Pamela Gawler-Wright.
The P.O.N.D. model and beyond!
Pam’s relaxed and engaging style of presentation hides a formidable range of skills and knowledge. In this session she shared with us, in best NLP practice, her updated model of ‘Modal operators’ from the ‘meta-model’ work of Bandler and Grinder. We spent some time calling out modal operators for Pam to write on the flip charts and to re-aquaint ourselves with this piece of NLP jargon. Pam used this to outline her ‘new’ model expanding the two operators (Necessity and possibility) to a class of four (adding obligation and desire). Not really sure what modal operators are? Me neither so here is a great explanation from the handout Pam and Mandy provided for us.
“Modal operators are sneaky little pieces of language that creep into our speaking and thinking and, literally, define reality. Our modal operators dictate to us what is real, what is possible, what is necessary, even what is morally right or wrong. Here’s the whammy - that can float into any context of our lives, without logic or truth, and leave that context, and all that it contains, irrevocably changed, limited, binding.”
“Because of their power to define what is possible, necessary and permissible, modal operators have a huge impact on the reality we create and what we allow ourselves to achieve. If we believe something is not possible or permitted, any attempt that we make to turn it into an outcome is going to meet with conscious and unconscious obstacles. If a desired state or goal is coded as morally impermissible we will come up against ecological objections which will inevitably defeat our efforts to reach it.”
“Equally our strength of motivation towards or away from certain things is going to be determined by the emotional state connected to it. Some modal operators have the ability to change our state in a moment, to repel us from what would normally be attractive, or compel us towards something we wish to avoid.”
“So who are these little hoodlums? How do we identify, track down, arrest and rehabilitate language that is responsible for such widespread fear and coercion?”
“Learn to recognise them. It is not hard. Understand that their influence was caused by their being misunderstood, untrained and without discipline. All they need is a little guidance to come through. It does not take long to realise that we control them, not the other way around.”
“Modal operators are often at the heart of “resistance”. If I tell you that you must do something I am denying you choice. Very often “choice” or “free will” emerge as the value that the resisting behaviour is serving. Changing your language to something more permissive can create overnight changes in your level of rapport and the cooperation that you receive from others.”

In the original NLP model a distinction was only made between the modal operators of Necessity and Possibility.
Necessity:- “must, must not, have to, need to, need not to, etc.”
Possibility:- “can, can not, possible, impossible, perhaps, maybe, etc”.
Working as a psychotherapist, dealing in particular with addictions, Pam has expanded the original model and include two more ‘operators’, Obligation and Desire.
Obligation:- “should, should not, ought, ought not, obliged to, etc”.
Desire:- “ long, crave, want, desirable, undesirable, not want, etc.”
She has developed this model The P.O.N.D. model for a wide range of applications in therapy and life and it is even being used at world government level.
Pam was keen for us to experience the ‘kinaesthetic’ charge of changing modal operators for a particular issue we currently have. She asked us to take an outcome or goal and express it in the present tense. e.g. “I go to cookery classes.” She asked us to fully experience the effect of this. How does it feel? What internal representations, pictures, dialogue, words, associations do we get? Any emotional experience? How motivating is it? Then she asked us to take that sentence through each of the modal operators of necessity, possibilty, obligation and desire, positive and negative. And to notice what changed, what was ‘better’, what was ‘worse’. All this playing took us to the break.
After the break Jenny wanted to check out her understanding and drew a diagram on the flip chart. (I think she just wanted to try out the new Gel pens!).
I’ve put her ‘model’ on another page, follow this link to see it.
Jenny’s Model.
After this discussion of models of modals, designed by magis and moguls, Pam gave us a demonstration of how to use the ‘fiizzyological’ link between the language of ‘modalities’ and our ‘feelings’. Ideally as a practice group we would have liked to have time to play with the ‘modal’ model. There ought to be more time in the evening. There needs to be more time in the evening. Its not currently possible to slow time down enough to get everything in!
The next best thing to playing is voyeurism! Curly volunteered to be the guinea pig and Pam helped her explore a current issue. Getting Curly to state the issue in the present tense using one of the modal operators, and then to give it a gesture and explore the feelings around that gesture. Pam mirrored, exaggerated, and got Curly to fully experience the states around her ‘stuck’ issue. The great thing about a good demo, and boy was this a great demo, is that its possible to play along with your own issue quietly and unobtrusively at the same time. (Didn’t I tell you voyeurism was good?) I digress. Having fully experienced the power of one modality. Pam invited Curly to restate her issue using a different modal operator, moving her to a different piece of floor to spatially anchor each one. With great ‘rapport’ and a sense of ‘fun’ Pam helped Curly to explore the difference in this new place and to match this with a new gesture. Once this was fully anchored, it was time for a third operator. Always Curly’s choice to pick the operators. A new space on the floor, a new gesture. Then by linking the three states and gestures and ‘collapsing’ and ‘synthesizing’ them into a connected series of movements they evolved into a whole new synthesized gesture. Curly is a really good guinea pig and always plays to the full so we were all able to notice the changes she made and get a real sense of the power of Pam’s P.O.N.D. model and associated ‘techniques’.
Sadly that took us to the end of the evening.
Pam, and Mandy gave us all a great handout explaining this process. Thank you both for a fascinating and useful session.
The learning for me is that there is always something more to learn and in our year of “Innovation” how creative its possible to be. Also Ken brought up a point in his feedback (see below) that Pam was viewing ‘Innovation’ as an ongoing process.
To contact Pam click here. For more information on Beeleaf and their NLP training’s and beyond. Click here.
Ken found that Jenny’s model hadn’t worked for him and produced his own take using circles and a Venn diagram, which he sent to Pam with some direct feedback. If you haven’t yet found it, its on the same page as Jenny’s Model.

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