Neuro Linguistic Programming - an introduction

[Trabbs]

A couple of people have asked me to give a bit more information about NLP and how it works. I am a Master Practitioner in NLP and a Practitioner in Time Line Therapy and Hypnotherapy. It isn't my day job, just an interest I had which I have studied and qualified in.

It is a science and many of the elements we are taught are now gaining some recognition from latest research in Quantum Physics and greater study of the heart, mind body connections. There are a number of presuppositions we have when working with clients using NLP - I won't bore you with them all but some useful ones are as follows:

People are not their behaviours (accept the person, change the behaviour)
The Map is not the territory (the words we use are NOT the event or the item they represent)
You are in charge of your mind and therefore your results
There is ONLY feedback (there is no failure, only feedback)
Respect for the other person's model of the world

Essentially, when I am working with a client, if I don't believe they can change then they won't believe it either. It is essential to create rapport with the client before starting any work with them. Rapport is that thing which we seek out in others - we like people who are like ourselves. When you meet someone, it doesn't usually take long if you feel comfortable with them for you to start saying things like 'I did that too' or ' I went there' etc.

If you establish really strong rapport by mirroring behaviours, matching tones of voice and gestures, it becomes possible to lead the person by introducing things like crossing of legs. Not useful in itself but you can see that would make someone more susceptible to suggestion using hypnotic language patterns.

We all store our memories in different ways but they do tend to follow a trend which can be identified by watching a persons eyes when you ask them questions. try this on someone:

Ask them what colour their bedroom was when they were young - they will usually look up to the right as they face you, or up to the left. If you then ask what would your room have looked like if it was pright pink with black dots (or some other unlikely colour combination) they will usually look up to the left, or up to the right. You can also test for audio recall and construct, and kinestetic (where we feel) and self talk. By using the above tests it is possible to determine a persons strategy in a number of situations. For example a compulsive shopper may go into a shop, see something and buy it without any check for 'do I need this?' This is why you will often find the most eye catching fashion at the top of the escalators in shops where it is instantly seen.

It is widely believed that dyslexics are not poor spellers but that they spell with a poor strategy. Most of us spell by visualising the word, many dyslexics try to spell using feelings rather than the visual. It is possible to change strategies and much work has been done with dyslexics to the extent they could spell backwards and forwards quite quickly one their strategy was changed.

Most phobias are created during the age of 0 - 7 years. During those years the mind doesn't know enough to put things in context so what would seem midly scary at age 17 could be truly terrifying at age 5. For that 5 year old, the next time something similar happens, the association goes back to the first event and the negative feeling gets worse with each future event until the person can't even think about the event! These behaviours can be changed.

Would people like to know more or have I already bored/confused you?

Let me have some feedback or maybe specific questions about things which are troubling you - pm me if it something you don't feel comfortable sharing. I may be able to give you some techniques which will help.

 

[D1GG3R]

hmmm i must admit, the dyslexic bit really interested me there Trabbs..

I once worked with a lad that people reagrded as being 'a bit thick' Now i really dont like to give anybody a brand, so in time i got to know this guy. As it turns out the lad was dyslexic. Now i must be honest, his reading was not great and he could hardly write his own name. He was branded dyslexic in his school years..

BUT!! You ask the lad about Everton Football Club and his knowledge was outstanding!! He could name dates, players, number of goals, winning goal scorer, stadiums etc etc going back years!! He would easily give the 'intelligent' football fanatic a run for their money!

Also.... a similar story. When i started my new job down in the midlands. I was told about this guy that cleans the factory and yard etc etc. I was told that this guy was great, but dont ask him to do anything out of the normal because 'hes a retard' and he could hurt himself.... This kind of knocked me back a little... Anyway when i got to meet the guy it turns out that he's about 50 years old or so and yes you could see that he had learning difficulties... he's very young boy like in some of his actions.

However, you sit with the guy and get him talking about trains. What the guy knows is amazing!...Anything about trains old and new. If i ever needed to go anywhere by train, i would definitely ask him! He goes all over the place on trains, every weekend. Hes says he's not a train spotter, but he's a railway enthusiast lol

why are they like that???
is it because they may have found the school years boring??
People need to be interested in order to learn??
Is the term dyslexic just a brand name given to the kids in school's that are a little slower at learning than others and teachers just dont have the time??

how can you change a dyslexic's strategy to enable them to spell?

Cheers
DiGG

 

[Trabbs]

Lots of different reasons I expect, some people have differently attuned senses I imagine. As far as school is concerned, we are very much a nation of labelling things. If someone is different we label them as something or other. I don't recall half the so called illnesses that we have today being about when I was growing up. Bad behaviour was bad behaivior back then, these days it has a label. If you label people with something often enough it sticks and people can justify their behaviour and actions by saying 'I am ............'. I've done it myself when I was in a bad place after my divorce. I set out to prove I was worthless by behaving in such a way as to hurt those I most cared about. It almost worked but at the last minute I realised what I would be throwing away and that was what got me started on the NLP road really.

I believe that sometimes when kids do struggle with their words at school it is easier to write them off as dyslexic than to spend the time trying something a bit different with them. I'm not knocking teachers here, I'm just aware there are only so many hours in the day and our results culture means teachers have to focus on those who are quick at learning.

The way you would change a dyslxic's spelling strategy would be to see what their strategy is by asking questions and looking for the eye patterns to see where they are resourcing their strategy. If they look down to their right, they are spelling based on feeling. In that case what you would do is write the word on a card and then run an alternate strategy which would force them to look up to their right to recall the letters from visual recall. You would do this by holding the card up there while you ask them to learn the word and then direct their eye to that direction by moving your own hand to that position as you ask them to recall. Once they get used to resourcing the information from a visual rather than a feeling, the spelling will be much easier. I'm not suggesting this would be a quick fix, it would need practice and reinforcing but it is achievable.

 

[D1GG3R]

interesting stuff.....I have someone really close to me that struggles a with dyslexia... im going to try that...

many thanks

 

[Trabbs]

No problem, Its a bit difficult to teach remotely but if you do a search for Tad James, you may find the practitioner manuals which may decribe it better. If you can't find them anywhere, pm me and I'll see if I can help.

 

[Utopie]

Yeah, sounds interesting mate, please carry on... Sounds like something Derren Brown would do to read a person or reflect back at them to get them to do something, so in a way, I don't like the idea of it as I suppose it can be used to trick or con people.

How would a course of sessions progress to help a person with say, depression or a phobia? What sort of results do you see, percentage wise? What is the average time before you start to see results?

 

[Trabbs]

Derren Brown does use a lot of NLP techniques. If you ever saw the show where he convinced a woman that black was yellow, he was using using anchoring techniques and changing associations. They do edit a lot of that show though, he first of all gained rapport with the woman, then he worked out where she stored her associations for being certain about something and unsure about something and he anchored those associations by touching her arm/shoulder. Then he mapped uncertainty about the colours and anchored that so that when he suggested a colour was different and she was uncertain, he anchored the uncertainty and by reinforcing that uncertainty he changed it to certainty it was wrong using his hands and voice tone.

Treatment for depression would involve finding out what has caused the depression - quite likely limiting beliefs a person has about themselves - I can't do this, I always do this, I'm useless, that sort of thing. This can be resolved using time line therapy to get back to the root cause of the issue, which may well be something in childhood. Time line therapy is like a conscious hypnosis process and involves a person revisiting a past traumatic experience in a safe way and realising that there were other choices available to them at the time of that event. This helps to release the negative association with that event but does not remove the memory. By removing the negative emotion it becomes just another event rather than a traumatic one. Phobias are usually formed between the ages of 0 - 7, there is a technique which involves running events backwards on a big screen in their mind while they are removed from the event - watching it with themselves in the picture. Paul mcKenna has one of these on utube where a woman has a needle phobia - worth a watch.

Not a great business model with NLP as it really does resolve issues quickly. For a minor problem, it can be sorted in less than half an hour whereas a fairly major life issue could probably be resolved in about 5 or 6 hours. You always have to work at the client's pace as they do all the work, the practitioner is just the guide really.

 

[Utopie]

They do edit a lot of that show though,

Who, Derren Brown? Must be getting him mixed up with someone else mate, he's as honest as the day's long

Not a great business model with NLP as it really does resolve issues quickly. For a minor problem, it can be sorted in less than half an hour whereas a fairly major life issue could probably be resolved in about 5 or 6 hours. You always have to work at the client's pace as they do all the work, the practitioner is just the guide really.

I guess that means the pharmaceutical industry will use money and resources to try and rubbish it then

Sounds like the sort of vocation I'd love to do for a living. As long as you're getting enough to pay the bills and live a reasonable life. I imagine it must be a great feeling going home at the end of the day knowing you've helped someone's life in a positive way rather than just collapsing on the couch at the end of the day and the only thing you have achieved is another grey hair and helped make a corporate CEO even richer.

I'll have to check out that video you mentioned and few other besides. Have you ever done much with EFT?

 

[Trabbs]

Derren Brown - lol

No one is really taking much interest in NLP at the moment, the NHS is talking about funding more talking therapies but are only recommending Cognitive Behaivoural (?) Therapy. Sadly it isn't my day job but hopefully one day I will be brave enough to give it a go full time. I always find it uplifting working with a client when they suddenly look for a negative emotion they used to have and find they can't access it anymore!

I haven't done any EFT, thats tapping isn't it? I have heard a lot of positive feedback about it. A friend of mine does a course called laughter therapy where she justs gets everyone laughing. I have to say that when I am installing positive anchors, falling down laughing is always one of the most powerful. I don't know about you but just remembering the last time I was in that state, laughing so hard I could hardly breathe, brings a smile to my face.

There are classic language patterns that you hear when dealing with clients which point the way to the techniques you use. One such classic is when someone says 'part of me thinks this but part of me thinks...........' The standard intervention here would be a parts integration where you get each opposite part to sit on a hand (metaphorically) and then you get each part to describe their highest intention, really perservering to get as high as you can get, as there will be loads of resistance. When one side has chunked up, work on the other hand and it will soon become apparant that both parts share the same common highest intention. Often, peoples hands will come together as you go through the process and you then get each hand to realise they were once part of the same whole. When the hands come together, you raise them up to the persons chest and let the process become fully integrated. Often people have quite an emotional response to this, although sometimes it happens as they sleep that night. Really powerful technique though.

 

[hawkish]

I use a little bit of NLP when im selling stuff. A very simple version mind you, I guage if the customer is more receptive to audio, visual or kinesthetic chat and recipricate with appropriate language that appeals to them

Q Do you sell those TVs ive been hearing about
A Let me tell you about them

Q I see you sell the TVs im interested in
A Let me show you how it works

Q I feel its time to replace my TV set
A Heres the remote, press that button etc

I also never stand face on to a male but always face on to a female and tend to angle my body at 45degrees to a male

its fascinating stuff

 

[Trabbs]

That is very good, there is a section we learn called sleight of mouth and it is exactly as you describe - listen for the preferred style of communication and feed it back to them. Negotiation skills we always chunk up - generalise until we can reach agreement and then chunk down (specific) again if necessary until we reach agreement. For example if someone said how many meetings will we have for your fee and you replied if I could help you to make a profit would it bother you how many meetings were required? That way you secure agreement without being too specific.

 

[Evastar]

A dutch friend of mine did some NLP work with myself and another friend, something called the Flower of Life. i found it great, really interesting. Do you do that or is what you do different?

 

[Trabbs]

I don't recognise the expression, what was the process?

 

[Evastar]

he must have been combining his NLP training with other things he has done then, basically it was visualising shapes to activate your merkaba field. It's called the Flower of Life.

I found it fascinating, really powerful stuff

Flower of Life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Trabbs]

I will have a look, I'm not familiar with merkaba field! NLP can be used to reinforce associations and connections in a very positive way. It is also very useful when using hypnotherapy since you can feed back phrases and tonality to a client in trance to help reinforce a positive mindset and /or belief.