On Thu, 31 Aug 2000 16:12:22 -0700 (PDT) Ziana Astralos
<zianastralos@yahoo.com> writes:
> I've heard of NLP before, but don't know anything
> about it... could you please explain?
The letters stand for "Neuro Linguistic Programming." It began in the
mid-1970's as a set of models of the behavior of people who were good at
communicating, and techniques that can be used to learn the behavior of
the experts. It may have evolved into something different by now--I
studied it in the mid-1980's.
The models and techniques were developed by Richard Bandler and John (?)
Grinder (I think) who set out to model the beavior of
communication-geniuses. Among the people whose behavior they modeled
were hypnotherapist Milton Erickson, gestalt therapist Fritz Perls and
family therapist Virginia Satir. I've seen videos of Erickson and Satir
and was quite impressed with their communications skills.
There are a couple of things I especially like about NLP: first, the
techniques work; second, the approach is lighthearted and optimistic and
respects the individual. Here are some of the basic assumptions:
No one is wrong or broken.
Behind every behavior is a positive intention.
Every behavior is useful in some context.
The meaning of a communication is the response you get.
If you aren't getting the response you want, do *something* different.
There is no such thing as failure. There is only feedback.
In any system, the element with the most flexibility exerts the most
influence.
The map is not the territory.
And here's an example of Bandler's attitude towards his work (I can
imagine him grinning as he invented the label "Neuro Linguistic
Programming"):
His experiments concerning delusional patients sound equally fun. One
poor soul who thought he was Jesus Christ got the Bandler treatment,
which sounds more like a play than medical therapy. He had arranged for
Roman costumes to be issued to members of staff and for them to patrol
outside the patient's room. Bandler went into the room donning full Roman
outfit, carrying two huge planks of wood, some very large nails and an
even bigger hammer. It wasn't long before the patient started protesting
that he wasn't Jesus at all and Bandler responded in true jobsworth
style, 'sorry mate, out of my hands, just following orders..'. Soon
enough the patient, who had thought himself to be Christ for years, had
remembered exactly who he was.
http://www.tae-associates.com/sigma/sigma/raw/raw.htm
Barbara
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