Re: NLP or CBT
Hi
Sorry, I’m a bit late in seeing this (still drooling from seeing Derren Brown’s new show ‘Svengali’ !!).
To answer your original question, CBT is all about changing the way that you feel by changing the way that you think. We all have beliefs about ourselves, other people and situations; sometimes these beliefs are helpful and based on real evidence and/or experience, but sometimes they’re not helpful and are quite often the result of assumptions or over generalisations.
To give a very basic example, someone who is not very confident in social situations may feel very self conscious and anxious when at parties, meetings or public speaking. After looking at all the thoughts that go through their mind when in this sort of situation, the one thought or belief that underpins all the rest (also known as the ‘hot thought’ in CBT lingo) might be something like “they’ll think I’m stupid”. Once this thought has been identified, it can then be examined in more detail to see whether there is any actual evidence that supports it (e.g. what has happened before in this sort of situation, has anyone actually said anything that supports it, etc). Most of the time, these hot thoughts are the result of assumptions rather than anything that someone has actually said, done or experienced. It’s then a question of finding an alternative, more helpful way of viewing the situation and replacing the ‘hot thought’ with an alternative, more helpful one. There are many other techniques that are used in CBT and this is just one example.
NLP is more about looking at the way that we receive information, process it and then form thoughts, beliefs and behaviours which then ultimately affect our feelings. It was developed in the 1970s and has its roots in hypnotherapy and also various forms of therapy (including family therapy and gestalt therapy – there are loads of articles on Wikipedia and other websites that go into this in more detail). The theories, ideas and techniques that NLP originally grew from, were mostly effective and so the creators of NLP wanted to form a system that would combine all of these ideas and techniques into something that could be used to help people with a variety of problems or issues.
Unfortunately, although some of the ideas behind NLP are quite sound when used appropriately and perhaps in conjunction with other techniques, over the years since it was developed, it has become a mass-market thing with literally hundreds of courses popping up all over the place. These courses allow people to call themselves NLP Practitioners – sometimes after only a couple of days at a seminar, or even just an internet course with no assessment or supervision. One of the problems with this is that it can be very prescriptive and encourages certain techniques to be used in certain situations rather than looking at the bigger picture and the person as an individual. Some of the techniques (such as the ‘Fast Phobia Cure’ which letsconnect mentioned) really should only be used by people who are experienced enough to deal with any issues or reactions that may happen as a result of it (in other words, not someone who has been on a one-week ‘fast track’ course).
Many hypnotherapists (including myself) also have an NLP Practitioner qualification, partly because it’s a sort of natural progression (seeing as NLP has some of it’s roots in hypnotherapy), partly because it expands the range of skills we have and also, as letsconnect said, it looks impressive on your website and lets you put even more letters after your name.
Having said of all that, it does depend on the person I’m seeing and their fear or phobia, but generally I tend to stay away from NLP for dealing with phobias and instead look at more practical solutions such as hypnosis combined with desensitisation (in other words, gradually facing your fears in manageable steps) as well a combination of other techniques. Depending on the person and their progress, I do sometimes use an NLP technique called ‘Anchoring’ to help them produce a more confident and relaxed feeling when in the phobia situation, but again this isn’t always appropriate for everyone and so depends on the individual.
If you like your dentist, but don’t feel able to trust him and you wish that he was more understanding, perhaps it would help both you and him if you were able to talk about what it is that worries you. From my own experience, as a ‘dental phobe’, even the nicest dentist in the world (they do exist – honest!) can only guess at what might help, unless you’re able to tell them. If you don’t feel able to say anything or can’t bring it up in conversation, then writing it all out beforehand and then just handing it over at your appointment (and maybe explaining in your letter that you feel too nervous or tongue-tied to talk about it), can be a great way to start the ball rolling. I did this – although I’d been seeing the dentist for a couple of years and he was really nice anyway, I never managed to tell him what I was scared of or what might help. Then at one appointment, when I had to have a filling, after injecting the local anaesthetic, he was making such an effort to provide reassurance about what he was going to do, I felt able to hand over the letter that I had in my handbag ‘just in case’. After handing it over (I didn’t tell him what it was), I then went back to the waiting room to wait for it to go numb, whilst he saw another patient. When I went back in to have the filling, things were totally different – it was the best thing I ever did.