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Originally Posted by boris  NLP does not seem to be related to hypnosis, and by the way it's actual effectiveness is seriously questioned! Yep, I had been fascinated by NLP, read few books, yet... |
On NLP And Hypnosis
Hi Boris, NLP is heavily related to hypnosis! NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) was founded by modeling 3 top therapists in the 70s, Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls & Milton Erickson, the father of modern hypnotherapy.
If you've ever read about the Milton model in NLP, those language patterns are the result of modeling the hypnotic inductions of Milton Erickson.
Of course, if you read the layman's books on NLP, they wouldn't go too in-depth into this. But go back to the classics (
Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton Erickson) or the more 'hardcore' NLP (
Beliefs) and you can definitely see it's there.
About Hypnosis
I've been an NLP practitioner for 10 years, an advanced practitioner for about 2, and a coach who's used both NLP & hypnosis on clients for nearly 2 years. I've seen hypnosis up close and personal, enough to find how amazing the unconscious mind is and to debunk many of the common myths surrounding hypnosis.
Hypnosis can be simply defined as a complete focus on a single thing, such that it excludes all else. It is
not a magical state where you go away to somewhere else for a while and someone takes control of you.
After all, when you can't find something that's right in front of you, you've just done what we call a negative or positive hallucination; you either filled in the space behind the 'missing' object so you don't see it, or you've put something in 'front' of the object. You just saw or didn't see something that was there!
The driving the car home without realizing how you did it is a common and good example of the same thing. It's akin to unconscious arm levitation when you're in deep trance, it's happening, you're not doing it consciously, so who's doing it? Your unconscious mind.
Could you snap out of it at any time? Of course. All you need to do is to focus and refuse to go into auto-mode. And this is where one of the hypnotic myths needs to get debunked:
you cannot be hypnotized against your will.
(But your Will can be a very strange thing
)
Because
your unconscious mind isn't stupid, it's prime directive is to take care of you, it's been healing cuts for you all your life and keeping your heart pumping. That's why when it's necessary, your unconscious will pull your conscious mind back to waking reality.
If the car's going to get into an accident, you pull back into the now with a adrenaline shot. If a loud noise goes off somewhere, and the hypnotist doesn't negate the feeling of threat, the tranced out person comes back to reality with a jolt.
The best metaphor for trance is watching a movie; you get so caught up in the show that you forget who and where you are, you start feeling as if you're really there and you even feel what the characters are feeling...but nothing is real! Yet, at any point, you can get yourself to stand up, answer the phone, or talk to your friend.