neurolinguistic programming

Neurolinguistic programming (AKA NLP) is a hypnotic conversational technique used to elicit stronger and deeper connections with others. It can also be used to manipulate people.

The basics of NLP are:
1. Build rapport with the other person by copying the posture, blinking rate, breathing rate, and speech style. This will create an unconscious biofeedback linkage between them and you. You can then slightly control their pace by speeding up or slowing down. Try though to speak in tempo with their breathing -- but a monotone voice is not necessary.

2. Try to say things that are obvious and congruent with that they are thinking about. Say things that do not need real conscious thought to interpret. Try to understand how they see things and use that as a guide.

3. Use smooth transistions to guide the person where you want them to go. Make your speech to them connected and un abrasive. Over use words like "as" "while" "because" "then" and "like" to imply continuity where there isn't. This will lead them along.

4. You will learn to guide your technique by watching their responses. At first this will be hard but people look different when they are in a trance and it will be obvious when you screw up and they pop out.

Want more? email me... or search the web. :-)

NLP is very useful if you want to formalize the language of the mind to use it as concisely and efficiently as possible to achieve a specific and desired goal.

NLP is not about changing (people's) minds, but about understanding the fundamentals of how they work.

NLP is very scientific ... many millions of dollars went and are going into NLP or NLP related research. Neurological network projects are undertaken to try to recreate some of the human mind in the form of a computer. Only the NLP science delivers the core or fundamental building blocks of the "operating system" of the brain.

"NLP is an attitude and a methodology that leaves behind a trail of techniques." Richard Bandler

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a branch of cognitive and behavioral psychology whose primary concern is to model behavior and cognition. It was developed in the 1970's by Richard Bandler and John Grinder from their work in modeling. They initially modelled family therapist Virginia Satir, Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls, hypnotherapist Milton H. Erickson and Gregory Bateson. They derived much of the theory behind their work from Korzybski's General Semantics and Chomsky's Transformational Generative Grammar. Bandler describes NLP as the "study of the structure of subjective experience." At times it has also been called the study of things that work.

Although NLP started in the field of therapy, it has now been expanded to include such diverse topics as sales, persuasion and even seduction (ladies beware).

NLP Presuppositions:

• The ability to change the process by which we experience reality is more often valuable than changing the content of our experience of reality.
• The meaning of the communication is the response you get.
• All distinctions human beings are able to make concerning our environment and our behavior can be usefully represented through the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory senses.
• The resources an individual needs in order to effect a change are already within them.
• The map is not the territory.
• The positive worth of the individual is held constant, while the value and appropriateness of internal and/or external behavior is questioned.
• There is a positive intention motivating every behavior, and a context in which every behavior has value.
• Feedback vs. Failure - All results and behaviors are achievements, whether they are desired outcomes for a given task/context, or not.

NLP Topics:

• Ambiguity (phonetic, Lexical / Semantic, Syntactic, Punctuation ambiguity)
• Pacing
• Thought Loop
• Nominalization
• Reframing
• Rapport
• Anchoring (classical conditioning, operant conditioning)
• NLP creativity strategy
• Eye accessing cues
• Reality bubble
• Calibration
• TOTE Model
• Synesthesia
• 4-tuple
• the "is" of identity
• uptime
• to be continued...

This is a node your homework writeup. I am currently studying to be an NLP practitioner.
Update: 21/04/2007: I've now qualified as an NLP Practitioner and also as a hypnotherapist.

What is NLP?

Neuro: Our nervous system through which we gather and process information from our five senses: See (Visual), Hear (Auditory), Touch (Kinaesthetic), Smell (Olfactory), Taste (Gustatory).

Linguistic: Language and non-verbal systems through which our internal representations are coded, ordered and given meaning.

Programming: The patterns, programmes and strategies that we run in our neurology to achieve our specific and desired outcomes.

This approach is combined with an attitude of wanton curiosity, experimentation and confidence.

The methodology of NLP is to use modelling techniques, of physiology, language, filter patterns and strategies. The three original people who were modelled for the basis of NLP theory were: Virginia Satir (family therapy), Milton H. Erickson (hypnosis) and Fritz Perls (gestalt therapy).

The NLP Communication Model

                 ____________
 Meaning      ---            ----___
  ___     <====                     \
 /   \           Filters             \      /
| I R |         /       \        _   /     / ============
 \___/          |Delete  \      / \ /     /    EXTERNAL
 Focus          |Distort  \    | @ |      \    EVENT
   |            |Generalise|    \_/ \      \ ============
   |            |          |         \      \
  ___           |          |          \
 /   \          |          |           \
|State|         |Beliefs   |            |
 \___/          |Values    |         ---
   |  \         |Memories  |         \
   |   \         \________/           |
  ___   \                           _/
 /   \   \                           \
|Body |   \                           |
 \___/     \|                 ________/
         Response           /
             \             /
              \
               ->Behaviour--------->> Results

How this works is that sensory data arrives in the form of External Events. There are over two million of these external events happening all the time. However, the conscious mind is only aware of and tracking, seven plus or minus two items.

External events reach the conscious mind by passing through filters. The first of these is deletion. Think of this as a tuned circuit in a radio receiver, which picks out one radio station from the mass of noise coming in on the aerial.

The next filter is distortion; this can be analagous to another part of a radio - that which recovers the audio sound from the radio signal. In neurological terms though, what is happening is that the sensory data is adjusted into a form that fits with previous memories, beliefs and values.

The final filter is generalisation, which takes observations about specific details, and turns them into general forms, based on prior memories and other instances of similar events happening.

What has happened to our event now is that we have derived a meaning for it, which is added to our internal representation of the world. Such additions can result in large shifts (shocks) in the internal representation.

Based on the focus (the 7 ±2 items that the conscious mind is aware of), changes in internal representation can result in a change of state, resulting in a change in physiology (body language) and maybe generating a response, causing some behaviour and some results in the outside world.

NLP courses and qualifications

Beyond free events where NLP is demonstrated, are introductory workshops, like the 3 day "Fire your desire" course I attended in February, where I took part in a repatterning, which was amazing! I have sorted out some long term behaviour patterns, which were limiting my life.

To study NLP, the levels are: NLP practitioner, master practitioner, trainer and master trainer.

Here is a list of topics you would expect to be covered in NLP Practitioner:

• sensory acuity
• Rapport
• Representational Systems
• Eye Patterns
• Submodalities
• Presuppositions
• Milton Model
• Meta Model
• SWISH patterns
• Phobia Cure
• Anchoring
• Change Personal History
• Strategies
• Reframing
• Parts Integration
• Perceptual Positions
• Achievable Outcomes

Source

NLP Practitioner Certification Course with Andy Harrington: home study pack.