Meta model is the earliest NLP technique developed by John Grinder and Richard Bandler, by modeling two very successful therapists, Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir, who got extraordinary results from their clients by having them be more specific in what they expressed.

Meta model is by using certain kinds of questions to gather information and details (gain from deep structure of client). Grinder and Bandler observed that in moving from the deep structure to the surface structure, people will unconsciously DELETE, DSITORT and GENERALIZED the information.

Deletion is a process by which we omit parts of an experience or selectively filtered to certain part of our experience. For instance, you won’t hear any sound in the big hall that crowded when you concentrating in talking with someone. Deletion minimizes the world to proportions which we feel capable of handling.

Distortion is the process which we modifying the description of an experience and allows us to us to imagine new things and plan for the future. It is the process which has made possible all the artistic creations which we as humans have produced.

Generalization is the process by which we summarize & group all the events into category, and make general statements based on our own value & belief, ignoring the possible exceptions or special conditions. The ability of generalization may lead a human being to express the world in a more simple way.

In order to recover the missing data or information, as a result of deletions, generalizations and distortions, John Grinder and Richard Bandler had identified 12 important patterns with corresponding questions and called this the Meta Model. This Meta Model is about being more specific to get a better understanding of the person’s model of the world. The purpose of the questions is to cut through this ambiguity, in order to access the missing information for both the client and the coach.

The below is the 12 important pattern define under Meta Model.

A.) Deletion

1. Simple Deletion: Something is left out in the experience.

2. Lack of Referential Index: an action is specified, but the person who is doing the action is left out and not specified.

3. Comparative Deletions: A comparison is made and it is not specified as to what is being compared.

4. Unspecified Verb: verbs where some detail of the action is not clear how something was done.

5. Nominalizations: Changing processes into things or changing verbs into nouns.

B.) Generalizations

1. Universal Quantifiers: Universal quantifiers are typically words such as: all, everyone, never, always, every, only, no one, everything, etc.

2. Modal Operators of Necessity or Possibility: Modal Operators of Necessity include words such as should, must not, shouldn't, must, have to, it is necessary. Modal Operators of Possibility include words such as can/can't, will/won't, may/may not, possible/impossible.

C.) Distortions

1. Mind Reading: The speaker claims to know what another person believes or know

2. Lost Performative: Value judgments are made but it is lack of evidence and not clear who has made the judgment.

3. Cause -- Effect: The speaker establishes a cause-effect relationship between two events or actions, like statement implies that A causes B

4. Complex Equivalence: In this situation two experiences are interpreted as being synonymous. These two experiences could be joined by words such as: therefore, means, implies.

5. Presuppositions: some assumption on part of the sentence to be true or may be true.