What is the NLP Model of Communication?

The NLP Model of Communication is based on Cognitive Psychology and was developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. The NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming Model explains how you process information that comes in from the world around you.

The NLP Model starts with the following: you experience an external event through your senses and these senses are visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), kinesthetic (feeling), olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste).

After you experience the event through the senses, the event is filtered by your meta-programs, values, beliefs, decisions and memories and these filters delete, generalise and distort the information, so that the information can be managed in “manageable” chunks through your mind/nervous system. In reality you are bombarded with 2 million bits of information per second and if not for this filtering process you would not be able to cope with all the information coming your way.

You may wonder, 2 million bits of information per second? Yes. While you are reading this Blog there is so much information coming into your senses including the sound and feeling of your heart beating, your breathing, the feel of your clothes on your skin, your posture in the chair, the sounds of the TV, radio or family in another room, your eyes blinking and it goes on, and on and on. Through this filtering it enables you to make sense of the world, however, a lot of information as mentioned is deleted, distorted and generalised.

The filters are:  Meta-programs are filters in the way you perceive the world around you. Values are how you decide whether your actions or behaviour is good or bad. Beliefs are convictions that certain things are true. Decisions are the choices you made in the past and memories are your recollections of past experiences and events that have happened in your life.

After the information has been filtered through the meta-programs etc, and it has been deleted, distorted and generalised you make an internal representation (IR) of that event or situation. In turn, that IR becomes your state and creates the behaviour in response to that event.

Think about it for a moment, each and every day you are filtering information so that you can make sense of the world. What information do you think you may have deleted, distorted or generalised when communicating?

The purpose of the NLP Communication Model is to understand how you and others communicate and make sense of the world and your surroundings. Remember: you are unique and you always do your best in any given moment with all the resources that you had available at that time.