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NLP is a short term goal-orientated and practical therapeutic approach to problem solving. Whatever problem you have, NLP can help.
People use NLP for many reasons and have often explored other forms of therapy and counseling beforehand. Areas that can be helped include coping with stress/stress management, anger management, anxiety, improving performance, pain management; the list is endless. There are many reasons why choosing to have use NLP will improve your life. What happens as a result of a session is in your hands. Past problems can be explored and NLP techniques used to set you on a path towards achieving your goals. As well as noticing change in yourself, those around you in personal or professional capacities will notice changes too.
You will experience life changing events during NLP Therapy. NLP Therapy is about action, it’s dynamic and energetic, making the changes you want to change happen now.
Everyone has all the resources they need to make positive changes in their life,
NLP techniques are used as a tool to facilitate these changes, leaving you to concentrate
on what you are thinking, feeling and any other sensory observations.
New patterns of behavior are established and the NLP techniques learned can be
used in other situations. So YOU become your own expert. This reduces the potential
for reliance on the trained therapist which can be the case with other therapies.
NLP Therapy can also be content free. This means the therapist can be effective without knowing about the problem in great detail. Clearly this is a major advantage of NLP over traditional therapies as people seeking therapy may be embarrassed about the idea of discussing personal issues one to one with a stranger. The very nature of NLP removes this hindrance.
As well as being content free, experience shows that NLP Therapy also tends to be fast, typically resolving issues in several brief sessions, which will of course make it very cost effective and much cheaper than traditional therapies.
NLP techniques provide new ways of dealing with emotional problems such as low self esteem, anxiety, lack of confidence, destructive relationship patterns (coping with breakup), and are successful in effective bereavement counseling.
Phobias such as spiders, heights, dogs, escalators, water, lifts/elevators, etc can be overcome as there are many NLP phobia cures available depending on the subject and your personal circumstances. The same phobia cures are successfully used on fears, such as fear of failure, fear of public speaking, fear of examinations and fear of driving.
NLP can help improve performance, so making a good performance excellent and also
improving the consistency of performance. It feels good to do well, and it feels
very good to do well all the time. People perform at all levels, from the person
who views golf as a hobby to the professional athlete. We all enjoy that feeling
of knowing our game has improved, and for some high achievers that improvement is
paramount to stay ahead (see Sport and NLP).
Achieving and maintaining good performance is essential at all levels including
work and personal relationships. Performance is often judged by others. Having the
clarity to notice this and listen to what others are telling you is an asset. NLP
can help develop the skills needed for relationships that stay ahead.
NLP has been successfully used with weight reduction and many other healthier lifestyle choices. There are clearly physical benefits from a NLP session in coping with stress. When we struggle with problems we feel the effects of stress, especially when the problems are longstanding. Addressing the problem reduces the level of stress so therefore not only do we feel better emotionally, we feel physically better too.
NLP has been described as the next generation of psychology, although it is not
formally recognised in the Association of Psychology.
Traditional Freudian psychology and psychotherapy requires a large commitment of
time as the client tries to uncover unconscious processes which determine conscious
behaviour.
Counseling is a shorter process, usually undirected by the counselor who facilitates
the client to explore feelings and behaviour around a specific issue such bereavement.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is task centered work which identifies problem behaviour
and how the mind thinks about it, and therefore behaves in regard to it. Cognitive
behaviour therapy then aims to alter those beliefs and thought processes, so influencing
the behaviour towards a positive state for the client.
NLP has its roots in the field of behavioral science. It uses physiology and the
unconscious mind to change thought processes and therefore behaviour.
When coping with breakup, such as marriage and relationship breakup, or breakup
of any close friendship, all of us may experience pain and sorrow at times; it’s
a natural part of the grieving process. When you feel like this is getting out of
hand, adversely affecting areas of your life and how well you function, and then
it’s probably time to consider help.
The decision to end a relationship is always a hard one, usually made by one person.
Before that decision is made a lot has usually gone on, a relationship breakup happens
slowly. Before making the decisions ask the following questions:
1. Is it possible to make changes within your relationship?
2. What, if anything can I do to improve things?
3. Are there clear advantages to breaking up?
This will help you appraise honestly whether things are so bad there is no alternative.
A marriage and relationship breakup is a process rather than a single event, so
each partner won’t necessarily be at the same emotional point when the decision
is made. Unstable emotions may be the name of the game for a period of time. NLP
Therapy can help you evaluate what you want, both from this relationship, and future
ones. Telling your family and friends that your marriage or relationship isn’t working
and that you are getting divorced can be:
a. Stressful.
b. Emotional.
c. Final.
d. Life Changing.
The “Plus” is the unexpected responses you may receive when family and friends first
react to the news of your relationship breakup. These responses can vary from embarrassment,
celebration (he/she was never good enough for you!), to criticism and anger.
So you may find yourself dealing with your own changing emotions, and the emotions
of those around you.
If you are preparing to end a relationship, NLP techniques can help stabilize those
emotions during what is a difficult process. Being prepared and having support can
help enormously, and reduce the emotional aftermath.
Identify supportive friends, ones who look at every situation as a potential opportunity
and who are always ready to give without keeping score. Identify them and stay close.
You know who they are. You feel it. You sense it.
Use professional help when coping with breakup. This will help you face any challenges
that lie ahead. With knowledge you can cope, without it you may fear what you don’t
know. Knowledge is power. NLP techniques can also be used to make coping with breakup
easier for you and those around you. By using and identifying past resourceful states
and utilizing aspects of time line therapy it becomes possible to see a brighter
future. Using anchoring can help make physiological changes so you feel healthier
in mind, body and spirit.
These techniques won’t erase the value of the relationship, or its pleasant memories,
but will help you to move on and be emotionally ready for new relationships, so
that you can:
1. Like yourself.
2. Stop comparing (and despairing) yourself to others.
3. Start making full use of your abilities.
4. Start viewing your mistakes as a way of learning.
5. Start finding ways to change your life for the better.
6. Start taking action rather than planning action.
7. Learn to accept compliments.
8. Treat yourself as your best friend.
9. Be patient with yourself.
10. Forgive yourself – what’s done is done.
Everyone feels anxious at from time to time. Meeting deadlines, going on a first
date, appointments at the dentist, being late for important events often bring about
feelings of mild anxiety. Anxiety disorders are when these feelings become the norm.
This can be both distressing and cause a lot of disruption to a person’s everyday
life. Symptoms such a shortness of breath, racing heart rate, clammy hands, dizziness
and trembling are all common with anxiety.
There are several different anxiety disorders and each has its own characteristics.
In generalized anxiety disorder people will often have recurring fears or worries.
These are persistent and can lead to a general feeling of being uncomfortable in
lots of different situations. A person may have an underlying, niggling feeling
that something bad is always going to happen. It may be difficult to identify exactly
what is going to go wrong so the mind comes up with its own list. This list can
be pretty comprehensive! Feeling this way may get in the way of daily life and is
more common than you might imagine.
Panic disorder involves sudden, intense feelings of dread. This is often linked
with a particular scenario such as standing up in public making a presentation,
or going into a crowded train. This can lead people to avoid the the triggers for
these feelings. Sometimes this is easy to do, but at other times it can be very
restricting.
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by persistent,
uncontrollable thoughts which are alleviated by following a particular routine,
thereby providing an antidote to the anxiety. There is usually a train of thought
which causes anxiety to mount and by following the ritual the anxiety is “switched
off”. It is commonly associated with hand washing, housecleaning or checking repeatedly
for errors.
Post traumatic stress disorder has become more widely recognised since the 1970′s.
It occurs when someone experiences a trauma of some kind e.g. a car crash, being
mugged, witnessing a traumatic situation. The mind replays the incident over and
over again, sometimes for years, each time with accompanying anxiety.
If left untreated they can get worse. Additionally they have consequences for the
sufferer who avoids putting themselves in the position where an anxiety attack may
occur. This can disrupt work and family life. The stress of this experience may
lead a person to self medicate with drugs and alcohol. Prescription medication is
often used to help control symptoms but doesn’t alleviate the cause, leading to
people remaining on it for years.
NLP has developed a good track record with anxiety disorders. It has been used extensively
in America with Vietnam veterans and has been used in Asian countries following
natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods.
It is vitally important to treat the mind as well as the body during a serious illness.
We don’t yet know how the mind/body connection works but we do have biochemical
evidence there’s a connection. NLP works on the principle that mind and body are
an open loop system continually in communication.
It has been shown that psychological interventions can help before and after heart
attacks. Brief psychological counselling before medical procedures produces shorter
stays in the critical care unit, less emotional distress and shorter hospital stays.
Recovering post operation is helped by emotional therapy with a corresponding reduction
in readmission rates.
A range of psychological treatments are used to improve the quality of health of
cancer patients. Targeted therapy has been shown to improve patients moods, lower
their emotional distress and improve coping with treatment.
Being upset about having a serious illness is a normal and reasonable reaction.
People then need to move beyond those feelings to be able to accept the healing
process. This helps a person to feel stronger emotionally and more in charge of
the situation. So discussing treatment and care options becomes easier to cope with.
Treatment options can sometimes involve pain or side effects. NLP trance work provides
an effective means of coping better.
NLP also helps once the illness is gone. In protracted illness there amy have been
many life changing events associated with it for example retiring from work, or
a degree of disability. The rest of the family may want you to be back to normal
but you will never be the person you were. You may want help to discover who you
are and how you reintegrate into the world. There can be positive outcomes, people
report that in the aftermath of a serious illness they evaluate their priorities
and get a better sense of what they want from life. NLP can help this process.
Every top athlete knows the importance of mental conditioning; physical prowess
alone is not enough to put you at the top of your game, and this is where sport
and NLP come together so that you can perform at your best. A little known fact
is that top performers in their sport and NLP techniques (provided by their coaches
or sports psychologists) are combined to ensure that the maximum performance that
they choose to achieve is consistent and repeatable.
The increased stress of competitions (at all levels) can cause us to react both
physically and mentally in a manner which can negatively affect our performance
abilities. We may feel tense, experience our heart rate racing, break into a cold
sweat and worry about the outcome of the competition reduces our ability to concentrate.
This phenomenon has been called competitive anxiety, and it doesn’t just affect
top athletes.
The body is a mass of muscles and nerves linked together into the central processing
unit that is the brain. Negative experiences when we fail or our performance lets
us down, can be committed to memory and recycled by the brain each time we try to
perform in the future.
NLP Therapy can intervene with that negative recycling pattern and eliminate competitive
anxiety. Using NLP techniques around goal setting, stress and anxiety reduction
and guided imagery you will soon be ahead of the game. Not only will the competitive
anxiety have been eliminated, your performance will have been enhanced.
When we have an animal in our life they become part of the family and their departure
through pet bereavement can leave us feeling bereft. This is a common experience
for many people because we attach emotionally to animals and care for them as one
of the family.
It is important to recognise that feelings of sadness, anger, guilt, shock, or despair
aren’t just reserved for human bereavement; we can experience them just as powerfully
in relation to a beloved pet. Sometimes more powerfully as we have a strong emotional
investment in our animals. Losing them and dealing with a pet death is a painful
experience.
It is important to take the time and space to work through the grieving process
and you may need extra support at this time. Sadly not everyone will understand,
maybe those who haven’t had their own close relationship with a special animal for
example. This could make you feel you are over reacting, or being silly, which could
deter you from confiding in family and friends. Please be reassured that what you
are going through is a legitimate form of grief.
It is common to support a companion animal through a long period of illness prior
to the end, and sometimes also have to make the difficult decision about euthanasia.
This can cause its own stress, perhaps feelings of guilt or powerlessness as the
inevitable seemed to take over. It is easy to feel ill prepared for the range of
emotions that can affect us.
Bereavement and grief reactions can be complex and stressful issues, for you, your
family, and your friends. As a society we have become more familiar with the concept
of grief counseling, seeking help from a professional, and there are many opportunities
available from bereavement counseling to help you overcome your grief and loss.
Being bereaved by the loss of a loved one will affect all of us at some point in
our lives. Everyone deals with the experience in different ways and goes through
a range of emotions. Family and friends provide good support but it’s easy to feel
you’re burdening them with your troubles. Maybe you feel you should be able to get
over it? Common emotions people experience include disbelief, shock, anger, sadness,
relief, guilt, depression, anxiety, despair, longing and loneliness. These are understandable
reactions and may be accompanied by physical symptoms indicative of distress.
More complicated grief reactions can continue for years after the bereavement. Grief
counseling provides an opportunity to resolve lingering emotional problems.
Grief, Loss and Bereavement can be an emotional rollercoaster for you and those
around you. Using NLP can help you understand your reactions and ease the pain of
grief.
Negative emotions such as fear, anger, sadness and guilt are there to teach us something.
But when they’re there inappropriately, in large amounts, or at the wrong time,
it’s an indication that emotional healing work needs to take place at an unconscious
level.
The unconscious mind is an infinite memory store compared to the conscious mind
which can only process approximately 7 pieces of information at one time. It therefore
stores memories and their associated feelings forever. It does this to protect you.
When you were a baby you may have become frightened when left alone, and took action
such as loud crying to rectify that situation, which was a productive behaviour.
If you’re crying out wasn’t responded to then the fear of being left alone can escalate
and influence the rest of your life.
So at an early age you may have put together a series of internal and external experiences
and because it worked at the time you carry on using that pattern. Often the reasons
behind the patterns will have been obscured; you’re just left with the behaviour.
Over-reacting emotionally to particular situations, feeling emotions which feel
out of context can all indicate an opportunity for emotional healing.
To facilitate emotional healing, NLP uses time line techniques to clear inappropriate
emotions from this sequence. Learning what you need to learn from the emotion and
letting go so you’re free to develop different strategies, now and in the future.
With these NLP emotional healing techniques you can work content-free. There won’t
be any expectation of being able to recall past negative emotional events in order
to understand them and move on as is the case in most traditional therapies.
Alternative healing is a phrase commonly used to represent “non-conventional” approaches
to health; however it has become well established science that there is a mind body
connection to healing. The mind body connection is a real process, and therefore
alternative healing is a real process. The activity of every single nerve in our
body and brain is modulated by genetic messenger molecules, and remembering that
the body has the innate ability to heal itself, using non-medical alternatives to
healing can provide amazing results.
The mind-body connection suggests the concept of state dependent learning, memory
and behaviour, that when we learn something new our body will be in a particular
emotional state, will behave in a certain way, and that this will be committed to
long term memory. This is a simple explanation of a very complex concept!
It provides some of the explanation why we always FEEL the same when we REMEMBER
something important and BEHAVE the same in response to it LEARNING to carry on doing,
remembering and feeling the same thing again.
Psychologists and neuroscientists are harnessing the power of the unconscious mind
to use its resources to help the body heal itself. You will be familiar with the
‘placebo effect’ or ‘placebo response’ in many drug trials: some people are given
the drug whilst others have a placebo. Even those taking the placebo have some improvement
in symptoms compared to a control group. This shouldn’t make sense, after all they
didn’t receive the drug, but the unconscious mind had enough information to believe
it was having the drug and mobilized the body’s systems to compliment this. We don’t
know how all this is working but we do know many ways to achieve the outcome of
the mind/body helping us to make changes and get well.
Many strategies, notably in the trance phenomenon area, are now being used to complement
traditional medicine. These use the underlying principles of the state dependent
learning, memory and behaviour, and that the unconscious mind is a source of infinite
resources. In the field of cancer care, through to allergies and pain management,
all are yielding significant positive results for alternative healing.
Habits are simply patterns of behaviour, so NLP techniques can provide an ideal
intervention to breaking bad habits (or old habits that don’t work) and develop
or make new habits that work for you. When developing a habit we start as unconsciously
incompetent, not only do we not know how to do something but we don’t know it! If
we learn to drive a car we are soon aware of our frustrations and it demands our
full attention, this is the stage of conscious incompetence, where we actually learn
the most even though it feels uncomfortable. This soon leads to the stage of conscious
competence; you have learned the skill but don’t feel in perfect control. Lastly
you reach the stage of unconscious competence; the activity is a breeze, you drive
the car seemingly on autopilot.
Practice a task enough and you reach the stage of unconscious competence sooner
or later. Habits are formed like this, some will be useful habits and some will
be ones we’d rather not have thank you very much. It may surprise you to learn that
an unwanted habit can be unlearnt very quickly with NLP techniques, much quicker
than the time it took you to learn it, and a new habit can be learned in its place
fairly quickly too.
Habits are commonly thought of as nail biting, blushing, always getting a kebab
on the way home from the pub, always watching Coronation Street, etc. They can be
described as habitual behaviours and so take as many forms as you could think of
e.g. always being late, getting road rage / wound up when stuck in traffic, avoiding
a particular place, person or activity. All habits can be changed.
Are there qualities you’d like to have more of?
Think of a list of qualities you’d like to have as part of your character. Maybe
you have a quality but feel it’s rather weak, maybe you aspire to having a quality
you feel you don’t currently possess. With NLP techniques you can install the qualities
you desire so creating effective new habits.
Overcoming phobias use the NLP phobia cure (‘fast phobia cure’) and light trance
work as the primary interventions to facilitate phobia cures, however other techniques
are also used. Each person is different, and so will respond individually to different
techniques. Remember one of the NLP presuppositions (see NLP Communication Model),
“experience has a structure”? Our memories and how we respond to them are unique.
Phobias can remind us of two important premises of everyone’s’ unconscious mind,
just how amazing it is at learning, and that it can only process positive information.
This is amazing because your brain can take a single situation or event and learn
enough from that event that it will trigger an unconscious protective response to
protect you in the same or similar situations from that point on.
Unfortunately, if the unconscious mind has learnt from a negative event, e.g. being
badly frightened by a dog, being in a car accident, it will try and protect you
from similar situations in the future. The triggers for these events can also generalize:
it’s been proven that if your brain makes an 80% match to the original situation/event
a phobic response can be triggered. This generalization can snowball, so the original
fear of dogs begins to extend to cats, sheep, rabbits, and a phobia of animals has
developed. A fear of swimming baths extends to the sea, to the shower, to a phobia
of water.
NLP techniques for phobia cures exclude the flooding and desensitization techniques
used at times by other therapeutic approaches as phobia cures. Whatever NLP strategy
used by the practitioner you can be assured that “facing your fears” will be excluded
from that intervention when overcoming your phobias.
Phobias grow over time, and because of the snowball effect the brain begins to generalize
phobias into other areas of your life to the point that you may have no (conscious)
idea of the initial significant event. For example, falling into a swimming pool
as a child leads to a fear of swimming, to a fear of getting the head wet in the
shower, to a phobia of water. Fortunately your unconscious mind will know the origins
of the original event and can help you in overcoming the phobia.
When we struggle with problems we feel the effects of coping with stress. Stress
can be an acute response to uncomfortable situations the ‘fight or flight’ response.
An acute stress response results in behavioral and hormonal changes, and physiological
changes. Nervous reactions such as sweating, blushing, fidgeting, mouth going dry,
butterflies in the stomach are all indicators that an acute stress response is happening.
Often this will be paired with a trigger of some kind, which may be familiar so
by just thinking about the trigger is enough to remember, or even experience the
individual symptoms of acute stress. The good news is that NLP Therapy can develop
alternative, positive ways of coping with stress.
Episodic acute stress affects us when triggers start becoming an everyday occurrence
and maybe there are several of them in the environment, so the body finds a different
means of coping with stress, generating different behavioral and hormonal changes.
Headaches, unexplained physical aches and pains, low or depressed mood, increased
susceptibility to common viruses, poor concentration, forgetfulness, changes in
appetite, and poor sleep are all features of episodic acute stress. Episodic acute
stress is common in the workplace, pressure to succeed and perhaps juggle a home
and family commitments can all contribute. Often people in this situation are always
in a rush, but frequently late, have too much on their plate and emotionally are
short tempered, irritable, anxious and tense. When we struggle with problems we
feel the effects of stress. NLP can help you achieve a healthier lifestyle, addressing
the problem reduces the level of stress so not only do we feel better emotionally,
we feel physically better too.
Recognizing the effects of stress is the first step, and you may have already identified
that you have a problem. This is often followed by attempts to address the stress.
Taking painkillers for the headaches, trying to get more sleep, changing diet are
all examples of how we deal with it. These are positive, there are other ways which
aren’t so positive, of which drinking more alcohol, comfort eating, and increased
smoking are the most common (these do nothing to alleviate the symptoms, just masking
them, and may cause additional problems).
So why look for alternative coping strategies?
Well, work related stress can double ones risk of dying from heart disease and is
linked to the 6 leading causes of death – heart disease, lung cancer, lung ailments,
accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide. This happens because acute stress,
over time, becomes chronic stress.
It has been demonstrated in numerous studies that talk therapies are more effective
and beneficial than drug therapy as a response to stress. An NLP approach addresses
the causes of the stress, rather than just working with the symptoms. If you experience
any of the following, take it as a good indicator that it may be a good time to
make some changes:
Effective career change counseling encourages and enables you to view your career
as a long term project. Career change advice can help you towards your next job
or career, and plan where you want to be in 5, 10 or 15 years time.
Using NLP techniques such as Values Elicitation and Neurological Levels of Change,
you will be assisted to identify what’s important to you as well as your capabilities,
skills and interests. These are fundamental to identifying a positive and rewarding
career path, and an important process of self appraisal.
You are a product and as with any product there’s an effective way to market yourself.
Communicating your value is a key principle in successful marketing. The basic of
successful communication is ‘rapport’. How do you know when two people are in rapport?
Looking around the office or the pub, how could you tell who had rapport and who
didn’t? When two people are in rapport communication seems to flow, they seem to
mirror one another’s gestures, eye contact and voice patterns. Successful people
create rapport and rapport creates trust.
Using rapport you have a bridge to the other person which you can cross to lead
them in another direction. You can influence them by subtly changing what you do
with your own body and style of communication.
In NLP terminology this is called pacing and leading. But remember you can’t lead
someone over a bridge until you’ve built it first!
Modeling is an NLP concept whereby you use the skills of NLP to elicit and reproduce
a specific skill. This can be any skill you’d like to have more of for yourself;
a skill that you know would enhance your own success. Maybe someone does great presentations;
maybe someone always chairs difficult meetings with flair and diplomacy. It’s possible
to have the same outcome using NLP strategies; you can model any skill of any person.
In that sense the world really is your oyster.
NLP has principles of how the mind, brain and body work together, communicating between each other and the external environment. Repeating the same patterns of internal and external communication gets the same results. Understanding how we’ve created this helps us change to different, more effective patterns. The foundation to this process is the NLP presuppositions.
We like to think of NLP as the art of science and personal excellence. Art because everyone brings their unique personality and style to what they do, and this can never be adequately explained in words or techniques. Science because there is a method and process behind achieving change and new outcomes. Personal excellence because it IS possible to do things so elegantly and effortlessly that it takes your breath away, and you are able to have more of that.
As a social species, we share a genetic trait common with many other social mammals:
that is the drive to get along with other people. Put several strangers in a room
together and pretty soon they’ll start talking to one another. We learn the skills
of getting along with others right from birth and one of the ways we do it is by
doing the same things they do. I’m sure everyone will have had the experience of
hearing small children watching an adult doing a task and saying “me help, me help”
and trying to do it the same way the adult does. In NLP terminology this is called
modeling.
Modeling is recognizing another person’s behaviors, body language and communication
patterns, trying them on oneself and becoming so proficient that the process becomes
unconscious.
Modeling is a foundation stone of NLP and will help you achieve personal excellence.
By using your mind and body in the same way as a peak performer you can immediately
increase the quality of your actions and results.
It is possible to model any behavior by understanding the beliefs, values, physiology,
specific thought processes and strategies that combine to make up that behavior.
Personal excellence can also be defined as being successful in life. There are people
who seem to conduct their business affairs, careers and personal relationships with
an effortless ease. People like this are called successful.
NLP provides strategies to achieve greater success in all areas positively influencing
other people, always getting an agreement, being able to manage conflict situations
and come out on top. Developing the resources to eliminate negative emotions, beliefs
and decisions, knowing what you really want and feeling motivated are all key components
of personal excellence.