What is NLP ?

NLP means Neuro Linguistic Programming, which I must admit, I found ugly both phonetically and symbolically.

Apart from that, it is a great tool to know oneself better, better communicate and  reach one’s goals ; it also allows us to use one’s brain capacities best as possible and stay connected to one’s senses and the (systemic) environment during the process.

PNL creators, John Grinder, linguistic professor, and Richard Bandler, mathematician, worked together with researchers, communication and human sciences specialists, who belonged to the group from the Palo Alto school :

• Gregory Bateson, philosopher and anthropologist,
• Paul Watzlawick, psychiatrist,
• Edward T Hall, ethnologist,
• famous psychotherapists, namely the psychiatrists Fritz Perls (creator of Gestalt), Milton Erickson,
• and Virginia Satir, family therapist.

They created NLP in 1972.

As Catherine Cudicio, NLP therapist states it : « One usually classifies NLP in three psychology approaches » :

• behaviorist, because NLP’s main interest focuses on behaviors and favors the « how » to the « why »,
• cognitive, because NLP states that the human being can learn the knowledge he needs to accomplish himself and better communicate,
• systemic, because NLP studies people as a whole and in their environment.

NLP, as a methodology, offers a series of intervention techniques that can be used in various  fields : the helping relationship in its broader sense, pedagogy  at all levels, training and presentation in corporate environments, sales, negotiation, team facilitation, management, motivation, sports, arts, daily life.

You will be able to somewhat feel what NLP is while practicing the exercises displayed on the page : Operationalizing NLP presuppositions. You could realize that you already practice some NLP, without you knowing it. However, NLP goes far beyond those few exercises.