Neuro-linguistic programming Totally Explained

Everything about Neuro-linguistic Programming totally explained

Neuro-linguistic programming (usually shortened to NLP) is an interpersonal communication model and an alternative approach to psychotherapy that was co-created by Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder in the 1970s. It was based on the subjective study of language, communication and personal change, in particular, through modeling three successful psychotherapists, Fritz Perls (gestalt therapy), Virginia Satir (family systems therapy), and eventually Milton H. Erickson (clinical hypnosis). Bandler and Grinder aimed to discover and model the successful patterns of behavior and communication distinguishing these exceptional individuals from their peers.
In the early 1980s, NLP was heralded as an important advance in psychotherapy and counseling, and it attracted some interest in counseling research and clinical psychology. In the mid 1980s research reviews in The Journal of Counseling Psychology or New Age forms of psychotherapy that have emerged in mental health practice.
Today the predominant patterns of NLP, the application of those patterns, and many variants of NLP are found in seminars, workshops, books and audio programs in the form of exercises and principles intended to influence change in self and others. There is great variation in the depth and breadth of training and standards of practitioners, and some disagreement between those in the field about which patterns are and are not "NLP". While the field of NLP is loosely spread and resistant to a single comprehensive definition, there are some common principles and presuppositions shared by its proponents. In general, NLP aims to increase behavioral choice by the manipulation of personal state, belief and internal representation either by a practitioner/trainer, or by self-application. Some of the main ideas, many imported from existing counseling or psychotherapy practice, include:

Problems, desires, feelings, beliefs and outcomes are represented in visual, auditory and kinesthetic (and sometimes gustatory, olfactory) systems.
The actual state someone is in when setting a goal or choosing a course of action is also considered important. A number of techniques in NLP aim to enhance states by anchoring resourceful states associated with personal experience or model states by imitating others.

NLP remains supported by its practitioners in the psychotherapy field and has influenced other forms of brief and eclectic interventions. Its models and tools have been used widely outside of psychotherapy in business communication, management training, teaching, executive coaching and motivational seminars.

Concepts and methods

Modeling of Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, and Milton Erickson

In the early development of NLP between 1972 and 1976, Richard Bandler, a psychology student at University of California, Santa Cruz, and John Grinder, a linguist specializing in transformational syntax, guided somewhat by the anthropologist and systems theorist Gregory Bateson, participated in collaborative studies with three successful psychotherapists, Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, and Milton Erickson. Of the three, Erickson was the most well known. They reviewed many hours of audio and video of the three therapists and spent months imitating how they worked with clients, the aim was to model the communication patterns which made these individuals more successful than their peers.

"The system was developed in answer to [why] particular psychotherapists were so effective with their patients. Rather than explore this question in terms of psychotherapeutic theory and practice, Bandler and Grinder sought to analyze what the therapists were doing at an observational level, categorize it, and apply the categories as a general model of interpersonal influence. NLP seeks to instruct people to observe, make inferences, and respond to others, as did the three original, very effective therapists." (Druckman, 1988, Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques)

The first model was Fritz Perls, a German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist who was associated with the founding of 'gestalt therapy', an approach to therapy which at its core is the promotion of awareness and the contact between the self and its environment. In 1964, Fritz Perls had begun a long-term residency at Esalen Institute in California, United States and became a major and lasting influence. Esalen was dedicated to humanistic alternative education and to exploring work in the humanities and sciences that furthers the full realization of what Aldous Huxley called the “human potential”. The second model was Virginia Satir, also an early leader at Esalen, and known especially for her approach to family therapy that treats groups and to some extent individuals, as systems that exhibit homeostasis. Her therapeutic interventions would usually focus on relationship patterns rather than on analyzing impulses of the unconscious mind or early childhood trauma of individuals as a Freudian psychoanalyst would do.
   In 1975 the meta model was published in Structure of Magic Volumes I & II, it featured a set of specifying question that both Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir used intuitively to respond to distortion, generalization and deletion in their client's language. Second, the Milton model featured verbal (ambiguity, metaphor, suggestion, embedded suggestion) and non-verbal patterns (matching and mirroring, spacial marking) that Milton H. Erickson used to effect change with clients.}}
Analyzing this further, Grinder and Bandler stated that there were a few common traits expert communicators – whether top therapists, top executives or top salespeople – all seemed to share: ť # Everything they did in their work, was pro-active (rather than reactive), directed moment to moment by well-formed outcomes rather than formalized fixed beliefs

   # They were exceedingly flexible in approach and refused to be tied down to using their skills in any one fixed way of thinking or working ť # They enjoyed the challenges of difficult ("resistant") clients, seeing them as a chance to learn rather than an intractable "problem"

   # They respected the client as someone doing the best they knew how (rather than judging them as "broken" or "working") ť #They had certain common skills and things they were aware of and noticed, that were intuitively "wired in"

   # They worked with precision, purpose, and skill Another aspect of NLP modeling is understanding the patterns of one's own behaviors in order to 'model' the more successful parts of oneself.

Meta model

The meta model can be seen as a heuristic that responds to the words and phrases that reveal unconscious limitations and faulty thinking — the distortions, generalizations and deletions in language. Bandler and Grinder observed similar patterns in the communication of Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir (and gleaned from a set of transformational grammar language categories). The meta model seeks to recover unspoken information, challenge generalization and other distorted messages that involve restrictive thinking and beliefs.. In it the communicator makes statements that seem specific but allow the listener to fill in their own meaning for what is being said. It makes use of pacing and leading, ambiguity, metaphor, embedded suggestion, and multiple-meaning sentence structures. It has been described as "a way of using language to induce and maintain trance in order to contact the hidden resources of our personality". The Milton model has three primary aspects: First, to assist in building and maintaining rapport with the client. Second, to overload and distract the conscious mind so that unconscious communication can be cultivated. Third, to allow for interpretation in the words offered to the client.
After spending months closely studying Erickson's language (verbal and non-verbal) and imitating the way that Erickson worked with clients, Bandler and Grinder published the Milton model in 1976/1977 under the title The Patterns of Milton H. Erickson Volumes I & II

Representational systems and accessing cues

A basic assumption of NLP is that internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language consist of visual, auditory, kinesthetic (and possibly olfactory and gustatory) representations (often shortened to VAK or VAKOG) that are engaged when people think about problems, tasks or activities, or engage in them. Internal sensory representations are constantly being formed and activated. Whether making conversation, talking about a problem, reading a book, kicking a ball or riding a horse, internal representations have an impact on performance. NLP techniques generally aim to change behavior through modifying the internal representations, examining the way a person represents a problem and by building desirable representations of alternative outcomes or goals. In addition, Bandler and Grinder claimed that the representational system use could be tracked using eye movements, gestures, breathing, sensory predicates and other cues in order to improve rapport and social influence.

Accessing cues Bandler and Grinder claimed that matching and responding to the representational systems people use to think is generally beneficial for enhancing rapport and influence in communication.) focused on Bandler and Grinder's claim
While some NLP training programs and books still feature PRS, many have modified or dropped it. Richard Bandler, for example, de-emphasized its importance in an interview with the Enhancing Human Performance subcommittee.
Bandler and Grinder proposed

Techniques

Rapport

NLP proposed a number of simple techniques involving matching, pacing and leading for establishing rapport with people. Proponents state that anchors are capable of being formed and reinforced by repeated stimuli, and thus are analogous to classical conditioning.
Anchoring appears to have been imported into NLP from family systems therapy as part of the 'model' of Virginia Satir.

Swish

Swish is a novel visualization technique for reducing unwanted habits. The process involves disrupting a pattern of thought that usually leads to an unwanted behavior such that it leads to a desired alternative. The process involves visualizing the trigger or 'cue image' that normally leads to the unwanted behavior pattern, such as a smoker's hand with a cigarette moving towards the face. The cue image is then switched a number of times with a visualization of a desired alternative, such as a self-image looking resourceful and fulfilled. The swish is tested by having the person think of the original cue image that use to lead to the undesired behavior, or by presenting the actual cue such as a cigarette to the client, while observing the responses. If the client stays resourceful then the process is complete. The name swish comes from the sound made by the practitioner/trainer as the visualizations are switched. Swish also makes use of submodalities, for example, the internal image of the unwanted behavior is typically shrunk to a small and manageable size and the desired outcome (or self-image) is enhanced by making it brighter and larger than normal. The swish was first published by Richard Bandler. By changing the way the event is perceived "responses and behaviors will also change. Reframing with language allows you to see the world in a different way and this changes the meaning. Reframing is the basis of jokes, myths, legends, fairy tales and most creative ways of thinking." The concept was common to a number of therapies prior to NLP. There are examples in children's literature. Pollyanna, for example, would play The Glad Game whenever she felt downhearted to remind herself of the things that she could do, and not worry about the things that she couldn't change.

Six step reframe

An example of reframing is found in the six-step reframe which involves distinguishing between an underlying intention and the consequent behaviors for the purpose of achieving the intention by different and more successful behaviors. It is based on the notion that there's a positive intention behind all behaviors, but that the behaviors themselves may be unwanted or counterproductive in other ways. NLP uses this staged process to identify the intention and create alternative choices to satisfy that intention.

Ecology and congruency

Ecology in NLP deals with the relationship between a client and his or her natural, social and created environments and how a proposed goal or change might retreat to his or her relationships and environment. It is a frame within which the desired outcome is checked against the consequences client's life and mind as systemic processes. It treats the client's relationship with self as a system and his or her relationship with others as subsystems that interact so when someone considers a change it's important therefore to take into account the consequences on the system as a whole. a goal of NLP is to help the client choose goals and make changes that achieve a sense of personal congruency and integrity with personal and other aspects of the client's life.

Parts integration

Parts Integration creates a metaphor of different aspects (parts) of ourselves which are in conflict due to different goals, perceptions and beliefs. 'Parts integration' is the process of 'identifying' these parts and negotiating (or working) with each of these parts separately & together, with a goal of resolving internal conflict. Successful parts negotiation occurs by listening to and providing opportunities to meet the needs of each part and adequately addressing each part's interests so that they're each satisfied with the desired outcome. It often involves negotiating with the conflicting parts of a person to achieve resolution. Parts integration appears to be modeled on 'parts' from family therapy and has similarities to ego-state therapy in psychoanalysis in that it seeks to resolve conflicts that constitute a "family of self" within a single individual.

Psychological research and reviews

Journal of Counseling Psychology

In 1984, Christopher F. Sharpley (publishing in the Journal of Counseling Psychology) undertook a literature review of 15 studies on the existence and effectiveness of preferred representational systems (PRS), an underlying principle of NLP. He found "little research evidence supporting its usefulness as an effective counseling tool" and that there was no reproducible support for PRS and predicate matching. Eric Einspruch and Bruce Forman (1985) broadly agreed with Sharpley, but they disputed the conclusions, identifying a failure to address methodological errors in the research reviewed. They stated that "NLP is far more complex than presumed by researchers, and thus, the data are not true evaluations of NLP" In 1987, Sharpley published a response to Einspruch and Forman with a review of a further 7 studies on the same basic tenets (totalling 44 including those cited by Einspruch and Forman). This second article included a review of Elich et al (1985), a study that found no support for the proposed relationship between eye movements, spoken predicates, and internal imagery. Elich et al stated that "NLP has achieved something akin to cult status when it may be nothing more than a psychological fad".
Sharpley stated that "data collected in 44 studies clearly indicate an overwhelming finding that (a) the PRS can't be reliably assessed; (b) when it's assessed, the PRS isn't consistent over time; therefore, (c) it isn't even certain that the PRS exists; and (d) matching clients' or other persons' PRS doesn't appear to assist counselors reliably in any clearly demonstrated manner."and "there are conclusive data from the research on NLP, and the conclusion is that the principles and procedures of NLP have failed to be supported by those data. ... Certainly research data don't support the rather extreme claims that proponents of NLP have made as to the validity of its principles or the novelty of its procedures." Also that NLP may not be testable stating, "perhaps NLP principles are not amenable to research evaluation. This doesn't necessarily reduce NLP to worthlessness for counseling practice. Rather, it puts NLP in the same category as psychoanalysis, that is, with principles not easily demonstrated in laboratory settings but, nevertheless, strongly supported by clinicians in the field. Not every therapy has to undergo the rigorous testing that's characteristic of the more behavioural approaches to counseling to be of use to the therapeutic community, but failure to produce data that support a particular theory from controlled studies does relegate that theory to questionable status in terms of professional accountability"
Sharpley states that a number of NLP techniques are worthwhile or beneficial in counseling, citing predicate matching, mirroring clients behaviors, moving sensory modalities, reframing, anchoring and changing history, but that none of these techniques originated within NLP. Sharpley said that "NLP may be seen as a partial compendium of rather than as an original contribution to counseling practice and, thereby, has a value distinct from the lack of research data supporting the underlying principles that Bandler and Grinder posited to present NLP as a new and magical theory". He concluded that as a counseling tool, the techniques and underlying theory unique to NLP, were both empirically unvalidated and unsupported but that "if NLP is presented as a theory-less set of procedures gathered from many approaches to counseling, then it may serve as a reference role for therapists who wish to supplement their counseling practice by what may be novel techniques to them."

Other reviews of evidence for preferred representational systems

A study by Buckner et al (1987), (after Sharpley), using trained NLP practitioners found support for the claim that specific eye movement patterns existed for visual and auditory components of thought, and that trained observers could reliably identify them. However, the study didn't address whether such patterns indicated a preferred representational system. They also made suggestions for further research. Krugman et al (1985) had tested claims for a 'one-session' treatment of performance anxiety against another method and a control group and found no support for claims of a 'one-session' effective treatment. Buckner et al argued for further research into NLP amongst other treatments that have "achieved popularity in the absence of data supporting their utility".

Responses to research reviews

In response to the experimental literature reviews Watkins said that "Neurolinguistic Programming studies attempted to match eye movements and representational patterns. These are appropriate tests of the validity of the proponents' claims. However, one can only speculate what might have been learned with a wider range of outcome variables. Since this is a review of empirical research it may seem unfair to focus on limitations of the studies reported, but at a minimum the authors could have critiqued the methodological rigor and conceptual soundness of the variables tested."

Enhancing human performance study

As part of a study that investigated various psychological techniques for learning, improving motor skills, altering mental states, stress management and social influence at the request of the US Army Research Institute, the Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance (United States National Research Council) selected several heavily marketed human performance enhancement techniques that made strong claims for their efficacy. Many of the techniques evaluated happened to have origins in the human potential movement. NLP was selected as a strategy for social influence and was evaluated by the psychological techniques committee directed by social psychologist Daniel Druckman. The committee was already aware of the weak support for preferred representation systems (PRS) in the literature and noted that the body of research had largely not tested NLP beyond the assumptions related to PRS (consistent with the Sharpley's literature review in Journal of Counseling Psychology). However, the effect of matching predicates on all representations showed strong effect on perceptions.
The psychological techniques study committee directed by Druckman "found little if any evidence to support NLP’s assumptions or that it's effective as a strategy for social influence." But the committee "were impressed with the modeling approach used to develop the [NLP] technique. The technique was developed from careful observations of the way three master psychotherapists conducted their sessions, emphasizing imitation of verbal and nonverbal behaviors (Druckman & Swets, 1988, Chapter 8)., NLP wasn't mentioned in "Enhancing Human Performance" publications that followed, except by way of acknowledgment for the observation and imitation methods used by Bandler and Grinder to model the verbal and non-verbal patterns of "master psychotherapists" Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson in the early development of NLP.

Decline in research interest

These mid-80s reviews marked the start of a decline in research interest in NLP generally, and particular in matching sensory predicates and its use in counselor-client relationship in counseling psychology..
   Similarly in the field of psychotherapy it's stated that the "original interest in NLP turned to disillusionment after the research and now it's rarely even mentioned in psychotherapy".
   There has been some ongoing research by both NLP practitioners and psychologists, including outcome-based research and research of therapies which share NLP processes, but there are no thorough reviews or meta-analyses of NLP's effectiveness.
   Grant Devilly (2005) researching the experimental evidence underlying several "power therapies" including EMDR and VK/D (a technique spawned from NLP) stated that there hadn't been any peer-reviewed experimental research published yet concerning VK/D. He comments that:

"at the time of its introduction, NLP was heralded as a breakthrough in therapy and advertisements for training workshops, videos and books began to appear in trade magazines. The workshops provided certification [...] However, controlled studies shed such a poor light on the practice, and those promoting the intervention made such extreme and changeable claims that researchers began to question the wisdom of researching the area further and even suggested that NLP was an untestable theory. [...] NLP is no longer as prevalent as it was in the 1970s or 1980s, but is still practiced in small pockets of the human resource community. The science has come and gone, yet the belief still remains" (Grant Devilly, 2005, p.437).

Lack of scientific validation

Proponents of NLP often claim it's predicated on a scientific understanding and the name of neuro-linguistic programming implies a basis in science. Cognitive neuroscience researcher Michael C Corballis (1999) said that "NLP is a thoroughly fake title, designed to give the impression of scientific respectability."
Evidence-based researcher and clinician Scott Lilienfeld said that "largely untested treatments comprise a major proportion—in some cases a majority—of the interventions delivered by mental health professionals." Lilienfeld argues that NLP, as a New Age psychotherapy, is one of many hundreds of variations of psychotherapy that have not been subject to rigorous empirical validation. Lilienfeld and colleagues believe that randomized controlled studies are the only way to verify whether or not psychotherapeutic treatments are effective. There has been no peer-reviewed empirical research on VK/D (Visual/Kinesthetic dissociation),

Uses

Psychotherapy

In contrast to mainstream psychotherapy, NLP doesn't concentrate on diagnosis, treatment and assessment of mental and behavioral disorders. Instead, it focuses on helping clients to overcome their own self-perceived, or subjective, problems. It seeks to do this while respecting their own capabilities and wisdom to choose additional goals for the intervention as they learn more about their problems, and to modify and specify those goals further as a result of extended interaction with a therapist. The two main therapeutic uses of NLP are use as an adjunct by therapists practicing in other therapeutic disciplines, or as a specific therapy called Neurolinguistic Psychotherapy (NLPt).

Interpersonal communications and persuasion

While the main goals of Neuro-linguistic programming are therapeutic, the patterns have also been adapted for use outside of psychotherapy including business communication, management training, sales, sports, and interpersonal influence

Popular culture and media

NLP, when mentioned in popular culture, often refers to its more 'spectacular' claims and potentials. When NLP is mentioned in the context of "the power of the mind", claims such as "you can achieve anything" are common - this is seen by scientists as a wild and unsubstantiated claim. (Note that NLP doesn't teach that this claim is true, but it does teach that believing it's useful - that if a subject believes they're capable of more it'll enable a greater range of possibilities for them.)
NLP also teaches that people are unconsciously influenced when making decisions, and that they can give indications in their muscle and facial movements of their thought processes. The public perception of NLP, like hypnosis, is often mixed (sometimes deliberately) with public preconceptions and interest in the unknown.

Entertainment

Derren Brown

English mentalist Derren Brown has been popularly associated with NLP since it was rumoured that he used it in his "Russian roulette" act.Brown has stated that NLP spurred his interest in developing skills in reading non-verbal signals (see also cold reading) and indirect suggestion, but he points out in Tricks of the Mind that he's "never mentioned it" in the context of his work, and that although he found it enlightening, NLP's capabilities are frequently exaggerated.

Self-help

Paul McKenna

In 2005, celebrity hypnotist and television personality Paul McKenna was shown applying NLP and other techniques on his Sky One show, I Can Change Your Life to assist people with phobias, such as agoraphobia and addictions to gambling and shopping. In 2006, another Sky One programme, 'I Can Make You Thin', featured Richard Bandler and used NLP among other techniques including Thought Field Therapy to help people lose weight.

Anthony Robbins

Anthony Robbins saw success marketing his self-help programs using infomercials. Personal Power, one of Robbins self-help audio programs launched in 1989 has sold in excess of US $100 million. Previously Robbins had published Unlimited Power, an a American best seller based largely on NLP. While Robbins incorporated some aspects of NLP in what he called Neuro Associative Conditioning and later programs, NLP was mentioned less often.

Thom Hartmann

Thom Hartmann, the psychotherapist turned Air America radio talk show host, was trained in Neuro-Linguistic Programming in the 1970s by Richard Bandler, whom he calls "one of my best teachers" in a 2008 book entitled Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision that's largely based on NLP. In Cracking the Code, Hartmann affirms that Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz "studied the tools" of NRP and put them to work for for the Republican Party in the 1980s and 1990s, but doesn't present documentary evidence of this.

History and development

1970s: Founding and early development

NLP was co-founded and developed jointly by Richard Bandler and then UCSC assistant professor of linguistics John Grinder, under the tutelage of noted anthropologist Gregory Bateson, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during the 1970s. At that time the Californian human potential seminars were developing into a viable industry. Gregory Bateson (see Esalen Institute) was influenced by Alfred Korzybski, particularly his ideas about human modeling and that 'the map isn't the territory'. These ideas were adopted by Bandler and Grinder. with Robert Dilts and Judith Delozier, Grinder and Bandler fell out. Amidst acrimony and intellectual property lawsuits, NLP started to be developed haphazardly by many individuals. Given the multiplicity of developers and trainers, there was to be no single definitive system of NLP.
Since the early 1980s, John Grinder collaborated with various people to develop a form of NLP called the New Code of NLP which attempted to restore a whole mind-body systemic approach to NLP Contemporaneous with Bandler's law suits, Tony Clarkson (a UK practitioner) successfully asked the UK High Court to revoke Bandler's UK registered trademark of "NLP", in order to clarify legally that 'NLP' was a generic term rather than intellectual property.
Despite the NLP community being splintered, most NLP material acknowledges the early work of the co-founders, Bandler and Grinder, and the development group that surrounded them in the 1970s.

2000s: Legal settlement and government regulation

In 2001, the law suits were settled with Bandler and Grinder agreeing to be known as co-founders of NLP. Since 1978, a 20 day NLP practitioner certification program had been in existence for training therapists to apply NLP as an adjunct to their professional qualifications. As NLP evolved, and the applications began to be extended beyond therapy - new ways of training were developed and the course structures and design changed. Course lengths and style vary from institute to institute. In the 1990s, following attempts to put NLP on a more formally regulated footing in the UK, other governments began certifying NLP courses and providers, such as in Australia for example, where a graduate certificate

in Neuro-linguistic programming is accredited under the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF).However, NLP continues to be an open field of training with no 'official' best practice. With different authors, individual trainers and practitioners having developed their own methods, concepts and labels, often branding them as "NLP", the training standards and quality differ greatly.

Classifying NLP

Associations with science

NLP's association with science has been complex and controversial. Robert Dilts and Judith Delozier claim "NLP is rooted in the synthesis of three areas of modern science: neurophysiology, linguistics and cybernetics (computer programming)." Grinder & Bostic St Clair (2001) make suggestions about what needs to be done next to "improve the practice [ofNLP] and take its rightful place as a scientifically based endeavor with its precise focus on one of the extremes of human behavior: excellence and the high performers who actually do it." They ask those interested to work with researchers in cognitive linguistics and neuroscience to begin to improve the relationship with those fields.
In the introduction to The Structure of Magic Series, Gregory Bateson stated that "[Bandlerand Grinder] create the beginnings of an appropriate theoretical base for the describing of human interaction. [They] have succeeded in making linguistics into a base for theory and simultaneously into a tool for therapy."

Principles and presuppositions

There are slightly different versions of what practitioners consider to be the basic principles or presuppositions of NLP, but there's a fairly high degree of agreement on those most central to NLP. These are generalizations used as working guides.

Behind every behavior there's a positive intention. Even a seemingly negative thought or behavior has a positive function at some level or in some other context.

Choice is better than no choice. An idea from cybernetics that holds the most flexible element in a system will have the most influence or choice in that system.

Technology

Psychologists, Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich claim that NLP fosters a 'quick-fix' attitude. They argue that while some proponents of NLP purport it's based on disciplines such as cybernetics, linguistics, communication theory, others claim it's a "heavily pragmatic" — what's useful for a person to believe might differ wildly from what is actually true — and not based on theory at all. Singer quotes that common attitude of "pretend it works, try it, and notice the results you get. If you don't get the result you want, try something else"
Peter Labouchere states that "NLP has a very pragmatic, applied focus on what is helpful, what works and how to replicate it (Bandler & Grinder, 1990). While NLP draws on and shares common ground with ‘mainstream’ cognitive psychology, it has, from its inception, continued to develop, refine, and apply its own unique range of concepts, models and techniques."
Christoper Partridge states that "NLP may be best thought of as a system of psychology concerned with the self development of the human being" and "It is concerned with the function of belief rather than its nature. It isn't concerned whether a belief is true or not, but whether it's empowering or disempowering. NLP's focus on subjective experience and its view that we can't comprehend objective reality means that it fits well as an example of postmodern thought." Similarly, Stephen J. Hunt states that NLP "is a technique rather than an organized religion and is used by several different human potential movements". David V. Barrett (2001) also describes NLP as a technique or series of techniques, or a process. He states that that "the balance comes down against it being labeled as a religion".

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