First I'd like to say that Steve Coogan (aka Alan Partridge) did not invent the word 'mentalist' and neither did the creators of the new television series 'The Mentalist'  Also, it has never meaned someone who is mentally challenged or anything similar - mentalism has been arround for hundreds of years.  Mentalism is a form of pschological illusion which is now performed in the UK by the very well known Derren Brown - look him up, his tricks will astound you.

The idea for this hub came to me when I was recently watching a new television programme called 'The Mentalist' which is about a person who helps detectives with their investigations.  He does this by using psychological techniques and can apparently know what the criminal is thinking by picking up on things like body language and hynposis.  Although mentalism is mainly just psychological illusion and trickery, during the programme they started discussing it - though strictly speaking they weren't talking about mentalism, they were talking about NLP and nothing else.

NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is a form of applied psychology founded by Richard Bandler and John Grinder back in the seventies and is a set scheme consisting of various psychological patterns based primarily on modelling.  NLP is described as 'the study of the structure of subjective experience' and contains techniques that can be used as resources for therapy, personal change, behavioural change, personal success, professional success, business management training, counseling, phobia cure, relieving depression, giving up smoking and many more things.  NLP is basically just a set of psychologica tools and techniques all compiled into one programme for your convenience.  However, claims of how fast results can be achieved and the unlimited efficacy of these techniques is usually overly exaggerated.

If you have ever looked into hypnosis then you will have probably heard of NLP.  Hypnosis is actually a large part of NLP though technically hypnosis is not what it seems.  It's basically just communication, both conscious and unconscious (body language, unaware verbal clues, etc).  Learning NLP is probably the best way of learning about hypnosis.  In addition NLP also focuses on areas such as representational systems (how we represent the world to ourselves internally), submodalities (a break-down of these representations), rapport (building up trust and responsiveness in other people), anchoring (creating a trigger in someone), strategies (an occurence in the brain that influences a result), reframing (as in frame of mind), ecology and congruency (making sure the change is effective and resourceful) and parts integration (similar to a computer software program that controls how we behave and can installed or uninstalled).

It certainly sounds interesting and may seem a bit tecnical at first, but when it comes down to it, it's not.  However, there is a lot of controversy concerning NLP, most notably from professional psychologists who seem to criticize both it's efficacy and it's patterns and techniques.  Ironically these psychologists also admit that NLP has borrowed probably the most effective techniques for change from psychology; a bit of a contradiction in terms.

Both NLP and hypnosis are basically a form of one thing:  communication.  Heightened communication.  As the term neuro linguistic programming suggests language and the brain can be used to program each other in the same way that someone can program a computer which, psychologically, eventually boils down to the power of suggestion.  The power of suggestion is a powerful tool and should never be underestimated.

Another controversial aspect of NLP is that when it was founded it was formed into more or less of a pyramid scheme.  The original founders could hand out their certificates to master practitioners who qualified with them.  These master practitioners were then qualified to start their own NLP training school and hand out the same certificates to their clients, the condition being that each qualified practitioner had received full training and certification from a school that sources back to the original founders, as they all would.  Despite this fact, heightened communication is a completely natural occurence - when you speak to someone you influence them in some way.  You also influence them with silence, it can't be helped.  Therefore no government accredited qualification can be applied to the NLP model - in other words the certificates are worth nothing more than the paper they are printed on.

So there you have it.  NLP is useful basic form of applied psychology which from personal experience definitely works.  Anyone can learn it, it truly can be life changing with time and patience and you can even start their own training school and make some money from it too.