What is NLP? (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) From your point of view, NLP provides simple effective techniques that help to enable you to make the changes you want to. However, for those of you who would like a little more information regarding the 'principles' of NLP this page provides them. There are so many differing definitions of what NLP is that I think it simpler to give you Richard Bandler's (one of the co-creators of NLP) words. NLP is an attitude ... characterized by the sense of curiosity and adventure and a desire to learn the skills to be able to find out what kinds of communication influences somebody and the kinds of things worth knowing ... to look at life as a rare and unprecedented opportunity to learn. NLP is a methodology ... based on the overall presupposition that all behavior has a structure ... and that structure can be modeled, learned, taught, and changed (re-programmed). The way to know what will be useful and effective are the perceptual skills. NLP has evolved as an innovative technology enabling the practitioner to organize information and perceptions in ways that allow them to achieve results that were once inconceivable.

Neuro Nervous system through which experience is received and processed through the five senses. Linguistic Language and nonverbal communication systems through which neural representations are coded, ordered, and given meaning. Programming The ability to organize our communication and neurological systems to achieve specific desired goals and results.

The Presuppositions of NLP

The meaning of the communication is the response you get.

All distinctions human beings are able to make concerning our environment and our behavior can be usefully represented through the visually, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory senses.

The resources an individual needs to effect a change are already within them.

The map is not the territory.

The positive worth of the individual is held constant, while the value and appropriateness of internal and/or external behavior is questioned.

There is a positive intention motivating every behavior; and a context in which every behavior has value.

Feedback vs. Failure - All results and behaviors are achievements, whether they are desired outcomes for a given task/context or not.

© Richard Bandler and the Society of NLP

 

What is NLP? More details

Someone who wanted to create a model for learning to drive a car really well, might approach a expert in the field something like this - Instead of asking an expert driver, " How do you drive?" ("Very well, thank you."), they would be concentrating not on the content of what they did but on the underlying structure such as how they represent driving in their mind, the beliefs and attitudes they had about driving, the strategies they used in making decisions.Let's use something called submodalities as an example of how a model works. By understanding how we perceive the world through our five senses, we can then understand how some people can respond very resourcefully in a situation and others do not. Once you learn how those who remain resourceful set up their representations, then it's a simple matter to teach others to do the same thing. The Example: Imagine seeing an enormous spider dangling directly in front of your face. Now clear your mind. A common way for people to have a phobic reaction to spiders or anything related to them, is to picture a spider completely oversized and far too close in their minds.

Spiders are tiny, well-mannered creatures that are far more frightened of you than you should be of them but try telling that to someone with that particular phobia. So, why don't these phobic people notice the images they're creating? The popular belief is that we don't pay much attention to what's going on in our unconscious. If you considered the enormous amount of information your brain has to process each day, it's probably best that we don't spend much time dwelling on it (otherwise, we would probably sit around babbling and drooling and eventually starve to death). NLPers ask the question, "If another person can have fun playing with their pet spider, what can we learn about them that we could teach the phobic person so they can play with spiders, too?". The spider-lover would most likely have an image representing spiders that was proportionally correct and at a reasonable distance and possibly other factors not worth getting into right now. Knowing the difference, the NLPer can use one of many techniques to help the phobic person relearn their reaction to spiders so that it is similar in nature to the spider-lover's.

NLP is based on many useful presuppositions that support the attitude that change is imminent. One of the most important is, NLP is about what works, not what should work. In other words, if what you're doing isn't working, try something else, anything else, regardless of whether what you had been doing should have worked. Flexibility is the key element in a given system, the one who is most likely to do well responds to changing (or unchanging) circumstances. That's one reason NLP has made so much progress in an area where such is not the norm. Innovators try out things with little regard as to its "truth" or "reality", NLP is much more interested in results and giving people what they want from life (sappy yes, but "true" nonetheless). (Source unknown - contact webmaster if author is known)

 

Representational Systems & Submodalities
The representational systems in NLP are simply enough the five senses. We represent the world using the visual (images), auditory (sounds), kinesthetic (touch and internal feelings), gustatory (tastes) and olfactory (smells) senses. We picture ourselves lying on a sunny beach, hear the voice of the lifeguard yelling, feel the sensation only sand in your bathing suit can produce, taste the soggy egg salad sandwiches we brought for lunch and smell the aroma of the surf wafting into our nostrils. Our thinking consists of these images, sounds, feelings and usually to a lesser extent, tastes and smells. The entirety of our experiences have been recreated through these senses in our memories and govern our capabilities and beliefs. Curiously enough, our predominant representational system in a given context often shows up in our language, for example: Responding to the statement: I think the Jensen project is going well.
Visual: Yep, looks good to me.
Auditory: I been hearing good things about it.
Kinesthetic: I feel good about the whole project.
Olfactory: Smells like a winner to me.
Gustatory: I can taste the victory. It's no wonder smells and tastes are less commonly used considering how hard they are to work into conversation.

The qualities or attributes of the representations you make using your five senses are submodalities. For example, make a picture of someone you love in your mind. Now, make the colors more intense and notice how it affects you response to it. Now make it black and white and notice your response. Return it to its original shades and hue and bring the image closer. Now move it farther out. Return the picture to its original state, noticing how each of those experiments affected your response. Submodalities are the fine tuning to your representations and can be used to create powerful changes.

Meta-Model
Very simply, the meta-model is set of questions designed to find the explicit meaning in a person's communication. For example: He hurt me.
Meta-Modeler: Who hurt you?
Bob hurt me.
Meta-Modeler: How did he hurt you?
He wouldn't take out the trash like I asked him to. Another example: I can't believe he's like that!
Meta-Modeler: Who?
Mel Gibson.
Meta-Modeler: What's he like?
He's so amazingly gorgeous!
Meta-Modeler: Hey, what about me?! (oops, that not Meta-model)
Many of us would have assumed we knew what was meant by "He hurt me." or "I can't believe he's like that", based on our own experiences. By having the ability to find other people's meaning in their communication, we can be more capable in communicating with them.

Sensory Acuity
A person's thought process is very closely tied with their physiology. A dog senses your fear: how did he know if you didn't tell him. If a friend is depressed, most of us can tell without even talking with them. We pick up clues from their body: slumped shoulders, eyes downcast, head down, lack of animation (and in extreme cases, a loaded pistol held to the head). Sensory acuity takes these observations beyond the more obviously recognizable clues and uses the physical feedback in addition to someone's words to gain as much from communication as possible.

Milton-Model
A set of linguistic patterns derived from Milton Erickson, the father of modern hypnotherapy. These language patterns are used to help guide someone without interfering with how they are experiencing it in their minds. For example, "Think of time you were laughing." It doesn't define when or how hard you were laughing so it applies to everyone (I hope). The Milton-model helps with maintaining rapport and is often used in hypnotic or trance state sessions.

Metaprogram's
Metaprogram's are filters through which we perceive the world. The old maxim, is the glass half full or half empty (or just fluidics challenged) is an example. Another example would be how two different people might approach an argument. A person with what we would call an "away from" strategy would be likely to be finding any way to get away from the conflict. Someone using a "toward" strategy would be more likely to be heading toward a specific goal, perhaps of finding an amicable solution to the conflict. The primary difference between the two being, when you're moving away from something, you never know what you may back into.