NLP Neuro Linguistic Programming for better mental health. Understand and relief phobias, fears and other problems.

What is NLP?

History of NLP

Uses of NLP

What is NLP?

Each of us happen to possess in our skulls, the most sophisticated computers ever conceived of and no one thought to provide instructions. No wonder changing how we do the simplest task, often meets with failure.

If you climbed behind the wheel of a car for the very first time and had no instructions to guide you, how far do you think you'd get before driving into a ditch or up a telephone pole.

So, how do NLPer's create the knowledge necessary to learn how to operate our own minds?

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) studies the structure of how humans think and experience the world. Obviously, the structure of something so subjective does not lend itself to precise, statistical formulae but instead leads to models of how these things work. From these models, techniques for quickly and effectively changing thoughts, behaviors and beliefs that limit you have been developed.
  

In short:
NLP is the process of understanding how the brain operates in achieving goals and outcomes.
It is a means by which people reliably achieve goals and communicate more effectively.
NLP is understanding and using the language of the mind to consistently achieve specific and desired outcomes for ourselves and others

Many of the models in NLP were created by studying people who did things exquisitely well. Models such as meta-model, metaprogram, sensory acuity, Milton-model, representational systems and submodalities among others, provide a diverse set of tools for creating change in yourself and others.

Let's use something called submodalities as an example of how a model works. By understanding how we perceive the world through our five senses, we can then understand how some people can respond very resourcefully in a situation and others do not. Once you learn how those who remain resourceful set up their representations, then it's a simple matter to teach others to do the same thing.

The Example: Imagine seeing an enormous spider dangling directly in front of your face. Now clear your mind (sorry, didn't want to leave that image hanging around). A common way for people to have a phobic reaction to spiders or anything related to them, is to picture a spider completely oversized and far too close in their minds.

Spiders are tiny, well-mannered creatures that are far more frightened of you than you should be of them but try telling that to someone with that particular phobia.

So, why don't these phobic people notice the images they're creating? The popular belief is that we don't pay much attention to what's going on in our unconscious. If you considered the enormous amount of information your brain has to process each day, it's probably best that we don't spend much time dwelling on it (otherwise, we would probably sit around babbling and drooling and eventually starve to death).

Well, what do we do about our friend with the phobia, Extra-strength cans of Raid for a house warming gift?

NLPers ask the question, "If another person can have fun playing with their pet spider, what can we learn about them that we could teach the phobic person so they can play with spiders, too?" (Or something like that). The spider-lover would most likely have an image representing spiders that was proportionally correct and at a reasonable distance and possibly other factors not worth getting into right now. Knowing the difference, the NLPer can use one of many techniques to help the phobic person relearn their reaction to spiders so that it is similar in nature to the spider-lover's (hopefully less of the lover part).

The above example may sound complicated but phobia treatments often take less than half an hour. An powerful change with a minimal investment of time and effort.

The name Neuro Linguistic Programming is in itself an accurate description of the science/art of NLP:

Neuro refers to the way the human neurology processes information about personal experience received from the five senses:

What you see (Visual) of an experience
What you hear (Auditory) of that experience
What you feel (Kinaesthetic) of that experience
What you smell (Olfactory) of that experience and
What you taste (Gustatory) of that experience
Linguistic refers to the verbal and non-verbal language, by which neural representations are coded and given meaning.

This coding affects all communication and behaviour. It affects how people learn and how they experience the world around them. It is the key to reaching goals and achieving excellence.

This coding process includes:

Pictures
Sounds
Feelings
Tastes
Smells
Words (Self Talk)
Programming refers to the ability to discover and utilise the mind's internal strategies or programmes in order to achieve specific and desired outcomes. These programmes operate within the neurology and contain all the communications people make to themselves and to others.

NLP is based on many useful presuppositions that support the attitude that change is imminent. One of the most important is, NLP is about what works, not what should work. In other words, if what you're doing isn't working, try something else, anything else, regardless of whether what you had been doing should have worked. Flexibility is the key element in a given system, the one who is most likely to do well responds to changing (or unchanging) circumstances. That's one reason NLP has made so much progress in an area where such is not the norm.

NLP is one of the most significant advances in human behavioural change technology achieved in the modern world.

It is the process of modelling excellence and using these models to 'train' other people to 'wear' the excellence.

It can help you to move from the position of success in life through to true personal excellence.

Having achieved this for yourself you can, using NLP training, assist other people to adjust their internal programming so they too can achieve their true potential or personal excellence.

History of NLP

NLP is by definition, a process of modelling. Its history is therefore an amalgam of the work of excellent practitioners of human change processes.

We are indebted to the originators of NLP, Richard Bandler, John Grinder and others, for selecting, examining and distilling this knowledge into a useable form so that we can continue to model and refine the work of 'masters of excellence'. We are also indebted to all those who have subsequently developed NLP and whose work forms the basis of current NLP. Included amongst this vast list of NLP developers are Richard Bandler (Sub modalities), Tad James (Time Line Therapy™), Connirae Andreas Tamara Andreas (Core Transformation).

Uses of NLP:

NLP can be applied to personal well-being, business, health, counselling, therapy, relationships, sport, training, education, negotiation, leadership, presentation skills and goal setting. There are no limits. It has been used in the fields of psychology, linguistics, business communication, training and education for over 25 years:
 

improving your relationships with loved ones,

get rid of phobias

overcome fear

learning to teach effectively,

gaining a stronger sense of self esteem,

greater motivation,

better understanding of communication,

enhancing your business or career,

bending steel bars in a single bound

and an enormous amount of other things that involve the use of your brain.

Ref from http://www.naturaltherapyinfo.com