You can google NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) for much information and many definitions than I can give you online. It is mostly applied in business but also used in some therapies. EMDR began with NLP which has been pier reviewed in psychology because a psychologist took the time to go through a process that was acceptable in psychology. Sometimes the other techniques are often not allowed for therapists to use if they work for a company unless they have their own business.
My experience through the process of learning NLP was an unusual personal journey that is this blog.
I was in my second marriage 1982 with two young baby boys. I had been bothered about an issue with my husband that he would not keep his word. He would say he would do something but not follow through. I was fed up with this behavior. A dentist friend had gotten him to commit to going to a weekend program called ‘Insight’. We had paid ahead of time $100 for the ticket. At the last moment he was deciding not to go. Annoyed, I said, “Then I will go in your place.”
Insight was the name of an organization in the 80s that would offer weekend self discovery through different processes. I did the processes assigned with others. In those days I thought my life was fine, I was functional as I could always put one foot in front of the other no matter what, and didn’t want anyone messing with my mind so I wasn’t getting much out of it.
I had noticed a name tag next to mine every morning ‘Mary Hale-Haniff’ next to mine, ‘Mary Hallgren’. It sat in the back of my curious mind but didn’t ask. The last process they did was to have 2 circles of people. One on the outside moved to the left facing those on the inside moving to the right. You voted 1 (looking into each others eyes), 2 touching the other person’s arms while looking into their eyes, or 3 (hugging). The low vote got it as we moved from person to person. I was not a hugger so when the last person came I voted 2 and we touched each others arms and looked into each others eyes. Lightening came out of our eyes and almost knocked us off our feet. I was dazed.
They ended the program at that moment and had us all sit down, I turned to her and asked, “What happened?” “I don’t know,” she replied and then we both got up and walked out sitting outside to talk. She told me about a new program in California she head heard about and wanted to attend called NLP (we were both living in Florida) but she didn’t have the money to go. I wrote her a check for $1000 so she could go to that with the agreement that she would come back and teach me what she learned. After that we went together to all the NLP certification trainings.