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Keywords:
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
Phobia
Anxiety
Visual
Kinaesthetic
Dissociation
Treatment
Phobias are a prevalent and often debilitating mental health problem all over the world. This article aims
to explore what is known about the use of Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) as a treatment for this
condition. Whilst there is abundant experiential evidence from NLP practitioners attesting to the efcacy
of this method as a treatment for phobias, experimental research in this area is somewhat limited. This
paper reviews evidence available in literature produced in the UK and US and reveals that NLP is
a successful treatment for phobias as well as being particularly efcient due to the relatively brief time
period it takes to effect an improvement.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) arose in America in the
1970s, from the collaboration of John Grinder and Richard Bandler.14
It originated when Bandler, a student of Psychology at the University
of California, Santa Cruz, transcribed recorded psychotherapy
sessions given by the Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls. Bandler discovered
specic word and sentence structures used by Perls which seemed to
maximise the efcacy of positive suggestions given to patients. He
described his observations to John Grinder, an assistant professor of
linguistics and the two went onto further examine the work of Fritz
Perls. They also analysed the work of Virginia Satir, a hugely
successful family therapist who consistently resolved family relationships which other therapists found impossible, and Milton
Erickson, a globally renowned hypnotherapist. Bandler and Grinder
intended to identify the patterns utilised by these three exceptionally successful therapists in order to create models and techniques
that could be taught so that other individuals could achieve similar
success. The ndings were described in their rst publication, The
Structure of Magic in 1975.
From these beginnings, NLP developed as a method of achieving
personal excellence as well as a study of the ways of thinking and
communication utilised by the most successful people. The title
Neuro-Linguistic Programming has a threefold meaning. The term
neurological denotes that all behaviour derives from the neurological processing of information provided by the ve senses. The
linguistic part of the title refers to the fact that language is fundamental to the organization of thoughts and communication. The
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In order to make the above mentioned process of dissociation more complete, some practitioners also include
a further component.18 After proceeding through the stages
of the phobia cure upto the point just before future pacing,
the client is asked to imagine the end point of the movie
again, in full colour, and then to imagine going through the
movie backwards at a fast pace with all actions and speech
in reverse, and draining the colour out until they have
reached the beginning of the movie, just before the phobic
reaction started, to a point when they felt safe. The purpose
of this is to obscure the submodalities and remove any final
vestiges of the phobic reaction. This stage can be repeated
a number of times, until the memory is entirely neutralised.
Walker describes the successful use of this method to treat
a patient with a long standing phobia of spiders. This
patient, despite her fear of spiders, had in the past fearlessly
handled snakes and crocodiles, and memories of this
occasion were used as a safety anchor. Following application of the V/KD phobia cure, the patient was able to
approach and handle spiders without any adverse reaction.
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sensations present at that time to be re-experienced simultaneously (Halborn and Smith, as cited in Ref. 18). The NLP phobia
cure allows dissociation of the two modalities and as such previously associated physical sensations also disappear. These cases
indicate that there are more applications for the NLP phobia cure
which should be further examined.
7. Reframing phobias
As well as the popular V/KD phobia cure, there are other alternative ways of altering the fear response using NLP. Reframing has
also been cited as a useful method of dealing with fear. Bodenhamer and Hall in their training manual Mastering Your Fears:
A NLP/Neuro-Semantics Approach to Mastering Fear and Anxiety,
focus on adapting the meaning of the fear response rather than
attempting to eliminate it.5 The rationale behind this method is
that fear is a message which is often useful and appropriate.
According to the authors, feeling fearful of a specic object, experience or environmental trigger has a certain informational value
and is thus useful as feedback about the external environment.
However certain individuals place too much emphasis on their
response to this emotion which can result in the development of
a phobia.
Many such individuals are resistant to the traditional NLP V/KD
phobia cure as it is often not a fear of a direct external trigger but
a fear of the meaning of a situation or idea. One such example is the
use of this method to cure a woman with a fear of ying, one of the
case studies in the article Multiple Patterns for Mastering Fears
(2000) Bodenhamer describes case studies where reframing was
used to master the fear response in a number of individuals with
various phobias. Bodenhamer rst elicits details about the response
itself and triggers for it. He then explores the exceptions and
representational coding of the frame.
In this case the client was associating back to an incident when
she encountered turbulence on a ight each time she thought about
ying, which would lead to phobic thoughts of death and the plane
falling etc. This type of fear lends itself to reframing with a resource
that creates a higher level construction that allows the individual
with such a fear to come to terms with it by accepting, appreciating
or owning the fear as appropriate. Bodenhamer and Hall propose
that if the discomfort associated with the fear response is eliminated then a more realistic assessment of the signicance of the
fear can be made and thus the emotion can be utilised more
appropriately. This method may be a promising new avenue in the
use of NLP for treatment of phobias in individuals resistant to the
V/KD phobia cure.
8. Resistance
It appears that reframing is a useful tool for curing phobias with
NLP, particularly as the V/KD phobia cure is not always successful
due to resistance encountered in some clients.5 Another strategy
for managing resistance is The Milton Model.4 This NLP technique
based on the work of Milton Erikson, the eminent hypnotherapist,
is rooted in the idea of resistance. It states that the conscious mind
can be resistant to change or sceptical about the value of therapies
such as NLP and hypnosis. In order to manage this, the Milton
model attempts to reach the unconscious mind, using metaphors
and contradictions in order to utilise client resistance in a positive
manner. Indeed, this method actively encourages patients to
express resistance in order to allow the opportunity to modify it
with the idea that if even one subsequent suggestion made by the
therapist is accepted, that further suggestions will be more willingly accepted thereafter.
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where an underlying fear is the cause of the pain and as such this
area of therapy also merits further investigation.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor Ursula James.
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