What does NLP mean to you as a hypnotist?

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Permalink Reply by Brian David Phillips on April 10, 2008 at 2:50pm

Lane, interesting choice for a topic. I use NLP and all sorts of things all the time. Nine out of ten times, when I use an NLP technique it is within a hypnotic context. Most folks who come to me do so because I am a hypnotist and so even when using an NLP process, I do so after hypnosis has been established (I find most such processes tend to increase their reliable effectiveness and longitudinal success in that context as well, at least in my experience). I do not advertise my work with NLP, nor do I teach "NLP" per se, although I do teach various NLP techniques in most of my classes and have had a number of requests to teach a more indepth course in NLP but have no current plans to do so. What is NLP? NLP is not a thing or even a single modality. In my opinion, despite the presuppositions and various metasets, NLP is more a collection of disparate processes rather than one wholistic approach to changework. It's a salad bar from which one can select an appropriate technique and leave others. One does not have to buy the whole dinner set but can order processes a la carte. Particular NLP processes can certainly be considered simply an approach to hypnosis while others are less so. It doesn't really matter in so far as one is getting useful results.

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Permalink Reply by Lane Pierce on April 10, 2008 at 4:06pm

Bravo! That almost sums up the conversation I had with a client earlier today. The questions was "How do I sell myself as an NLP practitioner?" My response was, "Sell what you do not the means by which you do it."

I especially like your "salad bar" metaphor. I often tell people that NLP does not do anything on its own. NLP makes things better (Remember the BASF commercials "We don't make the paint, we make it glossier."?)

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