Relationships are critical parts of our life, we are social animals by nature.

Have you ever tried to have conversations with others whether loved ones or maybe work colleagues and no matter how hard you try you just can’t seem to agree?

Do you find that others always seem to get what they want when they talk to you, while at the same time you feel frustrated because you can’t seem to articulate your thoughts and get them across?

Or maybe simple conversations with others can escalate into arguments very quickly. Possibly you struggle in formal situations such as interviews and annual appraisals, so that you don’t say what you want to say and you leave feeling frustrated and powerless.

Relationship therapy can help you understand why we sometimes react negatively even during simple conversations, how to spot that problem, how to prevent it and how to identify and avoid the hidden games that we play during conversations. This applies to all relationships, such as with partners, friends, work colleagues- anyone in fact who we are building positive relationships with.

We can look at simple techniques to build rapport and good relationships with others, and investigate how to listen properly to others so that you can examine the logic that they have learned to use and challenge that logic in a sympathetic way that allows you to open the door to better communication. It also teaches you to challenge your own internal logic, allowing you to change or adapt if needed.

It is also useful to appreciate and understand the other person’s point of view, so that we can change conflict into co-operation. NLP is very good at helping us with communication and negotiation techniques, and if we look at EFT we can learn the concept of building powerful relationship bubbles. This is a great technique that can be used at home, at work, anywhere that it is needed.

TOP TIP: If you are butting heads with someone and can’t quite work out why, listen very carefully to the kinds of words that you are both using. For example, one of you may be a Visual person. In other words they will say things like ‘I will see what I can do’, ‘That looks good to me’, ‘That appears to be OK’ and so on.

Now you may be Auditory. So you will say things like ‘That sounds good’, or ‘I hear what you are saying’ and so on.

Sometimes although you may both be saying the same thing, the different language types you are using can make it sound like you haven’t quite understood the other, and so you can start to argue about the same thing.

I had the pleasure of meeting Phil and undertaking a course with him, where we used NLP and Timeline strategies, to shift stubborn, negative attitudes and beliefs. It was different to previous approaches and I have adopted these strategies in both my personal and professional life. Phil is attentive, affable and insightful, a pleasure to work with.

Mr M. Berkshire

www.philgowler.co.uk