The final day of the Practitioner Accreditation and certification  module comprises a number of coaching practice sessions.The purpose of this article to help you get the very best out of your certification day.

Download free guide to NLP training

Check dates and book an seminar,  teleseminar or taster

The exact number depends on how many delegates there are on the course and it’s usually about six. 

For each session you’ll be told who you are working with and the pairs are drawn up on a random rotation so that everyone has an equal share of being practitioner and client, and everyone works with someone different each time.  

In order to give you as much high quality practice as possible, the timing of this last day is very important. The session start times will be displayed on the flipchart in the room and at the start of each session you’ll be told when to be back in the room. The trainers will walk round and gently let you know when you have five minutes left so that you can gently close the session. 

It’s easy to get wrapped up in these sessions and want to carry on all day with one person. If you don’t stick to the times given, you are denying yourself the quality practice that you need in order to fully integrate the skills you’ve learned throughout the course. 

It’s very common that at the start of the day, delegates have an armful of tools and techniques that they know how to use, but they don’t how to choose. This is one of the key outcomes of the day. As you work through the sessions, you will probably find yourself talking much less and listening much more. Remembering that the client will tell you everything you need to know in the first few sentences, you’ll soon find that listening to the client and getting a sense of the structure of the problem or situation will give you all the information you need to choose a tool. 

Everyone finds the practice sessions very demanding and rewarding and the format has proven to be an excellent way to complete the course. 

It’s worth remembering that the techniques will be less effective if you concentrate only on the technique. It’s best to think about how you’ll use the whole time to deliver the technique more elegantly. Here’s a simple process you can use if you need to:                                                                                                                               

1.     State - Choose a resourceful state                                     

2.     Rapport - Get into rapport                                            

3.     Outcomes - Set a direction                                         

4.     Questions - Explore the problem

5.     Intervention - The technique!

6.     Future pace - Create a future where the problem is solved  

7.     Test - Check to make sure the intervention worked 

Here’s some more specific to help you get the most out of the sessions: 

Client 

As a client, you have the opportunity to work on some issues that are really important to you. You may have a fear that you want to tackle or a problem to solve. Many people who come to the Practitioner course are running their own businesses -        or thinking about it – and this is an ideal opportunity to do some serious planning with the help of a talented group of coaches. 

Therefore, you should spend some time planning the issues or opportunities you are going to explore during the sessions so that you can get the most value from the time. You will learn as much about the process as the client as you will as the practitioner, so both roles are equally important. 

Practitioner  

At first, many people find they are so busy thinking about which technique to use that they miss what the client tells them. After a while, they find that spending at least half the time just listening and exploring the issue is time well spent. 

As a Practitioner, perhaps your most important job is to maintain an outcome oriented state. You can use all of your rapport skills to lead your client and in many cases, all the Practitioner has to do is sit there and look confident while the client finds their own solution! 

Remember that the tools and techniques are each built around a particular structure, so by exploring the structure of the problem, you’ll easily be able to choose the most appropriate technique.

Here are a few examples of tools and techniques that you can use:                                   

Outcomes - Find out what the client wants

Six step reframe - All, particularly big behavior changes

Stalking  -  To ‘big’ or repetitive behaviors, or for fast changing    behaviors

Swish  -  For fast changing behaviors (e.g. habits or ‘real’ phobia)

Timeline - To explore a future decision, set goals or resolve old issues

Anchoring - To capture useful states or integrate states

Pattern interrupt -  To stop the client from descending into a problem state

Trance - To help the client explore in a relaxed way, free from distractions

Rapport - To open communication  to verbally and non-verbally guide the client towards the desired outcome

Meta model - To explore a problem arising   from insufficient information

Future pace - Too test and increase the opportunity for change

Beliefs - Just believe your client can change and see what happens!

Modeling - Model the problem, elicit a strategy and change if necessary

Storytelling - Use a simple story to change state or move to the desired outcome

Sub modalities  -  Elicit sub modalities of problem state, then move to desired state

Fast phobia cure - For any dissociation situation 

There may be times when you get stuck and don’t know where to go next - that’s fine. It often happens as a result of the Practitioner thinking about the technique, running through the technique and then not having planned to do afterwards. Here are some ideas for what you can say or ask when you get stuck. Asking a question or positively reflecting your clients behavior gives you time to think:

• That's right

• What would be a good outcome for you from this?

• What does this do for you?

• What would you like to do next?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the practice sessions are not a test. There is no right or wrong course of action and what the trainers are looking for is that you are able to help the client move in the general direction they want to go. We don’t really care if a technique appears to work or not – they don’t always work for us! What we’re most interested in seeing is you acting in the interests of your client, maintaining your state and making the most of the opportunity to develop your skills.

Copyright 2007 PPI Business NLP with thanks to Peter Freeth