Neurolinguistic Programming

Most of you by now will have heard of NLP - Neurolinguistic Programming, the great invention of Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Heard of it, perhaps, but do you know what the words mean?

At the very core of NLP you will find nothing more than communication.

NLP concerns the connections between language (the "linguistic" bit), the nerves of the listener and the   speaker (the "neuro" bit) and conditioned behaviour patterns (the "programming" bit). Through understanding and working the tools of language, one can stimulate the learning and formation of neural paths to condition patterns of behaviour

In essence, NLP and hypnosis kind of play on the same field. Both use language to induce changes in consciousness and, ultimately, behaviour. NLP does so in a different way, however; and as such it warrants classification as a different tool.

The art of personal change lies in the hands of the artist, the technician exacting the programmed pattern of change; not in the tools themselves.

I think that NLP challenges not only the listener, the one doing the change - it also challenges the practitioner, the one doing the programming. NLP challenges the practitioner in a different way, even though it does enact a change in the practitioner.

NLP challenges the practitioner to, literally, watch your language.

When you begin thinking about how a word - just one word - can cause massive harm: a racist or sexist word thrown into a group of people sensitised to that word and stoked for anger, for instance, like a thuggish chant sung on a football terrace to taunt one player, or a rant from a broken, misinformed, homophobic US politician asserting that homosexuality can be "cured," deliberately inferring that the politician considers sexual orientation (and perhaps sex in general) a disease: you realise just how much power the spoken word can have to heal, to calm, or to inflame and destroy. And you learn to alter your own language accordingly, to heal or to harm according to your nature.

I came up with a comment just today, when someone accused me of brainwashing using NLP; "Self-conditioning. Like self-medication, only your liver and kidneys will thank you."

It does come on like drugs, NLP; properly applied during a course of therapy, such as CBT or a more long-term therapeutic regime, NLP can produce some amazing results. However, one can also use NLP for more personal, even recreational, uses, applying it to take people to higher states of being, or to apply patterns of behaviour conducive to greater social bonding and confidence in oneself, which leads ultimately to confidence in others. One can use NLP as a tool of seduction, in which regard is has great power; and one can also use it to cement firmer social bonds with people who, by your words and deeds, can come to see you as a solid person, someone worth listening to - and speaking to.

Watch your language, change your life. Watch your language change your life.