What Is Neuro Linguistic Programming?

Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP is using the language of the mind to understand and modify our behavior and therefore our results.  NLP is both a science and an art.  The understanding is the science and using the techniques is where the art comes in.

To understand NLP is to understand how the human mind picks up data from our environment with all our senses, filters that data (Delete – Distort – Generalize), processes that data, stores that data (memories or in NLP jargon: Internal Representations – State – Physiology), and then utilizes that data (our behavior).  This is sometimes referred to as the NLP Model of Communication which is quite detailed and deserves its own discussion.

NLP has a basic list of techniques and then there are specialized techniques that you can find in different schools of NLP.  Some of the basic techniques common to all of NLP are rapport, sensory acuity, eye patterns, submodalities, anchoring, strategies, reframing, and modeling.