Bandler’s Conception of NLP

Here is NLP co-founder Richard Bandler speaking in 1993, giving a very basic description of his conception of NLP:

You want to become competent at whatever you do. That does not mean to get phobics, who shake in their boots while their blood pressure blows through the roof, to believe, “This is not fear.” The object is to get them to stay calm and alert, and to stay in their own lane, and to drive across the bridge, which remains standing.

Ask yourself; “Can we build better?” To build those things we have to be able to suspend whatever belief system we already have. Keep it out of the way… Those things get very, very personal. We’re talking about basic beliefs regarding human capability. Here’s the only truth about that. Nobody knows.

Most NLP adherents believe that whatever actions a person takes, they have a positive intention, although they may be completely unaware of what it is.

The assumption is that this behavior makes sense because it is the best choice this person has available at the time, given their beliefs and reality filters.

This is similar to what renegade psychiatrist R.D. Laing said, which is that what we normally call symptoms of mental illness are actually very reasonable responses to the sometimes ridiculous and impossible demands that modern life and society often put onto individuals.

Feedback loops are important to NLP, which prefers not to view people as either intrinsic successes or failures, but rather sees successes or failures in communication and learning.

The difference is that these problems can be fairly easily fixed. NLP is open to experimentation, as each individual is unique, and it is not always obvious what tactics will work for a particular person.

Therefore, if something does not apparently “work,” there is no reason to feel bad about it. Something has been learned anyway, and something else can be tried next.

Many people have heard the story of Thomas Edison, most famous for inventing the modern light bulb and a number of other conveniences we take for granted. But Edison “failed” hundreds of times for every “success” he had. He didn’t dwell on what didn’t work, simply learned what he could and tried something different, until it did work.

We feel stuck because there doesn’t appear to be any other way of doing something. Therefore, the way out of being stuck is to increase your choices, to develop new alternatives.

This has relevance in systems theory, which posits that the parts of a system that will be able to best adapt to changing circumstances are the parts that will be most successful. It’s not necessarily the person that exercises the most influence, or the most brute force, but the most flexible.

An important part of NLP is becoming conscious of how we are stuck.