What is NLP?

What is NLP?

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a personal development system developed in the early 1970s by Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder, in association with Gregory Bateson. It uses a toolbox of strategies, axioms and beliefs about human communication, perception and subjective experience.

NLP's core idea is that an individual's thoughts, gestures and words interact to create one's perception of the world. By changing one's outlook, a person can improve his attitudes and actions. These observations can be changed by applying a variety of techniques.

NLP teaches that a person can develop successful habits by amplifying helpful behaviors and diminishing negative ones. Positive change can come when one carefully reproduces the behaviors and beliefs of successful people (called 'modeling'). It also states that all human beings have all the resources necessary for success within themselves.

Bandler and Grinder credited three successful therapists — Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson — as NLP's major inspirations. They 'modeled' the therapists and developed special "patterns" for general communication, rapport-building and self-improvement. NLP author Robert Dilts calls the system "the study of the structure of subjective experience".[1]

NLP is controversial, particularly for use in therapy and after more than three decades of existence, remains scientifically unvalidated.[2]

It has also been criticized for lacking a defining and regulating body to impose standards and a professional ethical code.[3] Even so, NLP remains popular as an approach to self-help, personal influence and business communication. [4][5]It is also used as an adjunct by therapists in other therapeutic disciplines.

One of a series of articles on
Neuro-linguistic programming
(NLP)

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Main articles
NLP · Principles · Topics · History
NLP and science · Therapy · Bibliography · Methods of NLP


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Concepts and methods
Modeling · Meta model · Milton model
Perceptual positions · Rapport
Representation systems
Reframing · Submodalities
Positive intention · Meta program · Neurological levels
Anchoring · Well-formed outcome



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Notable Practitioners
Richard Bandler·John Grinder
Connirae Andreas·Steve Andreas
Judith DeLozier·Robert Dilts·
Stephen Gilligan·David Gordon
Ross Jeffries·Paul McKenna
Genie Laborde ·Frank Pucelik
Tony Robbins·Charles Faulkner



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Principal influences
Fritz Perls · Gestalt therapy
Milton Erickson · Hypnotherapy
Virginia Satir · Family therapy
Transformational linguistics
Gregory Bateson · Paul Watzlawick
Epistemology · Double Bind
Alfred Korzybski · Map-territory
Frank Farrelly · Provocative therapy



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Contents [hide]
1 General description
2 Concepts and methods
2.1 Modeling
2.2 Meta model
2.3 Milton model
2.4 Representational systems
2.5 Aphorisms/presuppositions
2.6 Techniques
3 NLP in the professions
4 History and development
4.1 1970s: Founding and early development
4.2 1980s: New developments and scientific assessment
4.3 1990s: Controversy, division, and marketing
4.4 2000s: Legal settlement and government regulation
5 Reception
5.1 Psychological research and reviews
5.1.1 Sharpley's review of preferred representational systems
5.1.2 Other reviews of evidence
5.1.3 Wider critiques from psychologists
5.2 Commercialization, manipulation and persuasion
5.3 Popular culture and media
6 Classifying NLP
6.1 Associations with science
6.2 Humanistic Psychology
6.3 Technology
7 Notes and references
8 Further reading
8.1 Associations
8.2 Research
8.3 Skeptics
9 See also



[edit] General description
NLP was influenced by hypnotherapy, psychotherapy and the human potential movement; its basic ideas developed around 1973. Bandler and Grinder originally focused on modeling the communication, body language and thoughts of successful people. Although its theoretical principles have not been supported by scientific research,[6][7] some of its techniques were inspired by existing therapeutic techniques[6].