Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a powerful body of information about how the human mind works built up since the 1970`s and continuing to evolve through new research. You are likely to find many different descriptions of NLP.

At the heart of NLP is a wide range of methods and models it offers for understanding how people think, behave and change. It offers a flexible approach which brings about positive, fast change in individuals and organisations and empowers them to adapt to an ever-shifting world.

NLP training provides the skills to define and achieve your outcomes or goals and a heightened awareness of your five senses, allowing you to remain flexible, on track and maintain rapport with those around you.

NLP is an attitude which is an insatiable curiosity about human beings with a methodology that leaves behind it a trail of techniques.

Richard Bandler (co-creator of NLP)

The strategies, tools and techniques of NLP represent an opportunity unlike any other for the exploration of human functioning, or more precisely, that rare and valuable subset of human functioning known as genius.

John Grinder(co-creator of NLP)

NLP is about Communication

One of the principles of NLP is that we are always communicating and a very large proportion of our communication is non-verbal. So what are we communicating? Is what we intend to convey the same as what the listener understands? If not, how do we recognise the cues and adjust? Research, sponsored by BT, tells us that 6 out of 10 people in the UK want to be better at communicating. NLP provides practical tools for achieving highly skilled communication.

NLP is about Language

Language affects how we think and respond. The very process of converting experience into language requires that we condense, distort, and summarise how we perceive the world.

NLP provides questions and patterns to make our communication more clearly understood. NLP teaches us to understand how language affects us through implicit and embedded assumptions. The English language is full of traps and pitfalls for the unwary communicator… for example, if you are told NOT to think of a kangaroo, you will immediately think of a kangaroo, which is the opposite result from that intended!

Listen for the use of implied assumptions when you use the word “but”. For example, “I like the way that you did that piece of work, but… .” The listener tends to forget everything that went before the “but”, waiting for problems to emerge.

Since advertisers, the media and politicians use language to convey their messages, learning about language through NLP can increase awareness and “consumer protection” for your mind.

NLP is about Modelling Excellence

NLP processes and strategies have developed as a result of discovering how experts or excellent leaders do what they do so well; it is then possible to teach these skills to others.

Modelling skills, based on detailed observations and careful questions around beliefs and values, are the key to competence in NLP. Learning the specific components of how others do something well will provide you with new options and accelerate your learning. The NLP Spelling Strategy (developed by Robert Dilts, USA ) was modelled from naturally good spellers and is easily taught to children and adults.

NLP allows you to devise strategies for dealing with challenges. For example, if you find it difficult to get up in the morning, ask someone who does not find it difficult how they motivate themselves to do it. Other applications abound in education, business (e.g. competency modelling), health, sports and personal development.

NLP is about Mastering Your Mind

NLP describes, in very precise terms, the images, sounds, and feelings that make up our inner and outer world.

How do we know what we know? How do we do what we do? For example, how do you know that a pleasant memory is pleasant? How do you know when to feel scared or happy? How do you know that you like or dislike something? How do you learn a subject easily, or not?

NLP provides us with the equivalent of a user`s manual for our brain – NLP techniques demonstrate how we “code” our experience. When we understand the specific ways that our brains make distinctions, then it is easier to make changes, to learn and to communicate effectively.

NLP is the study of Internal Experience

NLP is a tool to calibrate and understand how an individual makes sense of the world. NLP studies the experiences of an individual; how our thoughts, actions and feelings work together to produce our experience.

It does NOT assume that we all do this the same way. It does NOT produce formulae for body language or even eye movements without understanding the individual. In NLP we know that each person has a unique style of learning, perceiving and responding to the world. NLP is inherently respectful of differences.

How Can I Benefit from NLP

NLP has a wide range of practical applications in business (e.g. management, personnel, sales, consulting), training and development, education, dyslexia, the helping professions, health, relationships, writing and the arts, sports, parenting, hobbies and personal development – anywhere communicating and excelling are important. The more you are interested in communication, personal effectiveness and development – the more NLP has to offer.