Neuro-linguistic programming (usually shortened to NLP) is an interpersonal communication model and an alternative approach to psychotherapy that was co-created by Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder in the 1970s. It was based on the subjective study of language, communication and personal change, in particular, mainly through modeling three successful psychotherapists, Fritz Perls (gestalt therapy), Virginia Satir (family systems therapy), and eventually Milton H. Erickson(clinical hypnosis). Bandler and Grinder aimed to discover and model the successful patterns of behavior and communication distinguishing these individuals from their peers. Some consider NLP to still be a set of techniques or strategies for enhancing communication and personal influence rather than a model or theory.
In the early 1980s, NLP was heralded as an important advance in psychotherapy and counseling, and it attracted some interest in counseling research and clinical psychology. In the mid 1980s research reviews in The Journal of Counseling Psychology[ and by the National Research Council (1988; NRC) committee found little empirical basis for the claims about preferred representational systems (PRS) or assumptions of NLP, marking a decrease in research interest. While the title Neuro-linguistic programmingimplies a basis in neurology, computer science, and linguistics and it is often marketed as a new science, skeptics contend NLP is an “unproven psychological theory or treatment” and one of the many pseudoscientific or New Age forms of psychotherapy that have emerged in mental health practice.Few practitioners have presented their clinical data for peer-review and most have had little interest in empirical validation.
Today the predominant patterns of NLP, the application of those patterns, and many variants of NLP are found in seminars, workshops, books and audio programs in the form of exercises and principles intended to influence behavioral and emotional change in self and others. There is great variation in the depth and breadth of training and standards of practitioners, and some disagreement between those in the field about which patterns are and are not “NLP”. While the field of NLP is loosely spread and resistant to a single comprehensive definition, there are some common principles and presuppositionsshared by its proponents. In general, NLP aims to increase behavioral and emotional flexibility and integration by instruction in using language, imagination, and the body in novel ways either by a practitioner/trainer, or by self-application. Some of the main ideas, many imported from existing counseling or psychotherapy practice, include:
- Problems, desires, feelings, beliefs and outcomes are represented in visual, auditory and kinesthetic (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.
- Certain language patterns such as the meta modelof NLP can help clarify what has been left out or distorted in verbal communication, to specify thinking and outcomes, reframe problem ways of thinking, and set clearly defined achievable goals. In contrast, the Milton model language patterns are intentionally vague and metaphoric to allow the listener to actively engage their own imagination and inner creative processes to find their own solutions for problems.
- 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.
