Neuro-linguistic programming

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a quasi-spiritual behavior-modification (or "performance psychology") technique whose crux is "modelling," or "NLP modelling" (Raso 2005). NLP practitioners most commonly define NLP as "the study of the structure of subjective experience". How do we do what we do? How do we think? How do we learn? And how do we connect with each other and our world on a physical and spiritual level? (O'Connor & McDermott, 1996) (Dilts et al 1980)(Milliner 1988). Thus, "NLP is about form and not about content" (Dilts et al 1980).

Basic Tenets or Early Patterns of NLP

The basic tenets of NLP can be thought of as 5 elements that NLP proponents claim will indicate an individual's internal strategies. These all refer to a single notion of internal strategies being either visual, auditory, or kinesthetic (with a less likely extra olfactory and gustatory).

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• body posture,
• breathing,
• gestures towards eyes ears or body,
• eye movements (See eye accessing cues and PRS), and
• language patterns (meta-model) and predicates such as "I see!" "Sounds right! or "I feel that..."(Dilts et al 1980).

Eye accessing cues and the preferred representational system (PRS)

According to this core NLP tenet, upward eye movements indicate visual processing, eye movements down indicate somatic or kinesthetic processing, and eye movements to the sides indicate auditory processing. Also, eye movements to the left, or right indicate if a representation was recalled or constructed. NLP advocates connect this with brain hemispheric science of left and right brain dominance for certain skills, such as logic and mathematics for the left hemisphere, and creativity and imagination for the right hemisphere (O'Connor & McDermott, 1996) (Bandler et al 1975).

Related Topics:
Brain hemispheric science - Logic - Mathematics

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NLP practitioners also use other cues to understand the preferred representational system (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) of the person. For example, the posture of a person could be; head up and erect, swaying or tilted, rounded and head down to indicate visual, auditory or kinesthetic respectively (O'Connor and McDermot 1996).

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Most evidence used by NLP practitioners to promote the use of NLP appears to be unsubstantiated, uncorroborated or entirely anecdotal (Platt 2001). However, NLP "models" have been rigorously reviewed and tested by independent scientists but the results show that NLP has no significant scientific support(Platt 2001). For example the conjecture that a person has a primary representational system (PRS) which is observed in the choice of words has been found to be false according to rigorous research reviews (Morgan, 1993) (Platt, 2001). The assertion that a person has a PRS which can be determined by the direction of eye movements found even less support (Heap 1988) (Morgan, 1993) (Platt 2001). The assertion that matching PRS will increase rapport with the client has also been found to be false. Research has indicated that therapists who match their clients' language using techniques proposed within NLP were rated by the client and external observers as being untrustworthy and ineffective (Heap1988) (Morgan, 1993).

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Some NLP proponents, such as Bandler and Grinder (1975b) Dilts (1998) and Lewis (1985) use left/right brain hemispheric differences to explain how the mind works in relation to eye accessing cues and preferred representational systems. However, scientific knowledge indicates that these are simple Pop psychology and popular myths about the brain, and are oversimplified into a very crude binary system whereby a person appears pre-dominantly "left-brained" (logical), or more "right-brained" (creative) (Sala et al 1999)(Drenth 2003).

Related Topics:
Pop psychology - Brain

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Similarly, some authors (eg Bradbury 1997) use internal VAK strategies in order to categorize people within a thinking strategies or learning styles framework, although these notions have also been largely discredited by scientific investigation due to their lack of scientific support.

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Meta-model and Milton Model

The meta-model is a set of language patterns (from Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls and Transformational syntax) designed to challenge limits to a person's map of the world (Grinder & Bostic, 2001). Effectively the meta-model can be reduced to asking "What specifically", or "How specifically?" to challenge unspecified nouns or verbs. Other challenges are directed at distortions, generalizations or deletions in the speaker's language (Bandler & Grinder, 1975a Ch3). The reverse set of the meta-model is the Milton-model; a collection of artfully vague language patterns elicited from the work of Milton H. Erickson (Bandler & Grinder, 1975b). Together these models form the basis for the all other NLP models.

Related Topics:
Meta-model - Syntax - Milton H. Erickson

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Mind, body and spirit

Similar to the followers other New Age disciplines some NLP practitioners consider the mind, spirit and physical body as a system; that is, each influences the other (Dilts 1992) (Lilienfeld et al 2003). This means that there needs to be a balance between the concious and unconcious mind (O'Connor and McDermot 1996), changes can be easier to make by working at a physical (body) level (letting the body inform the mind), as well as by dialog (mind informing emotions), and humans communicate by taking in information through the senses, but also by giving out communication as a kind of energy, and this can be considered the spiritual side of communication (Dilts 1992). This can be considered metaphorically in terms of the communication sender and recipient's mutual intention to spend energy on sending/receiving, and it can also be thought of as in the sense of a "thought field" or "thought energy" defined in the related subject of energy psychology (Gallo 2002). There are no physical correlates between these kind of energies and energy explained through physics (Sala et al 1999).

Related Topics:
New Age - Energy psychology - Energy - Physics

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Grinder & Delozier (p.xvi, Turtles, 1986) state ," was, for example intolerant of the fuzzy kind of thinking characteristics of the uncritical importation into discussions of mind the physical phenomenon of 'energy'." Also, Bandler states that "spiritualism" and "psychic energy" are strictly poetic or metaphoric (see example, Richard Bandler, foreward - p.xi, Therapeutic Metaphor, David Gordon, 1978). In contrast, Gallo uses NLP concepts of spirituality and energy within the subject of power therapies (Gallo 2002).

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However, Virginia Satir stated that the spiritual side of NLP as being the humanistic soul of communication and therapy (Brothers, 1992) and Perls introduced Zen spritiual practices and dianetics concepts into his gestalt therapy. NLP spirituality is said to be fully accepting of any religion whether it be Christian, Buddhist, Occultist, Taoist, Rosicrucian, or any other (O'Connor and McDermot 1996).

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