Certification as a Practitioner of NLP consists of 49 hours of training (Approximately 2 optional hours for practicing the patterns, answering questions and the giving of additional materials will be offered during the evenings.). Satisfactory completion of this training will result in eligibility for certification with the Institute for Neuro-Semantic™ Studies and CEU credits with the National Board for Certified Counselors. Each section of study results from a carefully constructed model designed to build one on the other. Comprehension of each subject moves the student to the next level of expertise. Thus, students must attend each class and participate in the exercises. Training will consist of lectures, demonstrations and exercises. Students will perform numerous exercises for both practice and retention. NLP is learned by doing. The following subjects are covered during the 49 hours:

• Definition and History of NLP - During the first part of the training you will experience the power of NLP through experience. NLP will be defined. The history of NLP will reveal the impressive body of material upon which NLP is based.

• The Key Presuppositions of NLP - The Key Presuppositions of NLP represent the beliefs that excellent communicators hold. A major goal throughout the practitioner training consists of your behavioral integration of these presuppositions meaning you operate from the habitually and unconsciously.

• The Three Qualities Of Exceptional Communicators:
  1. Know your outcome .
  2. Have observational skills .
  3. Exercise behavioral flexibility. The NLP Practitioner training provides the training necessary for behavioral modification. By controlling your behavior you will be equipped to control the conversation and to obtain your outcome. NLP rapport building skills allow for flexibility of behavior.

• Elicitation of a Well-Formed Outcome - Learn to identify and develop high quality descriptions of specific goals for change that are positive, practical and ecologically workable for everyone.

• Sensory Acuity - You will learn how to read the non-verbal signals from other people. Each state change in a person will be accompanied by external signals from their body. Sensory acuity skills enable you to read the state changes by their body language. You have unconsciously been doing this all your life. Sensory acuity skills permit you to bring this to conscious level and to use the skill to facilitate communication.

• Calibration - You will enhance your ability to read people and detect state changes. Calibration means you can detect the meanings behind each physiological shift the client makes. This skill will facilitate your ability to communicate more effectively and to recognize therapeutic needs, changes and confirmations.

• Building and Maintaining Rapport - One model indicates that ninety-three percent of communication skills transpire non-verbally and unconscious. NLP rapport skills teach you how to communicate at the unconscious level. Mirroring, matching, pacing and leading skills will enable you to become "like" the other person. People like people who look and act like them. You will learn how to mirror and match physiology, tonality and predicates (process words). Rapport skills permit the practitioner to be flexible in communicating. Flexibility allows for control of the conversation.

• Representation System - The brain receives information through the five senses. In NLP we refer to the five senses as the representation system. We not only receive information through the representation system, we also represent this information in the brain through this system. You will learn how the representation system provides the basis to all thought processes. The emphasis and power of NLP states that change work is done at the process and not the content level. The representation system is fundamental to mental processes. Understanding of the representation system provides basic knowledge for communication and change fundamental to all NLP communication and therapeutic skills.

• Submodalities - A submodality equals the smaller coding of the representation system. Submodalities define the qualities of our internal representations. Visual in NLP describes one of the representation system or modality. To discover the submodalities of the visual representation system one would ask whether the internal picture acts as a movie/still, black and white/color, bright/dark, etc. You will learn how higher levels (Meta-Levels) govern submodalities and hence, perception. Knowledge of Meta-Levels and how they influence submodalities will result in your ability to resolve grief, change beliefs, change values and to change the feelings of any memory in brief therapy. All permanent therapeutic changes happens at Meta-Levels.  Knowledge of submodalities allows the practitioner to communicate and to do therapy with precision. An introduction to submodalities comes early in the training. The advanced therapeutic use of submodalities happens during the latter part of the training with far more training in the Master Practitioner Level. Learning the basics of submodalities gives the student immense control over running his/her own brain.
   
• Meta-States^® - Developed by L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., Meta-States refer to the brain's ability to have thoughts about thoughts. Each thought about a thought functions at a higher logical level and therefore modulates the original thought. For instance, you can experience anger towards something or someone.  Now, appreciate your anger and notice how that changes your perception of your anger.  Or, better yet, apply a thought of calmness to your anger and notice how that changes your anger. Utilizing this simple yet profound cognitive process provides a powerful tool for state control. Throughout the Practitioner (And Master Practitioner) training, you learn how to manage your states through Meta-States.

• The Swish Pattern - Developed by Richard Bandler, the Swish Pattern uses the principles of submodalities to eliminate unwanted behaviors such as bad habits. Richard Bandler says that this presents one of the most effective techniques he has developed. 

• Strategies - Strategies describe the mental sequencing of representation systems that define the function behind all behavior. The explanation of strategies comes early as an introduction during the first of the training. The elicitation, utilization, design and installation of strategies take up one full day of training in the final week.

• Association\Dissociation - This important distinction describes the mind's ability to remove much of the emotion from a memory. Let us experiment. Recall an unpleasant experience. If you see yourself in the picture of the memory, you have dissociated from the memory. If you look through your own eyes, you associate into the memory. Association usually results in more emotion. Dissociation as a rule removes much of the emotion from the memory.

• Fast Phobia Cure - Based on association\dissociation, the Fast Phobia Cure permits the erasure of limiting and traumatizing experiences or perceptions. The erasure of the images and strategies will remove the behavioral limitation which have resulted from the experience or perception.

• Anchoring - Anchors developed in NLP as a product of Pavlov's concept of stimulus response. Anchors define the triggers for states and behavior. You will learn how to establish triggers for selected responses you desire both in yourself and others. Behavioral change techniques based on anchoring provide material for several techniques during the second third of the certification. Specific techniques taught in anchoring include: setting self-anchors including a resource anchor, uptime and intime anchors, building a circle of excellence, integrating conflicting unconscious parts through collapsing anchors, change personal history, collapsing visual anchors and overcoming doubt and chaining anchors.

• Reframing - Based on the NLP presupposition that all meaning depends upon context, in reframing you learn how to discover alternate contexts and meanings for the positive intent behind the behavior. Reframing allows for the separation of the person from their behavior. New approaches for unwanted behaviors become evident through reframing. All behaviors have positive aspects. Reframing allows for the discovery and preservation while exploring for new possibilities more appropriate. The procedures permit the keeping of the positive intent intact while achieving the desired outcome through appropriate behavior. Included in this study of reframing include the following areas of NLP.

1. Conscious\Unconscious - The distinction between what is in conscious awareness and what is not will become a part of your conscious awareness. You will also come to appreciate that the unconscious mind is a friend and not a foe. Freud's concept of the unconscious as the Id and innately evil will be repudiated.
2. Unconscious Sabotaging Frames (Dragons) - The genius of NLP is that it gives the NLP practitioner the tools to direct unconscious sabotaging frames (Unconscious Parts) to the healing power present in everyone. Much time will be spent on these dragons, i.e. those minor personalities within all of us that operate contrary to our total good.
3. The Visual Squash - The NLP technique called The Visual Squash will be taught during this training. You will receive an advanced version. The Visual Squash allows for the resolving of conflict between parts and for the integrating of conflicting parts. This is an especially powerful and useful technique.
4. The Six-Step Reframe - The Six-Step Reframe provides the communicator with a formal reframing process that provides ways of stopping unwanted behavior through providing healthier alternatives. This way of reframing allows the preservation of the positive intent of the unwanted behavior. At the same time, new and healthier choices provided other choices for fulfilling the positive intent of the unconscious part. First introduced during the practitioner training, we devote much more time to this model during the Master NLP Practitioner Certification Training.

• Language Patterns:
  1. The Meta-Model - NLP basis itself on the language patterns of the Meta-Model. This model is a series of questions, which allows the practitioner to transform low quality descriptions from the other person into high quality explanations. The Meta-Model restores the deletions, distortions and generalization that all speech (surface structure) contains. These surface structure descriptions we use often cause poor communication. The Meta-Model allows the practitioner to get to the real problem in the deep structure (internal representation or image) of the mind. The word "Meta" means above. The Meta-Model utilizes language about language, i.e. which chunks meta to the language in use. Knowledge of the Meta-Model allows the practitioner more flexibility in controlling the communication.
  2. Milton Model - This model came right out of the work of Milton Erickson, M. D. Erickson has the reputation as the world's foremost hypnotherapist. The Milton Model acts as the inverse of the Meta-Model. The Meta-Model goes for specifics. The Milton Model utilizes general, large chunk language and allows the client to search for their own answers. Such language patterns frees the NLP Practitioner to work at the unconscious level. The Meta-Model brings one out of trance. The Milton Model induces trance.
  3. Chunking - Chunking refers to the ability to go from general to specific language or vice versa. The Meta-Model and the Milton Model provide the practitioner the tools necessary for flexibility of language in chunking up to general language or chunking down to specific language. Such skills enhance the practitioner's ability in building rapport and in public speaking.
  4. Metaphor - NLP provides us with a model to construct and deliver metaphors to bring about desired outcomes in our acquaintances and clients. The language patterns of NLP provide extremely helpful tools in teaching, negotiating, managing, preaching, therapy and in all areas of communication. The utilization of metaphors provide the public speaker with some extremely helpful and useful tools. It seems that everyone loves a story. In therapy they provide the frame or mindset to initiate change and to solidify change. Milton Erickson mastered the use of metaphors and I am told in his later life his therapies consisted almost in entirety in the utilization of metaphors.
  5. Satir Categories - Developed by the famous family therapist, Virginia Satir, this model allows the practitioner the utilization of another language pattern. The categories include the blamer, placater, computer, distracter and leveler. Recognition of these models gives the practitioner added tools in pacing and understanding the speaker's model of the world. The utilization of these patterns give broad appeal to the people in the audience when the speaker rotates through them. These categories appear in your practitioner training material for your reading.

• How to Utilize Your Time-Line to Initiate Change - Based on our recent book, Time-Lining: Patterns for Adventuring in "Time", you will receive introductory training in:
  1. How Your Brain Tells Time 
  2. Through Time and In Time
  3. Eliciting Time Lines
  4. Developmental Periods 
  5. Steps Into Time-Lining
  6. Using Time-Lining In Eliminating  Negative Emotions