Glossary · Foundations

Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a practitioner field, originating in the 1970s, that studies how language, attention and behaviour patterns relate to subjective experience.

Also called NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming.

NLP Knowledge Base Editorial · Reviewed 5 August 2026

What the name means

NLP is the name of the field itself. In practitioner literature it is described as a way of making subjective experience more explicit: how someone represents a situation, the language they use, and the sequences of behaviour that follow.

The three parts of the name are labels of emphasis. They should not be inflated into a claim that NLP is a branch of neuroscience, linguistics, or computer science.

How the term is used

People usually meet NLP as:

a vocabulary for communication and coaching
a set of observational distinctions
named techniques taught in practitioner programmes
a modelling attitude: look at what works in practice, then describe it

This site uses NLP in that practitioner sense, and it flags claims that go beyond it.

Example

A manager says a colleague is “unmotivated”. An NLP-informed question would not stop at the label. It would ask what the colleague is doing, in which context, according to whom, and what “motivated” would look like if it were present. The conversation becomes more specific. That is NLP as a way of using language, not as a hidden switch in the brain.

See modeling, rapport, presuppositions, representational systems, states, well-formed outcomes, the Meta Model and the Milton Model. The fuller essays are What Is NLP? and History of NLP.

Limits

NLP is sometimes advertised as a scientifically proven method for instant personal change. That marketing language is not how this site uses the term. Overlap with communication skills does not, by itself, validate every model taught under the name. See Evidence and criticism.

Related terms

Modeling
In NLP, modeling is the process of studying how someone produces a useful result, then making the pattern explicit enough to practise or teach.
Rapport
In NLP, rapport is a working relationship of attention and responsiveness; it is practised through pacing, listening and calibration rather than through forced friendliness.
NLP Presuppositions
NLP presuppositions are working assumptions used in practitioner training — useful as attitudes for practice, not as proven laws of mind.
Representational Systems
In NLP, representational systems are the sensory channels — seeing, hearing, feeling and related senses — through which people are said to code experience.
Meta Model
The Meta Model is an NLP questioning pattern that challenges deletions, distortions and generalisations in speech so that a vaguer statement can be recovered as a more specific description.
Milton Model
The Milton Model is NLP’s catalogue of artfully vague language patterns, named after Milton Erickson and taught as a way of offering suggestions without over-specifying the listener’s experience.
States
In NLP, a state is a person’s current organisation of physiology, attention and feeling — the condition in which a behaviour is more or less available.
Well-Formed Outcomes
In NLP, a well-formed outcome is a desired result stated so that it can be tested — in context, in sensory evidence, and with a look at what else the change would affect.
Anchoring
In NLP, anchoring is the practitioner method of pairing a distinctive trigger with a felt state so that the trigger can later be used to recall some of that state.
Values
In NLP, values are treated as criteria — what a person treats as important when choosing — rather than as a validated list of virtues or a personality test.

Other terms in foundations

Beliefs · Modeling · NLP Presuppositions · Reframing · Representational Systems · States · Strategies · Submodalities · Values · Well-Formed Outcomes