This NLP Practitioner & Integrative Coach course has been designed to support you to enhance your coaching skill by learning how to effectively use NLP in combination with your existing approach.
Through the course you’ll develop flexibility to seamlessly move between various processes and psychological schools of thought. You’ll also be encouraged to continually explore the edge of your comfort zone. This is an incredibly practical course, so although we’ll cognitively explore techniques to enhance your perspective, most of our time will be focused on developing your coaching skill.
What is NLP?
NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) was created based on the psychological theories that were accessible in 1970s USA including gestalt, family systems therapy, and Ericksonian hypnotherapy. Â I find it can be helpful to think of NLP in its component parts.
Neuro: This refers to our internal experience (thoughts and states) that affect our external communication and behaviour. NLP supports a practitioner to map the patterns that exist in their client’s internal experience.
Linguistic: This element is the external representation of our internal experience. It is the tool NLP practitioners use to gain access to how their clients operate on the inside, at the unconscious level. It is also used to support and influence change in the client.
Programming: This can be thought of as the client’s ability to change. Once an NLP practitioner identifies the patterns in a client’s internal experience, they can use a range of tools including linguistics to support the client to update their approaches. Essentially “re-programming” the unhelpful operations that the client is running unconsciously.
How is NLP used in coaching?
NLP has many uses from “quick fix” sessions designed to give clients a boost to face a challenging situation or event, to being more integrative and part of an ongoing coaching relationship.
Individuals often find NLP valuable when they become repetitive in their thinking, and as a result repetitive in their behaviour. It can be used to support clients facing a variety of challenges, including poor communication, procrastination, lack of confidence, lack of resilience, imposter syndrome, identity challenges, anxiety, and stress & burnout.
Course overview
When developing this course, I became focused on supporting coaches to understand and effectively use NLP patterns and processes, while evolving their existing coaching techniques. This took me back to the origins of NLP, and how it was developed through client experimentation and linguistic coding of what worked. It’s this approach that sits at the heart of our course. We’ll explore what the co-founders of NLP created, using some of the techniques they employed. We’ll then use this as a foundation to further develop your coaching approach.
As part of this course, you’ll discover the psychological theories that underpin NLP, and learn to:
- enhance your skill as a person-centred, integrative coach;
- use NLP patterns and techniques fluidly during client sessions;
- be creative and flexible when responding to clients in the moment; and
- code processes so you can uniquely replicate them, and utilise key components independently.
Successful completion of the course is dependent on your commitment to an ongoing learning journey. Although there will be a final evaluation in the form of a reflective essay and learning project, you’ll also be provided with development tasks to help embed the course content into your coaching toolkit. In addition, you’ll receive regular guidance and support during the training modules and through supervision sessions. By the time you reach the final module, assuming you follow the guidance provided, it’s likely you’ll be well on your way to being an NLP Practitioner & Integrative Coach.
Live trainingÂ
These live interactive training sessions are designed to support your learning at several levels. First, you’ll learn a range of NLP patterns and processes and what they each do, then you’ll practise these through coaching conversations and group exercises to embed your understanding. Wrapped around all of this is the training delivery that will utilise NLP to support your unconscious learning.
This conversation-based module explores the linguistic patterns that exist at the core of NLP, and creates the foundation for learning on this course. You’ll develop an appreciation of how a range of approaches including gestalt, family systems therapy, and Ericksonian hypnotherapy filter through NLP. In addition, we’ll connect the dots between NLP techniques and coaching, and discover how the two can work together seamlessly.
NLP Concepts:Â NLP presuppositions, well-formed outcomes, representational systems, meta model, Milton model, quotes & metaphors, and clean language.
You’ll learn to:
- establish more robust outcomes and create a commitment to change before exploring your client’s situation;
- create rapport quickly by responding to your client’s unconscious communication;
- move beyond working with the content your client shares to working with the patterns they demonstrate. In essence, begin to work with the unconscious mind through coaching techniques;
- enhance existing processes in your toolkit by being artistically vague in the directions you provide; and
- support clients to embed the change they want through storytelling and the use of metaphor.
Having already learnt the core linguistic patterns, you will now discover the broader structures that exist around these. We’ll begin to identify unresourceful patterns that exist in clients’ thoughts and behaviours, and discover how to thoughtfully interrupt these.  You’ll also be introduced to several light processes, and be encouraged to look beyond the procedural steps and recognise the elements that make the difference.
NLP Concepts:Â Chunking, meta programs, framing & reframing, neurological levels, sleight of mouth patterns, strategies, spelling strategy, Disney strategy, perceptual positions, and modelling.
Support clients to:
- broaden their perspective and become open to alternative ways of thinking and behaving;
- gain insight to specific areas of their lives by creating greater alignment to what they want;
- be more creative in solving their challenges; and
- gain insight to challenges they’re facing in relationships with others and themselves.
This module brings together the learning from the course so far, through the application of structured processes. You’ll discover how to support your clients to access hidden internal resources at the click of their fingers, and unconsciously in specific situations. We’ll also explore how to facilitate clients to shift their internal state, which can support them achieve the change they want without getting caught in conscious cognitive processing.
NLP Concepts:Â Anchors, future pacing, new behaviour generator, submodalities, standard change, SWISH, and timeline submodality shift.
Support clients to:
- access hidden resources to better respond to challenging situations;
- embed new behaviours they want to demonstrate in specific situations and unconsciously activate these at the appropriate time;
- create memories of the future so they feel at ease when implementing the change they want; and
- change unhelpful behaviours and unwanted habits.
During this final module, we’ll delve into complex processes. Together we’ll explore how to resolve internal conflict, and unpick a complex process to recognise the various components and the value they each add. You’ll understand how to work with timeline metaphors to learn from past experiences and prepare for the future. In addition, you’ll be introduced to my approach to working with inner selves and explore the different components of this technique.
NLP Concepts:Â Â Parts integration, inner selves, preparing for the future, learning from experiences, and working with phobias.
Support clients to:
- clear hidden blocks, by changing their relationship with past events;
- feel confident and prepared for future events;
- resolve internal conflict i.e. when a client says “there’s a part of me that wants this, and a part of me that wants that”; and
- make difficult/challenging decisions while remaining aligned to what they really want.
Group supervisionÂ
To support you embed your learning and gain confidence in using the techniques shared during the modules, you’ll have access to four group supervision sessions, taking place during weekday evenings. This is an opportunity to explore any challenges you’re facing as you begin to use course techniques, talk through course content to deepen your understanding, and discuss hypothetical case studies as an additional learning tool.
Development tasksÂ
You’ll complete a range of activities aligned to individual tools and techniques explored during the training modules. These exercises are designed to support you embed the various approaches through simple tasks, and encourage you to integrate them into your daily routine and client sessions.
Reflective essayÂ
Through the course, you’ll experience an approach implemented by the early NLP experimenters. You’ll be encouraged to regularly catalogue your thoughts, ideas and observations about your own learning in a Meta Book. When you’re ready, toward the end of the course, you’ll write a reflective essay exploring key themes that have influenced your practice as a coach.
Learning projectÂ
This is about learning to do something new or differently, which is a fundamental component to being an NLP Practitioner. You may choose something out of the scope of working directly with clients, such as learning to create clay vases, or grow house plants, or even play golf. Once the skill has been developed, you’ll step into an objective position to code your personal approach to learning.
Course structure
- c8 participants to create space for dynamic conversations and individual support
- Individual pre-programme conversation to discuss your alignment with the course structure and content
- 4 Live training modules (required)
- 4 Group supervision sessions (optional). Dates to be agreed with participants during first module
- Development tasks, reflective essay, and learning project (required)
- All training and supervision sessions will take place via Zoom
Next steps
Get in contact to receive the pre-course questionnaire and to arrange a call with the trainer to further explore the course
Following your conversation, if you and the course trainer agree to proceed, the onboarding process begins, during which you will receive terms & conditions, and agree your payment terms, prior to receiving course materials
Your trainer
As an Integrative Coach, Nishe Patel brings a wealth of experience and technical insight to the trusted partnerships she builds with her clients, supervisees, and course participants. As a trainer, she engages fully with the learning space, while maintaining awareness of where each participant is on their individual journey. Nishe creates a warm and engaging environment where everyone is encouraged to flourish through the exploration of their ideas and experience. Her diverse training background means she can confidently engage in varied conversations across coaching and NLP approaches, and offer insight from a range of psychological perspectives. Through all of this, Nishe is committed to supporting all participants to embed the skills they learn, while staying true to who they are as coaches.