NLP is a school of thought, that addresses the many levels involved in being human and having the human experience. NLP is a
multi-dimensional process that involves the development of behavioral
competence and flexibility, and it also involves strategic thinking and an
understanding of the mental and cognitive processes behind behavior.
NLP provides methods, tools and skills for the development of states of individual excellence. Connecting each individual with their own inner state of excellence. Taching you how to reproduce that state whenever needed.
NLP also establishes a system of empowering
beliefs and presuppositions about what human beings are, what
communication is and what the process of change is all about. At
another level, NLP is about self-discovery, exploring your own identity and
your own personal mission.
NLP can also provide a framework for understanding and relating to
the 'spiritual' part of the human experience that reaches beyond us as
individuals to our family, community and global systems.
NLP is about reestablishing a personal level of competence, excellence and belief in oneself while using the stored wisdom and vision that lies within each of us. It was
specifically created in order to provide a way to do incredible things
by creating new ways of understanding how verbal and non-verbal
communication affect the human brain. NLP represents us all with the
opportunity to communicate better with ourselves and others, as well as
giving us a way to gain more control over what we have considered to be
automatic functions of our own neurology.
NLP is not a diagnostic tool.
As a linguist, John Grinder distinguished himself in the area of syntax, working within Noam Chomsky's theories of transformational grammar. After studying with cognitive science founder George Miller at Rockefeller University,John Grinder was selected as a professor of linguistics at the newly founded University of California campus at Santa Cruz. His works in the area of linguistics include Guide to Transformational Grammar (co-authored with Suzette Elgin, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973) and On Deletion Phenomena in English (Mouton & Co., 1972) and numerous articles.
At UC Santa Cruz JohnGrinder met Richard Bandler, who was a student
of psychology. Richard Bandler began studying psychotherapy and invited John Grinder
to participate in his therapy groups. John Grinder became fascinated with
the linguistic patterns used by effective therapists, and in 1974
teamed up with Richard Bandler to make a model, drawing from the theory of
transformational grammar, of the language patterns used by Gestalt
Therapy founder Fritz Perls, family therapist Virginia Satir and
Hypnotherapist Milton H. Erickson. Over the next three years John Grinder
and Richard Bandler continued to model the various cognitive behavioral
patterns of these therapists, which they published in their books The Structure of Magic Volumes I & II (1975, 1976), Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, Volumes I & II (1975, 1977) and Changing With Families (1976). These books became the foundation of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.