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These are answers from Richard
Bandler, creator of Neuro-Linguistic Programming™.
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1. What is NLP™?
Neuro-Linguistic Programming™ is "The Study of the Structure
of Subjective Experience and what can be calculated from it."
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2. What is NLP™ technology?
NLP™ is based on finding out what works and formalizing it.
In order to formalize patterns I utilized everything from linguistics
to holography. I didn't just elicit peoples' strategies since when
I started out there weren't any strategies, yet. I invented them.
Strategies are a model. A strategy is just that, a strategy.
I think it is important for people to make
a distinction between a model and a technique.
A model (like Strategies, Submodalities,
Anchoring, Transderivational Search, Chaining States, the Meta Model™,
Meta Programs, Semantic Primes, Semantic Density, etc.) will allow
you to create new techniques. The techniques generated from these
models are techniques, nothing more. When people discover what someone
they consider to be a genius or expert does inside their head in
order to perform a task exceptionally well using the models of NLP™,
what they've discovered is not a new model. It is a strategy. The
sequencing of various aspects of the models that constitute NLP™
in order to change someone's internal representations is called
a technique.
A model is a formal representation of behavior
that allows prediction. Models are most commonly used in physics,
e.g., in order to predict the rate of distribution of one liquid
within another as well as how much movement the added liquid will
have if poured from 2 inches above a beaker with a 2 inch diameter.
The models that constitute NLP™ are
all formal models based on mathematical, logical principles such
as predicate calculus and the mathematical equations underlying
holography. Furthermore, all of these models are generative, e.g.,
when challenging one Meta Model™ distinction, the answer will
always be a surface structure containing further Meta-Model™
distinctions. They are also recursive, i.e., the model can be applied
to itself, e.g., you can use the Milton Model in order to define
and utilize the distinctions described in The Hypnotic Patterns
of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., Vol. 1 in order to understand how the
book uses the principles described therein in order to teach them,
i.e. it defines itself.
These distinctions will help people understand
the difference between what a model and a technique is.
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3. How are the NLP™ building blocks
such as calibration techniques, patterns in the language someone
uses, predicates and Meta Model™, eye movements and Submodalities,
other analytical models such as Logical levels, Meta-programs, perceptual
positions, timeframes, etc. used to observe experts?
These tools were not developed in order to observe experts. They
were discovered by observing experts. They were developed in order
to further evolve human consciousness to the point that people could
replicate skills and have deliberate control over their own consciousness.
Nothing in NLP™ is analytical. It is all designed to be applied.
If you do not know how to apply something that you learn as "NLP™"
then, it is either not NLP™ or you have a bad teacher. I think
the best example of this misunderstanding is Meta-Programs. I've
had people tell me that someone is a visual who sorts towards. That
can't be true because if you ask a person to make a picture of themselves
brushing their teeth with a toothbrush they just wiped their behind
with, they probably won't move towards that. Most of you would probably
say, "Yuck!" and move away from doing that. (If you behave
in the previously described manner. STOP IT! It's not a good idea.)
Meta Programs describe how people sort through
multiple generalizations. As such, they will tell you what lies
inside and what lies outside of someone's generalizations about
things like doors. When someone says, "Stupid door!",
that gives you a pretty good idea about what lies outside their
generalizations about what doors "are". If you then ask
them how they know the door is "stupid", they'll give
you an answer that will identify their "sorting style",
i.e., "There's no knob," meaning that it can only be a
not-stupid-door if it has a knob. If what they want is to be able
to open more kinds of doors, then you have to teach them to sort
for things other than just a knob in order to identify a door. That's
how Meta-Programs work. They don't just describe someone diagnostically.
They give you something to do.
NLP™ consists of models. By applying
these models one can generate techniques. The models are patterns.
As such, they will be true 100% of the time. That is why statistics
don't apply.
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4. What can I do with NLP™?
There are many areas in which NLP™ has been utilized. Whatever
your profession is, you can use NLP™ to build on whatever it
is you are already doing.
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5. What are typical NLP™ applications?
Collapsing Anchors, Visual Squash, 6-step Reframing, V/K dissociation,
Change Personal History, Belief Change, Reimprint (all which are
sometimes called NLP™), are some of the techniques that were
derived from applying the models.
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6. Isn't NLP™ mainly used for therapy
and that's where the procedures came from?
I have never once called anything I do a "procedure".
I call them techniques or exercises. It's important to emphasize
that NLP™ is an educational tool, not a form of therapy. We
don't do therapy. We teach people some things about how their brains
function and they use this information in order to change.
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7. What are the best products and applications
for business?
I have no idea what some of these products are. Once again, I think
it is important for people to understand the distinction between
a model and a technique. To use "products" also seems
slightly misleading as I personally have used more of these simple
things in business environments. I have used everything from strategies
and anchoring to the Meta Model™ and Milton Model. Understanding
board meetings seems to me to be the same as understanding how a
family functions. I've done things like change where people sit
at a table and change the outcome of the meeting.
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8. What about enhancing creativity?
I think the more you want to become more and more creative you have
to not only elicit other peoples' (plural) strategies and replicate
them yourself, but also modify others' strategies and have a strategy
that creates new creativity strategies based on as many wonderful
states as you can design for yourself. Therefore, in a way, the
entire field of NLP™ is a creative tool, because I wanted to
create something new.
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9. What about learning strategies?
Which learning strategies are useful in which contexts? What if
we design new, more intense states and used those as the basis upon
which we learn? All the models and techniques can be of use in many
areas or professions. None of these areas are different from one
another once you denominalize the words, i.e. "therapy, creativity,
learning, business."
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10. The basic NLP™ Presuppositions are:
The NLP™ Presuppositions can be found on the NLP™ Presuppositions page.
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11. What is DHE™?
Neuro -Linguistic Programming™ was based upon replication.
Design Human Engineering™ is based on creation. Neuro-Linguistic
Programming™ was based on how information is accessed sequentially.
Design Human Engineering™ is based on how information is processed
simultaneously.
For years Dr. Bandler studied how geniuses
used their minds to accomplish what they did and was able to successfully
replicate the results they produced. One day he noticed that all
of the geniuses he knew got out of bed in the morning because they
had to urinate. He decided that wasn't good enough.
Design Human Engineering™ takes for
granted the opportunity to design internal strategies and states
that are both dynamic and compelling. Think about how many good
feelings you have. However many that is, it's not enough. DHE™
starts from the premise that, that which is already available to
an individual is nowhere near what that person is capable of.
In order to design skills it is important
that observation be precise and that he differences between what
what you want and what you don't want are extreme and therefore
obvious. These are functions of internal processing. If you wish
to know when you have rapport the difference between being in rapport
and not being in rapport must be so great that there is absolutely
no question. When you see someone you know very well, you know what
kind of a mood they are in by the tone of voice they use. The difference
between happy and sad is unmistakable. Design Human Engineering™
allows you to make the distinction in perception that will make
the difference in action. If there is no difference in perception
you will learn how to use your senses so that there is one.
When understanding how strategies work you
must also understand how they function in relationship to other
strategies such as the timelines that are utilized at a given point
in time, the meta programs that are active. The ability to design
contextual shifts in all parameters simultaneously is the realm
of Design Human Engineering™.
When designing and using strategies it is
necessary to make those distinctions which will allow you to accomplish
the task at hand. The models that constitute Neuro-Linguistic Programming™
create sets of distinctions that allow us to communicate better
as well as replicate behaviors that others are able to produce.
Design Human Engineering™ not only allows you to create new
strategies and skills but also allows you to create better motivation
strategies to get the tasks, the strategies are useful for, done.
What is the difference between the best feeling
you have ever had and the best feeling your body is capable of producing?
How much control do you have over the feelings you produce, their
intensity and when you produce them? Have you ever before set out
to discover how much pleasure you can stand? Those are a few of
the questions DHE™ asks.
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12. What is the best progression for learning
NLP™; is it to attend a Practitioner program, then a Master
Practitioner , then a Trainer?
None of these are the only way to learn NLP™ nor necessarily
the best for any one person. The learning strategy they engage in
will determine how they learn, but as we know, those aren't set
in stone.
It isn't necessary that people go in any
particular order. I know that some people make you do them in that
order, but they are, as I originally designed them, different courses
which cover different material and I know that learning doesn't
come in levels, because, if it did, you would all have to have my
personal history up to 1975 in order to use the Meta Model™
and that just isn't the case. There are also introduction courses,
Design Human Engineering™ courses, business and personal consulting,
Personal Enhancement Courses, NLP™ as an application to Hypnosis,
Sales courses, etc.
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13. Can you recommend some good NLP™
books & tapes?
I recommend reading Persuasion Engineering™, The Structure
of Magic Vol. I, and Vol. II, Time For A Change. Magic In Action
II, Using Your Brain For A Change, Patterns of Hypnotic Techniques
of Milton H. Erickson Vol I & Vol. II, as well as The Adventures
of Anybody. I also recommend reading the texts listed in the bibliography
of The Structure of Magic I.
The tapes I recommend include Patterns of
Persuasion, Design Human Engineering™, Hypnosis in Munich (unedited),
Personal Enhancement Series (The Neurosonics Tapes), The BarbizonTapes,
and The NeuroSynchronizer.
Most of these products can be purchased through
NLP™ Seminars Group International's Book & Tape Catalog.
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14. How do I find good NLP™ Institutes?
See our Institutes listing.
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15. What are the roots of NLP™?
Any references to the early work can be found in the bibliography
to The Structure of Magic Vol. I.
These refer to some of the research that
I used to develop NLP™. Reading these books with a knowledge
of what NLP™ is will show that they had something but didn't
know what, yet. I took a few things from these and other places
and formalized them into models which I apply. I would highly recommend
reading those texts referred to the bibliography of The Structure
of Magic Vol. I.
Sometimes it seems that NLPers ask stupid
questions and the reason why NLPer's seem to ask stupid questions
is because The Structure of Magic Vol. I is written backwards and
doesn't tell you how to use the Meta Model™ in order to go
somewhere. That's because it was a model of how therapists asked
questions. Try reading chapter 4 from the last distinction to the
first. That is the proper order.
*DHE™ and Design Human Engineering™
are used with the express written permission of Richard Bandler.
©1997 Richard Bandler
Recommended
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Michael Bennett is a master practitioner
and trainer of NLP and Hypnotherapy, licensed and certified through
the Society of NLP. He operates a school for teaching these disciplines
to health professionals and persons interested in improving the
quality of their lives.
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