Demystifying NLP - Choosing A Practitioner

Like Life Coaching, NLP is not regulated.  More’s the pity in my book, but until I take control of US Government sometime in 2010 according to my latest goal schedule, I’m afraid I can’t influence that, so I’ll have to learn to live with it. Unfortunately, that means there are any number of snake oil salesman out there that have run out of snake oil and are jumping on to the NLP Training bandwagon. As long as you have got a nice ink jet printer to knock out your certificates and a passing knowledge of NLP 101 you can legitimately set yourself up as a trainer, and nobody can do a damn thing about it. Even worse than that, you can set up as an organization that supplies the certificates to the trainers. For the latter you need a real impressive printer and probably one of those machines that allows you to add wax seals for added gravitas. If you decide to do this, here’s a quick tip. Make your certificates bigger than everybody else’s; because everybody is impressed by a big certificate hanging on a wall.

It’s possible to get a certificate saying you are a Practitioner in NLP after 2 days training as I’m sure it’s possible to buy a certificate off the Internet saying you’re a brain surgeon and another informing the world that J-Lo had your love child, but that doesn’t necessarily make it so. When you are looking to hire somebody for NLP purposes ask the following questions:

• Who did you train with?
• How long did you train for?
• What level of training have you undergone?
• Do you undergo ongoing training?
• How long have you been practicing?
• Are you trained in hypnotherapy?
• Can you offer referrals?
• Why can’t penguins fly?

You really want to be looking for somebody that has trained with an established training organization. There are a lot of those out there but if they throw any of these names at you: Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Steve or Connierae Andreas, Robert Dilts, Charles Faulkner, Michael Watson, John Le Valle, Tad James, Jamie Smart (Salad), David Gordon or NLP Comprehensive, nod your head sagely and say something along the lines of “Sweet, you da man/ women for me, where do I sign?” There are a lot of other good trainers too, so do your research.

Make sure that your chosen person has done at least one Master Practitioner course. How committed are they to the field if they do one entry level course and think they know enough to go playing about with people’s brains. Ok, that was a joke, we don’t really play with people brains, but you get the gist. If they haven’t done at least 100 hours training, then treat them with caution. Last I counted I was approaching 400 hours and there’s still a heckuva lot more I plan to do.

You may be surprised at me mentioning hypnotherapy. The reason for that is NLP has its roots firmly intertwined with hypnotherapy and both fields are based around language and work with the unconscious mind.  Knowledge of hypnotherapy is definitely an advantage although not an absolute pre-requisite.

 This advice is to help you get the most out of NLP and not to discourage you from using it and reaping all the undoubted benefits.  “Undoubted benefits?”  I hear you cry “What undoubted benefits, you never mentioned those before?” How about this little lot just for starters then?

• Removing fears
• Reducing stress levels
• Building confidence
• Removing phobias
• Improving relationships
• Quitting smoking
• Releasing emotional baggage
• Speaking in public

I wanted to finish with ‘and much, much, more’ but thought you might think I was selling snake oil. It’s a great list I think you’ll agree, but let’s put some balance in and tell you what NLP cannot help you with so it doesn’t sound like I’m suggesting it’s magic.

• Procrastination issues so severe that you never show up
• Body odor
• Winning the lottery
• Finding a job (actually maybe it can do that one because it can help build rapid rapport)
• Hair loss
• Acne
• World peace

If there is anything you do that involves some form of communication either internally with yourself or externally with others, then NLP can help. I guess I’ve done enough beating about the bush so in the next post we’re finally going to get going and look at the applications of Neurolinguistic Programming. Are you excited?

Enjoyed this post? Please share it!

Digg it | Stumble it |

 

Post a Comment

Name

Mail (will not be published)

Website

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail