L. Jay Mitchell is a former attorney who began to focus on helping people cope with trauma when he was still practicing law as a member of the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. He went on to build successful, long-term intervention programs for youth before founding the Greenbrier School for Girls in West Virginia. The co-developer of the method of applied relationality (which is used to foster positive personality changes), L. Jay Mitchell is also a credentialed trainer’s trainer in neurolinguistics.
Neurolinguistics is the study of how the human brain structures, makes sense of, and represents language. It is closely related to the field of psycholinguistics, the study of the language acquisition and processing functions of the brain.
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) developed as its own separate discipline in the 1970s. The object of NLP is to help clients change unproductive behaviors and language concepts learned through previous experiences.
The psychologists who pioneered NLP looked at it as a way to provide tools and strategies that would help people better understand how language influences their thoughts and behaviors in all aspects of their lives. A core component of NLP involves learning to see the relationships between our thoughts, the language we use, and the scripts (or programs) we use to organize our perspectives, then using that knowledge to change the way we react to previous events that have marked our lives.
Those trained in this methodology work specifically to help clients reprogram maladaptive behavioral patterns. Restructuring the use of language and perspective can assist a client in gaining confidence, cultivating rapport, exerting a positive influence on others, and fulfilling personal goals. And by using models of successful behavior exhibited by successful people, clients can develop the tools and insights they need to transform their performance in their own chosen areas.
NLP has shown itself to be useful to people in business, sports, entertainment, and numerous other fields. A wide range of books, courses, and seminars is available, ranging from layperson to expert level.
