Case Studies

As a trainer at a business college in Australia, I work with students from diverse backgrounds pursuing a Diploma of Leadership and Management across various campuses nationwide. Recently, I incorporated Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) into my curriculum, specifically focusing on the subject of "Leading and Managing Effective Workplace Relationships."

My client was in their mid-forties and it was approximately 20 years since they last sat any exams which they described as painful failures.

They had actively avoided taking exams due to a fear of failing them and limiting beliefs that they were ‘no good at exams' and ‘I always fail at exams’.

These beliefs had stemmed from trying to get promoted which ended with them failing by 1 or 2 marks at each attempt.

Amber is a Primary School Physical Education Teacher and was experiencing behaviour issues with some students within her classes, as well as noticing that the children's attitude and beliefs around PE were unhelpful. For example they would say things such as; 'I'm rubbish', 'I'm not good at sport'. 'I don't like PE'. etc. She also had her own belief that 'you either like sport or you don't!' 'That you were either sporty and good at sport or not'. She accepted that for some children PE 'wasn't their thing' and believed that once they got to secondary school this was an established belief that wouldn't be change.

When I first saw Jack he was incredibly stressed about taking his AS level exams, he had deep seated stresses about a general fear of failure which he had suffered since a very young child.

Jack was studying to become a teacher and had re-taken exams multiple times. Every time he took an exam, despite being more than able to pass the coursework, he would freeze and couldn’t answer even the simplest of questions.

In mum’s words: “My partner, Jim was assessed and diagnosed as Dyslexic in the his last year at secondary school. Jamie, my daughter (9) was never diagnosed although her symptoms were identical to Jim’s. She hated school. I pushed for school to recognise it, but they always said she could not be assessed as she wasn't one of the worst in the school and the money allocated for assessments was spent on the children who had the worst problems.

Rohan was a very intelligent 14 year old young man that was thriving at school. He was at the top of his class in most subject and his predicted grades were exceptional and therefore there were high expectations from both his school teachers and his parents.

The problem Rohan had was that, although he flew through practice papers well, he felt far less capable under exam conditions and often his test scores were not reflective of his capabilities. With his GCSE’s coming up he wanted to work on dealing with whatever it was that was getting in his way.

Tai Khamtis are one of the smallest ethnic groups, with a populations of 15,000, in danger of extinction in future. The younger generation were losing interest in the community and moving out to greener pasture. There were not enough people to maintain the ethnic community, literature and culture. Even more importantly, people in this area are mostly opium-addicted and inter-marriage is still common, so brain development is limited and teenagers are not well-exposed, being too shy to come out and speak in front of the public

As a senior leader in charge of behaviour in a secondary school, I would often find myself called upon to deal with a situation where a young person would not do as they were asked. Prior to learning NLP, this would be a battle of wills, or a drawn out act of compromise.

Aurélie de Baudus is a teacher of communication in a business school (Espas, Lille) and also responsible for the Bachelor programme. She also teaches communication in an engineering school.

She writes "NLP has helped me adapt my presentations to different audiences and representation systems. I try to base my teaching on visual, auditory and kinesthetic exercises and try to take into account differing maps of the world. Before a course, I can also "choose the right state" by anchoring it.

I have used the NLP with a case of a family with a history of non attendance which is always blamed on ongoing medical issues. The child in the study is a year 10 girl who has struggled with her social skills and also often reports of being bullied and having no friends. The parents are happy to accept that she is unwell and often take her to the GP for minor reasons.

I was first contacted by X’s father, who I knew. We had a long and emotional conversation on the phone. X was struggling in her final year at a Northern University in the UK, and her father was anxious that she would ‘drop out’ and never fulfill her potential. X was a mature student who had not thrived at school. She seemed to work in ‘fits and starts’ rather than consistently and did not seem happy.