Supporters of Neuro-Linguistic Programming claim that NLP hypnotherapy can have a positive impact on every area of an individual's life, from career development to improving the way individuals respond to each other within families and personal relationships. Defined by Richard Bandler, one of the early pioneers, as "The ability to master your own states by running your own brain," NLP hypnotherapy aims to help people learn how to cope with challenging situations more effectively.
When NLP hypnotherapy methods are applied to the workplace, the goal is to allow individuals to be more flexible within a constantly changing business environment. Leadership skills are improved through acquiring a deeper understanding of the emotional make-up of the individuals within a team and how they interact. As a result, a manager should be able to motive staff members more effectively while, at the same time, becoming personally less liable to manipulation.
In personal relationships people can become locked into a cycle of argument and mutual recrimination without realising it. This leaves them feeling used or neglected, and sows the seeds of future quarrels. Conventional relationship counselling may simply go back over the same ground without achieving anything positive if it doesn't explore ways of breaking that pattern. When the emphasis is placed on re-thinking behaviour that has become a habit, supporters of this form of therapy believe that real change is possible.
It has also been used in many other ways: by sportsmen and women wanting to reach their personal best, by people suffering from anxiety, stress and phobias, and others, experiencing less severe problems, but who feel the need to build confidence or find new ways to express their own needs and desires. With the central focus on uncovering an individual's self knowledge and talents, this approach is often seen as offering a quicker and less intrusive way of making radical life changes than traditional forms of psychotherapy and counselling.
