NLP is a collection of therapeutic processes focused on achieving change in a short time. NLP is characterized by its effectiveness and by its ability to be focused and practical. Guided imagery is a therapeutic tool that uses the wondrous power of the imagination to create change and achieve goals. The combination of the two is what makes Retter College unique.
Each of the two methods (NLP and guided imagery) stands on its own. Some therapists specialize only in guided imagery, and others only in NLP. Daphna and Amir Retter, who have run Retter College since 1994, decided to bring both guided imagery and NLP into the therapeutic process. Each method has its own distinct qualities. Combining them creates an exceptional therapeutic wholeness.
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What are the differences between NLP and guided imagery, and how should the two be combined?
The NLP model was developed in the United States in the 1970s. This is unlike guided imagery processes, whose roots reach back to the dawn of human history.
NLP was developed by Professor John Grinder and Dr. Richard Bandler.
It is a model whose purpose is to achieve change, excellence and progress. The creators of NLP observed especially gifted and prominent therapists and identified what characterizes the remarkable communication they create with their clients.
The NLP model sets out to replicate that excellence and teach it to everyone. NLP models were developed to treat a variety of specific problems. Guided imagery is more open, and is greatly influenced by the creativity of the guide and by the client's world of images.
To understand the NLP model, which is complex, here is a concise overview of several processes and basic concepts, compared with parallel guided imagery processes.
A typical NLP process is made up of steps whose order must be followed, moving from step to step, much like climbing a ladder. Guided imagery is more open, and more like a walk in open country.
A distinctive NLP process was developed for changing personal history.
In this NLP process the client recalls a series of memories and then, in imagination, changes the events so that they strengthen and empower them. Guided imagery approaches healing the past differently, using images of healing and of releasing the emotions woven into the memory.
Another NLP process was developed for changing habits. It lets a person understand in depth why they persist in a habit that harms them, and lets them change it while taking the deeper motives into account. NLP holds that in order to make a change, the change must be ecological. In NLP, the term ecology refers to the mutual effects that any change has on other contexts of life. A common example is quitting smoking, which causes many people to gain weight at first. To change a habit with NLP, you must make sure the change does not hurt or harm other areas of life.
The idea of ecology, so typical of NLP, should be applied when working with guided imagery as well. When building images, adjacent life contexts must be taken into account too.
Other NLP processes target unique problems. For example, a process aimed at breaking free of dependency.
In this process, a series of steps connects the person to their inner strengths and lets them detach from the dependent part that characterizes their relationship with the person they depend on. With guided imagery, inner resources can be strengthened, which eases the process of breaking free of dependency. Combining the methods creates a Gestalt therapeutic process, in which the whole (the combination of NLP and guided imagery) is greater than the sum of its parts. Gestalt principles accompany the NLP model because one of the personalities the method's creators observed was Fritz Perls, the creator of Gestalt therapy.
NLP gained fame in the 1980s thanks to a process for treating phobias.
This process changes the pace of the experience, which allows the person to face the source of the phobia. The process incorporates work with humor, and guided imagery can be added to calm the client and let them dare to make a change.
NLP also developed a process for healing allergies.
The process is surprisingly simple and effective. NLP regards an allergy as a phobia of the immune system. Just as a person with a phobia reacts excessively to a stimulus that is not life-threatening, in an allergy the immune system reacts excessively to a stimulus that is not dangerous. On the basis of this insight the NLP process for healing allergies was built, changing the body's response to the allergen. It is advisable to back the process with guided imagery, which softens the person's response and embeds the change.
In many of its processes, NLP uses a tool called ability transfer.
In this process, an ability that exists naturally in one context is found and transferred to a context where it is missing. For example: if a person is able to be organized at work but cannot manage it at home, NLP first notices that the person has the ability to be organized. All that remains is to use an NLP process that helps them be as organized at home as they are at work. Working with abilities and resources is also highly developed in guided imagery texts (link to imagery sessions for strengthening resources). During relaxation, a person is very open to receiving messages that reach meaningful depths, and so they are extremely effective.
NLP also deals with limiting beliefs, values and emotions.
With NLP you can examine the values that drive a person. For example: sometimes an important value such as “staying healthy” gets pushed into a corner by a less important value such as “career advancement.”
Through a structured process, NLP lets you arrange values along a scale and then change their positions so that they suit the person better. A change in values also brings a change in motivation and in action. Guided imagery can work with beliefs and values, but it lacks the structure that so characterizes NLP. The recommended combination is to make the change with NLP tools and, once the desired change has been made, to add guided imagery whose purpose is to establish the change and preserve it.
NLP also uses an assessment called the NLP profile, which has many items.
In the flagship program of our Practitioner and Master Practitioner course track, NLP studies for therapists, we teach 14 items from the NLP profile. Guided imagery can draw on knowledge from the profile to match images and metaphors as successfully as possible. For example: one of the NLP profile items sorts people, at the primary level, into five groups: feelings, things, information, places and activity. People who are naturally drawn to working with things can easily connect with things. So if, during guided imagery, they are given an object with symbolic meaning such as an amulet, or another strengthening object, they will benefit greatly. People who love information will enjoy more an image in which they can get information about their problem or consult an expert during guided imagery. In a similar way, guided imagery can be matched to each of the areas of interest.
NLP deals extensively with language and with understanding unconscious deep structures by listening to the words a person says. The sophisticated use of language developed in NLP serves us greatly when we write guided imagery scripts.
NLP developed a linguistic model that deals with the deletions, generalizations and distortions that arise as the brain processes incoming information. The aim of NLP is to fill in the information that is deleted, break down the generalizations and correct distortions. In this way awareness rises and the person understands their own inner communication. Guided imagery uses this model in reverse. When composing messages, you can draw on the Milton Erickson model and deliberately blur messages, create generalizations and omit information. Language like this allows every person listening to this kind of guided imagery to adapt the messages to their own inner world.
Combining guided imagery and NLP makes for very comprehensive work. NLP is characterized by conscious, focused work. Guided imagery is characterized by soft, flowing, rounded work. We recommend opening every therapy session with an NLP process and closing the session with calming, healing guided imagery.
In the Retter approach, a series of treatments follows a typical order of four stages:
Stage one: Setting a goal and strengthening resources. NLP is a wonderful model for setting a goal in a focused and clear way. A properly defined goal is one that can be achieved more easily and quickly. Alongside this, we recommend ending every goal-setting session with guided imagery for strengthening resources such as creativity, self-confidence, self-acceptance, perseverance, determination, belief in yourself and so on.
Stage two: Revisiting the past and healing it. Both guided imagery and NLP work with revisiting the past. NLP is characterized by structured processes whose aim is to reach an early memory that is the root of the problem. Processes such as changing personal history, re-imprinting and timeline processes take the client back in time to a significant event that marks the beginning of the problem. To deal with the difficult event that is revealed, NLP can work with meaningful, strengthening figures, humor, or an imagined change of the events. Guided imagery uses images to travel back in time. The purpose of the images is to open the imagination and release the memories. Guided imagery can bring a person face to face, in imagination, with their past in a supportive way that combines images of healing and protection.
Stage three: Making the change in the present. NLP specializes in making changes. The change has to be made at the right time for it to actually happen. The preparatory work, with both guided imagery and NLP, carried out in the first two stages, allows the right timing in the third stage. NLP deals with the change itself in a focused, structured way. The NLP process best suited to the goal that was defined is chosen. Guided imagery completes the change: the powerful force of the imagination is mobilized to support the desired change.
Stage four: Embedding the change in the future. Once the change has been made, you need to make sure it will actually last. NLP processes usually end with a check in the imagination. In that check, the client (the person experiencing the guided imagery or the NLP) imagines themselves in the future, after the change has been made, and checks whether they are still maintaining the change. Guided imagery strengthens the embedding of the change by building a guided imagery that describes the future in which the change is a natural, flowing part of the client's life.
In summary: at Retter College we warmly recommend combining NLP with guided imagery. This way the methods empower each other, creating a therapeutic process that is complete, pleasant, practical, focused and effective.