What is NLP?

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a set of language and sensory-based interventions and techniques of behavior modification that will help improve the person’s self-awareness and confidence, their communication skills, behaviors and social actions.

NLP helps people understand their own minds, effectively switch and modify limiting thoughts and behaviors, learn to manage their moods and emotions and, at the same time, see ways they have been successful in the past and determine how they can most easily and efficiently repeat that success in other areas of their lives. NLP practitioners believe that people have answers to their own problems within themselves; it is the NLP practitioner’s mission to help them draw out those answers.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming was developed in the 1970’s at the University of California, Santa Cruz, by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Richard Bandler, who first studied mathematics and computer science and then majored in Psychology, teamed up with Grinder, who was an associate professor of linguistics at the university, to study the principles that governed the language structure of the Gestalt therapy. They modelled the methods used by therapists like Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls and identified language patterns that are characteristic of effective therapists. They also studied the work of Noam Chomsky and Milton Erickson and incorporated Dr. Erickson’s techniques in NLP. Bandler and Grinder also cooperated with well-known names like Robert Dilts and Leslie Cameron Bandler, who contributed to further expand and develop NLP.
Today NLP is used in a wide variety of fields, including business, sports, health, counselling, law, military and education.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming was developed in the 1970’s at the University of California, Santa Cruz, by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Richard Bandler, who first studied mathematics and computer science and then majored in Psychology, teamed up with Grinder, who was an associate professor of linguistics at the university, to study the principles that governed the language structure of the Gestalt therapy. They modelled the methods used by therapists like Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls and identified language patterns that are characteristic of effective therapists. They also studied the work of Noam Chomsky and Milton Erickson and incorporated Dr. Erickson’s techniques in NLP. Bandler and Grinder also cooperated with well-known names like Robert Dilts and Leslie Cameron Bandler, who contributed to further expand and develop NLP.
Today NLP is used in a wide variety of fields, including business, sports, health, counselling, law, military and education.

The key elements of Neuro-Linguistic Programming are modelling the successful and effective communication. After studying and understanding how a successful person accomplishes a task, the technique can be effectively communicated to others, in order to help them accomplish their own task.

One of the principles of Neuro-Linguistic Programming is that every person has their own map of the world and operates within their own perspective rather than from a place of objectivity. Everyone’s perception of reality is distorted, filtered, limited and unique. An NLP practitioner must therefore access the individual’s representational systems, understand what the person’s map of the reality is and what effect it can have on that person’s thoughts and behavioural patterns, emotional state and aspirations. The NLP practitioner can then help individuals replace limiting beliefs, strengthen skills, reduce intensity of negative emotions or enhance positive states. Individuals will build effective communication between conscious and unconscious mental processes, to increase creativity and problem-solving skills.