Handbook of NLP

A Manual for Professional Communicators

Harry Alder

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780566083891
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317123965
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Since its Californian beginnings a generation ago, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) has won world-wide recognition as probably the most powerful set of tools available for improving communication, thinking and problem-solving. Derived from the study of leading practitioners in fields as disparate as psychotherapy and selling, NLP is now used extensively in business, management, human resource development and sport. Dr Alder's Handbook brings together in one volume the ideas and skills involved in applying NLP to achieve superior performance at both the personal and the professional level. Part 1 sets out the underlying principles and introduces key concepts such as outcomes, representational systems, anchoring, modelling and reframing, together with the techniques required for putting them to work. Part 2 shows how to use NLP in training, selling, negotiating, interviewing, coaching and presentation. Throughout the text there are examples and exercises designed to help readers profit from, rather than simply understand, the procedures described. Other valuable features include a glossary of terms and a sources and resources section containing an annotated reading list and details of organizations offering NLP training. Anyone seeking a comprehensive guide to NLP theory and practice need look no further.

PART 1 Principles and Practices

Introduction to Part 1

Part 1 covers all the topics you need for an introduction to NLP. As subjects, they appear in no particular order of importance. However, I suggest that you read the chapters in sequence, as they form a planned learning programme, and each builds on what has gone before. The topics relate very closely in nearly every case, so the ‘full picture’ will not emerge until towards the end anyway. Readers already familiar with the subjects and terminology may choose to use this part as a handbook and for reference, dipping into the chapters as appropriate.

I introduce the topics and explain any terminology at the beginning of each chapter. As with many specialist areas, some jargon comes with the subject. I have not included jargon just because it appears from time to time in NLP writings and seminars. For example, to ‘representational system primacy’ (presumably the more popular ‘sensory preference’ or already jargonized ‘primary representational system [PRS]’) I gave a summary thumbs down. It means the sense you prefer to think in, such as seeing or hearing. In some cases, however, we commonly use the words in a different way, and this can cause confusion. So, although I express Part 1 themes in lay language as far as possible, I have retained jargon that has a specific NLP meaning where I have already explained that meaning. However, I don't explain a word every time I use it – hence the importance of reading the chapters in the order presented. For a quick introduction to some of the topics, you can refer to the glossary at the end of the book. Otherwise, you can use it as a handy reference source to recall terms encountered in earlier chapters.

CHAPTER 1 The Nature of NLP

NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Although at first intimidating, considering the individual components of the term it goes a long way towards describing what it means.

‘Neuro’ relates to the mind or brain, the central nervous system, and in particular the senses with which we feel, see, hear, taste and smell. Through these we communicate with the outside world, but we also ‘communicate’ with our inner selves through memory and imagination.

‘Linguistic’ means just that, and refers to language – both verbal and non-verbal – as an important element in thinking as well as communication.

We commonly use the term ‘programming’ in relation to software and the personal computer. With NLP, you can identify the ‘programs’ that run your behaviour, including habits and unconscious behaviour. You can also program the way you think (neuro) and speak (linguistic) to attain greater competence in whatever you do.

The mental processes of perception, memory, learning, creativity and suchlike all involve neuro-linguistic programs. Together, they account for our behaviour and how and whether we achieve our desired outcomes. NLP definitions don't adhere to a specific standard, and its followers often struggle to explain it. Some describe it as an attitude. The founders, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, defined it as:

The study of the structure of subjective experience.

For most people, this begs further definition and you will meet the ideas of a structure and ‘subjective experience’ a lot as you get to know the subject. It has also been referred to as ‘the art and science of personal excellence’. Much of NLP concerns interpersonal communication, but it goes far beyond orthodox communication theory and in particular majors on non-verbal communication. NLP also places emphasis on self-understanding, or intrapersonal intelligence (intra = within) – a main feature of so-called emotional intelligence. So its impact extends beyond communication to self-development at many levels. Its claims lie not in art or science, however, but in its successful, practical application in the lives of ordinary people striving for excellence.

The ABC of NLP

In broad terms, NLP covers:

• communication
• internal experience
• how language affects us
• modelling excellent behaviour
• how we use our brain.

People often associate NLP with fast-change techniques. In fact, techniques merely represent the products of NLP, which provides a model, and a modelling process. We base many techniques on what we call the NLP model. This describes sensory inputs – sights, sounds and feelings – filtered by generalization, deletion and distortion, for coding and storing subjective experience as a structure, or personal map of reality. NLP models a person's perceptual map. Moreover, the NLP model doesn't focus on repair, as do orthodox psychological approaches, but positive change, or generation. It sees people as whole and ‘perfect’, rather than broken, pathological specimens.

Neurolinguistics

The more historical term ‘neurolinguistics’ refers to an area of study in general semantics. Alfred Korzybski used the term in 1941, seeing it as key element in understanding the limitations of language and how we each build our ‘maps’ of the world. Significantly, as we shall see throughout this book, he distinguished the ‘map’ of our personal perceptions of the world from the ‘territory’ of external reality.

This linguistic connection exemplifies just one of the many features of NLP drawn from different disciplines and based on concepts familiar in some other context. Among other things, NLP expands, consolidates and develops neurolinguistics as previously understood.

Scope and Schism

The scope of NLP has expanded since its inception in the 1970s, as others, as well as the founders themselves, have added important new streams of thinking. The main areas it has affected are:

• education
• training
• business
• counselling
• health
• therapy
• creativity
• personal change
• sports psychology.

The lack of a standard definition, of the sort that a professional body might agree upon, does not imply any lack of rigour on the part of the original propounders of the ideas. Rather, it reflects the fact that NLP has grown like Topsy, and its followers add new topics and interpretations continually. These developments form an essential aspect of the very adaptability of an evolving subject. The NLP scene can appear somewhat anarchic. For this reason, orthodox definitions may become stretched according to the school of thought prevailing, and the axes individual writers and practitioners have to grind.

The science of personal excellence

Some definitions have gained wide acceptance, such as ‘the study of subjective experience’ and ‘the science of personal excellence’. As a behaviour science, NLP consists of:

• a system of knowledge – an epistemology
• methods and processes for applying knowledge and values – a methodology
• tools with which to apply the knowledge and values – a technology.

It draws on linguistics, neurology and cognitive science, and seeks to synthesize a number of theories and models into a single structure.

NLP contains a set of principles and distinctions which enable us to identify thinking patterns and behaviour, in people and their relationships. In particular, it enables us to identify those forces in our lives that work unconsciously, and the mental structures that control them. We can then use this knowledge to make changes to the way we think and behave.

Modelling Excellence

NLP originated in what we term modelling, and this remains a central feature. Modelling entails identifying and emulating special competence, or so-called ‘excellence’, such as we find in outstanding achievers in every walk of life. The simple idea is that:

If anyone can do it, so can I.

Modelling exemplars of human excellence demands copying of a specialized and technical kind. The ‘I can’ philosophy in NLP differs from the positive thinking and affirmations we have become familiar with, and which sometimes seem naïve in comparison. Modelling includes not just observable behaviour, sometimes down to micro-muscular level, but also the ‘behaviour’ of the mind, its mental structures and programs.

Through different techniques, a NLP ‘practitioner’ seeks to model, then emulate or replicate, how a person thinks and feels. The ‘practitioner’ tries to understand how rather than why they exhibit competence, or ‘excellent’ behaviour, and enjoy the success that invariably follows. ‘How’ includes mental patterns and programs, rather than the unique and personal content of thoughts and feelings. Thus, in a major departure from conventional therapy and problem-solving, NLP techniques can remain ‘content-free’. This increases their scope and simplifies the processes.

Sense and Systems

NLP largely embraces the theory and practice of communication, which in this context includes communication with oneself, or self-knowledge, as well as communication with other people. Two important principles run through NLP:

• The phrase ‘the map is not the territory’ encapsulates the first. We respond to the world around us through the five senses and how we perceive things. This involves a complex set of filters, which turn outside reality into subjective experience – in other words, ‘experience’ unique to the person and based upon their beliefs, values, feelings, life experience and so on. We then act according to our filtered map of the world – the only world we know. We cannot know reality because of the way our mind structures and processes it as ‘experience’. Our mental map seems like reality, but in fact can never equate to reality, or the ‘territory’. The NLP presuppositions in the next chapter reflect these important fundamental concepts.
• These processes inter-relate with other systems, both inside the person and also embracing the people around and the wider environment. We act not independently, but systemically and holistically. So we cannot isolate any part of these systems – such as a specific behaviour – from the rest.

Art or science?

NLP practitioners refer to the subject as both an art and a science: an art, in that it largely calls for special skills, such as we use, for example, in interpersonal relationships and modelling behaviour. In particular, it demands acute observation skills akin to those of a patient portrait artist, and the listening skills of a dedicated counsellor.

Similarly, you need special, craft-like skills, as well as knowledge, to program your mind to do what you want it, and the rest of your body, to do. NLP concerns some highly subjective aspects of people which don't lend themselves to the absolute laws and predictability we associate with scientific method. The human mind, of course, doesn't provide the best scientific laboratory.

The label ‘science’, on the other hand, signifies a well-researched field of knowledge with a credible intellectual pedigree. It has drawn, for instance, on linguistics, computer programming, cybernetics and psyc...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Exercises
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• PART 1 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES
• PART 2 SELECTED APPLICATIONS
• Glossary of NLP Terms
• Sources and Resources
• Index