NLP

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) 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 sciences they began a study of three therapists. These therapists were producing excellent results transforming their client’s way of thinking, feeling and behaving.

They modelled family therapist Virginia Satir; Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls; and hypnotherapist Milton Erickson who legitimized hypnotherapy as a healing treatment 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 in the brain more quickly, efficiently and without years of therapy.

Bandler and Grinder also examined what was occurring in the minds and behaviours of the therapists who achieved such great successes with their patients. The techniques Bandler and Grinder developed are so concise and effective that the behavioural changes that used to take years can now 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 lives.

Our brain is nothing short of the most advanced and sophisticated computer in the world. Like computers, which operate through programs such as word processing or spreadsheets and emailing, we have internal programs running in our brain in a similar fashion.

Once we learn something like driving a car for instance it is stored as a set of programs in our brain and the next time we need to go through a similar process it fires off. For instance when you are driving a car now you are not so conscious about the whole processes of driving, as you were when you first started learning it has become second nature to you now. Even the small things we take for granted such as brushing our teeth, getting dressed, speaking, walking and just about every activity we don’t have to think about consciously, are a set of programs running in our subconscious mind.

Luckily for us, we have these programs running in the background. Imagine the chaos our lives would be in if every time we approached a door we had to stop, think and work out how to open the door. Can you see how everyone’s lives would be utterly chaotic if for a small task like opening a door we had to think about the process every time?

Just imagine the confusion we would experience in the other areas of our life, if we didn’t have these programs running in the background! But, here’s the problem just as we have programs running that benefit us in some way like driving a car for instance, we have programs running in the background that are not so good for us, like those that cause anxiety, phobias, panic attacks, just about every limiting condition that exists can be traced back to a self limiting set of programs.

The tools of NLP allow you to change the programs that are holding you back in life and replace them with new ones that help you move forward.