NLP Practitioner Competencies

Below is a minimum set of competencies expected of an NLP Practitioner who has attended an ITA
certified NLP Practitioner course. This list is not exhaustive and some trainers may include additional
patterning. We suggest you check with the Training Institutes for their syllabuses. Some Institutes teach
patterning that is specific to type of field or business, i.e. health applications, coaching, business,
education etc. Again, we suggest you check with each institute for any specific applications.

Minimum Classic Code NLP Practitioner Competencies

Calibration (input channels)

Being able to calibrate in each of the sensory input channels (please notice that we distinguish
between sensory input channel and representational system), visual, auditory and kinesthetic.

The ability to distinguish between conscious and unconscious signals in non-verbal

communication.

Rapport

Mirroring - Visual, auditory

Cross-over mirroring - Visual, auditory Alignments (including rep. systems manipulation)

Representational systems
The ability to detect the preferred representational system by:

Eye movements

Predicates

Voice quality

The ability to rapidly and smoothly adjust your communication (both verbal and non-verbal) to the
preferred system of the client.

Overlap of representational systems as a method of inducing in the client whichever system they
do not have access to, and use in pacing and leading the client from one representational system to
the other (all 3 V, A, K)

Identification and utilisation of ordered sequences of representational systems, (sometimes

referred to as strategies)

Synesthesia patterns

Submodalities and their use both as interventions (e.g. SWISH) and as barometers of the
effectiveness of change techniques (for example, reports from clients immediately after doing a New
Code game are full of descriptions of the submodality changes induced by the change of state)

Language patterns

Verbal package

Framing

The two specification questions:

o

Nouns: Which/What ________, specifically?

Verbs: ______________, how specifically?

Methods of verifying map alignment (paraphrase, for example)

The Intention question

Modal operators and universal quantifiers

Frank Farrelleys provocation method (deliberate selection of wrong and outrageous

interpretation in order to provoke the client to correct the agent of change and thereby offer a more
grounded verbal representation)

Minimum metaphor competency

Isomorphic/homomorphic mappings

Naturalistic metaphors

Metaphors using anchoring to specify to the clients unconscious mind the elements in the
metaphor that correspond to specific elements in the presenting problem or challenge.

Living metaphors

Logical levels and logical types (defined in Whispering)

Anchoring techniques

The ability to establish and successfully re-activate anchors in each of the three major input
channels (V A K, and also spatially)

Use of anchoring in change formats

Change personal history/re-imprinting

Collapse of anchors

Time line interventions

Circle of excellence (spatial anchoring)

Multiple perceptual positions

With special emphasis on triple description (the use of 1st, 2nd and 3rd position), with full competency to
move quickly and cleanly between these perceptual positions.

Chain of Excellence

Breathing

Physiology

State

Performance

Epistemology (from Whispering) with f1, FA and f2

F1 Transforms

First Access

F2 Transforms

Linguistic Representations

Being able to recognise the above distinctions and how they impact mental processing at different points
of representation.
Being able to design interventions and understand the leverage point of that intervention in the
epistemological distinction.

Simple hypnotic patterning

Using inductions and language patterns (portions of the Milton Model) to utilise both deliberate and
spontaneously occurring altered states.

Involuntary signal systems

Arbitrary involuntary systems (like those found in step two of Six Step Reframing)
Use of natural involuntary systems (pain and sensations associated with health, disease and
dreams)

Methods for assisting people who are disassociated kinesthetically to develop signals the
orienting response

N-Step Reframing (old Six Step Reframing)

Calibrating and working with clients involuntary unconscious signals

Working with unconscious intention, again through calibrating and working with involuntary

unconscious signals
Tasking (especially for changing belief systems)

Listening off the top for semantically packed words.

Being able to set parallel tasks, that are isomorphic to the clients present issue to create change
in the clients circumstances with the direct involvement of the clients conscious mind.

Parts Interventions

Recognise parts as a metaphor

Negotiation between parts

Parts integration

Building a team

Minimum New Code NLP Competencies

New Code games and activities:

Alphabet game

NASA

Breath of Life

Walk with Grace and Power (X and Y)

Rhythms of Life

Peripheral vision drills

Auto application of New Code activities (balance on railroad track)

Practitioner Formats
In the broad field of NLP, there is huge disparity in the standards and quality different NLP courses offer.
The ITA was set up to ensure member trainers run quality courses that create competent practitioners.
This means having high standards and effective assessment procedures at NLP courses.
The ITA recognises the value in individual trainers, developing their courses that work within the ITA skills
and competencies guide. Different trainers will have different approaches and styles of courses, designed
with a specific audience in mind. At the ITA we are more interested in the skills the Practitioners can
exhibit, rather than laying down rigid formats of training.
Below are formats the ITA acknowledges as valid for NLP Practitioner Courses. ITA Certifying Institutes
will submit their syllabuses, course outlines and any speciality applications of the course, to the ITA for
approval.

Original 20-day format

In the early days, Grinder and Bandler designed a 20-day Practitioner course. In those days the cocreators were still creating, and NLP was in its infancy. As with any new technology, the early
developments take longer to teach because the components are less streamlined.
There are quite a few NLP Institutes which still use the 20-day format; either over ten weekends or four or
five modules. In a lot of cases in the broader field of NLP, where the Institutes are using the 20-day
format, the teaching often consists of content models and is unrecognisable as NLP. In other cases the
trainers are using 20 days to create an inductive exploration into NLP patterning.

13-14 day format, Classic and New Code

13-14 days over 2, 3, or 4 modules is a popular format. This style course can include the minimum
Practitioner competencies, (published on this site) with time for experiential learnings as well as New
Code. ITA Trainers have been trained to use a teaching methodology where the learners have arrived at
an explicit conscious mind map of the patterning and have unconscious competencies in being able to
demonstrate behaviourally that they can do NLP.

NLPedia Format 8 days Classic Code

This approach combines modern multi-media home learning with an eight-day intensive course in Classic
Code NLP, taught from a New Code perspective. The learner begins by working through the NLPedia
Practitioner Study Set, which has 25 hours of edited video, 800 Power Point Slides and 600 pages of
onscreen transcripts. NLPedia is a complete video library of Practitioner classic code content. The video
was recorded at a live Practitioner course. The delegates will have experienced the metaphors and
demonstrations on the CD ROMs. They will also have experienced participant discussions on the CD
ROM. What they will not have had however is their own experience. At the live course the trainer sets up
an alternative set of experiences (different from those presented on the CD) to map the content on the CD
ROMS. Saying it another way, the trainer creates an experience for the candidates which is different from
their conscious experience on the CD, amalgamating their pre-course learning with direct experience at
the course.

New Code as an additional Module

The New Code NLP can be added at the end of the NLPedia course as an extra three or four-day
module.