Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

Neuro Linguistic Programming is a set of specific techniques that deliberately restructure toward positive functioning the brain’s thinking and the body’s behaviours by aligning the conscious with the unconscious mind and body. NLP offers highly refined tools to take charge of every area of life in the most effective way possible to produce results. It enables individuals to proactively design their physical and emotional responses.

The Three Components of NLP are:

NEURO -
The nervous system’s taking in of “reality” through the five senses
- Visual (sight)
- Auditory (sound)
- Kinesthetic (touch)
- Olfactory (smell)
- Gustatory (taste)
• Understanding how the body’s and mind’s neurology works to better direct it toward more
effective thoughts and behaviours
• Creating new neurological pathways that break through mental boundary conditions

LINGUISTIC -
• Becoming aware of how communication occurs within self and with others
- pictures
- sounds
- feelings
- tastes
- smells
- internal dialogue
• Using language to guide the mind toward change
• Speaking to others within their particular representational system or their model of the world

PROGRAMMING —
• Understanding the mind is like a computer with thought patterns as the “software,” discovering what programs are determining current experience
• Using specific tools and techniques to reprogram, upgrade and install new “software” for optimal high performance

HISTORY OF NLP
Neuro Linguistic Programming is a hybrid science that was developed in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s by computer scientist, Richard Bandler, and linguist, John Grinder. From the combined perspectives of their respective sciences, they began a study of three therapists. The therapists were producing excellent results, transforming their clients’ ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. They modeled Family therapist, Virginia Satir; Gestalt therapist, Fritz Pens; and hypnotherapist, Milton Erickson, who legitimized hypnotherapy as a healing treatment modality accepted by the A.M.A. (American Medical Association). Bandler and Grinder were looking to discover exactly what transpired in the minds and bodies of patients at the moment change occurred. They asked what specifically caused the change and how they could replicate it more quickly and efficiently, without years of therapy.
In addition, Bandler and Grinder examined what was occurring in the minds and behaviours of the therapists who achieved such great successes with their patients. Bandler and Grinder wanted to describe the steps of the therapeutic process itself to teach others step-by-step how to achieve the exact same results in less time. The techniques Bandler and Grinder developed by modeling Satir, Pens and Erickson are so concise and effective that the behavioural changes that used to take years now can occur within a matter of hours or minutes. In the decades since its inception, NLP has proved a reliable and fast way for people to gain control of their minds and, therefore, their results.