the Central London nlp group

What is NLP? Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't; but here's as good a guide as any... Includes a definition of NLP, a short history of the development of NLP, what you learn on introductory, Practitioner and Master Practitioner courses

The 'Neuro' acknowledges the fact that we process information about the world neurologically, using the brain and the nervous system, through our five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. 'Linguistic' refers to the verbal language that we use to communicate with each other, as well as our internal thoughts and our external 'body language'. 'Programming relates to the 'programs' or patterns of behaviour we all demonstrate; in other words, the way we organise our thoughts and our behaviour in order to produce results.

NLP evolved in the early seventies out of the work of two people: John Grinder, then an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Richard Bandler, a student of psychology at the University. They studied three top psychotherapists in great depth: Fritz Perls, the father of Gestalt Therapy; Virginia Satir, one of America's top family therapists; and Milton Erickson, a world-famous hypnotherapist. John and Richard identified a great many of the underlying patterns of behaviour and communication that made these great therapists so effective in assisting people in changing their lives for the better. They used what they found to create a set of models of human skills and capabilities that, for better or worse, they called "Neuro-Linguistic Programming".

• Psychotherapy and counselling
• Training and Education
• Other caring professions: nursing and medical, health counselling
• Business: sales, coaching
• Sports

An introductory course might last just a couple of hours in the evening, or might be a two or three day course, designed not only to teach you the theory of NLP, but to give you a set of skills to take away with you which can, quite simply, enhance your everyday life in ways you never knew existed. Below are just some of the learning and skills you might expect to be taught on an Introduction to NLP.

The Operating Principles, or Presuppositions of NLP
These are a set of beliefs which, if you act as if they are true, can change your life. For example, "There is no failure, only feedback". If you don't achieve what you set out to do, at the very least you'll know what to avoid next time round. Or, how about, "What's possible for one human being is possible for anyone"? If someone else can do it, I can learn to do it too. All I have to do is model them.

Rapport skills
How would your life be if you could learn to have deep rapport with anyone you chose? It's said that people like people like themselves. What if you could use this principle to get on with anyone? Even your boss...

Well-formed outcomes
Many people fail to achieve their goals simply because the way they plan simply doesn't work, or because the goal isn't what they really want, or... What if you had a step-by-step way of making sure of not only getting what you want, but assisting others in getting what they want as well?

The structure of thought
Learn about modalities, submodalities, representation systems, accessing cues, and more.

All Practitioner courses include the skills you learn in an introductory course, and go further and deeper into the skills you learned. Additional material that is usually covered is listed below, but note that any individual training company's syllabus might differ from this list.

The structure of language
If you learn the Meta Model of language, you will communicate with others in a way that gets results fast, using precision language. Learning the Milton Model will give you a way of communicating with others with influence and integrity.

Strategies
How to discover the strategies used by people who excel, how to map them in depth, how to learn and apply them, and how to teach others to do the same.

Reframing
How to change how you think about a situation so that, whatever is happening, it empowers you.

Metaphor
How to use metaphor to change your own and other people's thinking.

Timelines
Discover how we code time in our thinking, and how to deal with situations from the past that might have been holding you back, or situations in the future that might have made you hesitate to act.

Meta Programs
Meta programs are patterns that drive our behaviour or that influence what we are likely to notice in or about our surroundings. Are you a 'towards' person or an 'away from' person. Are you oriented to the past, the present or the future? Learn about these and other meta programs.

Belief change
One of the things that can stop us getting what we want is that we simply don't believe that we can get it. Or that we don't deserve it. People typically believe that we can't easily change our beliefs. NLPers have learnt better, and so can you.

Modelling
One of the operating principles of NLP says "if someone can do it, I can do it". In other words, if any person can learn a skill then I can also learn that skill by modelling them. Modelling is the heart of NLP and involves the use of all of the other skills and models taught at the Practitioner level. You will also learn about congruence, logical levels, the Unified Field model, the SCORE model, and many other useful models and skills.

After taking Practitioner training, many people sign up for Master Practitioner, then possibly Advanced Master Practitioner, Trainer and Master Trainer training. The first two build on what you learn at Practitioner level and go into modelling and related skills in much more depth. The Trainer trainings are designed specifically for those who wish to train others in NLP. For those wanting to become NLP psychotherapists, The Marlin Institute of NLP Psychotherapy offers courses leading towards ANLP PCS Accreditation and UKCP Registration.

The ANLP is a non-profit organisation set up in order to promote NLP. Here's an excerpt from it's information booklet: "The ANLP is dedicated to fostering co-operation and interchange amongst its members and links with the wider NLP community world-wide." To find out more about the ANLP, write to: The ANLP Administration Office, PO Box 10, Porthmadog, LL48 6ZB or telephone 0870 870 4970 between 9:00am and 12:00pm on weekdays and ask for their Information Booklet. The ANLP also has its own web site and publishes Rapport magazine quarterly which is available to non-members by subscription.