This article is about the alternative approach to human behavior and learning (change), neuro-linguistic programming. For the field which investigates the neural mechanisms underlying language, see neurolinguistics.

 

 

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

 

Neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP) has been defined by its originators as the study of the structure of subjective experience. Its practitioners assume that the way people subjectively experience the world (including themselves) drives human behavior both in its best form (expert behavior) and in its worst form (psychopathology). A further assumption is that the subjective experience can be restructured (by a process of learning) and hence that in this way human behavior can be changed. In order to study the structure of subjective experience models have been defined based on neurophysiology, and cognitive processes. Hence neuro (as in neurological or neurophysiological), linguistic (language related) programming (sequencing).

As people share to a large extent similar neurophysiological components, structures can be copied from one person to another and should result in similar subjective experiences and associated behaviors. NLP has subsequently been (re)defined in many ways both by practioners and criticists depending on their particular interests. It has often been promoted as an art and science of effective communication but others put more emphasis on the tools, techniques and applications specific to contexts such as psychotherapy, business management and communications training, motivational seminars, personal development, and teaching. Because of the fervour many practitioners exhibit, it has also been labeled as an ideology.

NLP was co-created by Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder in the 1970s through observation and imitation of gestalt therapist Fritz Perls, family systems therapist Virginia Satir and psychiatrist Milton H. Erickson. The originators emphasized modeling as the core methodology, that is, identifying (learnable) key patterns in the subjective experience of experts that caused those experts to be highly effective.

Critics argue that the basic theoretical assumptions of NLP and strong claims of efficacy presented in books, workshops and promotional material have not been accompanied by empirical research. The majority of psychological and experimental research published in the 1980s in The Journal of Counseling Psychology was not supportive of the claims that matching preferred representational systems and sensory predicates enhanced the client-counselor relationship. Critics argue that the lack of empirical support and exaggerated claims indicate questionable science, pseudoscience, New Age or outdate psychotherapeutic technique. While there have been some efforts within NLP to improve its practice, recent research is spread thinly across various disciplines and the field remains splintered.

 

Resources

 

 

 

 

What is Neuro Linguistic Programming?

 

 

 

 

 

Organic Communication

 

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