How does the therapy work?

A properly trained NLP therapist or a Hypnotherapist trained in NLP will discuss your particular problem or issue and help identify the triggers that send you into the trance. Although this may in itself be of great help, this in itself is often not enough. We often try to adopt tactics to solve the problem consciously with what we know but the answer doesn’t lie in what we know, or there wouldn’t be a problem. It lies in what we don’t know.

An NLP therapist can assist you in finding the resources within, or help create the resources that help you solve the problem. It’s often a matter of removing the mental blocks that allow us to utilise our own resources. So the basis of this type of modern therapy works on the understanding that we all have the answers to our problems, however hard or difficult they may appear to be.

Negative trance states can be dangerous to our health and can often be so damaging that they literally dictate our lives. Imagine the effects on our bodies of having continual periods of stress. Many clients cannot believe the changes to their lives that are experienced from a few, painless sessions.

The Neurological Levels

Environment

This is the place you are in and the people you are with. We may find that we excel only in certain circumstances or with certain people. Think of the number of times you have heard people give the environment credit for their achievements. “I was just in the right place at the right time”

Behaviour

This is quite simply ‘what you do’.

Capabilities

These are defined as consistent habitual actions. Your actions blend into a skill at this level.

Beliefs

Beliefs are principles that guide our actions. Quite often in life people mistake their beliefs for fact. Beliefs give meaning to what we do and hence its often hard to change them. They give people stability to our unpredicatable world. Anyone who excels in something will have beliefs that help them to do so. At the very least their belief will be that what they are trying to achieve is possible. Conversely, the things that stop us succeeding are often beliefs that convince us that something is not possible. When you believe this, it becomes a reality. Take for example Roger Bannister’s breaking of the four minute mile. Until he did so, people thought this was impossible but as soon as he had achieved it, the challengers came relatively quickly. Less than two months later, John Landy ran the same distance quicker. Bannister had shattered the belief and paved the way for others.

Beliefs often cause our own downfall as they can often bring with them a climate of suspicion and hesitation.

Values

These are the things we care about and the things that are important to us. These are the things we pursue in life – health, wealth, happiness and love. They are why we do what we do! Quite often the meaning of things we pursue have different meanings for each of us, therefore creating differences of opinion. Two people’s definition of happiness may be completely different.

Beliefs unlock the inherent skills within us and values give them energy.

Beliefs + Values = Motivation

These can be seen as ‘one level’ or part of a wider system that affects everything we do in life.In total there are six levels. The others are as follows:

Identity

This is your sense of self, your core beliefs and values that together determine your life’s mission. It is constructed throughout our life and consequently due to its complex make up, is very resilient.

Your ‘sense of being’

This is the final level and one which determines your overall connection with everyone else and everything in the world. This is the realm of religion and spirituality. This is your definiton of ‘your place in the world’.

If we take the example of riding a bike, this is how all of the above interlink to provide the overall experience.

Environment – The bike, the brakes, the seat, the size of the wheels, the pressure of the tyres. These things can all affect the way you ride the bike. Then there is the affects of the weather, the other road users…..and so it goes on.

Behaviours – This is the way you ride the bike, braking, pedalling, looking at who else is about you, avoiding obstacles.

Capabilites – These are the blending of the behaviours that allow you to ride the bike successfully.

Beliefs – This can be whether you are a good or bad rider, how easy or difficult you find cycling and even how effective a mode of transport you think it is.

Values – These will be determined by how useful you think cycling is and may be of different value for example to someone who has a car to someone who relies on a bike to get around.

Identity- You may be a professional cyclist!