ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the outcome process of each brief therapy, and then considers stress and arousal responses in regulated and dysregulated individuals. Neurolinguistic psychotherapy is an outcome-orientated therapy based on what is possible for the client. The reticular activation system within the brain is responsible for arousal and motivation, circadian rhythm, respiratory and cardiac rhythms, and is considered to be the physical process that is responsible for Freud’s “psychical energy”. Stress is a hyper-arousal response based in the hypothalamus, and release of stress hormones enables the self to take action to manage the stressful situation. Collapsing anchors is a useful technique to use when a client habitually responds in an unresourceful way to a particular situation, and enables the client to link more positive states to the situation. Chaining anchors is a technique that can be used when the gap between the present state and the desired state is large.
