#NLP or Neuro linguistic
programming, the brainchild of two Americans, Richard Bandler and John Grinder
in the early 70s, studies how we put our thoughts together, how we know what we
know and how we construct our experiences. It is a process oriented psychology
that concentrates on the “how” of a problem and not the “what”
(content) and the “why” (blames and excuses).
Subjective experience’ includes
what goes on inside your mind, as well as in the outside world and is a
combination what we see, hear and feel and since this cannot be precise with
statistical formulae, it can only be in the form of models which is different
for everyone. All our thoughts, emotions, memories and imaginings are made from
pictures, sounds and sensations. The differences in our subjective experiences
come from a myriad of sequences and placing we can make with the sounds,
pictures and sensations and in the choice of the subject matter that attracts
us and also in the preference of the sense we use to gather information from
outside. We each perceive the world in which we live, uniquely and subjectively
(our map of the world or internal representations). We see values, which
together make up our `mindset’, which may not make sense to other people, in
the same way as how some people think and behave, often doesn’t make sense to
us. None of us, however, has a monopoly on what scientists might call
`objective reality’.
Neuro refers to our neurology
i.e. our five senses, through which we are in contact with the outside world
e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory.
Linguistic refers to the language,
both verbal and non-verbal, used to express our neural representations like
thoughts and emotions. The body language
often reflects our thinking, which determines how you influence and communicate
with others and yourself. (Imagine the body posture of a depressed person and
happy person).
Programming reflects the highly
mechanistic way that we behave in this world expressed as habits, beliefs, and
stereotypes. Everybody is programmed in
some way or the other and these patterns you use affect the balance of your
life.
It shows that success is the result of specific
pattern of thinking and pinpoints the mental program, so that it can be learned
by anyone. It is concerned with what
happens when we think, and the effect of our thinking on our behaviour and that
of others. It facilitates ones communication
both within and with others in a way that makes a difference between mediocrity
and excellence.
The creators of #NLP, Richard Bandler, a computer
scientist & mathematician and John Grinder, a linguist, in their attempt to
study the structure of excellence, observed leading therapists such as Virginia
Satir (family therapy), Fritz Perls (gestalt), and Milton H. Erickson (medical
hypnosis) in addition to successes in other fields.
They discovered that their subjects repeated the
same sequence of behavior for each desired outcome (purpose) and this behaviour
had a noticeable structure. They made
describable models for themselves of the behaviour of the people they were
studying and noted that when they adjusted their own behaviour in line with the
models, they could get the same results as their subjects time after time.
NLP is the study of human
excellence. To understand this better,
take the example of certain specialized sporting activity like skiing which
until recently was thought to be a matter of natural talent. Researchers, who studied frame by frame, the
films of important sportsmen and divided the smooth motion into isolates or the
smallest units of behaviour, found that although they had very different
styles, they were using the same isolates.
When these isolates were taught to the beginners, they improved
immediately.
The key was to identify the essence of their
skills (isolates), so that others could learn.
In #NLP this is called modeling and the key movements (isolates) are
found in your inner thoughts, like words, pictures, feelings or even beliefs.
Take the example of a recipe for making a cake, if you use all the ingredients
and follow the steps, the result will be a cake nearly as good as the recipe
intended. (An improvement for you in any case)
NLP exercises
are like thought experiments, mental exercises or like a game.
Imagine
watching yourself on a giant wheel or a fast carriage from far and then
stepping into your seat and experiencing the ride. These two different perspectives have different
mental structures. Being on the ride is
engaging and exciting and is known in NLP terms as being ‘associated’; while watching the ride is calming and detached and
is known as being ‘disassociated’.
Discovering
these differences and putting them to use is fundamental to NLP. If you want to get excited about something
you need to get involved physically and mentally (associated) and on the other
hand, if you need some mental distance to have a calm and objective view you
can step out of the picture i.e., being disassociated.
Bandler and Grinder noted that people could learn
any behaviour so well consciously that they could now let their unconscious
mind take over the instigation and running of it, thus freeing up the limited
resources of the conscious mind to do other things (programming). This is aptly illustrated by the attempt to
learn to drive, where the programming is taken through four steps.
At first,
watching others drive, it looks so easy, we are therefore unaware of our
incompetence (unconscious incompetence).
We then realize how difficult it is to juggle the various controls,
watch the traffic, obey the signs and may find it overwhelming (conscious
incompetence). We then learn to perform
the tasks but need complete attention (conscious competence). Later when these common tasks become
automatic that they slip out of the conscious mind into the unconscious
(subconscious), thereby freeing the conscious mind to listen to the radio,
think, plan, talk or simply look around.
There clearly
still remains a link between the conscious and the unconscious mind which is
apparent when driving unconsciously especially when effect is required to
deviate from the average driving to make conscious decisions i.e. to stop at a
traffic light etc.
Subjects that Bandler and
Grinder studied were unable to describe how and why they behaved the ways that
they did (unconscious competence level). They noticed slight differences in the
body and verbal language of their subjects depending on the tasks undertaken,
which varied with the different ways the information was processed in each individual.
They noted that each individual, experienced
differently not because the world is different, but because each individual
processed the experience in a different way. The example can be of two people
standing side by side with a dog running towards them, one person may run away
while the other stays to pat the dog.
They both had different subjective experience (reality), their map of
the world, which guided their behaviour.
People make maps by gathering
information externally through the five senses e.g., sight (visual), sound
(auditory), touch or feeling (kinesthetic), taste (gustatory) and smell
(olfactory), and then process them internally to re-present a representation
(map) of the external experience. This
process is done by passing the information through their mental filters of
beliefs and values, memories, habits and so the eventual map (internal
representation) is an edited version of what really happens. In NLP the five senses are known as
representational systems or modalities.
Moreover, each individual has his or her own method
(preference) to gather, process and re-present the information
(predicates). For e.g., a person might
describe a situation in visual terms
i.e., ‘Oh I see it now’, ‘things are looking bright’ (visual) etc. Another would use sound terms like ‘it is
loud and clear’, ‘that rings a bell’ (auditory), and someone else would say,
‘smooth as silk’ (kinesthetic). These
preferred channels are known as predicates. Most of the difficulties in
communication are usually due to the participants using different predicates in
their conversation and so if you keep using auditory words to a visual person,
i.e. use a representational system different to that of the receiver, they will
unconsciously have to translate internally to their own system, i.e. translate
your auditory words to his visual format.
The five
senses (modalities) can be further subdivided into the subdivisions of what
they can do (submodalities). This
concept greatly increases the degree of accuracy of how each individual
represents information. For e.g., sight
(visual) can be bright, dim, different size, shape, sharps, fuzzy coloured or
lack of it, far, near etc. Sound can be loud or quiet different pitch, tempo,
tone, etc. (E.g., fine tuning your TV).
Each individual is unique in the way he/she
represents experience into subjectivity, both in modalities and
sub-modalities. It is therefore
important to direct all your attention to the outside while communicating, so
that you can detect the predicates in others and modify your language to suit
those predicates to make the communication more effective.
Bandler and Grinder also discovered that individuals
seem to communicate using consistent structures of language, which over time
can be recognized through repeating patterns. They also realized that people
who used similar language patterns quickly developed a deep rapport and when
not aligned, they got confused, or they argued, or found difficult to
understand each other.
It has been noticed that it is possible to self
manipulate and be manipulated by others into changing the structure of internal
patterns, in order to change what any experience means to an individual or self
E.g., by changing the way you see a thing, you can change the effect of the
subjective experience of the sight.
E.g., making a picture coloured, or black and white-seeing it from far,
-making it small or bog, -changing the sound or the voice.
Eye accessing cues
External behaviors that
indicate what kind of internal mental processing a person is doing are called
‘accessing cues’. The most easily
noticed accessing cues are eye movements.
You have seen people look up, down, away, and through you countless
times when they were thinking i.e. searching their brain for the
information. These eye movements can be
an important source of information about the structure of a person’s inner
world i.e. how they process and store information as memories.
We all store the information
that we have learnt from birth as pictures, sounds and feelings. Pictures are stored in the top part of our
brains. Sounds are stored in the middle
and feelings are stored in the bottom. When a person is looking up and to their
right they are accessing ‘constructed
images’. Looking up and to the left
accesses ‘remembered images’.
Accessing for a new sound ‘auditory constructed’ the eyes move to the
right. Eye level and over to the left is the accessing cue for remembered
sound. When you look down and to your
right may be a way to access certain sensations. Down left indicates internal auditory
processing (self-talk).
PRESUPPOSITIONS
OF NLP
The methodology of #NLP is based on some basic
assumptions and beliefs known as presuppositions.
1.
NLP is a model of
generation:
It generates new behaviour and not repairs old ones. If what you are doing is not working, do
something else. IF WE ALWAYS DO WHAT WE
ALWAYS DID, WE WILL ALWAYS GET WHAT WE ALWAYS GOT.
2. The map is not the territory: Our internal experience is our map of the world
and is reflected by our external behaviour. Every communication a person makes
has validity in his or her map of the world. .
Reality is what you make of it.
We do not see the world as it really is, but construct a model of
it. Our perceptions are filtered through
our senses and we interpret our experiences in the light of our beliefs,
interests, upbringing, preoccupation and state of mind.
3. Respect the other person’s map of the world: Accept that we are all
different with different maps of reality (experiences). This makes rapport easy and thereby making
change possible. We all travel through the same territory but with different
maps. Throughout history, people have
fought and died in arguments over whose map was right.
4.
There are no failures but
feedback: Failure
is an unprecedented opportunity to learn, no matter what happens. If you look at your mistakes in relation to your goal (outcome) and other
successes, then they are feedback. But
if you see them as failures, then it is a dead end. All results and behaviors
are achievements (have positive intentions). They are the desired outcome for a
given task/context and if not they provide valuable information for change.
5. The part of the system with the most flexibility controls the system: Flexibility means having
more choices in the communication interaction.
(If you have only one choice you are a robot; if you have two choices,
then you have a dilemma; if you have more than two choices then you have
flexibility). The entire point of being
flexible in behaviour is that you can change your behaviour till you get the
response you want.
6. A person cannot communicate: One always gets an answer if one has the capacity to
direct his attention to the outside. Nonverbal responses usually are more
significant than the words in the communication process. The meaning of the communication is the
response it gets and not what is said and so it is not what you say but how
you say it that matters.
7. Behaviour is geared to adaptation and present behaviour is the best
choice available at that time, (which may not be the best choice). Underlying every behaviour is a positive
intention. E.g., if you are engaged to
clean a tiger cage and suddenly the faulty door lets the tiger in – the last
thing in your mind is that you were engaged to clean the place – you run for your life! Alcoholism, smoking, fears, all have some
positive intention. The idea is to
incorporate these intentions in the behavior that replaces these habits I.E.
Can you get what you want without these unwanted behaviors.
8. People have an infinite amount of resources: they might need help to
access the resources at the appropriate time and place. If it is possible for one then it is possible
for anyone; it is just a matter of time.
9. Behaviour and change should be evaluated in terms of context and
ecology. There may be times and
places when they may not be appropriate.
SIX LEGS OF
NLP
These are the basic principles, which help to guide
us through the workings of #NLP.
1.
Get into a resourceful frame
of mind. If you are not in the proper mood, nothing
you do is going to be effective.
Anchoring a past success helps you to get into a resourceful state.
2.
Know your outcome. Make clear positive mental pictures of the
things you wish to achieve before you undertake any task and anchor it. If we
don’t know what we want then we won’t know when we get it.
3.
Rapport is one of the most
important. It is a way of creating an oneness with the
other person by matching their body language, breathing or tone of voice.
Rapport is a state one enters by continuing to match and mirror. It means that the other person has a sense of
ease and comfort and familiarity when communicating with you and also that the
other person is being responsive, and is receptive to your ideas.
4.
Sensory Acuity is having your senses tuned
to what is happening around you. I.e.,
watching the response to know if what you are doing is working and if not to
change what you are doing to get the effect required by your deed or communication.
This would mean opening all or most of your receptive doors (senses) to the
outside.
5.
Have behavioural
flexibility. The part of the system with
the most flexibility ends up controlling the system.
6.
Take action. Vision without action is just a dream; action
without vision passes time; action and vision can change the world.
Unfortunately, unlike external phenomena, we cannot examine our unique,
subjective experience in a laboratory. NLP is only a model – a model of the way
minds work that is straight forward and practical – the start of a user manual.
It is not `right’ or `wrong’, it’s only as useful as it is useful.
Minds are very complex, each of them is different
and as a result we all have different ways or relating to the world. Coming back to the cake, when you bake a cake
you require several things- a list of ingredients, a recipe, some physical
skills. Most of these are available to everyone yet some people consistently
make better cakes than others. NLP is the study of what make the difference
between world-class cake bakers and us, who are just competent. Most of the
time the difference depends on what happens in our heads.
NLP can also be described
as an attitude and a methodology that leaves behind a trail of techniques. The attitude is one of curiosity about
success and willingness to experiment and to consider each experience,
especially failure, as an opportunity to learn. Great ideas remain dreams
unless they help you to change your life and success is not only a matter of
practice.
The methodology is based on the overall
supposition that every successful process has a structure – which can be
modeled, learned, taught and changed (reprogrammed) by others to effect a
change in them. NLP is like a sieve and
it provides the means for isolating skills, capabilities and behavior from
their usual contexts, and enables their study, description and transfer to
others.
Learning NLP is not so
much discovering a new way of doing things but how we are doing it. We all know
what it is like to want something and commit ourselves to it and then be undone
by our habits. Many people are being told WHAT is wrong in their lives. NLP is
about HOW to change unwanted behaviors, which have been serving you in some
ways and HOW more choices can be added so that ecological change can take
place.
NLP gives us the tools to
notice ourselves. We are conditioned to notice things outside of ourselves and
to mould and shape ourselves accordingly. We easily notice what someone else
has said or done or worse what they haven’t, and particularly whose fault it
is. NLP gives us the methodology to notice ourselves for a change. Given that,
the only thing that we have any control over is ourselves, which may be the
only practical or even the only place to start.
Rapport is the skill of matching a person’s body language, tone,
breathing rate etc to that of the recipient. Mutual respect therefore becomes
easier and so facilitates easily flow of communication
In communication NLP
facilitates good rapport by proper calibration (sensory acuity) i.e. what and
how to observe in the receiver’s behavior like body language, words, tone and
most of all the eye movements, to prepare and lead the conversation to the
goals of both.
As far as #NLP is concerned the meaning of a communication is the response
we get irrespective of what we say.
Emphasis therefore shifts from the speaker to the listener.
Proper communication is really making the other
person understand.
NLP uses anchoring, which is a user-friendly
version of conditioned reflex to enhance the moods and make one more
productive, to remove fears and limiting beliefs. An example of auditory
anchor: hearing a favorite song when depressed, improving your mood. So one can
have such anchors at hand by imagining a fantastic occasion (what one sees,
feels and hears) and connect the good feeling to a physical touch. With
practice, repetition of this touch should bring back the good feelings.
NLP is process-oriented
psychology and not content and therefore is non- traumatic, as the person does
not have to re-experience the event, if it is traumatic. People do not
experience reality as such, but their interpretation and perception of reality.
Hence it is possible to change the effect of reality by fine tuning the
perception and therefore change the effect that the reality has on the person.
N. L. P can be presented as;
Having a clear idea of the outcome in any given situation;
Being alert and keeping the senses open so that one notices what one is
getting;
Having the
flexibility to keep changing what one is doing till one gets what wants.
Applications of NLP.
Meta-programs
are habitual behavioral pattern depending on the thinking and processing
style of people - valuable in job
interviews, placements and motivation.
The well-organized outcome
enables us to have a realistic idea of what we want and the process to get them
with the resources we have.
Neuro-Logical Levels helps us to analyze situations by thinking in terms of
Environment, Behavior, Capability, Beliefs and Values and Identity. For e.g. A
boy who misbehaves in school is not necessarily a bad person (identity), but
needs to improve his behavior. It is just like the difference in saying, “I am
an alcoholic” (identity) and saying “I have problems controlling my drinking
Habits” (capability).
Other applications
NLP
explains the importance of using perceptual
positions as a methodology of communication, negotiation and problem
solving. I.e., looking at a problem from ones own point of view (associated),
the opponents’ point of view and the neutral or dissociated point of view –
gives a different perception.
NLP is useful in all walks of life. It is valuable
in personal development, enabling one to discover his inner talent, to be
creative, learn more effectively, to be effective communicator, help in
motivation and stress management.
Curative applications.
Phobias (Fears): It is possible to cure phobias by
exercises, which enables the person to substitute the phobic state with the
desired state.
Stress Management: NLP is especially effective in
stress management by exercises involving disassociation and changing the
strategy of stress.
Trauma cure: NLP offers techniques to enable people
to successfully cope with mental trauma; to cope with bereavement (death);
serious illness like cancer.
Addictions: #NLP can help people in drug addiction, alcoholism and smoking.
In Business
it is effective in negotiations, sales, problem solving and esp. in HRD by
using the thinking styles and habitual filters (meta-programs) to find the suitable
candidates in an interview and place the employees in the right job and after
the right incentives.
The art of salesmanship is selling fantasy. You do not sell a product; you sell the
fantasy of what it will do for its owner’s dreams. Here comes the advantage of knowing the
clients preferred system (predicates), having the flexibility and adapting till
one gets the outcome desired.
In teaching it is valuable to know the thinking style and preferred
modality of the students and increases the teacher-student rapport. There are
effective techniques to help the students to study, recollect information
(visual learning), to remove fear of exams and to motivate them for bigger
things.
The whole art of teaching is
only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose
of satisfying it afterwards.
It is also useful in domestic circumstances in building rapport within the family unit,
problem solving, and help to teach and motivate children.
Counseling has been given a quantum
leap in its effectiveness by avoiding content and concentrating on the process
and how to change it.
Medical practice has been made more
patient- friendly by paying more attention to the person in the patient and by
facilitating rapport between the doctor and the patient.
It helps to remove limiting beliefs of people and resolve stressful memory of the
past, using the time line therapy.
It is also effective in removing phobias, in trauma cure, addiction and
promotes health and wellbeing.
What is fascinating about NLP, is that, being a process-oriented psychology, it
concentrates on the methodology, hence the self improvement will be through
your own effort, developed in your own way, tailored to your own special
circumstances and therefore permanent. There are no bulky manuals, as it is
believed that the brain is the best manual and only needs proper process
oriented tools. The Brain is like a one billion-gigabyte neck-top PC,
manufactured by unskilled labour, but without an instruction manual (software).
NLP provides just that! The cutting edge driver software for the brain.
In short the magic of NLP helps in:
Stress management, Personality development and
communication skills.
To improve the art of learning and discover your
hidden talents that you thought only others had.
Improve your rapport skills and so become an
effective communicator and negotiator.
To become more creative and to discover your hidden
resources.
To treat you failures as opportunities and to make
them work for you.
Feel the difference using the tools of change, which
teach you to see, hear, feel the effect when it is achieved.
To learn how to motivate and to discover subtle
techniques to get onto the proper frame of mind and to know what you really
want and to do anything that you want.
The magic of N L P is based on the idea that
excellence has a structure that can be studied and learned by others and;
It reaches parts of you that other therapies don't.
It enables you to achieve things when others can't.
It makes it possible for you to create what others
can't.
It shows you techniques to avoid stress, which
others haven't.
It shows you ways to learn so that you can recollect
easily, takes test and interviews with confidence.
It shows you how to change from a non-productive
mood to a productive one whenever needed.
