What is NLP?
NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) is a constantly evolving set of models, presuppositions, patterns, techniques, and observation-based theories resulting from the study of the structure of subjective experience, behavior and communication. Beyond understanding, NLP seeks to enable remedial and generative change quickly and ecologically.
Does NLP really work? Has it been scientifically validated?
It's difficult to prove that something doesn't work or doesn't exist. (e.g. Smoking has not yet been "scientifically proved" to cause cancer.) There is massive anecdotal evidence that NLP works. Few studies have been done on particular aspects of NLP with mixed results.
Is NLP Just Brainwashing
No.
Brain washing someone means subjecting someone to intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a person's basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs. NLP is the a tool used to help a person to access their internal wants, desires and resource and bring it to the forefront so they can make a better decision.
Isn't NLP really just hypnosis?
NLP is not *just* hypnosis. Milton Erickson was a strong influence on NLP's founders, but NLP includes aspects of many other disciplines as well. For more information on hypnosis, you might want to check out alt.hypnosis.
Can NLP be used on oneself?
Yes. Many people use NLP as a form of self development. If you are interested in self development, you may also want to read alt.self-improve or the excellent alt.self-improve FAQ.ToC
What are the presuppositions of NLP?
NLP is an elegant art form that is also a scientific programming construct of human experience.
The methodologies, tools and models of NLP can, with the right attitude and in expert hands, be used to define or refine organisational maps, organise, analyse and utilise the multi-layered structure of collective ideas, facilitate learning, resolve conflict, enhance communication and fashion unique prototypes from which to develop extraordinary individual and corporate success.
When you are skilled in one area, you can blend NLP to give more than an initial stimulation but a true experience deep within the conciousness of your inner self. People can take the skills of NLP, and blend them with their own unique abilities, thus gaining greater benefit and satisfaction, deep inside themselves, for something they already feel a passion for.>
Richard Bandler, the original developer of NLP, describes it thus:
"NLP is an attitude characterised by the sense of curiosity and adventure and a desire to learn the skills to be able to find out what kinds of communication influences a person channels form within. To look at life as a rare and unprecedented opportunity to learn and grow.
NLP is a methodology based on the overall operational presupposition that all behaviour has a structure and that structure can be modelled, learned, taught and changed [re-programmed].
NLP has evolved as an innovative technology enabling the practitioner to organise information and perceptions in ways that allow them to achieve results that were once inconceivable"
NLP is not what it was yesterday and tomorrow it will not be what it is today. It is a constantly evolving aesthetic science. Studying NLP can have whole life-changing effects. It will enable you to move at phenomenal speeds (mentally),to search to extraordianary depths, beyond where you could never imagine, establishing a future of eternal hope, endless possibilities and immensely rich landscapes.
