Richard Bandler’s 8 presuppositions of NLP

I’m only weeks away from being a certified NLP Practitioner, I will be officially recognized as someone who is capable of practicing Neuro-Linguistic Programming. There’s still lots to learn and to write about of course, and I plan on continuing my education to also get certified as a Master Practitioner.

In the past months I have taken up a battle with the presuppositions of NLP. They define a foundation of beliefs and attitudes that are necessary to really get the value out of NLP. And foundations are very important, so I took them up for a fight to see whether I choose to belief them.

They came out pretty much standing (and me too by the way). Here’s an overview of the posts and the presuppositions:

1. The ability to change the process by which we experience reality is more often valuable than changing the content of our experience of reality.
2. The meaning of the communication is the response you get.
3. All distinctions human beings are able to make concerning our environment and our behavior can be usefully represented through the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory senses.
4. The resources individuals need in order to effect a change are already within them.
5. The map is not the territory.
6. The positive worth of the individual is held constant, while the value and appropriateness of internal and/or external behavior is questioned.
7. There is a positive intention motivating every behavior, and a context in which every behavior has value.
8. Feedback vs. Failure - All results and behaviors are achievements, whether they are desired outcomes for a given task/context, or not.

There’s so much more to write about…there’s definitely more to come.