By Carol Mitchell

I attended Master Practitioner Certification with Barbara Stepp of Excellence Quest Institute from January to March of 1997. The training took place over one 3-day weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) each month for three months.

The skills taught:

More extensive work with Representational Systems, Submodalities, Rapport, Anchoring, Elicitation of Current and Desired States, Review of Strategies learned in Practitioner class and 2 additional: Strategies of Excellence, and Peak Performers, Propulsion Systems-motivation to change, more detailed understanding of Meta Programs, Language Patterns, Ambiguities and how to use them to Induce Trance, Reframing-changing perception of realty, Sleight of Mouth-powerful ways to communicate different points of view, NLP in business: Negotiations, Business Meetings, Presentation Skills, Enneagrams-personality types, and Modeling-how to acquire the skills and know-how of a pro.

The exercises taught:

NLP Console-gaining access to the control panels of the mind, Simple Mirroring, Convincing Lies and How to Detect Them, Hesitation to Go-For-It Anchor, Swish Pattern, Decision Strategies, Convincer Strategies, Compulsion Blowout, Triple Trance Induction-how 3 hypnotists can speed up the change work, New Behavior Generator, Experience Fast Time/Slow Time, Hypnotically Induced Euphoria, Allergy Cure, Hypnotic Eyesight Enhancement, Telling Metaphors to facilitate change, Using Modeling to Acquire a new skill, and Removing Negative Emotions from Memories.

Homework:

Type/write a transcript to a short tape by Richard Bandler, a co-creator of NLP.

The trainers were Barbara Stepp and Stever Robbins. They both have very engaging teaching styles. They were conscientious in explaining the course material. We had plenty of help from the trainers and interns as we worked on the exercises. They were very accessible when we had questions.

The training was held in a rented training room near Water Tower Place in Chicago. There was convenient parking, and the neighborhood was beautiful. There was a large variety of restaurants within walking distance.

I stayed at home and drove to the class each day.

What I enjoyed most about the class is that Barb is committed to giving value to her students. She spent much effort making sure that everyone understood. I felt a little impatient at first when other people didn't understand, but I changed my attitude the first time I ran into trouble and Barb took the time to help me to understand something.

The challenge I had with this class was that I suddenly had so many options of how to address the often serious problems in my life that I began to feel a little overwhelmed. To go from believing you have no choice to believing you have infinite choice is a big step for someone like me.

I found that this class really filled in the details that the Practitioner Class just didn't have time for. I now know that I have all the tools to make the relationships in my life as good as I want them to be. NLP isn't a magic bullet. I still have to work at using these new skills everyday, but the rewards in my family life are well worth the effort. For instance, I used to be the type of person who would get upset and then try very hard not to show it so that I wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings. Often times, I wasn't even aware I was doing it until we did an exercise in class about changing emotions, and I decided to test it out at home. Now that I know I can change an emotion when I have learned the lesson it is teaching me, I can feel safe experiencing my emotions. As a mother of four young children, I find myself using this skill several times a day.

Barb wrote the training manual for this class. I found it very helpful. It has many more details than the Practitioner manual, tons of practice exercises and it is bound in the same high-quality fashion as the Practitioner manual.