Neuro Linguistic Programming was developed in the mid-70s by John Grinder and Richard Bandler. NLP, as most people use the term today, is a set of models of how communication impacts and is impacted by subjective experience . It's more a set of tools than any overarching theory. NLP is pragmatic: if a tool works, it's included in the model. Much of early NLP was based on the work of Virginia Satir , a family therapist; Fritz Perls , founder of Gestalt therapy; Gregory Bateson , anthropologist; and Milton Erickson , hypnotist. It was Erickson's work that formed the foundation for a lot of NLP, thus the taut connection with hypnosis. NLP consists of a number of models, and then techniques based on those models. NLP has numerous techniques for intervening in definited situations. They have a phobia cure, a way to de-traumatize past traumas, ways to identify and integrate contradictory belief systems that keep you from doing things you want, etc. One way an NLP therapist might approach a client session is by understanding the cognitive structure of how a client creates a problem. They then help figure out the cognitive structure of an area of life where the client deals satisfactorily. Then they would teach the client to use the good strategy in the problem situation. The actual methodology is known as human modeling; actually the building of models of how people perform or accomplish something. This modeling process actually means finding and describing the important elements and processes that people go through, beginning with finding and studying a human model. This is a person, who does something in a particular, usually highly skillful, way. At the same time, observing this person in action will often lead to new and better questions to ask in the process. Most of us do this already, though perhaps not systematically.