A Guide to Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy and Counselling
Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy and Counselling Association
NLPtCA is a “not-for-profit” company dedicated to developing and promoting the use of NLPt in therapeutic and counselling settings.
NLPtCA is an accrediting organisational member of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) which sets a national standard in approach for psychotherapy and counselling. As a member, it provides the only pathway to professional registration as a Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapist.
NLPtCA exists to:
- Develop and maintain standards for the practice of Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy and Counselling interests.
- Monitor the activities and further the interests of its members.
- Offers guidance and development for NLP Practitioners, NLP Master Practitioners, NLPt Psychotherapists and Psychotherapeutic counsellors or those considering and beginning a career as a therapist.
- To further the use of techniques, training and practice of NLPt.
- Represent the interests of NLPtCA to other professional and regulatory authorities involved in psychotherapy and counselling.
- Promote Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy and Counselling to the wider public.
Members
All practising NLPtCA members who are listed on the website have agreed to abide by the Code of Ethics and Complaints Procedure of the NLPtCA.
All practising members have received a minimum of 240 hours of recognised face to face training in NLP and many have received additional Clinical Practice Training which is detailed on their online profiles.
They also receive regular supervision and have agreed to maintain malpractice and liability insurance.
Accredited Members are members who are registered with the UKCP having met the accrediting criteria (equivalent to a Masters Degree).
What is Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy and
Counselling?
Psychotherapy and Counselling are ways to understand why and how we think, feel and behave the way we do.
The purpose is to use this understanding to improve the quality of our lives by overcoming problems and make changes that seek to achieve our goals and dreams.
Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy (NPLt) developed from Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLPt is broad based and draws on many areas of Psychology and psychotherapy.
At its foundation, is the premise that we construct our own model of reality (a personalised map of the world) based on our experiences and how we represent them internally. Each person uses their own map to navigate themselves through life.
The models that are used can promote changes that enhance fulfilment and success, or at times can be limiting and restrictive.
NLPt explores the thinking patterns, beliefs, values and experiences behind problems or goals. This enables people to make relevant adjustments to reorganise their inner world accordingly, which reduces limiting beliefs and decisions, overcomes stuck emotional and behavioural states and generates resources, by extending a person’s existing skill base.
This gives a person a sense of having more control and therefore, a greater ability to create the life they desire. This process is called ‘modelling’ and is effective in a wide range of situations and applications.
What happens in the therapy?
The Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapist or Psychotherapeutic Counsellor will help you to identify and clarify your chosen outcome. A shared journey then begins that seeks to achieve the desired goal by drawing upon existing inner resources and extending these skills by generating new ones.
This can involve experimenting with changing beliefs that limit success, identifying new beliefs and/or gaining insights into patterns of thinking or behaviour, which helps to increase choices about how to think and proactively respond in a given situation.
During the process of a Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy consultation, the client is in charge from initiating to concluding the therapy. Each session, and the overarching therapeutic direction is determined by the outcomes set by the person presenting for therapy.
Often, there is an overall desired outcome that forms the focus of therapy, and individual outcomes for each session. As these goals can shift during the process of therapy, nothing is assumed until the start of each session to access how the outcome may have evolved.
Our psychotherapists act like explorers, not knowing how each session is going to emerge. A central core belief in NLPt is that each person already has the answers and solutions available within them and that people are by nature, resourceful. Our job as a therapist is to reveal these resources, and collaboratively put them to use to achieve the desired goal/outcome.
“…the client is in charge – from initiating to
concluding the therapy…”
“A Practical approach to self exploration”
Our therapeutic skills are rooted in our ability to enable the client to discover the inner structure that is generating the presenting problem and assisting them to restructure their inner model of the world to serve them better. Our ability to work incisively with language means that our therapists can quickly get to the source of the problem, without dwelling too much on peripheral history.
Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapists pay close attention to the words used, body language and behaviour that will support you to understand yourself and make changes that support you in your life now and in the future.
Our highly interactive approach aligns us with the Brief Therapy movement, but not at the expense of rigour. Depending on the presenting issue and more significantly, the desired outcome, the therapy can be
- Short term at 10 hours.
- Medium term at 10-20 hours.
- Long term at 20 plus hours.
The therapy may be structured or flexible depending on the individual requirements of each person.
Many of our therapists are also trained in other therapeutic approaches – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Transactional Analysis, Solution Focused Therapy, Hypnotherapy etc.
It is the issues a person presents for therapy that determines how the unique therapeutic package is designed, a tailor made system of therapy, which often integrates various therapeutic approaches where necessary, to increase therapeutic results.