Introduction to the Second Edition
Sets a context and maps out the main ideas of NLP: how we get from our present reality to where we want to go, outcomes, communication, how to gain rapport, and how we build our unique ways of understanding the world.
What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming?
Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning
Present State and Desired State
Deals with how we use our senses internally to think, how language relates to thought, and how you can tell the way in which other people are thinking.
Preferred Representational Systems
Language and Representational Systems
Synesthesias, Overlap, and Translation
Deals with our states of mind, how they are evoked, and how we can use these stimuli or anchors to gain access to our resourceful states of mind at will.
Physiological States and Emotional Freedom
This is about thinking in terms of systems rather than simple cause and effect. It contains some of Robert Dilts' recent work, how environment, behavior, capability, beliefs and identity fit together.
Robert Dilts' Unified Field of NLP
Describes how language sets limits on our experience and how we can go beyond those limits. The Meta Model patterns are a way of asking key questions to clarify what people say.
Making Sense of Words—The Meta Model
Saying it all—The Deep Structure
Modal Operators of Possibility
How to use language in artfully vague ways that accord with other people's experience and allows them access to their unconscious resources—called the Milton Model after the world famous hypnotherapist, Milton Erickson. There is a section on metaphor, another on changing the meaning of experience, and a third on how we perceive time subjectively.
Distraction and Utilization of the Conscious Mind
Left and Right Brain Hemispheres
Accessing the Unconscious and Resources
Reframing and the Transformation of Meaning
Explores more NLP patterns, including conflict, alignment, values and flexibility in the context of business. How to make meetings run more effectively and how to reach agreement in difficult situations.
Identifying your Congruence Signal
Identifying your Incongruence Signal
Chutes and Ladders—Stepping Up and Stepping Down
Focuses on NLP in therapy and personal change, and describes three classic NLP techniques: the swish, the phobia cure, and internal conflict resolution.
This chapter is about our thinking strategies. There are some practical examples, including the famous NLP spelling strategy. There is a strategy for musical memory, and a creative strategy modelled on Walt Disney.
NLP, Modeling, and Accelerated Learning
This is a brief, speculative exploration of how NLP reflects change in our culture; how the process of change in the internal world of our thoughts reflects the increasing rate of change in the external world.
REFERENCE SECTION
A source of practical information and advice on choosing NLP books and courses.