There are many schools of psychotherapy,
counselling and hypnotherapy. NLP is very different to most of these, both in theory and practice. Though it is often compared to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, with
which it has some similarities, NLP is a much richer and more powerful model of personal change. Dr Richard Bandler, the co-creator of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, defines it
as "the study of the structure of subjective experience and what can be
calculated from it". It is a model of how the mind (neurology) and
language (linguistics) interact to create stable patterns of behaviour
(programming) and how to identify these patterns and change them.
Consider the thousands of thoughts
that you think in a single day. Most of them you hardly notice, until
you think them again... and again... and again. These thoughts run
habitually, or unconsciously: an endless stream of mental chatter, imagery and feelings. This process
might be thought of as a form of self-hypnosis that we all practice.
People rarely stop and examine the content of their continual thought processes, let alone
change it.
Yet these thoughts define your world. They create and
sustain your beliefs and attitudes, even your perceptions. They shape
your behaviour, how you interact with the world around you, and
ultimately the results that you get out of life.
How it works
NLP is the
study of these patterns of thought and feeling and it has generated an
arsenal of techniques and approaches for making rapid changes in those
patterns to generate more useful behaviours and states of mind. Most
psychotherapies and much hypnotherapy are 'insight therapies'. They
depend upon the client having insights - verbal understanding - of why
they think and act the way they do, to unlock their ability to change.
Whilst it can be comforting to understand oneself and help one to cope
with problems, there is very little evidence that this model works to
produce significant change. NLP works by examining how the client's
thought processes, their beliefs, attitudes, feelings etc, create
particular states and behaviours and then retraining the largely
unconscious mental patterns to create different results. This kind of
change can be rapid and lasting and feels very natural and
un-selfconscious.
NLP offers a huge range of techniques for 're-programming' our mental patterns. These techniques are mostly based around the NLP model of hypnosis, and a range of imaginative exercises which generate new perspectives on and feelings about particular issues. These approaches can be conducted in hypnotic trance or in the waking state. NLP is rightly famous for the speed and power with which it effects lasting changes.
Origins of NLP
NLP began when two
academics, Richard Bandler (a mathematician) and John Grinder (a
linguist), set out to model the behaviour of several geniuses in the
field of therapy. They created explicit formal models of the behaviour
of some of the most effective therapists of their time; geniuses such
as the master hypnotist, Milton Erickson, family therapist,
Virginia Satir, and Fritz Perls, the inventor of Gestalt therapy. These
were detailed and explicit models of the way in which these people used
language and non-verbal communication, without reference to any
metaphorical concepts or theoretical psychobabble.
Before NLP,
therapists were born not made, and they operated according to intuitions that
they often found very hard to teach to others. However, by following
the formal models they had developed, Bandler and Grinder found that
they could replicate the same extraordinary results that Erickson,
Satir and Perls achieved. They could also teach it very effectively.
NLP now
Since
then NLP has developed by modelling experts from numerous fields, from
law to sales and marketing, and as such it has become known as the
study of excellence and how to replicate it. NLP is now a discipline
that applies to almost everything.
In practice NLP is a 'talking cure'. When you book a consultation we'll sit down and discuss your situation and
identify the specific changes you want to make. Then I'll show you how
to make those changes and we will use whatever techniques are most
effective to make the process as simple and easy for you as possible.
And you will probably be surprised at how easy and effective it can be.
Click here for more information about what you can expect from working with me.
Is it scientific?
NLP has been criticised for being unscientific and lacking scientific validation. NLP is not a science - science is about making truth statements about the world, proving things to be true or false, NLP by contrast is about what works, it is a technology and an art form. Indeed no therapy is a science.
The argument that it is unscientific and lacking in validation is simply false. Whilst there have been surprisingly few scientific trials of NLP in the UK and the USA, there has been a considerable body of research carried out in other countries, most notably in Germany, which has shown a very strong positive effect for NLP treatments for a wide range of problems. You can see the European Association of NLP's research archive at their web site - http://www.eanlpt.org. The University of Surrey also runs a wide-ranging research project on NLP.
