Neuro Linguistic Programming is a well known theory which cannot be pinned down to a single definition. It studies Brilliance and Qualities.
- Neurology stands for; the mind and how we think.
- Linguistic means; how we use language and how it affect us.
- Programming is how we sequence our actions to achieve our goals.
I use NLP for coaching; It is very good for becoming aware on how we represent the reality inside our mind. This inner representation is lived emotionally. This will determine our behaviour and the communication we use with the external world. Our communication and behaviour will determine the results we are getting in life.
If we do not achieve what we want, and others people succeed in the same task, it is not because of us. It is because of the way we communicate thus generating an answer, a perception and a response by others.
So if we want to reach our goals we may have to change the way we communicate and be perceived in the right way to achieve the goal; whether this would be in a professional area, emotional relationship area or other areas of our life.
NLP improves the way we think about us and others; it works on our belief, values and principle that rules our choice and our decisions. It works on wording; the words has inner power and can elicit good or bad inner realities. It works on modelling; people prefers who is alike and similar to them. Lastly it works on the inner syntax we sequence our inner reality.
NLP can be summarised in this quote: “ The map is not the territory that it intended to represent”. We all have inner map of our reality; These map is not the external reality, and if things doesn’t works out, we have to change our inner map which is made up of values, principle, images, sounds, sensations, personal experiences, interpretations, words etc.
To give you an example on how our thoughts are linked to our reality, do this simple test:
Imagine you have a lemon in your hands. You can feel the texture with your fingers, you can smell it and you see it. Get a clear picture in your mind with all of this sensorial aspects. Now you decide to cut a wedge of it; so you take a knife and you start cutting it. You will see and feel the juice running in your fingers, the smell is now stronger and you can see the inside of the lemon. You have now a wedge of it in your hands, it is bright clear in front of you. Now decide to give a bite to the lemon wedge. You are taking it into your mouth and bite it. You feel the sour juice on your mouth, on your teeth and on your tongue. Your mouth is watering copiously.
Have you done it? Is your mouth watering? Did you really had a lemon? This is the power of our mind: it triggers the body and alter the perception. The mind do so in all aspects of our life and it drives us to responses linked to our experiences, our beliefs, principles and values. Then our mind sequences these stimulus and the result will be our behaviour according to the inner map, to the inner representation of reality. So if there is a lack of compatibility between inner and outer reality, we will not hit the target.
So, to simplify the process and to give the client and immediate result, NLP will swap de-powering behaviours with empowering ones by modelling and emulating those of successful people.
Sometime only one session is required to unlock long term situations and patterns of behaviour.
NLP will unravel the inner reality that will explain why we do what we do, and gives us a tool to change once and for all, to unchain ourself from our perceived limits.
A. M. Steinbach
Neurolinguistic Programming: A Systematic Approach to Change.
Neurolinguistic programming (NLP )integrates advances in cybernetics, psychophysiology, linguistics, and information services. It has been used in business, education, law, medicine and psychotherapy to alter people’s responses to stimuli, so they are better able to regulate their environment and themselves.
There are five steps to an effective NLP interaction. They include:
- Establishing rapport; the therapist must match his verbal and non-verbal behaviors to the patient’s
- Gathering information about the patient’s present problem and goals by noting his verbal patterns and non-verbal responses
- Considering the impact that achieving the patient’s goals will have on him, his work, family and friends, and retaining any positive aspects of his current situation
- Helping the patient achieve his goals by using specific techniques to alter his responses to various stimuli
- Ensuring the altered responses achieved in therapy are integrated into the patient’s daily life. NLP has been used to help patients with medical problems ranging from purely psychological to complex organic ones.
INDICATIONS AND MEDICAL APPLICATIONS
NLP is not an alternative to standard medical practice or the medical model. It enhances what physicians already do. Standard medical and surgical approaches, chemotherapy and drugs treat physiological causes of disease directly, but may fail to utilize the full potential that people have for control and self regulation. NLP is a way to increase the physician’s skills and abilities so outcomes can be achieved which are worthwhile for him and for his patients. The only thing to consider is the utility of proceeding with this model. For example, if a patient has tonsillitis, it can probably be dealt with by a skillful practitioner of NLP and the tonsillitis influenced or healed. However, the time required for this may be two or three hours of intense interaction. On the other hand, prescribing penicillin is far quicker and probably much more appropriate for this particular problem.
NLP has been used in virtually every diagnostic category of medicine, ranging from purely psychological difficulties such as anxieties, fears and depression to complex organic problems such as skin rashes, cardiac arrhythmias, asthma, control of the spread of malignancies and pain. No claims are made that this model is better than others. However, it is a model about modelling, and as such enhances any user’s ability to more effectively impact his environment. Areas of possible application that are currently being explored are compliance and prevention. NLP could be used either to establish strategies to encourage health seeking behaviors, or to find why some patients have been able to recover easily and rapidly from a particular illness, model his strategies, and subsequently instill them in others who are either at risk, or in the early stages of particular ailments.
SKILLS REQUIRED TO USE NLP
The fundamental requirement for using this model is the ability to set explicit outcomes, the ability to use your senses as feedback about progress towards a therapeutic goal, and the ability to be flexible in accomplishing that goal. Developing sensory acuity in auditory, visual, and kinesthetic systems, coupled with practice in remembering which specific external response of another person is attached to a certain internal experience, is the basic requirement.
A second necessary skill is internal representational flexibility, so that you can easily shift from one representation to another, increasing the associations or translating between the sensory channels. For example, picture your favourite person or object, and then in your mind’s eye systematically vary, for instance, the brightness of the picture, its size, its clarity, its distance from you etc. This is done not only for each representational system, but between them. (For example, if you hear a tone, a color is suggested to you.)
Finally, training and development in external behavior is important, because the physician or therapist needs to respond systematically to his patient by adjusting his behavior in relation to the patient’s. Part of this task requires the ability to exhibit congruent behavior to elicit explicit responses from the patient. Instructions for self-training can be utilized, although it is much easier to learn in a training session or workshop.
Another level of skill development or ‘patterning’ involves learning the various interventions and combining them in various ways so that they can be implemented with flexibility.
CONCLUSION
This survey of NLP has outlined historical development, given a definition, explained basic assumptions and provided an outline of sequential behaviors that have been useful in achieving worthwhile results in medical contexts. I want to remind you that you operate upon the world using the maps or representations that you make. It is tempting to believe that one’s preferred model is the real and true one, but the ‘map is not the territory’.
A wise grandmother once told me “If you always do what you have always done, you’ll always get what you have always gotten”.
A. M. Steinbach
Neurolinguistic Programming: A Systematic Approach to Change
The term neurolinguistic programming (NLP) is trademarked by the originators.