NLP is important for medical students

Editor - I read with interest your article "Neurolinguistic programming: temperament and character types."¹ It is interesting how little we know about ourselves, let alone trying to understand the cause of illness in our patients. Indeed this area of "psychology" is slowly creeping its way into medicine with more universities now incorporating "sociological" and "psychological" modules into their curriculum.

This is a good thing because medicine is not all about curing disease but trying to understand an integration of physical, psychological, and social factors, which all need to be dealt with for complete and successful treatment of a patient. Neurolinguistic programming is an interesting field as it teaches you how to change your attitudes and behaviour to obtain the maximum benefit from the environment you are in. It combines behaviour and body language with attitudes and previous experiences, which influence the human mind. It helps not only doctors but anybody wishing to tap into their maximum potential.

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One aspect of neurolinguistic programming is that behaviour is a direct result of the mind state at that point in time. For example, sadness generally results in a "depressed" facial expression, a slouching posture, and possibly an avoidance of others, but happiness generally results in a smiling expression, alertness, and a more interactive behaviour. Neurolinguistic programming teaches you that one can reverse this process so that if you are sad, if you behave happy, you will become happy, and your state of mind will change as a result of the behaviour.

I suppose this is the psychology behind telling a crying child to "give me a smile." In this light, I wonder how neurolinguistic programming can be used in the care of our patients as it would be an important asset to be able to explain to patients how they can also help themselves on the psychological and social side, while we deal with the physical part.

1. Walter J, Bayat A. Neurolinguistic programming: temperament and character types. studentBMJ 2003;11:204-5. (June.)