Swift Changes PGPE - What is NLP

What is NLP?

NEURO-LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING, (NLP) is the practical discipline which applies the ongoing interaction, or ‘Programming’, between our Nervous system, our ‘hardware’, and our Language, our ‘software’, to exercise our Emotional Intelligence in order to achieve and reproduce excellence in all contexts.

Since its origins at Santa Cruz University, in the early 1970s, NLP has found many applications, not just in the field of psychotherapy, where it began, but also, and in an expanding fashion, in the world of coaching, business, management, consultancy, education, law, sport, etc. Enabling you to educate and optimise your communicating skills, it gives you the means to achieve your outcomes with confidence, whatever your course in life.

At its highest level NLP is a philosophy, a frame of mind, an attitude, supported by a rigorous methodology and a series of techniques which outsiders to the field may be most familiar with. Its conclusions are increasingly validated by the fields of Neuroscience , Psycho-Neuro Neuro-Immunology, Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Consciousness Studies.

NLP resolves issues which other disciplines feel unable to address, and in much less time as well, so that it is extremely cost-effective. This is ongoingly validated by the enthusiastic feedback practitioners usually receive from their clients after the completion of any coaching, therapy or consultancy.

NLP owes its effectiveness to the fact that, operating at the deeper level where we structure and format our experience, encoding it in sensory terms of pictures, sounds, feelings, self-talk, beliefs and beliefs-about-our-beliefs, it enables us to update this structure in a manner which serves us better both in the shorter and the longer term.

This allows those who practice it to respectfully achieve rapid, profound and lasting change hence its broad cross-discipline appeal.

NLP has 4 fundamental pillars, which all practitioners seek to recognise and apply:

RAPPORT, or how to communicate effectively;
SENSORY ACUITY, or how to make the most of the information we receive, both from others and from ourselves;
OUTCOME ORIENTATION, or correctly identifying what we want and acting upon this knowledge;
BEHAVIOURAL FLEXIBILITY, or being able to easily adapt to changing circumstances.

Derived, among other fields, from SYSTEMS THEORY, NLP acknowledges that we operate systemically: we have systems within ourselves and form systems with other people. For such operating to occur effectively, we need to be mindful of the structure of these systems, ignoring it at our peril, and ensure that communication flows effectively between all their components (intra/inter-personal intelligence).

One implication of this is the concept of ECOLOGY, which means becoming aware of the consequences of our own

behaviour, both short-term and long-term, not only in relation to all aspects of our own life (Professional / Personal / Family / Health / Sex Life / Self-Development / Spirituality / etc.), but also in relation to other people, and to learn to respond with integrity to all situations in a manner which optimises these consequences.

Another implication of this approach is CONGRUENCE : this means seeking and reaching consensus, harmony, agreement between all the components of a given system, so that desired outcomes are met between all parts of this system, for the benefit of all and at the expense of none, thus enabling true 'win-win' situations. Indeed, NLP has amply been demonstrating such effectiveness in the area of team building, management, mediation, conflict resolution and partnership guidance for the past 25 years. This makes it the ideal tool of choice in all professions where communicating effectively is at a premium.

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