WHAT NLP REALLY IS

NLP, as a Communication model, is not a therapy model. It is not a version of psychotherapy. Nor is it a modeling model, a hypnosis model, or even a model for personal development (self- actualization). So what is NLP? Amazing enough, that is one of the perennial questions that has plagued the field of NLP. This is the question to ask if you want to torture an NLP trainer!

Yes, NLP speaks to, addresses, and provides lots of guidance in each of these disciplines. These are actually the most essential applications of NLP. There are many more—parenting, leadership, managements, coaching, consulting, education, health, fitness, etc. These are so much the essential applications that they are commonly, even to this day, confused with what NLP really is. That’s why some say NLP is Modeling, some say it is Psychotherapy, some say it is Hypnosis, and others say it is Self-Actualization. NLP certain is each of these in terms of applications. But what is it at its core? Can we determine that?

NLP is actually much deeper than any of these. Thinking about it as a communication model, then at its heart, it is about how we communicate to ourselves and others to create our experiences (states, skills, knowledge). As NLP identified how these communications work and the basic communication processes (mechanism), we found that it gave us the inner hidden structure of experience itself. And when you know the structure of an experience, you can model and replicate that experience.

Yet unbeknown to most NLP trainers, writers, researchers, and teachers, NLP is actually deeper than just a Communication Model. Nor is this something new that I’m adding to NLP, it has been deeper since the beginning, but hardly anyone noticed. I did not. And I researched it for decades and delved into the NLP models going back to the original sources. Perhaps that’s because it is easier and makes more sense to simply say that it is a Communication Model. People understand that. What else would you call it?

When Bob and I packaged NLP for the two volumes of User’s Manual of the Brain, we said that it is most essentially a Communication Model. Evidence of that goes to the fact that the first NLP model is “the Meta-Model of Language in Therapy” and the second model was the

Representational Model that comprises our communications (including Sub-Modalities or the cinematic features of our inner movies). The third model, the Strategies Model about how the communications generates and “programs” an experience. Fourth, the Milton Model of hypnotic communication patterns and how trance states work. Fifth, the Meta-Programs model about how people think in their communications. That’s a lot of evidence that NLP is a Communication Model. Yet could it be something deeper? If so, what would we call it?

Could we call it a thinking model? What if, deeper than all of the uses and applications of NLP is thinking? Yet there’s a problem with that. Namely, what is a thinking model? How do you model thinking? Thinking itself seems so primary and irreducible, what would be its components? Perhaps that’s why none of us saw that NLP could be defined as a thinking model. But let’s go with it for a moment. Suppose we called NLP a thinking model? After all, take each of the communication models and let’s ask, What lies within and underneath each model? The answer is Thinking.

Meta-Model of Language Linguistic distinctions encoding how we think.

Representational Model Sensory representations encoding sensory VAK thinking.

Sub-Modality Model Cinematic features framing how one is thinking.

Strategy Model Representational steps in how a thinking format is structured.

Milton Model Hypnotic linguistic distinctions that invite a person to construct thinking about possibilities and in terms of metaphors (metaphorical thinking).

Meta-Programs Model Thinking patterns that govern ways of perceiving.

Perceptual Positions Model Thinking patterns from different perceptual positions.

Reframing Model Thinking patterns for framing different ways of interpreting a word, experience, or person, thinking about meaning in different way.

Meta-States Model Reflexive thinking patterns that layer thought upon thought to generate more complex states.

One thing this perceptive highlights is that all ‘thinking’ is not the same. There are many different kinds and dimensions of thinking. It also puts a spotlight on the driving force inside of communication—the quality of your thinking determines the quality of your communicating. As thinking can go wrong, make mistakes, be fallacious—so can everything that thinking generates. No wonder change, and transformation of persons and organizations, require new thinking in new and different ways.

What am I saying here? I’m saying that what NLP is most essentially a Thinking Model. When you really understand NLP, you know that it is a way of thinking, a way of rethinking, and a way to do both critical and creative thinking. With this in mind, then at the core of every change is re-thinking. It is fresh thinking and it is meta-thinking, that is, the ability to think about your thinking so that you can make sure it is accurate, specific, precise, creative, and ecological.

Thinking has been at the core of NLP from the beginning, but we missed it. Perhaps we dismissed “thinking” as too small, too obvious, or not distinctive enough. Perhaps we wanted something more sell-able, something more commercially appealing, something that sounded more sexy— communication, change, reframing, modeling, etc.

Now as a Thinking Model, NLP (including Meta-States) offers us nearly everything we need to build and articulate a model of thinking. And unbeknown to most of the field of NLP, that’s what I’ve been doing in our Brain Camp trainings and in the series of books on thinking. It has been a discovery long time in coming, but it is now coming in a training near you. :)