neuro-semantic NLP

IS NLP STILL RELEVANT IN 2025/2026?

The Coaching Centre – Australia
info@thecoachingcentre.com.au
Have you ever wondered why some professional development models fade into obscurity while others continue to evolve?
I’ve been wrestling with this question lately as I watch the coaching landscape shift beneath our feet.
Last month, a colleague asked me point-blank: “Should I still invest time learning NLP?” I paused. Not because I doubted the answer, but because the question itself revealed a deeper confusion about what NLP actually is today.

The Identity Crisis

Here’s what most people don’t realise: NLP isn’t one thing. It never was.
When someone says they “know NLP,” I need to ask when they learned it and from whom. A practitioner trained in 1978 experienced something fundamentally different from someone certified in 1995, and both learned a different model than what we’re teaching in 2025.
Think of it this way. In 1972, before the term NLP even existed, a group of college students gathered on the Kresge campus at UC Santa Cruz. They called themselves “the Meta People.” They weren’t learning a codified system with levels and certifications. They were practicing sensory awareness, asking how instead of why, and learning to stay present rather than getting lost in mental chatter.
That was NLP’s origin story. Not slick marketing or certification hierarchies, but raw experiential learning drawn from Fritz Perls’ Gestalt Therapy work.
From the Gestalt book that Richard Bandler edited from Perls, the following comprised much of Perl’s focus:

  • Come into the here-and-now, be present.
  • Realize that all problems exist in the here-and-now.
  • Get out of your chattering head and see-and-see, hear-and-hear.
  • Learn to come into sensory-awareness; stop hallucinating.
  • Stop the chattering and clutter in your mind.
  • Stop asking why and learn to ask how.
  • Stop introjecting large chunk of generalisations.
  • Break introjects down into pieces.
  • Refuse the Either/Or split and think of the whole field, the gestalt.
  • Embrace response-ability.
  • Be aware that everything you do is your expression; it comes from you.
  • Ask more questions and become aware of the obvious.
  • What you dream, fantasize about, repeat deliberately to own it.
  • Learn meanings by relating foreground to background.
  • etc

    Three Decades, Three Versions

    I’ve come to see NLP’s evolution in three distinct phases.
    NLP 1.0 emerged in the mid-1970s as a linguistic model. The Meta-Model gave us tools to challenge vague language and surface thinking. It was revolutionary because it was practical and teachable. But it was also incomplete.
    NLP 2.0 arrived in the 1980s when Grinder and DeLozier introduced “new code” and Dilts added “logical levels.” The model expanded beyond therapy into modeling expertise itself. We gained sub-modalities, meta-programs, and time-lines. The toolkit grew richer, but something else happened too: the field fractured. By the late 1980s, NLP entered what I call its self-destruct mode. Five competing camps emerged. Lawsuits flew. The American NLP community collapsed under the weight of its own ego.
    This is where the story gets interesting.
    While NLP imploded in the United States, it thrived internationally. Conferences multiplied. Research expanded. By the 2010s, there was genuine momentum toward unity, symbolized by the NLP Leadership Summit. Then 2020 hit, and the pandemic shutdown devastated in-person training models worldwide.

    The Third Evolution

    NLP 3.0, which we now call Neuro-Semantics, emerged from recognizing what the earlier models missed: self-reflexive consciousness. This isn’t just semantic wordplay. It’s about understanding how our minds work at meta-levels, how frames govern our states, and how we can work with the structure of experience itself.
    When I integrated Meta-States into classical NLP training back in 1997, I didn’t set out to create something new. I was solving a practical problem. The existing model couldn’t adequately address complex states like resilience, leadership, or self-esteem because it didn’t account for how we think about our thinking.
    Neuro-Semantics extends the Meta-Model by incorporating distinctions from Alfred Korzybski that the original NLP developers overlooked. It provides a more complete model of how the mind actually functions. It enables us to work with hidden unconscious frames that drive behavior patterns.

    What This Means for You

    If you’re already trained in classical NLP, Neuro-Semantics offers something significant: a focus on meta-structure and a clearer understanding of how framing works. It’s not about abandoning what you know, but deepening it with tools that address the gaps.
    If you’re new to this field, you face a choice. You can learn historical NLP, with all its myths and manipulations, or you can start with an advanced model that has continued developing and testing its effectiveness in real-world application.

    The Larger Question

    Will NLP survive the 2020s? Will it experience a resurgence, or will it fade like the Human Potential Movement that spawned it?
    I can’t predict the future of the broader NLP community. What I do know is that the core insights remain powerful. The ability to model excellence, to understand how language shapes neurology, to work with the structure of subjective experience, these capabilities are more relevant now than ever.
    At The Coaching Centre, we’ve committed to preserving what works: a clean, thorough presentation of Advanced NLP that continues building from the original premises while eliminating what doesn’t serve. We’re not interested in defending territory or winning arguments. We’re focused on one question: Does this help people live more fully?
    That’s the standard that matters. Not whose certification you hold or which lineage you claim, but whether you can help another human being think more clearly, feel more authentically, and act more effectively.
    The tools are here. The model continues evolving. The question isn’t whether NLP is relevant in 2025 and 2026. The question is whether you’re ready to engage with it at its most sophisticated level yet.

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