NLP
NEUROLINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING
NLP is at once the study of how we experience, how we do things, how we learn and how we change. As the most powerful tool for learning and changing, it has transformed the area of personal development. It allows people to have much more control of their thinking and their emotions than they thought possible. It truly allows people to grow and change.
A study of excellence.
In the 1930's Korzybski, a linguist and mathematician was exploring how people think. He noticed that the way they structured language actually made a difference to their feelings. He began to understand that many of the difficulties that people had were to do with how they structured their experience and this was instantly demonstrated in their language. He taught people to change their use of language and thus improve their experience. He called this neurolinguistics.
In the '70s a group of people studied three profoundly effective therapists - Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls. Although each used different methods and had different styles, all got effective results. They began to understand that underneath all those differences were the same underlying patterns in people. These pattern allowed these therapists to learn enough from their clients to help them make generative and permanent change. The study involved and the patterns they discovered are called Neurolinguistic Programming.
They soon discovered that the tools used to understand how excellent therapists do what they do could not only be used to understand the nature of excellence in other areas like sports, business, education, relationships and so on but these tools could easily be taught to others.
Neurolinguistics has transformed a number of areas, for instance: sports psychology and business training. Personal development is today mostly applied Neurolinguistics.
Today Neurolinguistics has had enormous impact on a number of arenas requiring human excellence – even without people knowing that what they are doing came from it.
At its essence neurolinguistics is:-
An attitude – of deep curiosity about people so that each experience becomes a rare and unprecedented opportunity to learn.
A methodology – a way of responding to people and situations based on quality observation, effective communication, creative understanding
A technology - a range of specific techniques that allow you get extraordinary, well-defined, and healthy results.
It's an experience! And although it is powerful and effective – it is a lot of fun!
It is meant for everyone – it really does not matter whether you are a professor or a bricklayer, an actress or an executive – you begin to realise that in neurolinguistics we have the same potential skills.