Why is NLP increasingly being integrated into therapy practices? The owner of a broken down ship contacts a technician to repair his vessel. After receiving a bill for £1,000 and somewhat bemused at the price, he phones him up to get a breakdown of the costs. The technician tells him that the mechanical cost of repairing his ship was £1.00 and that £999 was for knowing where to tap.
History
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) dates back to the 70's where co-creators Dr. John Grinder and Dr. Richard Bandler first met at UCLA and formalised what for years others had attempted; a pragmatic and practical approach to Modelling the skills of exemplary people.
The ability to formalise a set of patterns that described what people did unconsciously set them apart from their contemporaries. They developed descriptions of people's unconscious patterns that could be taught and learnt by others. It was like getting a behind the scenes look at the illusionists tricks.
Though the people with whom they first modeled, Virginia Satir (Family Therapist), Dr. Milton Erickson (Father of modern day medical hypnosis and creator of Brief Therapy) and Fritz Perls (creator of Gestalt Therapy) forged the roots of NLP; NLP has since advanced through other models and been taught to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. NLP forms the basis of many corporate training's and can be found being used in sport to the arts, politics and numerous other contexts.
NLP has been described as the Technology of Achievement, The Tools for Success and much more. So what is NLP? Consider one of NLP's most fundamental questions
"What makes the difference between someone who is merely competent and someone who excels at the same skill?”
People typically answer that their skills are either a natural gift, talent or they have spent time diligently learning and practicing their craft. How is it then, that one person can excel at a skill while another does not, given the same learning environment? Do people have innate abilities and if so are they transferable? Can somebody else learn these skills and use them in their life?
In pursuit of the answers, NLP created a set of practical tools and models that people successfully applied many different disciplines. Imagine yourself with the same set of skills and talents of people whom you think are exemplary in your field?
An Attitude
NLP is guided by practical experience and observation rather than theory. It is both an attitude and methodology that leaves behind in its wake a trail of techniques and through the application of these techniques, rather than an encyclopedia of theoretical knowledge, NLP sets itself apart from other forms of Human Development and associated branches of psychology. NLP is unconcerned with why something works rather how it works i.e. how does a person achieve X?
Modelling ourselves
At the heart of NLP is Modelling. Modelling is accelerated learning. It is the process of distilling the unconscious patterns of successful people, those areas outside everyday awareness, making them explicit and formalising them into patterns that can be taught to anyone. It is the ability to learn from someone with whom we believe to have a skill we would like to have, to be able to engage with the efficacy and grace of that person and achieve similar results in our own life.
Many NLP patterns have come from successful leaders, entrepreneurs, therapists, artists and communicators. Robert Dilts, one of the early developers of NLP has created models based upon people like DaVinci, Disney, Mozart and Sherlock Holmes. However, sometimes we overlook a source of inspiration closer to home; ourselves.
Every Therapist shares successes and failures. Consider the case below:-
As a bodywork therapist, a frozen shoulder requires a particular move or set of moves in order to alleviate symptoms. Consider your success vs. failure. How was the move performed? Was it centered and balanced or forced? How were you standing, breathing? Where was your focus of attention? Were you in rapport? What state were you in (relaxed, tense, anxious etc) Did you have any internal dialogue or images?
These are just some of the questions used in the Modelling process.
NLP asks what evidence do we have, in order to know that we have achieved a successful outcome. In Alice in Wonderland there is a scene where Alice is lost and meets the Cheshire cat. Alice asks the way out and that cat responds "if you don't know where you want to go, it doesn't matter which way you get there". Similarly in NLP, if you don't have an objective or evidence for knowing you are achieving your outcome, how do you know where you want to go or when you get there?
For a therapist who wishes to use NLP as part of their practice, whether as a body-worker or in a psychotherapeutic setting, NLP provides a significant amount of tools and applications with which to enable the therapeutic and business context to thrive and meet the challenges that face them.
These challenges come from all quarters; people are uniquely different, from social and cultural backgrounds to their own personal history, beliefs and values. Having a single or limited way of interacting and communicating with clients can lead to them not returning or advocating the practice or therapy.
Applications of NLP
Aside from Modelling, NLP continues to develop techniques that are consistently useful if not a necessity for any therapist. An example of a fundamental technique is the re-orientation frame.
Consider the following phrase: "Don’t think of the colour purple"
In order to understand this statement you have to think of the colour purple. Similarly, when a client is questioned about their outcome 'what do you want?' and their response is 'I don't want to feel X' their direction of mind is towards what they don't want to feel. As in the colour purple, they have to experience what they don’t want before they can attempt to negate it.
Re-orienting a clients statement is achieved by using positive language e.g. "what do you want instead of the pain", client “I want to feel relaxed”. This directs the clients experience to the positive outcome of feeling relaxed. The re-orientation frame re-directs a clients experience to what you want them to experience.
Many therapists use this simple orientation method without knowing they are inducing pain, e.g. "If you get any pain, give me a call". In order for the client to make sense of this statement they have to re-access the pain. Used cleverly, negative statements and questions can set up and presuppose change and state. For example the following statements, "I don't want you to feel too relaxed" or "I don't want think about how much you will be getting better", directs them unconsciously toward the positive experience you want them to have.
NLP is a valuable and necessary tool for the successful therapist. Effective questioning and the re-orientation frame are simple examples of powerful techniques that bring change. They also develop the trust and rapport so valuably needed as part of the therapist/client relationship. The Modelling and applications of NLP deliver the tools for a therapist to be successful regardless of what approach they take.
NLP is £999 worth of success. It is, knowing where to tap!
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