27 Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Description
This article is from the Self Improvement FAQ, by Loren Larsen llarsen@cs.clemson.edu with numerous contributions by others.
27 Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Q. What is NLP?
A. The following answer was contributed by (stever@mit.edu):
This is a merging of several sci.psychology messages defining NLP.
Please feel free to ask questions, etc.
If you would like a list of NLP resources (books, training centers),
I have one of those, too...
Enjoy,
- Stever
--------------------
NLP was developed in the mid-70s by John Grinder, a Professor at UC
Santa Cruz and Richard Bandler, a graduate student.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming, as most people use the term, is a set
of models of how communication impacts and is impacted by subjective
experience. It's more a collection of tools than any overarching
theory. NLP is heavily pragmatic: if a tool works, it's included in
the model, even if there's no theory to back it up. None of the
current NLP developers have done research to "prove" their models
correct. The party line is "pretend it works, try it, and notice the
results you get. If you don't get the result you want, try something
else."
Much of early NLP was based on the work of Virginia Satir, a family
therapist; Fritz Perls, founder of Gestalt therapy; Gregory Bateson,
anthropologist; and Milton Erickson, hypnotist. It was Erickson's
work that formed the foundation for a lot of NLP, thus the tight
connection with hypnosis. Bandler and Grinder's book "Patterns of
the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, Volume I" is one of
the best books I've ever read on how language influences mental
states.
NLP consists of a number of models, and then techniques based on
those models. The major models usually associated with NLP are:
(a) Sensory acuity and physiology: thinking is tied closely to
physiology. People's thought processes change their physiological
state. Sufficiently sensitive sensory acuity will help
communicators fine-tune their communication to a person in ways over
and above mere linguistics.
(b) The "meta-model." A set of linguistic challenges for uncovering
the "deep structure" underneath someone's "surface structure"
sentences. [Sorry for the transformational grammar lingo.]
(c) Representational systems. These actually appeared in Erickson's
work and the work of others, though Bandler and Grinder took them
much further. Different people seem to represent knowledge in
different sensory modalities. Their language reveals their
representation. Often, communication difficulties are little more
than two people speaking in incompatible representation systems.
For example, the "same" sentence might be expressed differently by
different people:
Auditory: "I really hear what you're saying."
Visual: "I see what you mean."
Kinesthetic: "I've got a handle on that."
(d) The "Milton-model." This is a set of linguistic patterns Milton
Erickson used to induce trance and other states in people. It is the
inverse of the meta-model; it teaches you how to be artfully vague,
which is what you use to do therapeutic hypnosis with someone.
(e) Eye accessing cues. When people access different
representational systems, their eyes move in certain ways. Lots of
research has been done on accessing cues. Most of it has "proven"
they don't exist. My thesis was on accessing cues and concluded the
same thing. My real conclusion was that a person is too complex a
black box to test this effectively. Also, eyes move in ways that are
NOT related to information accessing. While I can visually tell the
difference between an "accessing cue" and a non-accessing movement, I
can't quantify the difference enough to base research on it.
(f) Submodalities. The STRUCTURE of internal representations
determines your response to the content. For example, picture
someone you really like. Make the colors more intense, as if you
were turning up the color knob on a TV. Now turn the color down,
until it's black and white. For most people, high color intensifies
the feeling, and B&W neutralizes it. The degree of color, part of
the STRUCTURE of the representation, affects the intensity of your
feelings about the content.
(g) Metaprograms. These are aspects about how people process
information and make decisions. For example, some people
are motivated TOWARDS GOALS, while others are motivated AWAY FROM
non-goals. TOWARDS or AWAY-FROM tells how they respond to their
world; which one a person prefers in a given context will
dramatically change how the person behaves.
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