This Month's Audio Special:

What is NLP?

NLP is something you may have heard of before, but not known anything about. So what is the mysterious NLP? Find out as I interview David Rose, NLP Trainer Associate and Master Practitioner...

Q1: So what is NLP?

"NLP is a way to use language to help people to think and behave differently, and an approach to learning skills more effectively."

Q2: What does NLP stand for?

"NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

Neuro... refers to the nervous system, the brain and our five senses.

Linguistic... refers to the language that we use inside our heads and outwardly to others.

Programming... refers to our internal thinking processes and the structure of our behaviour."

Q3: What can NLP be used for?

"The very first thing that sparked my interest in Neuro - Linguistic Programming (NLP) was this idea that you can use language to make profound changes in your life - and to influence outcomes in amazing ways.

It seemed a little too good to be true at first, but I was intrigued to find out more about it, so I decided to enrol on an NLP Introductory Course.

I soon began to discover just how powerful the linguistic techniques and approaches of NLP can be, so I began to use them straight away to make changes in my own thinking and behaviour and to help other people to do the same.

I decided to continue learning more and more, by taking my NLP Practitioner training, followed by my NLP Master Practitioner training.

In 2007, I became qualified as a certified NLP Trainer Associate and began passing on these extraordinary skills to other people.

NLP continues to fascinate me, as I continue to learn more and more about how people's thinking and behaviour processes often get in the way of success - and how these same thinking and behaviour processes can be re-routed, so you can experience and achieve more and more of what you want in your life, both now and into the future."

David Rose,
NLP Master Practitioner,
NLP Trainer Associate
(SNLP), Certified
Hypnotherapist (IACT).

Q4: How do you cure phobias?

"Take for example a phobia of dogs. Usually what happens is a person has one bad experience with a dog, maybe it bites them or growls at them or something like that.

Then the person’s unconscious mind makes a big, close up, scary picture of that dog. Then what happens is that every time the person sees a dog (even a little dog) their unconscious mind produces that big scary picture, quick as a flash.

The person is not aware of this picture with their conscious mind, but they still react as if the real dog is as scary as the picture. They think that the real dog is what is causing them to feel frightened - but it’s not - it’s the picture of the old dog (seen only by their unconscious mind).

So what NLP does is two things:

1) Change the picture in lots of ways to make it not so scary
2) Move the picture further away from the person, so they won’t feel so close to it.

The technical term for this is “Visual-Kinaesthetic Dissociation.”

It seems so simple to just change the picture, but the person is always unaware of the picture, which is why they couldn’t have changed it themselves. One of the skills of NLP is to figure out where the picture is, what's in it and how to change it for good."

Q5: You used the terms Conscious and Unconscious mind. What are they?

"Imagine an iceberg. The bit above the water is the conscious mind. The huge underwater section is the unconscious (or subconscious) mind.

Basically, your conscious mind is in charge of planning things, noticing, questioning, analysing and so on, while your unconscious mind is in charge of keeping all your vital organs working; healing you when you get a cut; deciding what words will come out of your mouth.

Your unconscious mind is capable of a vast amount of things and is a huge wellspring of information and resources. For example, if your conscious mind is in charge of addition and subtraction, then your unconscious mind is in charge of multiplication.

If your whole mind were a PC, then your conscious mind is the screen and everything that’s on it, and your unconscious mind is the computer itself, which holds potentially limitless amounts of information.

NLP activates the deep resources within your unconscious mind and your potentially limitless unconscious abilities. People come to see me because they’ve tried everything they can think of with their conscious mind, so I use my skills to activate their amazing unconscious resources."

There are many, many more things to learn about NLP. If you would like to learn more you can go to:

www.davidrosenlp.com or www.nlpleicester.co.uk or www.nlpforactors.com