Understanding logical levels, what they are, how they work, and finding your way around the logical levels of a problem, system or ecology with accuracy and ease is a very important part of sorting information in such a way that it becomes USEFUL.

This article contains an introduction to the concept of logical levels as it is used in NLP, using the example of The Genius Symbols, and a logical levels diagram.

Alright, so it's called NLP - Neuro Linguistic Programming. What that means is that you can program your neurology with language, the language being the software for the neurology, and the neurology being the hardware that runs the software.

And here comes Bill Gates with a fabulous quote that really does sum up all of NLP in a nutshell.

What is the difference between a poem and a hypnotic induction? I don't think there is one. Both should take charge of the readers/listeners/subjects internal representations and take them wherever the poet or hypnotist wants to take them. Here is an example of a relaxation induction, rendered as a hypnotic poem, and suitably entitled, "Relax!"

The Map Is Not The Territory ... in this much quoted NLP basic statement lies not just a world of possibilities, but as many worlds of possibilities and potential as there are people who are making maps of the territory.

Here is a NLP diagram illustrating the basic principle of map and territory (also known as the "NLP Head"), internal representations, intrapersonal reality and how it comes to be that if we change someone's internal representations, we change their world.

One - if not actually, THE! - master key to understanding how communication works and how we can use language, state, touch, movement and energy to "influence" what a person thinks and how they feel is to really understand what internal representations are and how they work.

In fact, the contribution Count Alfred Korzybski made when he wrote Science & Sanity and for the first time in human recorded history, laid out how reality, internal representations and language hang together in a "geared mechanism" can simply NOT be underestimated.

NLP language plus a little EmoTrance energy work make for an interesting combination. Here is an article from 2008 on taking apart a sentence about depression, and doing a bit of neuro linguistic programming with it, looking at the presuppositions, and FEELING the energy effects. Cool stuff!

That's an interesting question. The first answer I have to that is that phonological ambiguities are fun and they always make me chuckle inside. Which is not something that one might easily say about a lot of other NLP patterns.

So I guess I better explain what a phonological ambiguity is for the newbies and then we can go on to wonder what they're good for, apart from keeping Silvia amused.

Here is an example of a simple NLP story which is of course also a metaphor, and an NLP training story about timeline orientation - in time vs through time. With a touch of conversational NLP and hypnosis changework. See if you can track all the patterns in the story, and in the way this NLP story is told. Good luck!

Once in a while, I have a little outburst with my NLP hat on. I do love it when that happens! NLP is SUCH fun, and simple things like the NLP reframe can be taken to SUCH extremes - and then it's even more fun. Now, to business. There is something more scary than public speaking. And that's ... singing in public!

Apart from basic NLP reframing, there are another happy dozen NLP patterns employed in this short sequence. See if you can spot them all - and if not, just lay back and enjoy!

How do you build new NLP patterns?

The simple answer is by modeling a strategy of some kind, and create a basic NLP model. Then you test it, refine it, write it up in a step-by-step fashion and so the model becomes a pattern.

Many people think that the first step to NLP modeling is ...

NLP Modeling is one thing - where you take a strategy that works in a particular context and you duplicate the strategy so that when you run it, you get the same beneficial outcomes as the original upon whom the model was based. A simple example of straight NLP modelling can be found here.

However, NLP modeling becomes much more fun and much more multi-dimensional when we extract a pattern and map it across to a completely different situation, environment or modality.

Here is an example of mapping across a strategy from bug fixing a piece of software to bug fixing your mind!

This question arrived just now: What are the limitations of NLP?

I shall have a go in good faith to discuss "the limitations of NLP".

This morning, I got a contact form which went something like this.

Help! My boyfriend attended an NLP seminar recently and ever since then, he's become creepy and I don't know if I like him anymore.

What can I do???

I've just written a review for the Harry Potter movie Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince.

My biggest complaint is that the colours are dark and dingy, and there isn't enough LIGHT in this movie - practically as well as metaphorically.

Every NLP practitioner KNOWS from day 1 of their NLP training that ...

People often ask me what the "most powerful NLP language pattern" is.

The other day I really thought, "Perhaps it's not the language we use, but the language we choose not to use!" and ended up with thought - could it be true that THE most powerful NLP language pattern is actually, SILENCE?"

"Physiology Is The Royal Road Into State" - that's a beloved NLPers saying and what it means, if you don't know, is that you can create state (how you feel/think/experience) by putting your physiology aka your body into certain positions.

Want to have some real good NLP fun with a neat state and physiology game ...?

Something I've noticed a lot on this year's The Apprentice TV Show was and is that the candidates are constantly being hoisted by their own petards - or in other words, their own words are being used as the most devastating weapons against them. The way they are describing themselves is literally delivering the ammunition into the hands of those who want to shoot them down - and the way to avoid that is one of the most basic of all NLP 101s.

People are always asking me what they can do to be a better NLP style hypnotist, which includes how to do better self hypnosis as well as conversational hypnosis, and what is known as covert hypnosis. Here are my top ten tips how to be a better NLP hypnotist.

When you tell people to "practice NLP" or anything, for that matter (and I tell people this often!), I wonder what internal representations they are making, or what they think I mean by "practice".

What do you think that word means?

Learning Presuppositions: What's Behind The Words? One of the most powerful and important exercises in NLP language is to learn to understand and notice the presuppositions BEHIND the mask of the words. Here is an easy exercise to learn about NLP style presuppositions.

The truly amazing thing about the utilization processes is that each time I employed them, not only did it RESCUE the dire situation and prevent a long term disaster - but in the contrary, the END RESULT was better than if the disaster had never occurred in the first place!

This is a really interesting and effective use of the NLP concept of "persuading by pre-supposition" and makes article writing into a much more fascinating challenge again, especially with a new produce or what would usually considered to be a "niche" product.