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To
summarize the field in one sentence: NLP is the practical study
of the human brain and how you can manipulate it. In order to
understand what this field stands for, it helps to briefly look
at the roots of NLP. NLP is a relatively new field of psychological
study, being used for the first time in the 60s. The founders
of NLP tried to bring together new research breakthroughs from
such diverse fields as linguistics, computer programming, brain
research, and psychology, to get a better understanding of the
human mind. The origin explains also the name NLP, which stands
for Neuro Linguistic Programming.
It is often said that your brain is the greatest computer on earth.
The only problem is, it came without a manual. The promise of
NLP is to supply this manual. To fulfill this promise, it gives
you many different practical techniques which you can use to "program
your mind".
One other important distinction is that NLP is a very goal-orientated
field. Therefore it produces, opposing to many other psychology
fields, models rather than theories. The difference is that models
do not have to be 100% correct, whereas theories need only one
piece of contradicting evidence to be proven wrong. The only purpose
of a model is for it to work for you. So if you know that
a certain technique works great to make you feel happy, but it
also has been proven to not work on a random man in India (which
would be enough to completely abandon a theory), you could still,
without a doubt, practice the model since it is still perfectly
intact for you.
| NLP
+ BDD |
I
know of no documented incidence in which NLP has been seriously
applied to BDD. However, some techniques from NLP are frequently
used in Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which is the therapy of
choice for BDD victims. Despite this infrequent use of NLP
in BDD cases, NLP offers, in my opinion, a very big chance
to help a BDDer to decrease his suffering.
There are areas where NLP can be applied to BDD: (I am mentioning
some techniques here which should only be for illustration.
I will post the detailed instructions on how to make them
work for you at a later time.) |
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NLP can help you to cope with the effects
of BDD. |
| This
can improve your daily living standard. For example, a BDDer
who is really scared of another person, because of a slight
social phobia, could make a picture of that feared person
and shrink him in his mind; paint him blue; place a white
hat on him; and let him sing the smurf song. When you see
the person again, your response to him will most likely be
much less intense, as you'll see the situation in a much brighter
light. NLP supplies you with a variety of such small techniques
which can help you increase the quality of your life. |
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NLP can be used to solve the underlying
roots of BDD. |
Here
is another good place for NLP to help BDDer's, to fight the
roots of BDD. You could, for example, let your negative, inner
critic talk to you. Try to make this voice or picture smaller.
Imagine yourself in a room with your family. You'll often
notice that your critical family members are all grouped together
and are standing above you. Try to change their positions
in your mind, and make them stand lower than you. This set
of techniques is more challenging to apply, but the results
are often very impressive.
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It
is important to note that NLP should NOT be used to fight
a BDD attack directly. I have tried that a couple of times
and it just seems as if there is too big a barrier during
a BDD attack. Applying NLP during those periods will probably
only create more stress than needed, and it's best just
to let the BDD attack pass without NLP.
We
will add more techniques to this page as often as possible.
Be sure to keep checking back if you're interested in learning
more about how you can use NLP!
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