Day 88 : Loose Threads (1) - NLP

Skipped in the hall again today, still felt strange.

Also had my neck x-rayed : joints 3 to 7 look in perfect shape but it is difficult to get a good x-ray shot of joints 1 & 2 (closest to the top) so I'm going to have an MRI tomorrow, results back on Friday.

It occured to me that one or two things have come up in my blog that have been left "hanging". One was Adrian's question of weeks ago about NLP.

To be frank, I'm not an expert. Even though I have a certificate that says I'm a practitioner, I have never practised!! Although I am sure that I use some of what I learned in day-to-day life.

So just a couple of points.

The effective use of NLP is based on two assumptions.

1. The Map is not the Territory.
Each person has their own "map" in their head about what the world is. No-one's map is more real than anyone else's and when you try to communicate with someone else, the response you get depends upon their "map" not yours (but how you interpret their response dependes on your "map" not theirs).

2. Life and Mind are Systems
Processes inside a person and between a person and their environment are systemic i.e. linked into one system. Mind and body are one system (as we have realised in doing PCP). Behavior gives the most useful information about a system but in itself is not the system i.e. the system is more than just the behavior patterns. All behaviors have an original intention appropriate for the system at the time. Even if the behavior seems negative or damaging for that person, there will be an underlying positive intention behind the behavior.

And there is an underlying belief in NLP that people have all the resources they need to succeed so that change can be achieved by enriching a person's map (i.e. view of the world) so they have more choices and can use more of their own resources.

I won't even attempt to continue but feel the NLP contains a useful set of ideas and tools for helping both yourself and other people. Worth checking out.

You can see that PCP does fit well into even this brief introduction. It has changed our "maps" of the "world" and empowered us to use more of our own resources to generate change.

Cool, huh?