It's been around for a wee while now in the public forums, had lots of media coverage of various practitioners and authors - both good and not so good. But what on earth is NLP?
Now for me to tell you "well it's neuro-linguistic programming", will likely still leave you asking 'huh??' Don't worry I was the same, and it took a while after the acronym had stuck for me to recall what the actual words were.
So I'm going to break it down, no fluff, no sales (which NLP is used a lot in by the way) but very simply the benefits and some of the drawbacks of NLP, whether using it yourself or seeing a practitioner that uses it as a modality (like me).
So let's do a very short history lesson...
NLP was 'born' in the seventies, by John Grinder and Richard Bandler who, through the observation of top class psychotherapists, developed a model for others to use to improve their performance, to become excellent communicators and/or to undergo personal change. The name NLP comes from:
neuro - relating to the patterns they discovered being at a neurological thought process level
liguistic - relating to the way our language reflects our neurology
programming - because we can break free from the way that we have been programmed and choose new and more positive programmes
When did it go mainstream?
I can't say for sure, but in my world NLP started to go mainstream following the release of the book 'The Game' by Neil Strauss. There was a lot of media coverage following this creating a bad rep for NLP that it is designed to influence/manipulate people. But as per usual all PR is good PR...and NLP practitioners and training in NLP started coming out of the whazoo!
Of course there were still lots of practitioners before this book was released.
I was introduced to NLP during my Masters in Human Resource Development course and then went on to do my training in it after I completed. My training was delivered in a very humble way with lots of focus on the purpose of the NLP models. As part of my training, we were instructed to work on ourselves and our own challenges so that we could experience how the techniques worked and not just be preachers of the modality but users too.
I've seen many courses since, that are very sales and marketing driven with a lot of pazazz which I attribute to the American showmanship. I'm personally not a fan of this style, partly because it's just not me and also because it comes across as a little pushy. By this I mean that the change almost feels like it's taking place for the sake of the practitioners ego as apposed to the development of the individual/client.
So the benefits and drawbacks are written from my perspective, and I hope that if you experience NLP it gives you the wonderful benefits that I list so that you can have positive change in your world.
So here they are:
Benefits:
Actually there's so many more that are very specific to individual needs...but the list above gives you a broad spectrum of change that can be achieved through the NLP models.
Drawbacks:
Before you read the next list, it really only exists, in my opinion, when individuals use NLP for personal gains at the cost of someone else.
And that's it. I've seen and experienced the above in hard sales by people who are very well versed in NLP, and it is very unfortunate that it is used in this way.
So what can you do to reap in the benefits and steer clear of the drawbacks?
Do your research.
It's so important for me to understand the modalities or tools that other coaching use with me, that I encourage anyone who wants to work with me to do the same. Now it's easy enough to read about NLP online, but if you find someone you trust that knows about it talk to them, and of course talk to me.
I hope this has helped a little in demystifying NLP. I would love to hear your experiences with it...I'm sure there's many more benefits you've all experienced, I hope you haven't experienced any drawbacks...but if you have and you feel comfortable to share definitely do! It all helps us to have better experiences with NLP's models.
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Remember, as always, be your best!
Bhav xx
