NLP benefits a variety of health conditions and illnesses, by identifying and removing an individual's limiting belief about his or her condition. Once these beliefs are redirected, the body is better able to use the immune system.

  David Paul, M.D., Medical Director of Vail Valley Medical Center in Vail, Colorado, commonly uses NLP  in his medical practice as a drugless technique for placing dislocated shoulders back into their sockets. Standard medical practice involves a significant amount of medication to induce pain relief and muscle relaxation, followed by manipulation of the shoulder to put it back in place.

  Dr. Paul and his group have developed a technique that uses language patterns based on NLP to help the patient reach relaxation, without discomfort involved in the actual physical manipulation. Dr.Paul uses phrases like ''allow your arm to relax'', and ''allow your muscles to relax; notice as your arm goes up the discomfort becomes more bearable'' - all positive, no negative commands, and also very specific. Ninety-five percent of the time the shoulder can be put back in its socket in one minute or less without the use of morphine, valium, or similar products. Dr. Paul says, before they started to use this technique, his average success rate was between 40 and 50 percent.

  Over the past five years Dr. Paul and his group have used this technique to treat more than one thousand patients, and feels that NLP is an essential addition to his physical practice. Dr. Paul has also found NLP techniques helpful in the treatment of traumatic injury cases such as car accidents.

  Dr. Paul says, often a person involved in a car accident feels much worse after four or five days. He replays the accident over and over in his head, sometimes even going through it in slow-motion. However, this causes the muscles to tense, and this creates a lot of discomfort. If the practitioner can get involved quickly enough and change the internal representations of that experience, the accident victim will be less prone to a lot of the 'whiplash,' muscle spasms, or long pain usually associated with major trauma. NLP techniques help to remove blocks that stand in the way of the body's natural curing process.

  NLP is also helpful in cases of chronic disease. NLP trainer Robert Dilts recalls how his mother, after having earlier undergone chemotherapy, experienced a relapse of breast cancer that metastasized to her skull, spine, ribs, and pelvis. He worked with his mother to disclose her conscious and unconscious beliefs about herself and her illness. Her cancer had reappeared during a transition period in her life. Numerous changes in her family life had caused her to feel frustrated, upset, to question her place in the family system, and to question her whole identity. She also worked long hours as a nurse, commenting that she was literally "dying" to take a vacation. When her cancer recurred in the midst of these changes, her prognosis was poor, with her doctor saying all he could do was "make her comfortable." Dilts helped his mother to change her limiting beliefs and unconscious conflicts. She also changed her lifestyle  that included diet and exercise. As a result, her health improved dramatically and she decided not to receive any further chemotherapy or radiation treatments. Eventually she fully recovered and recommenced a normal lifestyle.

 

  Dr. Janet Konefal, Ph.D., of Miami, Florida, has used NLP for the past ten years in the treatment of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS patients. Dr. Konefal has worked with patients in all phases of the disease, from those just recently diagnosed to cases of full-blown AIDS. One of her clients has been HIV positive for eleven years, another for nine years, and many have been HIV positive for six and seven years. Dr. Konefal explains, that part of what she is examining with NLP is: What is the quality of life and what can be done to enhance that, and what is the client's goal? Some goals are longevity; how long a person wants to live. With AIDS it might be.

  When  person is HIV-infected, and surviving five, six years, he begin to feel he is on borrowed time. He starts to think, ''Oh my gosh! I've beaten this thing for this long, now for sure something will happen.''

  When this happens, Dr. Konefal has her clients come back and go through another kind of NLP process that lets them extend the possibility that they're not on borrowed time. She tells them, ''Yes, you can survive and have the virus. Some people put cancer in remission. There isn't any reason why we cannot put the AIDS virus into remission, but just keep it a secret." She warns them not to go around telling everybody because what happens is that someone will say to them it's not possible, and then they have to expend a lot of energy and create a lot of stress for themselves defending their position. They can also join a network of people who can support each other in the curing process.

  Dr. Konefal has had success by combining NLP with other alternative therapies such as acupuncture, chinese herbs, homeopathy, and nutrition. She does not like to depend only on any one method.

  The question of false hope is another issue that AIDS has raised. Research shows that when a person feels hopeless the immune system compromises itself. Because AIDS has been labeled a fatal disease, the immune system of someone suffering with AIDS can be compromised inadvertently and unknowingly. When most medical doctors realize that there is no hope for their AIDS patients, they suppose that it is their ethical duty to inform their patients that they are going to die.

  Dr. Konefal, thinks that this process is hurtful. She always asks the people she works with to envision building a future. She ask a patient, ''If you could survive this, if you could be one of the people who figures out how you're going to live with this virus, what would your life be like?'' Then immediately the patient has a future instead of a black hole or a coffin, and the whole way he approaches daily activity or the rest of his  life changes.