What is NLP and what is it for?

The Neurolinguistic programming known as NLP, is a set of models, techniques and resources destined to be applied in daily life and in 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 article from Psychology-Online.

Index

1. What is NLP in psychology: definition
2. How NLP works
3. Representative communication and systems
4. What is NLP for?

Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) is a set of models, cognitive habilyties and techniques to act, think and feel effectively in all aspects of our lives. Study 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

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 in which we relate to the world, since all experience is the result of processing neurologically, the representations that 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 order our thoughts and behaviors, as well as to communicate with ourselves and with those around us.

We are going to put a simple and practical example to understand it better:

I'm driving and the traffic light turns red - You see the red light through your senses (Neuro) and you translate it into language: "I have to stop" (Linguistics) and that's when you brake (your mental program has coded that you have to hit the brakes with the 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 collect information from our environment consciously and unconsciously through of our senses, and from the impact received, we organize sensory data to create a representation or idea (“mint mapl ”) of what we have received.

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 can not not communicate. The communication 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 representative systems are: the visual system, the auditory system, and the touch or kinesthetic system. Without forgetting the olfactory and gustatory system, systems not so generalized but not forgotten.

How can we know our representative system or another interlocutor?

By 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 suit our experience. Let's see some examples:

• Visual system. "I see what you mean ...", "I don't see it clearly ...", "take a look", "considering that ..."
• Auditive System. "That sounds like me", "I'm all ears", "It sounds like Chinese to me".
• Kinesthetic system. "I'm dusty", "I've taken a weight off my shoulders", "I have goose bumps."

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 which is the representative system that is being used at that moment. Bandler and Grinder, have observed that involuntary movements of the eyes in one direction or another are not random but are related to the person's way of thinking:

• The glance directed towards the upper left corner reveals that we are reliving images of an event from the past.
• The glance directed towards the upper right corner reveals that we are constructing images of what we are saying.
• The horizontal look to the left indicates an auditory memory.
• The frontal gaze: surprise, challenge or interest.
• The horizontal gaze to the right indicates an auditory construction.
• The glance directed towards the lower left corner reveals that we are immersed in an interior monologue that reminds us of sensations and emotions.
• The glance directed towards the lower right corner indicates that we are experiencing a physical sensation.

Note: For left-handed people it is the opposite.

Other indicators: Speaking speed, breathing... In general, visual people speak faster and breathe more superficially (thoracic) and kinesthetic people speak more slowly and breathe more abdominal.

And you may wonder, what is the use of knowing the representative system of the person with whom I am speaking? Well, when you detect what representative system your partner, your client, your patient, or whoever is using, you have the information to be able to improve communication with him or her.

The NLP it helps you to improve your quality of life. It has many fields of action such as coaching, psychological therapy, sales, education, communication, human relations... It is used a lot for techniques of personal development such as achieving your goals using internal resources, to know your mental processes, to improve communication and our relations.

NLP does not aspire to be any theory, but rather it 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, in 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.

If you want to read more articles similar to NLP: what it is and what it is for, we recommend that you enter our category of Cognitive psychology.