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Neurolinguistic programming: verbal communication

BMJ 2003; 326 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/sbmj.0305163 (Published 01 May 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;326:0305163
  1. Joanne Walter, master practitioner1,
  2. Ardeshir Bayat, specialist registrar in plastic surgery and MRC fellow2
  1. 1of the American Board of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Transgenomic
  2. 2University of Manchester

What is it, and what has it got to do with verbal communication? Joanne Walter and Ardeshir Bayat shed some light on the matter in their first article in our series on “how to use the language of the mind”

Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) is a system that uses the language of the mind to achieve our specific and desired outcomes consistently. Our nervous systems (neuro) experience the world around us through our five senses: visual (V), auditory (A), kinaesthetic (K-touch), olfactory (O), and gustatory (G). These experiences are coded, ordered, and stored (programmed) as specific representations that can be replayed through language and other non-verbal forms of communication (for example, pictures, sounds, feelings, taste and smells). Therefore, NLP is simply a tool to help us understand these programs and use them to meet our desired goals.

Background

NLP first emerged in the early 1970s as a result of the work of John Grinder (assistant professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz) and Richard Bandler (a psychology student at the university). Bandler was interested in psychotherapy, particularly in how certain therapists consistently achieved excellent results. In order to understand this, Bandler and Grinder studied the techniques of three therapists: Virginia Satir (family therapy), Fritz Perls (psychotherapy), and Milton Erickson (hypnotherapy). They found that the underlying techniques that enabled them to achieve excellent results consistently could be applied more broadly, and so NLP was born.

Despite its origins, NLP is not just about how to be a good therapist; it is a process that can be applied to model excellence in any field. Sports' coaching for example uses NLP to model the correct technique and help the individual to visualise winning. All the world's top politicians will have undergone some form of NLP training to use non-verbal communication that will …

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