Theory and Practice of NLP Coaching

A Psychological Approach

Bruce Grimley

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781446201725, 9781446201718
• eBook ISBN: 9781446291870
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Mentoring & Coaching
• Index: Business

?Inspiring, stimulating, and immensely rich - Bruce takes NLP in Coaching to an entirely new dimension, building on the giants before him? - Katherine Tulpa, Global CE0, Association for Coaching

?I recommend this book whole heartedly to any coach who wishes to update their knowledge and understanding of NLP and coaching? - Prof. Dr. Karl Nielsen, IN President

?Immensely readable and well researched. No NLP practitioner wanting to develop the field further should be without it? - Dr Jane Mathison, formerly research officer in NLP, University of Surrey

Are you struggling with the complexities of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)?

You?ve come to the right place. This book demystifies NLP, providing a practical guide to understanding the psychological theories, principles and research that underpin the approach.

Packed with practical hints and tips, case studies and exercises, the book introduces and explores:

- What NLP coaching actually is

- The general theories and principles that underpin the NLP approach

- How theory translates into practice

- The research evidence that says NLP coaching really works

This is an essential companion for trainees, coaches, psychologists and professionals from all walks of life - indeed, anyone wanting to develop their knowledge and practical skills in this increasingly popular approach.

Bruce Grimley is Managing Director of Achieving Lives Ltd, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and the UK President of the International Association of NLP Institutes and Coaching Institutes.

PART 1

The Development of NLP and Coaching Psychology

1

Introduction to NLP

An attitude and a methodology which leaves behind a trail of techniques*

Definition

… Now I would like you to take a few deep breaths and relax. Welcome to NLP … As you now sit reading these words, you are breathing lightly … and you can enjoy a wonderful relaxing experience … as you do, you will find the three single letters N … L … P written in front of you … It may be as you take a breath you discover you are curious, you have heard many stories and you would like to hear for yourself what NLP is really about … Maybe you would like to see it in action … and now, you have a sense by reading this book your questions will be answered … You may not be aware of it, however your heart has quickened, just slightly as you anticipate a journey of learning which means you are going to see improvement as you read this book … as you continue to read, you might be aware that a crude attempt at employing one of the NLP models has been directed at you. The Milton Model, of which you will learn much more in Chapter 7, was created by Bandler and Grinder after spending time modelling Dr Milton Erickson, founder of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. ‘An attitude and a methodology which leaves behind a trail of techniques’ is probably the most well-known definition of NLP but like so much in NLP it is hard to track down in writing. In NLP folklore this definition is attributed to Richard Bandler, however my research over two years could not source any extant publication. It is characteristic of NLP that people are polarized into two camps, a bit like Marmite – love it or hate it. One of the possible reasons for this is that the two founders of NLP were highly charismatic and, according to John Grinder, arrogant people. They were both educators in the Human Potential movement era, located in the highly experimental Kresge College of the University of California, Santa Cruz, where no grades were given (Gilligan, 2011). On the first meeting between these two people, there was immediate rapport. Grinder explains the characteristics he believed he and Richard Bandler shared:

• Arrogant.
• Curious.
• Unimpressed by authority or tradition.
• Strong personal boundaries – a well-defined sense of personal responsibility for their own experiences and an insistence that others do likewise.
• Willingness to try nearly anything rather than be bored (or boring).
• Utterly lacking in self-doubt – egotistical.
• Playful.
• Full capability as players in the acting as if game.
• Full behavioural appreciation of difference between form and content. (Bostic St Clair & Grinder, 2001: 121).

As we will see throughout this book, the above characteristics permeate the practice of NLP to date, and do so in such a way that those who do not share at least some of the above characteristics find the practice of NLP an unpleasant experience. Conversely, those who do have a quantity of the above characteristics find resonance at such a deep level they seem convinced they have found the Holy Grail of psychological ‘truth’.

The letters NLP stand for Neuro Linguistic Programming. What this means is described in one of the first text books on NLP:

‘Neuro’ (derived from the Greek neuron for nerve) stands for the fundamental tenet that all behaviour is the result of neurological processes. ‘Linguistic’ (derived from the Latin lingua for language) indicates that neural processes are represented, ordered and sequenced into models and strategies through language and communication systems. ‘Programming’ refers to the process of organizing the components of a system (sensory representations in this case) to achieve specific outcomes. (Dilts, Grinder, Bandler & DeLozier, 1980: 2)

Nobody seems absolutely certain as to when the term NLP came into existence or who created it; however, it did not appear in published form until 1979 in Frogs into princes (Bandler & Grinder, 1979). One story is that NLP was coined by Bandler and Grinder in an intentionally mischievous way, possibly poking fun at its quasi academic status (Tosey & Mathison, 2009: 12). Another story is Bandler made up the name when a traffic policeman asked for his profession (Brown, 2007: 173). Terrence McClendon, who was a part of the original research group at Santa Cruz, says the name appeared on Richard Bandler’s new office shortly after the Meta Model group started in 1974. He goes on to say that at this time business cards were printed up with MM for Meta Model, which was later to become the logo for Richard Bandler and John Grinder’s publishing company, Meta Publications (McClendon, 1989). Frank Pucelik says the original name for NLP during the first three years was ‘Meta’ (Pucelik, 2010).

However, if I am going to introduce you to something we need to know what it is I am introducing you to. For instance, is NLP ‘the study of the structure of subjective experience’ (Dilts, Grinder, Bandler & DeLozier, 1980)? If it is then there are already paradigms which do this, for example phenomenology, which like NLP talks about sensation as the unit of experience (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: 3). Psychodynamic psychology in its different guises has language full of nominalizations which seek to describe the structures and interrelations of subjective processes in such a way that we have an explanatory frame which is valid. Cognitivism seeks to put thinking at the foundation of the structure of subjective experience and through well conducted research attempts to persuade us they have hit the button. It would seem that if NLP is the study of the structure of subjective experience, then many others have been there before and such a definition, which seeks to demonstrate the provision of something new, is redundant.

It we take another popular definition of NLP, ‘An attitude with a methodology which leaves behind it a trail of techniques’, I believe we have something more substantial. However, we need to understand what the attitude is, what the methodology is and what the trail of techniques is. I believe there is within the NLP community as agreed an understanding as one will ever get concerning this.

The NLP Attitude

Curiosity and adventure seem to be the two attitudes which spring to mind when one considers this question. Interestingly the encyclopedia of NLP does not use the criterion of attitude to define NLP and describes it as ‘a behavioural model, and set of explicit skills and techniques’ (Dilts & DeLozier, 2000: 849). I would like to argue that attitude is core to NLP, its practitioners and its researchers, and indeed attitude is one of the variables which sets NLP apart from other paradigms. I would argue the key attitudes are arrived at through assimilation of the NLP presuppositions. If people assimilate these presuppositions, they themselves become very different people compared to those who they were before. Tony Grant (2001a: 234) in critiquing the Neuro-Associative Conditioning method of Anthony Robbins puts it well: ‘if an individual in fact had the required high levels of these attributes (personal commitment, cognitive flexibility and insight), he or she would probably be likely to adopt the new behaviour anyway, regardless of the techniques employed’. What Tony Grant is saying here is if we have the right attitude we actually do not need the techniques. A cognitive behavioural approach would predict change in behaviour and language if a person assimilated such beliefs/attitudes as:

• The mind and body are part of one system.
• The meaning of your communication is the response you get.
• You have all the resources you need.
• If something does not work, keep changing until it does.
• The map is not the territory.
• There is no failure only feedback … and so on.

I would suggest the extent to which a person demonstrates through their behaviour and language that they run these beliefs is the extent to which someone can call themselves a practitioner of NLP. In a similar vein Linder-Pelz tells us she aims to reduce NLP coaching ‘to basics and principles rather than tools’ (2010: 53). From a systemic point of view, these basics and principles are of a different logical type and level compared to that of the tools which are generated as a function of such principles. We will look at the important part presuppositions play in the psychology of NLP in Chapter 5.

NLP Methodology

The NLP community generally accepts that the methodology of NLP is modelling, whether this be the analytical modelling of Dilts (1998) or the more bottom-up approach of Grinder (NLP Academy, 2001–2003: 9). Again the extent to which one’s coaching methodology can demonstrate the use of either of these two modelling processes is the extent to which one can be said to be practicing NLP coaching. This key NLP skill will be discussed in detail in Chapter 12.

NLP Techniques

Again the NLP community seems to be in agreement here: the techniques refer to patterns and models generated by modelling projects. NLP coaches make good use of such NLP models as the Meta Model (1975) and the Milton Model (1975). Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling are coaching models created by Penny Tompkins and James Lawley (1997a & 1997b) as a result of modelling David Grove, a New Zealand psychotherapist. How NLP has developed within the popular coaching industry through the development of such coaching models will be discussed in detail in Chapter 14.

Beginnings

So we now have a basic frame within which we can get to understand and practice NLP coaching. We need to develop a certain attitude which was present in the co-founders and formalized in the NLP presuppositions; using this attitude we engage in modelling, and as a result of modelling develop patterns of excellence that hitherto have not been available for conscious scrutiny, testing or use. We also make use of those models which have been created and written up by previous NLP modelling projects.

Throughout this book this is the definition I will use to describe NLP. My intention is to suggest that if NLP is to begin to have a place in history and develop from ‘a small experimental-research therapy group’ (Lewis & Pucelik, 1990: i), it needs to begin to standardize its definitions and processes.

NLP needs to standardize its definitions and processes so that those interested in the discipline can recognize:

• What NLP is.
• How it is different from other approaches.
• It is capable of falsification.
• It is capable of empirical validation.
• And consequently it is capable of real development rather than superficial popularism.

In my introduction to date we understand NLP is ‘charismatic’, we know what the letters stand for, and we have a working definition of what those letters mean. How did it all start? It started because an undergraduate mathematics and computer science student wanted an Associate Professor in linguistics to provide a model of how he did Gestalt therapy.

NLP began in the early 1970s at the University of Santa Cruz when Richard Bandler contacted John Grinder, an Associate Professor of linguistics, and invited him to attend a Gestalt workshop with the aim of observing his self-taught expertise of Fritz Perls and developing a model. NLP makes no commitment to theory but is regarded as having the status of a model. A model is a set of procedures whose usefulness and not ‘truthfulness’ is the measure of worth. These patterns are sometimes even presented as lies, systematic misrepresentations of what is actually occurring. The idea is we never have access to objective reality. The ‘truth’ is scorned in NLP; what is important is whether what we consistently do is useful or not.

One of the main assumptions here, and the one that underpins NLP, is the presence of a consistent internal ordering and structuring of individual experience. By modelling experts such as Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir, this tacit ordering and structuring can be made available and transferred to others.

The model was based upon John Grinder’s observation of Richard Bandler and Frank Pucelik as they performed their ‘miracle groups’ on a Monday, with John then conducting his own ‘miracle group’ on the following Thursday to see if he could replicate the results. After several months Grinder found he could. This modelling process was repeated after Bandler returned from attending a month-long seminar in Cold Harbor, Canada, with Virginia Satir. Again Grinder modelled Bandler, making use of the Satir verbal patterns. After these two modelling projects, Bandler and Grinder between them wrote up the first NLP model called the Meta Model in The structure of magic (Bandler & Grinder, 1975b). A second book, The structure of magic 2 (Grinder & Bandler, 1976), looked at some of the other strategies of Perls and Satir, such as the ‘empty chair technique’, ‘making the rounds’, ‘Satir categories’ and the ‘parts party’, as well as the second model to come out of NLP, that of representational systems. However, at this time and in both of these publications NLP is not mentioned.

The NLP Context

The world was ripe for change. NLP started and consisted of small group situations where participants learned from their own interactions and experiences.

An appreciation of the context of this time is useful to understand the beginnings of NLP. The prevailing Zeitgeist was that the whole world was going to change as a result of efforts in the Santa Cruz area. When Bandler and Grinder wrote up the Meta Model, they were going to change the world with it; when they discovered representational systems they were going to change the world with that. It was at this time that Jobs and Wozniak were building the personal computer revolution out of a garage. The unpopular Vietnamese war, which Frank Pucelik had experienced at first hand, was coming to an end and young students were passionate about creating a better world for their future. Carlos Castaneda, dubbed the Godfather of the new age, was being lauded by the New York Times and Michael Murphy, a founder of the Esalen Institute, for his writings. Castaneda’s writings included a central tenet of NLP and that is the ability to access a ‘know nothing’ state, an ability to ‘stop the world’. It is only when we can do this that we truly see without the distortion of personal filters. In this state we see, hear and feel sensory experience as sensory experience. There are no instant associated meanings or feelings created in this state, just an appreciation of sensory experience which can mean anything we choose it to mean. In this way we learn to run our brain, rather than have our brain run us. R.D. Laing, the psychiatrist whose teachings were continued at Esalen and who was famous for being anti-psychiatrist – a term he hated (Gordon, 2009: 10) – was at the height of his fame and popularity. Laing himself was an excellent natural modeller. The world was ripe for change, and the students at Santa Cruz University and the participants of the Esalen Institute 50 miles down the coastline were going to deliver it.

In a very similar way to the early T groups which came out of the Research Center for Group Dynamics (RCGD, established in 1945) in Connecticut led by Kurt Lewin, NLP consisted of small group situations where participants learned from their own interactions and experiences. The evolving dynamic led to various experiments which created change in their personal lives and the lives of others. Grinder seemed to be the cohesive glue and if it was not for him NLP would not have come about acc...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 The Development of NLP and Coaching Psychology
• Part 2 Understanding NLP and Supporting Psychological Principles
• Part 3 The Evidence for NLP Effectiveness
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• References
• Index