So, let’s gradually deal with anchors, NLP and related issues.
Neuro-linguistic programming is not a science, but a set of applied techniques used in practical psychology. The most common methods of NLP are used by:
- psychologists and time managers;
- lecturers, tutors and lawyers;
- actors, authors and journalists.
Needless to say, traders and top managers state that one and all they perfectly master the methods of NLP. In fact, neurolinguistic programming – are communication skills, knowing and applying which you can influence the opinion of the person, who makes a decision.
Practising psychologists actively use the technique of NLP to treat severe emotional conditions, get rid of phobias, rehabilitate patients after suffering psychological trauma.
The basis for the development of neuro-linguistic programming has become a cognitive psychology, which studies the cognitive processes of the human psyche. Cognitive psychology studies issues related to memory, attention, feelings, processes of thinking, perception and imagination. Accordingly, its main tools are all kinds of incentives. In our case, the anchor serves as such an incentive.
Short excursus to the history
An anchor is the key to managing emotions. More often to the conscious management. Many people confuse anchors with reflexes mistakenly. There is a significant difference between the anchor and the reflex. a strong experience, an emotional state is enough to establish an anchor, whereas in the case of the formation of a reflex the associative connection appears due to the repeated reproduction of a chain of certain actions. Speaking in scientific terms, the reflex is a physiological reaction and the anchor is an emotional response.
At school, we were told about Academician Pavlov, who was experimenting with dogs. So, Ivan Petrovich did not do anything harmful to the dogs. By the way, the scientist has built crates at his own expense, bought provisions for dogs that lived in excellent conditions. As a result of the experiments, a separation of reflexes into conditioned and unconditioned appeared. And Ivan Petrovich himself became the founder of the science of higher nervous activity.
for free
The stimulus for the beginning of the research was that Pavlov noticed that the salivation in dogs began before the animals were given food. Being a physiologist, Ivan Petrovich understood that salivation directly depends on the production of gastric juice.
The first kind of anchor in Pavlov’s studies was a bell sound, which was accompanied by the distributing of food. Later, the scientist achieved that only the sound of the bell provoked the production of gastric juice in dogs.
Anchoring as a technology for NLP
When a certain emotion associated with an experience becomes an incentive to perform a particular action, this emotion is also called an anchor. In practice, such a process occurs unconsciously and often remains unnoticed.
The anchor acts as a specific external or internal representation that triggers the reproduction process of the other representation. The life of each of us is filled with memories, significant moments, names, events, things, even tastes and smells. Here we have those anchors, which skillful psychologists use for programming of a personality.
Remember when you turned hearing an unfamiliar voice in the middle of the street after it called your name. And it happens that people respond to someone else’s name, which is dear to them. The names, in this case, is also an anchor.
An anchor can be a specific date, a musical composition, a film, a postcard, an image, whatever.
How does this work in practice? Imagine that a person suffering from arachnophobia comes to the psychologist at the reception. Accordingly, we have a negative anchor – spiders and all arachnids. In order to help the patient get rid of the phobia, a specialist needs to get to the root of the problem. But how can you talk to a person about spiders, if he falls into a panic from the mere thought of these sweet creatures? Having programmed a positive anchor, for example, a phoenix the bird, which is not scared of even the deadliest spider, a psychologist will be able to stop a panic attack with only one word “phoenix”. Here it is the example of manipulation when in the skillful hands the consciousness becomes soft and pliable plasticine.
The use and set of anchors, their destruction
Anchors, even the most powerful, have a certain life cycle. Anchors can be short-term and long-term. Short-term anchors lose their importance without periodic reinforcement, and long-term anchors can remain for life. It is almost impossible to consciously set an anchor without proper skills. It is believed that the process of anchoring was successful if a three-time reproduction of the anchor caused a clean reaction, identical in all cases.
The setting of the anchor should occur at a time when the emotional state of a person has reached a peak. There are three main types of anchors:
- visual;
- audio;
- kinesthetic.
The most powerful effect is provided by complex anchors that can be seen, heard and felt simultaneously.
Also, in psychology, the term “anchor collapse” is used. This technology is used in the case when a person has a negative anchor. The collapse consists in anchoring on an absolutely opposite emotion, and then simultaneously reproducing them. As a result, both anchors collapse and a neutral attitude to the situation as a whole arises.
How we anchor ourselves?
Find and give an example of self-anchoring will not be difficult. Remember, the last time you bought a phone. And, the initial situation does not imply that you are well-versed in gadgets, and you came to the store to get a piece of advice. The manager offered you not the most expensive, but the “best” model available. Going into each next salon, you will not search for any better model, you will ask exactly about this one, the first model that you liked and it is most likely you will buy this very model.
The next example of self-anchoring is job search. You went to the site where they threw out vacancies, looked at the approximate level of salaries, caught on the amount that lines your pocket and starts sending out a CV. And did not you forget to clarify the average salary for your city, to look up the requirements for the candidate, the experience and find out what you need to do in order to receive several times more than the rest of the employees? The anchor in this situation was a specific money figure.
People unknowingly use anchors, raising their children. The fact that in childhood caused our positive emotions, is given and allowed to children as a default. And on the contrary, what we fear or what in childhood made us cry so much – now something that we have we been afraid of since childhood, – it is the taboo for our children.
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