The Neurolinguistic Programming known as NLPis a set of models, techniques and resources intended to be applied in daily life and professional life.
NLP helps us understand how people interpret and filter the information we perceive through the five senses. However, there are many doubts that arise if we do not know this practice: what is NLP? how does it work? what are your exercises? If you want to know more about What is NLP and what is it for? Keep reading this Psychology-Online article.
What is NLP in psychology: definition
Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) is a set of models and techniques to act, think and feel effectively in all aspects of our lives. Studies human behavior, focusing on understanding mental and emotional processes.
Through NLP we discover the structure that supports one’s behavior and that of the other. Therefore, investigate how we communicate with ourselves and with the people around us. NLP was born in the 70s from the joint work of John Grinder (linguist) and Richard Blander (mathematician and Gestalt therapist).
Let’s break down the acronym NLP and explain its meaning:
- (P) PROGRAMMING. It is the ability to encode our experiences through our senses. We create mental programs that help us organize our experience to achieve our goals.
- (N) NEURO. It refers to the way we relate to the world, since every experience is the result of neurologically processing the representations we make of reality as well as the eternal perceptions that we collect through the senses.
- (L) LINGUISTICS. It refers to how we use verbal and non-verbal language to make sense of our experiences. We use language to organize our thoughts and behaviors, as well as to communicate with ourselves and those around us.
How NLP works
Let’s give a simple and practical example to understand it better:
I’m driving and the light turns red – You see the red light through your senses (Neuro) and you translate it into language: “I have to brake” (Linguistics) and that’s when you brake (your mental program has coded that you have to press the brake with your right foot).
According to NLP, the way we think, feel and behave is programmed by us based on our experiences.
The basic scheme would be the following: people consciously and unconsciously collect information from our environment through our senses, and based on the impact received, we organize sensory data to create a representation or idea (“mint mapl”) of what we have received.
Communication and representative systems
NLP teaches us what is our communication code with our environment while proposing strategies to teach us to develop skills and generate changes. We start from the premise that you can’t not communicate. that we maintain with our environment is constant, we are always communicating and words are, many times, the least important part of the communicative act.
As we already know, we use our senses to perceive the world. The way how we collect, store and encode the information to our mind are known as representative systems. The three primary representational systems are: the visual system, the auditory system, and the touch or kinesthetic system. Without forgetting the olfactory and gustatory system, systems that are not so generalized but not forgotten.
How can we know our representative system or that of another interlocutor?
Because of the language. Through language we point out the sensory channels that we prefer and where we usually focus our attention. We choose those expressions that best adapt to our experience. Let’s look at some examples:
- visual system. “I see what you mean…”, “I don’t see it clearly…”, “take a look”, “since…”
- Auditive System. “That sounds familiar to me”, “I’m all ears”, “It sounds Chinese to me”.
- Kinesthetic system. “I’m exhausted”, “A weight has been lifted off my shoulders”, “I have goosebumps”.
By eye observation. By observing the eyes of the person in front of us and understanding the signals that their eyes give us, we can find out what representational system is being used at that moment. Bandler and Grinderhave observed that the involuntary movements of the eyes in one direction or another are not random but are related to the person’s way of thinking:
- Looking towards the upper left corner reveals that we are reliving images of an event from the past.
- The gaze directed towards the upper right corners reveals that we are constructing images of what we are saying.
- The horizontal gaze to the left indicates an auditory memory.
- The frontal look: surprise, challenge or interest.
- Horizontal gaze to the right indicates an auditory construction.
- Looking towards the lower left corner reveals that we are immersed in an internal monologue that reminds us of sensations and emotions.
- Looking toward the lower right corner indicates that we are experiencing a physical sensation.
Note: For left-handed people it is the opposite.
Other indicators: The speed of speaking, breathing… In general, visual people speak faster and breathe more superficially (thoracically) and kinesthetic people speak more slowly and breathe more abdominally.
What is NLP for?
And you will ask yourself, what good is it for me to know the representative system of the person I am talking to? Well, when you detect which representative system your colleague, your client, your patient, or whoever is using, you have the information to improve communication with him or her.
It helps you improve your quality of life. It has many areas of action such as coaching, psychological therapy, sales, education, communication, human relations… It is widely used for personal development techniques such as achieving your goals using internal resources, to know your mental processes, to improve communication and our relationships.
NLP does not aspire to be a theory, but is a model that studies the factors that influence our way of thinking, communicating and behaving. Describes the operation of a system.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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