervous system – sensations and reflexes

Implications

The model of neurological levels has a number of implications. One of them is that different types of change involve factors from different levels.

• For example, reflexive reactions are essentially behavioral responses to environmental stimuli. A change at this level would be achieved mainly by attempting to directly alter either the stimulus or the response, as in classical conditioning.
• However, impulses are internally generated. Effective and lasting change would therefore require altering the source and/or nature of the impulse. An example would be helping someone become aware of the internal representations that trigger the impulse and modify them in some way.
• A phobia most likely involves the belief that something is “dangerous.” Thus, even imagining the danger can trigger the phobic reaction. To create lasting change, one must not only become aware of the qualities of the internal representations that evoke the phobic response but also identify and update the beliefs associated with those representations.
• Addictions are even more internally generated and often reach the identity level, as the person identifies with the addiction. Therefore, the change is not only about what the person does, but also how they perceive themselves.

References