Imagine what it would be like if you could communicate effectively with every person you meet. What would it be like to know that any messages you want to put across to your patients mean the same to them when they hear them as they mean to you? A few basic pointers in neurolinguistic programming (NLP) may help to improve how clearly you communicate with others. In this article we will look at linguistics, or the use of language, as one part of NLP and a key indicator of how people make sense of, and interpret, the world.