N L P

Neuro-Linguistic Programming  

NLP began in the early 1970s when Richard Bandler, a psychology student at the University of California began working with John Grinder, then Assistant Professor of Linguistics. Together they modelled three people: Fritz Perls, psychologist and originator of Gestalt therapy; Virginia Satir, a prime mover behind family therapy;
and Milton Erickson, the world famous hypnotherapist. Other influences included the ideas of Gregory Bateson, British writer and thinker on anthropology, cybernetics and communications theory.

Initially, NLP was used to model verbal and non-verbal communication skills. As understanding increased about our neurological processes and how we make sense of the world, a number of additional techniques and strategies were developed.

The essence of NLP is the ’psychology of excellence’ and how we use our neurological processing and communication skills to achieve the changes that enable us to live at an
optimal level of wellbeing.

To understand how human beings perceive their world and to work at changing perceptions when they are not empowering, we must be aware of the relationship between:

-       how we think (neurological processes)

-    how we communicate (linguistic)

-       our patterns of emotions and behaviours (programming) 

xx   How can NLP help me?

NLP develops new thinking skills, it improves your communication and gives you more choices about your emotions and your behaviour.

How does it work?

There are a number of patterns and programs that we acquire over time that have been identified by people highly skilled in NLP. These patterns can be shifted using NLP strategies. The following is an example of how to handle criticism differently:

Imagine that you were criticised quite often as a child, first by your parents who had very high expectations, then later by one of your teachers early in your school life.

 

You might find criticism, no matter how mild, very difficult to deal with. You might feel hurt or angry - one emotion leading you to ignore the comments made as you try to block them out, the other emotion causing you to lash out with criticism of your own.

 

Now place yourself in a situation at work where your manager is a fair and reasonable person and it is time for your annual review. As it is highly unlikely that your performance will be perfect - although aiming for perfectionism may well be one of your strategies for avoiding criticism - your manager will give you some feedback that is unwelcome.

 

If you can respond in a positive way - acknowledging that your performance in this area needs improvement - then you can discuss the ways this might be done and learn from the feedback. Your manager will then view you as a confident and mature worker who is keen to improve and capable of doing so.

 

How do you think your manager would view you if you ignore the feedback by failing to change or if you make remarks such as 'It's not my fault! Other people don't pull their weight.'?

 

 

One way in which to handle criticism would be for the NLP practitioner to ask you to see yourself in a picture and suggest to you that this is the 'new you' that is about to learn a new way of responding to criticism. There are then a number of ways that the 'new you' might learn. It may be suggested that you see  yourself being criticised and because you are at a distance from the criticism, this experience called dissociation may be sufficient.

 

There are other techniques of dissociation that may work but if they do not,  the practitioner may need to change some of your submodalities.

 

Your modalities are your senses - vision,  hearing, touch, taste, smell - and your self talk. They are how you perceive and make sense of the world. You can change the way you perceive the world when you change the details of how you sense things, that is, through your submodalities.

 

Imagine, for example, that you were bullied at school and when you think of this bully you still feel some fear or discomfort.

 

If you use you the modality of your inner vision and its submodalities of colour, size, distance, and so on, you might see an image of the bully close to you, in colour and very large. You might 'hear' his voice in the picture as a loud noise and with your inner voice, you might say to  yourself, 'He's so much bigger than me.'

 

Now imagine that you change the image to black and white and send it off into the distance so that it  gets smaller and smaller. Then you might experiment with having your inner voice saying, 'He's small, he's not important.' The fear that you use to feel will start to lessen as you change your inner states. 

 

There are quite a number of different strategies that can be used.

 

Essentially, these strategies change the way that you perceive the world and your self image, based on the memories of the experiences that you have had, how you have reacted to these experiences and the beliefs that were formed as a result.