Neuro-Linguistic Programming

What It Is

[WLB: this needs work -- figure out framing of techniques/models/modeling vs worldview/internalized skills vs communication model] NLP is not a body of knowledge. It's a methodology -- specifically, the methodology of modeling. That's what makes it the foundation underneath everything else I work with.

The name comes from the three primary channels through which human experience flows: neurology (how we process information through our senses), language (how we represent it symbolically), and behavior patterns (how the body organizes to get results). NLP studies the connections between these three -- hence the name -- and asks: what makes someone outstanding at something, and how can we make that outstanding ability transferrable?

It's Not About Techniques

The techniques are the most common, and in many ways least interesting, aspect that people refer to when they say "NLP." The Six Step Reframe, the Fast Phobia Fix -- these are real, concrete processes with specific goals. But they're the surface output of something much deeper.

The deeper contribution is the modeling approach itself: finding people who are exceptional at making change happen (in themselves or in others), studying what they do, and capturing the underlying processes into something that other people can learn.

Two Kinds of Modeling

There's unconscious modeling -- the way we all learn naturally by watching and absorbing -- and conscious modeling, which is what makes expertise transferable at scale. NLP was born from intensive unconscious modeling of outstanding therapists in the 1970s. It matured into conscious modeling frameworks like GeniusMapping.

For the full story, see the anchor article on NLP where I cover the modeling tradition, NLP-derived models that became central to my practice, and where the tradition came from.

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This is a living entry point. The anchor article is the deep dive -- techniques, history, models, and my pragmatic application.