Keith E Rice - Glossary

Nativism: any orientation in Psychology or Philosophy that stresses the genetic, inherited influences on thought and behaviour over the acquired, experiential influences.

Nature-Nurture Debate: the issue of how much of human behaviour is innate and how much is learned has occupied philosophers and scientists for centuries. However, more recent understanding of the brain's 'plasticity' - the way it develops structurally in response to external stimuli - is beginning to render the 'nature vs nurture debate' obsolete.

Negative Punishment: one of the forms of Operant Conditioning identified by B F Skinner. See Behaviourism.

Neo-Freudian: the term applied to psychologists like Carl Gustav Jung and Erik Erikson who have developed and modified the theories of Sigmund Freud.

Neo-Marxism: a loose term for various 20th Century approaches that amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, usually by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions, such as: Critical Theory, Psychoanalysis or Existentialism (in the case of Jean Paul Sartre).

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP): its foundations laid by Richard Bandler & John Grinder and drawing initially upon the work of leaders in their fields such as hypnotherapist Milton Erickson, linguist Virginia Satyr and anthropologist/philosopher Gregory Bateson, NLP has evolved into a loosely-linked collection of philosophies, models and therapies, with an emphasis on practical and powerful applications.
Dismissed by some academic psychologists as 'unscientific', NLP therapies are increasingly winning over therapists, practitioner psychologists and many in the medical professions simply because they are so effective.

Neurological Levels, Meta-States and Meta-Programmes, all key models in NLP, all serve as prime constructs in the map of the human psyche Integrated SocioPsychology is buildng.

Neurological Levels: developed by Robert Dilts (in part, at least) from the Logical Levels work of Gregory Bateson, this is a stratification into levels of the way the mind orders its perceptions of the world. Neurological Levels also provides an excellent frame for understanding the significance of Spiral Dynamics and is a key element in Integrated SocioPsychology.
Dilts has been attacked in some quarters for a confused use of neurology and misuse of Bateson. However, the model is a very powerful one for understanding how we interact with the world around us. It supports and is supported by Albert Bandura's concept of Reciprocal Determinism. Plus, the exercise Dilts designed to accompany it has a very significant success rate as a therapeutic intervention.
Peter McNab's Article, 'Aligning Neurological Levels - a Reassessment' (1999), considers some of the controversy surrounding the model and gives it a theoretical reframe from Ken Wilber's All Quadrants/All Levels perspective. See also Dilts’ Brain Science.

Neuron: a cell of the brain and nervous system that receives and conducts information by electro-chemical means. Information is received via the neuron's dendrites - though some neurons also receive information directly into the soma (cell body). Information goes out via neurotransmitters from the terminal boutons at the tip of the axon.
Some neurons are minute while others are several feet long.

Neuroscience: the scientific study of the brain and nervous system.

Neurosis: a personality or mental disturbance characterised by anxiety but where the patient has not lost touch with reality - eg: a phobia. The term 'neurosis' remains in use even though the distinction between it and psychosis has been dropped from the major Psychiatry classification systems.

Neuroticism: often taken as the aetiological basis (cause) of a neurosis, in his Dimensions of Temperament construct Hans J Eysenck more specifically used the term to mean 'emotional reactivity' (on a Stable-Unstable scale). He attributed this to the degree of sensitivity of the amygdala.

Neurotransmitter: a chemical substance that is released at the synapse (junction) between neurons to affect the transmission of messages in the nervous system.

NLP Trauma Cure: a simple but highly-effective submodalities exercise to lessen significantly the emotional intensity of traumatic experiences. In some instances, application of the Trauma Cure can actually neutralise the effect of the experience.

NLPers: a colloquial term which tends to be given to people who practice NLP - whether qualified Practitioners or not.

Nocturnal Enuresis: commonly called ‘bedwetting’, this is involuntary urination while asleep after the age at which bladder control usually occurs. Nocturnal enuresis is considered primary (PNE) when a child has not yet had a prolonged period of being dry. Secondary nocturnal enuresis (SNE) is when a child or adult begins wetting again after having stayed dry.

Non-Reductive Physicalism: part of The Mind-Body Problem, this approach incorporates 2 key points with regard to mind-body relations:-

Physicalism is true and mental states must be physical states - but...
All reductionist proposals are unsatisfactory: mental states cannot be reduced to behaviour, brain states or functional states.

Non-Verbal Communication: communication without the use of overt, spoken or written language. Researchers like Allan Pease (1981) estimate that upto 80% of the way we feel is communicated via body language while vocal tone can account for upto 30%.

Noradrenaline: aka norepinephrine, is both a hormone (produced by the adrenal gland for physiological arousal) and a neurotransmitter involved in stimulation of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system.

Norm: something that is standard, usual or typical of a group - be it tangible (eg: dress) or intangible (eg: attitude).