This is a model taken from Virginia Satir‘s belief system, and means that whatever a person does, they are in fact attempting to fulfill some positive intention (of which they may not be aware). It assumes that the current behaviour exhibited by a person represents the best choice available to them at the time. Generating alternatives from this point of view is thought by NLP proponents to be a useful way of helping people to change unwanted or undesirable behaviours.
In a similar vein, psychiatrist R. D. Laing has argued that the symptoms of what is normally called mental illness are just comprehensible reactions to impossible demands that society and particularly family life places on some sensitive individuals. (Main article: Positive and negative (NLP))
