Nlpkb - NLP the Truth Behind the Hype

NLP: The Truth Behind the Hype.

Shlomo Vaknin, C.Ht

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“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.” - Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut

The Conflict Between NLP

Methodology and its Trail of Techniques By: Shlomo Vaknin, C.Ht This report can help you save a lot of money and time if you are considering getting NLP training. I’m going to explain core ideas that can make a big difference in your approach to getting training.

If you want to understand NLP and select NLP training, you must look beyond its techniques. NLP is not nearly so much a collection of techniques as it is a methodology. By methodology, I mean a collection of practices and principles that hold together. In cooking, practices are things like using heat to transform ingredients into foods. Principles are things like convection as a means to heat food in

an oven. Methodology is more general than a recipe. Recipes arise from the principles and practices (methodology) available to the people that create the recipes.

A recipe is to cooking what a pattern is to NLP. NLP methodology involves principles such as modeling as a means to transfer skills from models to others. It involves practices such as strategically influencing states in order to produce resourceful behavior. (State refers to the overall state or condition of a person-what state they are in. It is similar to “state of mind,” except that it includes the body.)

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Discover The Path to NLP Mastery

NLP methodology has brought forth many techniques. There are plenty of examples of a single technique making a big difference for someone. However, to have the greatest effectiveness, techniques must be applied in a way that is sensitive to the individual or group, and must be woven together in a strategic and responsive manner.

Types of NLP Practitioners You don’t have to spend much time among NLP practitioners to notice that they are quite diverse. I’m not referring to their ethnicities or religions. I’m talking about their skills and attitudes about NLP.

That is to say, the work must be relevant and flexible. This has implications for selecting good training, because it will help you decide what you really need, and when you need it.

I want you to do two things with this section. First, identify which category you best fit. Then, consider these categories when you consider the competent NLP trainers you will learn from and train with.

We’ll talk about how you can best sequence your efforts to improve your NLP knowledge and skills. Richard Bandler said,

You can roughly divide practitioners into the following categories:

“NLP is an attitude and a methodology, which leave behind a trail of techniques.” This points to two ways that you can approach training. You can start by getting to the essence of N L P, a n d t h i s i s u s u a l l y provided in the longer, more costly trainings, or you can start by learning techniques.

The advantages of the latter approach are: 1. You have fewer costs up front.

1) Unconscious masters:

These practitioners practically do NLP in their sleep. They “I went to a Gestalt therapist and create patterns and solutions on the fly while said that I want to be able to at working with clients. Of least tell my muscles that aren’t course, they generate involved that they don’t have to go creative solutions for their into spasms too.” own lives as well. They evoke subconscious - Dick York resources in themselves and others, making it possible to produce changes that may have seemed out of reach before.

2. You can start getting results with many issues right away.

Their abilities can have a mysterious and deep quality, and it’s difficult to pin down how they create change, unless you are intimately familiar with NLP.

3. You get a feel for NLP and you develop the kind of burning questions that will compel you to learn the fundamental understandings of NLP.

2) Surface practitioners: These practitioners know some techniques from NLP and treat it like a cookbook. Either they are fairly new at it, or haven’t been able to “get” the nature of the subconscious.

4. You can benefit from practicing with them for your own needs.

In the latter case, they may have some unconscious defenses that they have not resolved, and those defenses can get in the way of their efforts to produce creative solutions.

“After a hard day of basic training, you could eat a rattlesnake.” - Elvis Presley

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experience to get the best skills you can. This should enhance your earning power so that you can, among other things, get the best training available in order to further your development. This article will help you identify the strategies and trainings that fit your needs.

3) Personality-problem practitioners: These individuals have significant problems that may even rise to the level of being diagnosable personality disorders such as borderline, antisocial, or narcissistic personality disorder. (You can look these up online or in the DSM; I am not a licensed psychologist and therefore I can’t explain further what each term means.)

The Importance of Modeling Good training flows from good models; it manifests those models in its approach to teaching as well as its content. If models were not important, you could learn everything you need regarding NLP from books.

This is not a friendly advice, but a warning for you to be cautious. These “certified, yet incompetent” practitioners may have been drawn to NLP by visions of control, unlimited sex, wealth, or being a hero.

Would you rather learn a collection of techniques, or have the same abilities as those Bandler used in creating the models that gave NLP its start?

They may be trying to resolve problems that are so deep-seated that they will be their own worst enemy and possibly bring harm to others if they do not get help from a qualified practitioner or mental health program of some kind. They may be very selfaggrandizing or play the part of the saint or guru as if they are in a fantasy. Many of them have a boil of interpersonal problems and drama going on much of the time, causing trouble in social groups and organizations. The trouble may include drugs or other addictions that impair performance at times or on an ongoing basis.

Having that kind of skill would mean that you could discover and invent techniques endlessly and according to the needs of the individual client. This is why I wrote the Path of Mastery article that delves more deeply into the spirit of NLP. It points out that NLP is primarily a model, and that this is more important than any theories or philosophy attached to it. That model is the meta-model that tells us about modeling. You might say that it is the how of how.

In all but the first group (unconscious masters), you will see that there is a split between NLP technique and mindset. Techniques without the spirit of NLP are very limited. Surprisingly, some of the third group (problem personalities) may develop strong unconscious mastery, and even help many clients. However, their performance will be very uneven, because they will be unconsciously triggered by certain situations.

It takes the birds eye view of creating excellence. Modeling is the foundation of NLP, it is how NLP got started, and it is the source of the theories and patterns of NLP. Let’s get deeper with what modeling is. The key to modeling is being very observant-looking for and observing subtleties. That’s the yin of modeling. The yang of modeling is being willing to experiment and to seek the “active ingredients” of what you are observing; why does it get the results it gets?

Greed, the need to use people, and disruptive emotional reactions may derail the practitioner, their clients, or their social group under certain circumstances, or under stress in general.

This yin and yang can streamline your approach to getting results or producing excellence, because you are coming into the situation with an eye for these active ingredients. You may find that many of the things the model (the person you are modeling) thinks are important are not actually the active ingredients.

If you are getting started with NLP, or want to take your practice to another level, you need to identify what kind of training and experience will be of the g r e a t e s t v a l u e . Yo u m a y h a v e b u d g e t a r y considerations as well. If you can’t afford an intense, longer training (these tend to be very expensive), you’ll want to select the best reading, training, and

This discovery allows you to eliminate some of the behaviors and ideas that make the person less efficient.

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Unconscious ingredients:

Are you a victim of Self-Help?

Some of these active ingredients are unconscious; the model does not know they are doing them. You cannot know everything about a person’s state just by looking at them. But you also cannot learn everything from what they say, because most excellent performers do not fully, consciously understand why they are successful.

Syntax and submodalities:

A key to modeling is to ask questions and make observations that uncover the syntax of the internal thoughts and external behaviors. This reveals the structure behind excellence or dysfunctional behavior. Therapists may focus on dysfunctional behavior and thought patterns in order to help their client recognize that they have choices throughout the process. This is one way of opening the door to change. By getting sequences of thoughts and memories in the form of sensory submodalities (like size, brightness, and loudness), NLP dramatically surpassed cognitive therapy.

Discovering such hidden wealth was very important in putting NLP on the map. It created a great deal of excitement, especially among therapists, because it was revealing things that even excellent therapists could not tell you about why they were successful.

One of the reasons NLP is so concerned with submodalities is that they are such a powerful part of change work. Through means such as the NLP swish pattern, they can connect strong drives to propel a new, desirable behavior. The idea here is to generate motivation to do what works, and to avoid what doesn’t work. At the time NLP was becoming popular, cognitive therapy too narrowly focused on thoughts and beliefs in the form of words. This is like comparing a drawing on a piece of paper to the real world. One is much richer than the other. To this day, many mainstream therapists are much more limited in this respect, in comparison to an NLP practitioner.

R e g a r d l e s s o f h ow p a s s i o n a t e l y o r authoritatively the model tells you, how they do what they do, look for unconscious ingredients. Bandler and Grinder in their book Frogs into Princes state that modeling is not about what people say, it’s about what people do. But I believe it is both, that it is also about what people consciously experience. However, you have to determine which of the things they tell you are the active ingredients. This requires experimentation. -5-

resolved personal issues with NLP are much more believable as practitioners. They also have a better gut-level understanding and intuition in practicing NLP. This is key to achieving states that create the higher-order creative solutions characteristic of NLP mastery. It is very evident in the levels of motivation, objectivity, and resourcefulness that such NLP practitioners generate. They are not nearly so much at the mercy of their moods as most, because of their expertise in managing their states to maintain a focus on desired outcomes.

Modern training: In order for training to be authentic NLP training, it must have both the spirit of NLP and effective models that, at the least, incorporate what has been introduced by the founders of NLP. Ideally, though, training should also incorporate the wisdom and techniques of those who have carried NLP beyond its first rush of popularity. Some of these luminaries include Robert Dilts, Steve Andreas, Connie Rae Andreas, and an innovator I’ve been following diligently for many years, Dr. Tad James. If you are considering a training that presents itself as a modern approach to NLP, the trainers are probably going to say that it has expanded beyond the early base of NLP theory and technique. If so, then it should have two main qualities:

Congruent NLP practitioners are able to generate a mature and realistic sense of commitment. When they commit to do something, it isn’t because they think they have a guarantee of success.

1. It should be built upon those aspects of NLP that have stood the test of time, and: 2. it should draw from evidencebased modern knowledge. In p a r t i c u l a r, t h i s m o d e r n knowledge would include cognitive techniques (such as from cognitive behavioral therapy), behavioral science (such as operant conditioning), and additional new models of excellent people.

Congruency: Getting NLP

Risk of failure does not cause them to falter, and the fantasy of a guaranteed outcome is not “One does evil necessary for them to enough when one experience high levels of does nothing good.” motivation. They generate commitment to apply - German Proverb themselves that is not contingent on “the universe” cooperating and giving them a boost. This means that they are not substituting metaphysical or superstitious principles for the principles of NLP expecting some kind of shortcut to success. Hall quotes Bandler’s phrase, “Now open your eyes and look out on the world and say inside your mind, ‘Piece of cake!’”

This means that, by getting out of your own way and generating the proper state, you will not be intimidated by your objectives. More than that, you will experience the power of resourceful motivation. Instead, it becomes a reflex to shift into empowered states as needed. This means being able to generate and amplify resourceful states such as perseverance, curiosity, anticipation, exploration, desire, creativity, and productivity.

Congruence is a major concept and concern in NLP. It is a gateway into the spirit of NLP. People are congruent when their body language says the same things as their words. They are congruent when they are practicing what they preach. This means that a person who benefits from NLP develops a personality and perspective that is congruent with doing NLP for others. People who have improved their performance and -6-

dramatic improvements in problems that have defied numerous efforts from more traditional therapists. It helps us rearrange a dysfunctional behavior into a resourceful one. Thus, the beginning practitioner, or a practitioner that has not yet learned to utilize the subconscious, can use NLP techniques while missing the spirit of NLP. Trying to do NLP with a focus that is exclusively on conscious workings will miss out on the rich resources of subconscious information and problem solving. The work will be much less likely to result in solutions, and will appear quite superficial to a more wellrounded practitioner.

The Unconscious “The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises.” - Sigmund Freud An understanding of the unconscious is crucial to NLP methodology. Patterns II: NLP was inspired by the Milton model and recognizes that the unconscious is responsible for a vast amount of processing power and information. There are several things NLP does with this insight:

Meta-Questions for Integrating the Spirit and Skills of NLP

1) Unconscious mastery: It understands that change work with NLP requires too many skills to handle consciously. You can learn by practicing consciously, but then they must become largely unconscious skills integrated into a larger whole that we call unconscious mastery.

By observing and questioning creatively, it is possible to create unexpected and novel solutions. This is very important, because we are highly conditioned; in a sense, we are only partially conscious. NLP is about “owning your own brain.” One way to do this is to break familiar patterns, to not be satisfied until a novel behavior is generated. Add to this the criterion that the new behavior supports a meaningful outcome and you become a solution generator. How can it happen?

2) Unconscious resources: Although the client of the NLP practitioner may have conscious ideas about the problems and solutions they want to work on, surprising solutions may emerge when the subconscious is respected and stimulated or directed to resolve the problem or pursue an outcome. Not only are clients able to benefit, but also the practitioner may find surprising solutions arise that enhance their NLP practice at any moment.

Ask what state would help to produce novel behavior in the situation, and ask what resources can be capitalized upon in service of desired outcomes.

Utilization:

3) Deconstruction into consciousness, and reconstruction into unconscious mastery:

A key to identifying resources is to get clear on what is already propelling the person. It may appear very pathological, but the NLP master is not fooled. Instead of being blinded by pathology, he or she looks for ways to use that energy. Few things are as powerful as a compulsion redirected. Many of the most treasured NLP stories have these ingredients.

Many of our reactions and solutions (including destructive or limiting ones) can be brought into consciousness using methods of NLP, such as the analysis of how they are represented in the sensory modalities. Many NLP techniques help us rearrange the way the processes take place or are encoded as memories. This can produce

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One of my favorite stories is of Milton Erickson, the psychiatrist, meeting with a young man who insisted that he was Jesus Christ. Erickson wanted to teach him some skills that would make him more independent, because the young man lived in a mental institution. In order to start getting the magic word “yes” from the young man, Erickson approached him and said, “Sir, I understand that you are a carpenter.” This is referred to as utilization. It resulted from meta questioning the idea that pathology must be directly eliminated, like an infection. Next, Erickson asked the patient’s help with a project, since he just admitted to be a carpenter. That is the point in which the patient’s recovery has began.

Although I have focused on negative aspects of a cookbook approach to NLP, it is actually advised to start your NLP work by learning patterns. This is because NLP techniques have come from very astute modelers, from theories that have resulted from their work, and from refinements made to earlier patterns.

Can NLP Be Used to MindControl?

Thus, using NLP techniques in a cookbook fashion is a good way to learn, but only in the beginning. As Tony Robbins says frequently in his seminars, “You don’t need to know how electricity works to turn the lights on”.

The NLP master is very flexible and responds to what is going on from moment to moment as well as having an overall strategy and collection of techniques to use as needed. This means going beyond the patterns themselves.

Want To Find Good Training Programs? Be careful. Just as if you were on a blind date, take a step back and observe very carefully. Any trainer that promises you grandiose results, you ought to delete them from your list. Real NLP masters will not drool over your wallet. They will take the time to listen to your needs and personal struggles. They will not give you a feeling as if they’re running a certification factory. It is hard to find a good training program because so many trainers are just in it for the money and just teach it “by the book” (if you’re lucky). This means that their students miss out on the whole point of learning NLP. Consider one of these options for beginning your NLP journey:

Like a musician who has practiced scales and who has the spirit of music, the quality of his or her improvisation is built upon disciplined practice and an intuitive understanding of fundamental musical principles. By all means, to sound great momentarily playing the guitar, you don’t need more than applying a few techniques, even mindlessly. But to become truly competent, you must spend the time, the money and the energy, repeatedly until you get the results. NLP in its essence allows you to make that long path shorter, but it does not provide you with a shortcut – only a better, more efficient, format to learn, practice, adapt and grow.

1. If you have the money and time, go for the training to learn the core and essence of NLP.

Our next special report will be on mastering the skills of NLP - take it from our site at:

2. If you want to get results right away (or you’re short on cash), follow the techniques.

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