How I Use NLP With My Clients

When someone comes to me with a problem, they usually have a pretty good idea of what is bothering them. They may tell me about their anxiety, anger, grief, relationship issues, low self-esteem, or something that keeps happening in their life. My job is to listen carefully, and find out what is underneath the problem.

This is where I use Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). I pay close attention to the words my clients use because our words give us clues about how we are thinking. I listen for the beliefs, assumptions, and patterns hiding inside the story they are telling me.

I am also paying attention to how they see the situation. We all see the world through our own mental filters. Our past experiences, beliefs, memories, and the meaning we have given to things can shape what we notice, and how we understand what is happening. Sometimes a person has been looking at the same problem through the same filter for so long that they cannot imagine another way to see it. That can’t see a way through.

That is where my strategic questions come in. I am very skilled at asking the right questions to help people look at something from a different angle. I am not simply giving them answers. I am helping them discover the answers that are already there.

This is where those wonderful “lightbulb moments” happen. A client may suddenly stop and say, “I never thought of it like that before!” That tells me we have made an important connection. They have just seen something that was hidden from them before.

Once you see something differently, you have more choices. You can begin to think differently, feel differently, and respond differently.

That is just the beginning. I have dozens of effective techniques that I use under the NLP umbrella.