NLP in Therapy

NLP has traditionally mostly been talked about as a therapeutic discipline. It can however be used in all areas of life. There is too much to cover in one article, so let’s have a brief overview of how you might use NLP in therapy or life coaching.

Some ways to use NLP in Therapy.

• Whenever you are doing any kind of intervention, rapport is going to be very important. Getting into a rapport with the client will allow you to work with all sorts of clients, even those who may not even want to be meeting with you in the first place. Rapport will solve a lot of problems.

• Of course it is also very important to specify outcomes for the therapy. You need to understand what it is that the client wants t achieve and work towards.

• The more that you know about the client’s presenting problem and their history, the better your intervention can be. We teach doing a detailed personal history during the Time Line Therapy(TM) Master Practitioner Training. This will help you to get enough important history about your client so that you can utilize their past associations and history to assist them in making the kind of changes they want to make.

• You can use the clients predicates to help them understand what you are saying in the way that they need to hear it. You can recognize their lead representational system which is what they do with our eyes when they are accessing information. You can recognize their preferred representational system which is how they represent their internal world externally. This will be indicated by the predicates and their physiology, which will give a lot of information.

• Swish Patterns are very useful with your clients when using NLP in therapy. You can do all sorts of submodality work with your clients. Swish patterns can be used in e.g. nail biting and other behaviors that the client wants to change. Swish patterns can be used for minor addictions. For major addictions of course we would use other interventions. Swish patterns can also be used for minor negative states. Swish pattern is very valuable and can be done in a very short period of time.

The NLP like to dislike script is useful to help somebody change how they feel about something. Example help them to like eating vegetables that they don’t like at the moment. You can also do dislike to like. That can be when you get a client who eats something regularly that they wish to stop.

• The conscious use of language is a great asset, regardless of whether you use NLP in therapy, business or education. The ability to use language purposefully. Knowing when to chunk up and to chunk down to communicate the right amount of information is useful.

• Presuppositions and the ability to presuppose certain things in your language, which when the client accepts those ideas, will help them in making changes at the unconscious level without even thinking about it. The conscious use of language is something we use a lot during the NLP courses.

• Metaphors are always useful. You can tell stories about other clients who had similar problems where those problems have disappeared. Give them suggestions about how those clients came to have some therapy and how surprised they were when their problems changed and disappeared. Metaphors work really well with children.

We will share with you how to tell metaphors at the NLP Master Practitioner training as well as how to do a complete personal breakthrough session with your clients.

• Anchoring is really useful too, example to create a resource anchor for the client to be able to control their state. Chaining anchors is probably one of the best ways to approach a client who suffers from procrastination. Collapse anchors are useful where you have a minor state that you would like to get rid of.

• Strategies are very useful. In couple counselling I think knowing each other’s love strategies can really help save relationships. Strategies in general can be used in many ways, including people who have a shopping problem. What about people who buy too much or people with a problem with making decisions? You can assist the client by making changes in their strategies to give them more choices and ways to behave.

• Reframing is useful in a NLP therapeutic context. Sometimes clients come to you and although they will be congruent about seeing you, they may have in-congruence at the unconscious level. They may need some reframing to allow them to make a shift that they would like to make and have it be aligned at the unconscious level.

• Parts integration is great as a therapeutic, business and educational intervention. Parts integration is useful because it reduces the in-congruence at the unconscious level. The more congruent your client becomes, the better off they are. In-congruence creates a lot of internal conflict and takes a lot of energy.

• Time Line Therapy® is definitely the way to let go negative emotions and limiting decisions. Many clients have problems with negative emotions or limiting decisions which you can help them get rid of using Time Line Therapy®. You can use the Phobia Model with clients to help them get rid of their phobias. This can have a major impact on clients and you can help them to be free from these negative emotions.

So that is a quick overview of how you can use NLP in therapy. For more information, simply contact us today. We would love to help you live the full life you deserve. Free from what may be holding you back.

Our success is your success.