NLP – An Introduction by Graham Smith

NEURO - to do with our neurology. All our experience is a product of the way we use and organize our senses. All our behaviour stems from this. Your mind is what your neurology does.

LINGUISTIC - how we use language to organize our own thoughts and to communicate with others.

PROGRAMMING - our habits of mind. Everything we can do while we are consciously thinking about something else. (This means we spend most of our lives doing our habits. Might it be worth checking them from time to time?)

Although the name is a bit of a mouthful, by a stroke of luck the people who use NLP are known as ‘Nelpers’. This sounds more like what we do.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming was first developed in the 1970s by its co-creators: Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Grinder was an associate professor of linguistics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Bandler was a postgraduate student of mathematics and computer science who took one of Grinder’s classes.

The two men shared an intense curiosity about the factors that distinguish consistently outstanding performers from merely competent ones. Neither was an academic psychologist and perhaps this lack of psychotheology allowed the two explorers to presuppose nothing and question everything in their study of excellence. This ‘Attitude of rampant curiosity’ (Bandler’s words) is one definition of NLP. Here are some more. NLP is:

• ‘The study of excellence’ (Anon)
• ‘The study of the structure of subjective experience’ (Robert Dilts)
• ‘The art and science of getting what you want’ (Dr. Harry Alder)
• ‘NLP is a valuable and intriguing approach to the understanding of learning and communication’ (Tony Buzan)
• ‘NLP is the art and science of excellence, derived from studying how top people in different fields obtain their outstanding results. These communication skills can be learned by anyone to improve their effectiveness both personally and professionally.’
  (O’Connor and Seymour in ‘Introducing NLP’.)
• ‘NLP is the study of what works in thinking, language and behaviour. It is a way of coding and reproducing excellence that enables you consistently to achieve the results that you want both for yourself and your business.’ (Sue Knight)

HISTORY OF NLP

EARLY DAYS

The first NLP book, published in 1975, was entitled 'The Structure of Magic'. The magic Bandler and Grinder referred to was the power of two therapeutic giants: Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir, to help people to overcome their problems. Later, Gregory Bateson Introduced them to Milton H Erickson MD, the dominant figure in modern hypnotherapy. The authors' modelled Erickson's brilliant approach to hypnosis and incorporated the results into NLP.

The authors had their pick of therapists to study. The three they selected to model were remarkable in the consistency and quality of the results they achieved. They differed greatly, however, in their individual views of therapy and their theoretical leanings.

TRANSFORMATION
Rather than getting involved in what their subjects thought they were doing, Bandler and Grinder concentrated on literal descriptions of what was said and how it was spoken.

What became clear to them were striking similarities in the language, both verbal and nonverbal, used by their subjects.

The authors described in this first book the psychological structure of language: the surface structure or what was said and the deep structure – what lay beneath the actual words. These concepts were adopted from linguist Noam Chomsky’s Transformational Grammar and developed into a very precise way of coding mental activity. One result of their work was the Meta Model. This model allows the user to analyze and respond to statements with questions that reveal what the speaker really meant by what was said and the patterns and processes involved in the thinking behind it. The Meta Model remains one of the most powerful tools available in the field of communication. It is taught in a practical form in our 'Precision Questions' module.

FROM NOW ON
Since then, many thousands of new developers have joined in the exciting, liberating community of NLP explorers. Inevitably, different schools of thought have diverged from each other as people pursued their own fields of interest. Applications are being discovered in education, the law, business, writing, sports and music, as well as ongoing development in personal development and therapy. What links them all is a lively curiosity, a willingness to say ‘I don’t know – yet’ when faced with the puzzles and contradictions of humanity and a conceptual framework that enables us to believe in our ability to change our minds – and keep the change.

NLP IN ACTION- THE 4 KEYS TO NLP

• OUTCOME FOCUS: knowing what you want to achieve before you start.
• SENSORY ACUITY: being an excellent observer.
• BEHAVIOURAL FLEXIBILITY: always having a choice of options.
• RAPPORT: the ability to create a feeling of openness and trust with people.

‘I have observed the psychotherapy scene since the days when Freud was the main voice. Later brief psychotherapy took a mere six months. Now we have the 30 minute and even 5 minute cures of NLP. Speed is not the real issue. We must be closing in on the actual design of people’ (Wilson van Dusen, PhD, former Chief Psychologist at Mendocino State Hospital, California)

NLP is about HOW (rather than why)

Bandler and Grinder decided to develop ways of modelling people who achieve excellent results so that others could learn how to improve their own performance. In succeeding, they created a framework for describing and transferring the specifics of how anyone does anything.

BENCHMARKING
Modelling provides a precise way of revealing the essential ingredients of high performance, allowing employers and sports and athletic coaches to benchmark excellence and teach others how to benefit. In other words, ‘talent’ can be converted into transferable skills.

PROBLEM SOLVING
Modelling enables us to learn how someone is doing his or her problem. Sometimes this knowledge alone is enough to enable the person concerned to do something different – to replace the problem behaviour with something they prefer. Sometimes the therapist may use one or other of the NLP techniques – ‘recipes’ developed by NLPers, while dealing with common issues, to enable useful changes in mental habits.

UNDERSTANDING EACH OTHER
NLP provides a common, neutral way of describing people who may think differently from each other. Instead of being suspicious of different thinking styles, people can learn to recognize and accept individual perceptions and become more flexible in their ways of interacting, both with themselves and others.

Copyright 2006 Graham Smith is a Hypnotherapist and Master Practitioner of NLP. He lives and works in West Cornwall (UK). Graham is in his fourteenth year of helping his clients to deal with problems so that they can enjoy a better life. You’re welcome to phone him on 01736 740141 for a chat or visit www.smithandfriends.co.uk to learn more. His relaxation music can be heard at www.calmtime.co.uk