Nlp Psychology: What Is NLP?

What is NLP?
Nicole Schneider
By Nicole Schneider
Feb 11, 2010
What is NLP, many people ask me.

NLP is hard to explain, because it is something that needs to be experienced.

I give a different answer every time. Most answers you give that have detail and a high level of accuracy, will be answered with a blank stare, and misunderstanding. I think it is important to use terms that people can relate to, even if you do run the risk of being a little vague, and using terms that are not so much less accurate though aren 't the official terminology. It is more important for people to have a general idea about what NLP is, than someone having no idea what you are talking about.

Here are elements in your answer you could consider:

1. General explanation

Many (definitely not all) psychologists take a talk therapy approach, where you talk about your past and your problems. Though this can be cathardic for some people, for many people it takes a long time to feel better, to achieve success and talking about problems makes most people feel bad. For example in traditional talk therapy it takes more than 20 sessions (of mental anguish) to resolve a phobia, while NLP has a much higher success rate with doing so in 10 minutes or less. NLP is about directing the brain "here" instead of "there." Where "here" is state of excitement, excellence, motivation, happiness, confidence, self love etc. And "there" are states that are the opposite of those. Instead of talking about problems, you talk about solutions, and use special patterns and techniques to change the way your brain codes subjective experience and

Using examples that people can relate to:

Example:

To someone with a fear of public speaking: for instance there are several NLP techniques, that will resolve your fear of public speaking, and feel confident, motivated and capable instead.

To a business person: NLP helps you set goals, achieve excellence, enhance your skills, adopt skills of people you think are good, become a master communicator, and achieve a high level of understanding of verbal -and non-verbal communication.

To someone with relationship problems: NLP helps you understand how people work, and how people communicate differently. Understanding that will give you a great insight as to how to communicate to your partner. And communicating together in a more effective way, where you can understand each other.

To a teacher: NLP understands what students do inside their head. How do they store information? What strategies do they use to for instance spell really well? And how can you teach a bad speller the same strategy or process a good speller uses? How do you teach and speak to a student in order for them to understand you better, understand and retain