Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a body of knowledge made up of two parts. The first is an attitude or philosophy, the second a set of tools and techniques created by that philosophy.

The simplest definition of attitude is that ‘subjective human experience has a structure that can be usefully manipulated’.

What does that mean? Well, ‘subjective human experience’ refers to each human being’s unique and personal experience of reality. For example, if three people are on the same plane flying from London to New York, one may find the experience exciting, another very boring, and the third terrifying. Although each of them is doing more or less the same thing, they have their own unique and personal experience.

NLP takes the approach that this experience has a structure; it is not random but governed by rules and the law of cause and effect. If these rules are understood, then the experience can be usefully manipulated, turning fear into excitement, for example.

Given this attitude, it is possible to experiment with the rules to see if a particular change in a person’s experience will produce a particular effect. Once you discover that changing one thing systematically changes another, you have a technique that can be repeated. This is the second part of NLP: all the techniques and tools that have been created by experimenting with the structure of subjective experience.

An example of NLP

To experience NLP for yourself, try the following experiment. Read the instructions first, memorize the steps, and then try it out.

1. Close your eyes and think of someone you love. Notice what image comes to mind when you think of this person. Pay attention to the feelings this image evokes and be aware of how intense they are.
2. Imagine that you can zoom this image out into the distance until it appears small and far away. Be aware of any change in the intensity of your feelings about it.
3. Imagine that you can bring the image closer to you and make it bigger and brighter. Again, be aware of any changes in the intensity of your feelings.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 a few times and see if they produce the same result consistently.

For many people doing this experiment, pushing the image further away decreases the intensity. Zooming in and zooming in is equally reliable for increasing the intensity of the sentiment. It doesn’t matter if your experience is the same, everyone’s experience is different, but you should at least notice that changes in the way you view the image consistently and predictably affect how you feel about it.

So your subjective experience, the image of the person you love, has a structure (its size and distance from you) that can be usefully manipulated (varied to increase the intensity of pleasant feelings).

NLP Techniques

Since its inception in the 1970s, the NLP attitude has been adopted by many people who have used it to conduct experiments. As a result, many techniques or patterns have been identified that predictably and usefully affect a person’s subjective experience.

For example, the quick phobia cure is an NLP technique that predictably and usefully reduces the fear a person experiences when exposed to something that frightens them. This could be anything from a spider to an enclosed space to the experience of driving on a busy highway.

There are many such techniques and they can be broadly classified into two groups.

Personal techniques allow a person to affect some part of their own experience. For example, presenters and performers can use NLP to put themselves in a state of confidence and energy before going on stage. Other personal NLP techniques can help a person become more effective in setting goals, thinking clearly, motivating themselves, and much more.

Communication techniques allow a person to affect the way they interact with others. NLP includes techniques to build rapport and trust with other people, to persuade and hypnotize them.

A brief history of NLP

NLP was first developed in the 1970s by two men. John Grinder was a professor of linguistics and Richard Bandler a computer scientist. Much of the development came from the studies the two men did on successful people. They identified various patterns and structures that were present in the way these people behaved, thought, and experienced the world. That process of studying or modeling formed a large part of the attitude of NLP, and the resulting patterns formed many of the techniques.

Among the first group of successful people studied were several prominent therapists. These included Fritz Perls, the gestalt therapist, Virginia Satir, the family therapist and psychiatrist and hypnotist Dr. Milton Erickson. As such, many of the early NLP patterns had a significant therapeutic element and many early adopters of NLP were therapists.

However, over time, technology has advanced and is now becoming more popular with all types of people, including salespeople, managers, trainers, and those interested in personal development.

In summary

NLP is both an attitude and a collection of techniques created by that attitude. It centers on that belief that subjective human experience has a structure that can be usefully manipulated. Experiments based on this belief have created many techniques. These allow a person to influence and affect themselves and others more effectively. Since its inception in the 1970s, NLP has grown to be accepted and practiced throughout the world.