making the peices fit
What is NLP?
Neuro-linguistic programming (usually shortened to NLP) is an interpersonal communication model and
an alternative approach to psychotherapy based on the subjective study of language, communication and
personal change. NLP was co-created by Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder in the 1970s. The
initial focus was pragmatic, modelling three successful psychotherapists, Fritz Perls (Gestalt Therapy),
Virgina Satir (Family Systems Therapy), and eventually Milton Erickson (Clinical Hypnosis), with the aim
of discovering what made these individuals more successful than their peers.
NLP aims to increase behavioural choice by the manipulation of personal state, belief and internal
representation either by the NLP practitioner, or by self-application. Some of the main ideas, many
imported from existing counselling or psychotherapy practice, include problems, desires, feelings, beliefs
and outcomes that are represented in visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (and sometimes gustatory,
olfactory) systems. When communicating with someone, rather than just listening to and responding to
what a person said, NLP aims to also respond to the structure of verbal communication and non-verbal
cues. The NLP meta model questioning is intended to clarify what has been left out or distorted in
communication. The NLP Milton model uses non-specific and metaphoric language allowing the listener
to fill in the gaps, making their own meaning from what is being said, finding their own solutions and
inner resources, challenging and irrational beliefs. The actual state someone is in when setting a goal or
choosing a course of action is also considered important. A number of techniques in NLP aim to enhance
states by anchoring resourceful states associated with personal experience or model states by imitating
others.
In the early development of NLP between 1972 and 1976, Richard Bandler, a psychology student at
University of California, Santa Cruz, and John Grinder, a linguist specializing in syntax, guided somewhat
by the anthropologist and systems theorist Gregory Bateson, participated in collaborative studies with
three successful psychotherapists, Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, and Milton Erickson. Of the three, Erickson
was the most well known. They reviewed many of hours of audio and video of the three therapists and
spent months imitating how they worked with clients, the aim was to model the communication patterns
which made these individuals more successful than their peers.
"The system was developed in answer to [why] particular psychotherapists were so effective with their
patients. Rather than explore this question in terms of psychotherapeutic theory and practice, Bandler
and Grinder sought to analyze what the therapists were doing at an observational level, categorize it,
and apply the categories as a general model of interpersonal influence. NLP seeks to instruct people to
observe, make inferences, and respond to others, as did the three original, very effective therapists."
(Druckman, 1988, Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques).
The first model was Fritz Perls, a German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist who was associated
with the founding of 'gestalt therapy', an approach to therapy which at its core is the promotion of
awareness and the contact between the self and its environment. In 1964, Fritz Perls had began a
long-term residency at Esalen Institute in California, United States and became a major and lasting
influence. Esalen was dedicated to humanistic alternative education and to exploring work in the
humanities and sciences that furthers the full realization of what Aldous Huxley called the "human
potential". The second model was Virginia Satir, also an early leader at Esalen, and known especially for
her approach to family therapy that treats groups and to some extent individuals, as systems that exhibit
homeostasis. Her therapeutic interventions would usually focus on relationship patterns rather than on
analyzing impulses of the unconscious mind or early childhood trauma of individuals as a Freudian
psychoanalyst would do.
In 1975 the meta model was published in Structure of Magic Volumes I & II, it featured a set of
specifying question that both Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir used intuitively to respond to distortion,
generalization and deletion in the speaker's language. Second, the Milton model featured verbal
(ambiguity, metaphor, suggestion, embedded suggestion) and non-verbal patterns (matching and
mirroring, spacial marking) that Milton H. Erickson used to effect change with clients.
The NLP meta model can be seen as a heuristic that responds to the words and phrases that reveal
unconscious limitations and faulty thinking - the distortions, generalisations and deletions in language.
Bandler and Grinder observed similar patterns in the communication of Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir (and
gleaned from a set of transformational grammar language categories). The meta model seeks to recover
unspoken information, challenge generalisation and other distorted messages that involve restrictive
thinking and beliefs. The intent is to help someone develop new choice in thinking and behaviour. By
listening to and carefully responding to the distortions (generalisations and deletions) in a client's
sentences, the practitioner seeks to respond to the form of the sentence rather than the content itself.
In contrast to the Meta Model of NLP which specifies information, the Milton Erickson inspired Milton
model described by Bandler and Grinder as "artfully vague", allowing the communicator to make
statements that seem specific but allow the listener to fill in their own meaning for what is being said. It
makes use of pacing and leading, ambiguity, metaphor, embedded suggestion, and multiple-meaning
sentence structures. It has been described as "a way of using language to induce and maintain trance in
order to contact the hidden resources of our personality". The Milton model has three primary aspects:
First, to assist in building and maintaining rapport with the client. Second, to overload and distract the
conscious mind so that unconscious communication can be cultivated. Third, to allow for interpretation in
the words offered to the client.
After spending months closely studying Erickson's language (verbal and non-verbal) and imitating the
way that Erickson worked with clients, Bandler and Grinder published the Milton model in 1976/1977
under the title The Patterns of Milton H. Erickson Volumes I & II. In the preface, Erickson said, "Although
this book is far from being a complete description of my methodologies, as they so clearly state it is a
much better explanation of how I work than I, myself, can give. I know what I do, but to explain how I do
it is much too difficult for me." Erickson was known for his use of unconventional approaches, including
the use of stories, and for deeply entering the world of his clients. The Milton model is a way of
communicating based on the hypnotic language patterns of Milton Erickson.
A basic assumption of NLP is that internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and
language consist of visual, auditory, kinaesthetic (and possibly olfactory and gustatory) representations
are engaged when people think about problems, tasks or activities, or engage in them. Internal sensory
representations are constantly being formed and activated. Whether making conversation, talking about
a problem, reading a book, kicking a ball or riding a horse, internal representations impact on
performance. NLP techniques generally aim to change behaviour through modifying the internal
representations, examining the way a person represents a problem and by building desirable
representations of alternative outcomes or goals. In addition, Bandler and Grinder claimed that the
representational system use could be tracked using eye movements, gestures, breathing, sensory
predicates and other cues in order to improve rapport and social influence - and it is these internal
mental processes that both give rise to revealing, and also modifying, behaviour.
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