Unlike most other branches of psychology, neuro-linguistic programming focuses on identifying strategies that are used by successful individuals. This makes NLP somewhat similar to the positive approach that was promoted by researchers like Abraham Maslow. Rather than looking at potential sources of social deviance, NLP practitioners do their best to help other people emphasize what tactics work best to achieve certain goals.
For most of history, people communicated with a relatively small number of people. The influx of ideas we receive on a daily basis drastically increases our risk of developing certain obsessive behaviors. Social media in particular might be changing the way we look at the outside world.
NLP challenges these paradigms by making people look inside of themselves for answers to life's questions.
Development of the Field of NLP
John Grinder and Richard Bandler discovered a connection between natural neurological processes and linguistic ones as early as 1975. They discovered that behavioral patterns are largely learned through experience, which they compared to computer programming. At the time, computer science was a dynamically changing field so it made sense to compare the workings of the human mind to it. While it was difficult to explain just what NLP really is, they discovered that this scientific analogy made it much easier to explain problem behaviors to individuals who were dealing with them.
They also found that almost anyone could change their programmed patterns to achieve specific goals and eliminate phobic behavioral patterns. All patients had to do was take a simple NLP training course to help them refocus their efforts. These courses took much less time than traditional psychiatric programs did, and they showed a great deal of promise in correcting behaviors that were caused by underlying feelings of self-loathing.
While mainstream medical professionals didn't pay much attention to this kind of research at first, they soon took notice as reports began to spread of how influential the treatments were quickly becoming. That freed specialists to begin full-scale research into what kinds of conditions NLP training might be able to treat.
An Era of Scientific Progress
Artificial intelligence researchers have recently proposed that the human mind can directly interface with mechanical simulations to discover more about an individual's personality. This directly mirrors conclusions drawn by the kind of research that came around in NLP's golden era.
Subjects in these studies were often asked questions generated by a process referred to as the meta-model method. These questions help to define a client's current situation and then specify a desired state that they would like to achieve. Over time, the practitioners were able to help their clients set realistic goals and reduce the impact of hurtful miscommunication that had long made it difficult for these clients to share ideas with others.
Some studies found that clients who were encouraged to consider the consequences of each of their goals were ultimately able to set much more grounded ones over time. While some individuals were skeptical of these conclusions, it mirrors discoveries made by psychotherapists who worked with more traditional forms of cognitive behavioral therapy. In fact, a few contemporary studies are now exploring the possibility of programming AI agents to communicate with end-users who want to set more realistic goals and improve their lives.
By the early 1990s, many of the techniques that NLP specialists were promoting had made their way into other forms of therapy. One that still has yet to be incorporated, however, is the eye-accessing cue system.
Research into Eye-accessing Charts
NLP technicians have defined six directions that human vision can look in. These directions are more of a metaphysical construct than an actual one, which has so far made research into this concept relatively difficult.
Greater sample sizes and new research designs have freed scientists to take a second look at this concept. Visual and auditory recall are a fast growing field, which has made many interested in the process that some NLP aficionados have claimed some degree of mastery over. That's ensured that in spite of any difficulties, research will continue as scientists have come to terms with the fact that many of NLP's suppositions have actually turned out to be true.
