Is NLP A Scam?
I don’t have many heroes when it comes to NLP and life coaching.
There are people I admire and respect, but few that would make me more excited than a 13-year-old schoolgirl at a Jonas Brothers concert.
In fact, off the top of my head, I can only think of two.
They are the co-developer of NLP, Richard Bandler, and Derren Brown the British mentalist, NLP guy, hypnotherapist and all-round showman.
Not only is Derren Brown a cool guy, but like Bandler he’s absolutely brilliant at what he does in a mind-blowing way.
When I watch other hypnotherapists and NLP Practitioners at work, I pretty much know what they are doing most, if not all of the time.
When I watch Bandler and Brown I haven’t got a clue for large periods.
That’s frustrating for a smug Nlp Master Practitioner know-it-all like me.
At the same time, it’s also fascinating to see the heights that some people can take the art to with decades of practice.
About three years ago after one of his UK TV series, Brown released a brilliant book called ‘Tricks of the Mind’
If you want an insight into all things bit woo-woo, like stage magic, Spiritualism, NLP, mentalism, memory tricks etc, this is the book for you.
Be warned though, because Brown takes a very large ball-peen hammer to shatter a few sacred cows in a brutal and unapologetic manner.
That’s really cool with me though because I share many of his opinions.
And more importantly, Brown has a very erudite and sensible way of explaining things that I sometimes hadn’t even considered before.
When I first read ‘Tricks of the Mind’ I was shocked to read him knock NLP.
He was quite dismissive of something that he patently uses on a regular basis.
What a hypocritical bastard I thought, I no longer want to have his love child or grow a goatee in his honor.
In 2006 I was doing the second of two NLP Master Practitioner courses I took in back-to-back years.
As is sometimes the case it was running in conjunction with an NLP practitioner course.
Only a small percentage of the people that complete the practitioner training ever go on to do the higher level. Thus we had 8 people on our course and there were over 50 on the other.
Anybody Can Acquire an NLP Certification
The most shocking thing to me was how little 5 of the other ‘Master Practitioners’ trainees knew about the subject at hand.
On further investigation, it seemed these people had attended practitioner courses that barely scraped the surface.
I remember one guy in particular because, I kid you not, he confessed to having bought his practitioner certificate on the Internet!
He’d read a couple of books though, so that was ok.
Another attendee had previously flown from the US to London to be taught by Paul McKenna and Richard Bandler, yet they didn’t even know how to anchor.
Anchoring is definitely NLP 101.
In fact, it’s so basic it’s probably NLP 1 if there is such a thing.
I don’t want to get into the reasons this person was so far out of their depth they were wandering around in flippers and wearing a snorkel because I have no idea what they were.
Maybe training with 750 other people in a huge room isn’t very conducive to something so hands-on as NLP, but that’s just a wild stab in the dark.
I was stunned to think that I had taken a 15-day NLP practitioner course, a 2-day Time Line Therapy course, a 2-day Core Transformation course, a 10-day hypnotherapy course, a 10-day Master Practitioner course, and was on my second 10-day Master Practitioner course – but anybody who knew nothing about NLP would presume I was at the same level as a dude who’d bought a certificate online.
The scary thing was, that person was confidently calling themselves an NLP Practitioner and collecting client money without even knowing the fundamentals.
And there is no way that most potential clients would know that because, and I hesitate to labor the point, but he had a fucking certificate!
One time I was on another blog responding to a post on NLP.
I can’t even remember where I was or what the specific post was about, but I do remember somebody had stepped into the debate to absolutely slam NLP.
They ended their attack by linking to an academic study suggesting NLP didn’t work and was a scam.
On further investigation, the ‘academic study’ was no such thing. It was horrendously inaccurate in pretty much every area from the history of NLP to many of the techniques.
It even ridiculed certain processes that are now firmly established with psychotherapists and counselors.
On reflection, I’m not at all sure why, but I posted an in-depth rebuttal to the guy and pointed out several large flaws in the article. But, you’ll not be surprised to hear he never responded.
After I left my comment two other posters dived in to offer their support for NLP and in their own peculiar way, I found them even more disturbing than the attack.
NLP Is NOT The Cure For All Mans Ills
The reason being, that if you read the comments and believed them you’d be led to think NLP was the cure for all mankind’s ills.
They were making some outrageous, almost evangelical, claims that in my opinion were false and would damage the credibility for anybody reading the thread with an open mind.
And therein lies the problem.
NLP tends to polarize people because so many disparate (and on the face of it, unconnected) things fall under its umbrella.
There is no thing called NLP.
I love NLP and have had some massive breakthroughs using it with clients over the years, but here are my issues and the reason why I can, if I don’t agree, understand people think it’s a scam or are at best, distrustful.
Certification
As I have already mentioned, it’s possible to get certified in NLP in 4 days or sooner, which is patently ridiculous.
Nobody with 4 days’ experience should be attempting to coach or offer intervention processes PERIOD.
Ridiculous Claims From People Supporting NLP
Too many NLPers (pronounced nelpers, and yes it is a crap name so don’t ever call it me!) have their heads up their own arses.
They seem to think they own the keys to the universe and anybody that disagrees is an idiot that doesn’t understand.
NLP can do some great stuff, but to the best of my knowledge, it cannot make somebody do something they don’t want to.
It cannot cure cancer or restore eyesight to somebody that is blind.
Equally, it’s probably not much use in isolation with people suffering from bipolar disorder or serious mental illness.
And it definitely cannot cure Autism or Aspergers Syndrome.
I have heard all of the above claimed to be true in some way shape or form and they always leave me shaking my head in bewilderment.
Training Standards
There are numerous NLP training standards and no curriculum is ever the same.
There is no true regulatory body and anybody can set up a training company.
Richard Bandler did attempt to trademark NLP and even got into a court battle with co-developer, John Grinder, but he ultimately failed and it is now open-source, for want of a better description.
I’m lucky in so much as I’ve had great trainers, some people are less fortunate.
Scientific Research
Although the linguistics side of NLP is fairly well established there hasn’t been enough serious scientific study of why some of this brain stuff works.
In fact, there are large areas where there hasn’t been any research whatsoever and all the evidence is anecdotal.
Does it reprogram the brain as some would claim and appears to happen?
If so, why doesn’t it work with everybody?
Or, as seems more likely, does it depend on the skill of the practitioner and the client’s belief system?
There has been research into NLP patterns like anchoring (I believe at MIT) and reframing (the basis of CBT), but none of those things were ‘invented’ or even discovered by the developers of NLP. They were merely adopted on and expanded.
More is needed to establish the credibility of the subject as a whole.
I now get why Derren Brown feels like he does about NLP or more to the point, toward some of the people that seem to practice, teach and govern NLP.
However, I’m not ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet, because like coaching, NLP is relatively speaking, in its infancy.
I have confidence that it will continue to evolve and improve.
@ Lance – Maybe you should check his books out again. I’ve read Tricks of the Mind 3 times and he doesn’t state his total disdain for NLP at all. He does state his total disdain for people that run NLP however.
Anchoring is not NLP, huh? Wow, it’s kinda weird that it’s about the first thing taught to NLP students.
The simple FACT is, Derren Brown does use NLP (in particular anchoring, submodalities and language patterns) and it’s obvious to anybody that has more than a cursory knowledge of the topic.
Its very telling when NLP practitioners talk about Derren Brown and NLP in the same breath. If you think DB is doing NLP then think again.
Magicians and mentalists do their very best to separate mechanism from effect. They do it by distraction. That often involves placing a fake intervention in the way to distract from the real mechanism (often a simple trick).
Derren Brown fakes psychic ability to distract from the real mechanism in mentalism. He fakes voodoo to distract from the real mechanism in hypnotic acts. He fakes NLP in order to distract people in the same way.
In his books he has stated his total disdain for NLP. He has done the same with photoreading, . Yet he fakes those things to draw attention away from the relatively simple tricks he is using. He might use simple hypnosis techniques such as anchoring, but those are not NLP.
Quote: “According to David hundreds of thousands of satisfied clients isn’t proof. That is and of itself sums up what is wrong with great swathes of academia, the belief that if you can’t measure it it doesn’t exist.
I know one thing its proof of and that’s how blinkered and ignorant some people can be if what they see doesn’t fit their map of the world.”
-No, hundreds of thousands of satisfied clients isn’t proof, of anything except their satisfaction. The elephants in the room here are things like the placebo effect, and confirmation bias. In all situations that are difficult to measure it is well established that we feel what we want to feel and see what we want to see. ANY ‘ritual intervention’ will produce a significant number of subjects who report improvement, and a significant number of practitioners who will claim to see improvement.
Until that fact is accepted, scientific understanding cannot begin. Scientific knowledge is not a ‘different’ kind of knowledge, it is simply knowledge honestly won through rigorous disciplines of investigation that aim to eliminate things like placebo and confirmation bias.
The accusation of blinkered ignorance is very bouncy -careful how you throw it :-)
Andrew
@ David – I responded to your latest comment via e-mail.
@ Alex – Well said mate, I think you did a better job of explaining my position that I did!
I did get another long comment from David that was pretty much the same as the others and once again linking to the same blog post to back up his nonsense.
I simply see no value in publishing it especially as he talks about NLP being used to ‘scam people out of their much needed money’ That is beyond the pale because nobody moves into this industry to get rich unless they are very stupid.
Did you read the post he kept linking too?
It was bizarre. I considered breaking it down and demonstrating all the areas is was wrong, but realized it may take me 2 or 3 hours. That was time I didn’t want to spend on trying to convince one person who would remain unconvinced no matter what I said.
According to David hundreds of thousands of satisfied clients isn’t proof. That is and of itself sums up what is wrong with great swathes of academia, the belief that if you can’t measure it it doesn’t exist.
I know one thing its proof of and that’s how blinkered and ignorant some people can be if what they see doesn’t fit their map of the world.
BTW, one final thing. I’ve always thought eye accessing cues were hit and miss. They need a baseline forming and are less than 100% reliable even then. It’s a shame so many people jump on that one thing as proof that NLP is a scam.
The ‘representational’ model of NLP is the SAME as CBT when broken down. Distortions, deletions, minimization, generalization etc.
Anchoring and Swish Patterns are grounded in Pavlovian conditioning and Behaviourism.
I think Tim is right, this isn’t really a rational debate, when a person arguing against NLP is not arguing logically but rather re-iterrating subjective opinions. To say that NLP is pseudoscience as a whole would be an expression of dire ignorance. Psychological models generally tend to build on previous research, so I doubt every single theory in NLP is pseudoscience, since, it is, actually, based on previous Psychology research (Pavlov, Erickson, Perls).
Not to mention that there are Government accredited tertiary programs being run here titled “NLP diploma”. I didn’t know Government departments funded Graduate programs that actually aren’t training programs at all, but rather pseudoscience and scams.
I think these debates will go on forever, the only simple conclusion that one can reasonably make is as Tim mentioned earlier:
“There is no ONE thing called NLP! It is made up of dozens of component parts.”
@ David – I’m getting seasick from you sliding the goal posts backward and forwards.
It’s amusing you keep referring back to the same website, a website itself that has zero credibility with inaccurate, poorly researched and dishonest posts like the one that you seem so infatuated by.
Whatever. You have your opinion, I have mine and I see no value in continuing this in the comments, so I’m done.
The option to post is still there is you really think you know what you’re talking about and are prepared to open the debate up to a wider audience. Otherwise, let’s just let it go.
Tim
Neurolinguistic programing is full of wild claims. Grinder alluded to Chomskys ideas of deep and surface structure in the 70s. Chomsky had already ditched that theory in the 60s. Why? Because there it failed scientific testing.
Contrast Chomsky and Grinder. Grinder is still referring to debunked freudian notions of the subconscious (from subliminal learning to native american shamanism).
Tim, your argument can be equally applied to support scientology. Dianetics involves many techniques. Voodoo involves a degree of goal setting. It is all just pseudoscience though.
There are characteristics that are core to neurolinguistic programing. These are defining features that make it recognizable. For example, the eye accessing diagrams in the books. Its pseudoscience. Neurolinguistic programing is a phantom in iteslf:
(create a phantom)
http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/pratkanis.htm
Neurolinguistic programing proponents push other such phantoms, such as the use of subconscious learning. Research shows such learning it puny compared to conscious assimilation. Yet people buy into the con, just like they buy into scientology.
Sorry, but your neurolinguistic programing is as pseudoscientific as it sounds.
http://knol.google.com/k/neurolinguistic-programming#Pseudoscience
The mythologies and pseudoscientific bunkum in neurolinguistic programing will always pollute any minority of sensible method taught there. If you want to make neurolinguistic programing useful, then treat it honestly: as the best example of pseudoscience today.
Life coaching is a lot simpler if you don’t teach your clients how to embarrass themselves using new age pseudoscience. The alternative is a lot easier and more productive.
Incredible claims require incredible evidence. Neurolinguistic programming has failed. The evidence points to its classification as a discredited new age pseudoscience. Look at the adverts and new age nonsense that NLPers are selling. It is getting more pseudoscientific as the years go by. NLP is becoming more useful as an example of pseudoscientific babble to avoid.
@ David – I’m not sure why you insist on coming here and flaunting your total ignorance on a topic you know next to zero about, but such is life.
You kinda summed that up by saying there were no citations for NLP.
There is no ONE thing called NLP! It is made up of dozens of component parts.
Presumably if you wanted to look up specific drug research you’d type in “Medicine” would you, and then declare there wasn’t any?
Try researching anchoring and the work of Dan Ariely.
Then after you have trotted off to look for proof that it doesn’t work, check out the meta model of language. Then you can study the Milton Model of language used by advertisers, marketers and spin doctors the world over – the morons!
Better tell AMEX, Mercedes Benz and both the Republican and Democratic parties NLP is a crock too, because they use it.
The first ever book on NLP was about language. Oh and so was the second. John Grinder was a linguistics professor and that was the basis from which it sprung.
No doubts then you can tell the tens of thousand of therapists that use the fast phobia cure it doesn’t work. Better still tell my sister who had a life-long fear of snakes (she couldn’t even look at a picture) banished in 30 minutes.
Then tell the MILLIONS of people that have used it successfully, they’re wrong because YOU don’t understand it.
I made the offer for you to post and then I’ll do a rebuttal. That offer stands if you have the guts to do it rather than this pathetic fear-induced posting and running.
Let’s open the debate a bit and who knows, maybe you can prove me wrong in front of my readers. It would be a load of fun. In fact I’d even do a live debate on uStream if you like?
Hello Tim and Alex
There doesn’t seem to be any MIT research demonstrating the efficacy of neurolinguistic programing. At least I see no citations.
However, there is quite a lot of other research on neurolinguistic programing, and the reviews of all the research conclude that it has overwhelmingly failed in practice.
Not only that but it was always pseudoscientific in concept.
As for comparing it with CBT, CBT has reliable support and reliable concepts. For the uninitiated, that means the concepts themself have had a lot of research to support them, and they have been found internally consistent. There are a lot of people who are willing to pit their CBT interventions against real rigorous testing, and when something fails they will admit to it being a failure and stop teaching it.
Neurolinguistic programing failed the test in the 80s. It was always pseudoscientific in concept (outdated and erroneous concepts conflated for the purpose of promotion to the public). The most egregious nonsense failed in the 80s and it is still printed in new books today with the eye diagrams and mythological sense preference nonsense that belongs in the same new age quackery category as the enneagram.
More recently it has actually been discredited (Norcross et al 2006 2009) The links posted show Grinder preaching about alcoholism and the unconscious, and the results of research showing neurolinguistic programing is discredited for that purpose (amongst other).
Science is not perfect, findings on CBT are not perfect. But there is a stong effort to work towards reliable testing, reliable concepts and efficacious methods.
Neurolinguistic programing is characterised by nievity at best and fraudulence as a matter of course. Just keep rolling that word around your tongue “Neurolinguistic programming”. It has exactly the same taste and stink as “scientology”. Phew!!!
Theres a lot of fishy stuff in there. NLPers try to sell the worst of it.
As I said, and as you have responded so pseudoscientifically: Neurolinguistic programing is about the best example of modern pseudoscience on the planet. Your responses are already more evidence of that.
Tim and Alex. Here is a clear mirror for you to look into:
http://knol.google.com/k/neurolinguistic-programming#Cognitive_Bias
David
@ Alex – It’s covered off in either Sway or Predictably Irrational I *think* I stumbled upon it when researching HTBRAH.
@David Blair
Of course NLP has its flaws. Look at mainstream Psychology. CBT is the most scientifically respected therapy model today, but is it not also a way to spread unctuous nonsense about how the brain is supposed to function?
Many tenets of Freudian Psychoanalysis are now believed to have been nonsense, likewise CBT is no more ‘scientifically rigorous’, its theory is as shaky as NLP. The difference is that CBT promoters are PhD’s with white coats, and NLP promoters are sometimes your neighbourhood housewife who got bored over a weekend and decided to attend an NLP workshop.
These articles that challenge NLP on bases of ‘science’ really frustrate me at times. Perhaps someone should tell these same ‘researchers’ to step out of their lab for 1 day a year and, you know, actually talk to clients.
@Tim
Are any of those MIT studies available publicly online? If you’ve got a link I’d love to have a read.
@ ALex – Agree with that. I have met too many people that had ‘studied’ NLP that still didn’t understand it.
@ GFH – Ouch! That is the dark side of NLP and the reason I for one would like to see it regulated. Glad to hear you realized that a weekend wasn’t really enough for the person to master language patterns!
@ David – Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
You are a superstar. That is THE article I spoke of in my post but couldn’t find.
It is absolutely stunning in its inaccuracies and lack of knowledge.
It epitomizes the approach of people that have already made up their mind and don’t want to do any research or check if they could be wrong.
I really don’t want to waste my time or yours issuing a rebuttal, because you wouldn’t read it with an open-mind anyway, but thanks for giving me a laugh.
As for the alcohol and drug dependency, I really don’t know what to say because you have linked to one line with no details.
Which aspects of NLP was it that didn’t work? I know from first and second hand experience that there are plenty of things that can and do help an addict move forward. Maybe the ones I know you can point out to them they’re wrong and that it didn’t help?
By the way, I hear that medicine stuff doesn’t work at all because somebody died last week whilst staying in a HOSPITAL!!!!
PS You may want to check out MIT’s research on aspects of NLP. Then again, you may not ;-)
PPS The floor is open to you to post your thoughts here, with the condition that you do some credible research not just link to somebody elses lazy BS.
NLP is a pseudoscientific and discredited intervention
http://knol.google.com/k/neurolinguistic-programming#
Whether it is a scam or not depends upon the person selling it. If they have an understanding of how new age snakeoil is really sold, then they are pushing a scam:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/pratkanis.htm
If they are simply deluded, then it is simply pseudoscience.
Grinder claiming to cure alcoholism (using pseudoscientific notions of the subconscious)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5qvyIHUk4I
The actual research:
http://books.google.com/books?id=5-Plk1pAzekC&pg=PT219&dq=neurolinguistic+programming+discredited&cd=4#v=onepage&q=neurolinguistic%20programming%20discredited&f=false
Whether NLP is run as a scam or not, it still presents itself as a way to spread unctuous nonsense about how the brain is supposed to function. In terms of usefulness, neurolinguistic programing is about the best example of modern pseudoscience in existence.
David Blair
I know there are definitely NLP practitioners out there who are highly qualified and well trained.
But there are also scammers (like there are in most industries.)
We’re in the process of having a prospectus put together for a start up company, and the guy putting it together wanted us to pay $5,000 to some guy name Hasim to do some NLP voodoo and drop subliminal suggestions throughout the prospectus.
1) Our business model is good and doesn’t need any subliminal suggestions to be an attractive investment opportunity.
2) It turns out that Hasim was the guys 26 year old son who has recently decided to turn his hand to NLP…like it was something that could be learned over a weekend and absorbed to the point where he was now a master.
Needless to say we politely declined his request and are currently looking for someone else to put our prospectus together…
Like any field, there are scam artists in NLP who don’t understand the deeper fundamentals of the process. NLP is actually not the easiest modality to understand, despite how easy it is to apply once you do. For me the ‘now I finally get it’ moment only came a while after the trainings when something clicked in my mind and it all came together. Honestly, I don’t think half the people in the trainings ever get to that point. The chasm between theory and real life applications is significant, but so it is with cognitive therapy, or alternative healing, or any therapy for that matter.
@Barry
If you want to approach things from an NLP perspective the ‘answer’ you may be looking for is a technique called “Parts Integration”. This technique may offer an easier way to get to the essence of your dilemma than merely value-system work.
@ Alisa – If I knew what to do about SAD I’d probably still be living in the UK! Seriously, I think that’s outside my remit as the medical community really struggle with that sucker.
Bearing in mind the post I have just written, perhaps I should have said NLP can cure that in 12 seconds!
I like the toxic people idea, I definitely have some thoughts on that.
The problem with meeting a serial killer, is that any advice I give is a tad unproven so I wouldn’t recommend you hunt one down to try it out. Trey psychopaths have different brain chemistry to the rest of us and its highly unlikely you could have reasoned with Jack the Ripper.
@ Mark – That has something that I have been toying with. The main issue for ME is that I hate structuring long-term blog stuff. There is always a danger I’ll want to go in a different direction and let people down. I am thinking of a whole new year detox type of thing though.
@ RR – I appreciate all that I really do. My concern is that I don’t know anything about eating disorders per se and its an area of medicine and therapy that I’m just not sure I’m qualified to talk about.
I’d rather write posts like you mentioned and then people use that info to help their circumstances than try and write something that would suggest I’m an expert when I’m not. It’s possible I could do more harm than good.
Thanks for your confidence in me, I do appreciate it.
You have already written articles that deal with many of the problems that people with eating disorders have – perfectionism, lack of confidence, fear of failure, lack of self-kindness (I believe you said this is the key to successful self-development), moving forward from past hurts, and so much more. I don’t think it would take much of a leap to apply those ideas to overcoming an eating disorder.
There’s still a lot of stigma surrounding eating disorders; you have the potential to reach many more women (and increasingly men) who are unable or unwilling to seek psychiatric help. I believe you can do it, Tim.
Ideas for the blog???…
I think a lot of posts motivate people in some way to ‘better’ themselves. However, if anyone is like me, then the momentum will soon go. So, maybe something on maintaining the positive work they start. You could actively encourage this by not only sharing techniques, but perhaps also having some sort of challenge or accountability where you post encouraging updates periodically (say every 4-6 weeks)?
I suppose you help a lot with ‘GET on track’, and for regular readers ‘STAY on track’ would be useful too.
What do I want? Not sure if you’ve already covered the following. I’m a fairly new reader and sometimes life gets busy and I miss posts. But I could use (personally):
* A way to build my confidence before attempting things that scare the crap out of me. I’m assuming the things that scare the crap out of me might also scare the crap out of others. One is public speaking. Another is being interviewed by the media… which is similar to public speaking. The third is heights. I’d be interested to see how you use NLP to overcome phobias.
* What to do about seasonal affective disorder
* How to deal with truly toxic people
* How you might try to talk a serial killer out of killing you–were you ever to find yourself in such a situation. Curious.
* How to be more social when one is naturally shy and feels like a big dork
@ Barry – No apology needed and thanks for taking the trouble to write the comment.
That definitely is something I can look at, let me give it some thought.
@ Weezie – I’m not worried about being flooded. I can always say no.
I like the question and it deserves an answer, but like I said to Barry I want to think about whether I can do it justice.
@ BF – The 10 minutes a day thing is so true, yet I hear people tell me all the time they have no time for self-development. Then they sit down to watch Jerry Springer.
@ Adam – Thanks for the links, interesting stuff. I have always thought EAC were if not bollocks, then close to bollocks.
Firstly, calibration is so important and it’s something most people don’t do because it takes time and let’s face it, a pain in the ass.
Secondly even with calibration, the results are somewhat hit and miss.
I lmao at people who say you can tell whether somebody is lying or not using eac’s. well yeh maybe, but there’s a good chance you’ll get it wrong too.
Still waiting for your guest post on hypnosis ;-)
@ Eduard – Agreed, no discipline is perfect. I also think NLP suffers because of it’s huge variation of techniques and processes. It’s fairly easy to look at parts of it in isolation and make an informed opinion. When you throw all the parts together though the waters get a lot murkier.
@ RR – Hmm, I’m not too sure about that. The reason being is that I’m drifting into psychotherapy which is obviously not something I’m qualified to do.
OTOH, let me give it some thought because self esteem issues are something I feel I can help with and that is the starting point.
Tim, how about an article (or series of articles) on using life coaching to help overcome an eating disorder and develop a healthy body and self-image?
Hey Tim,
I did ask myself this question at one point. There has been a period in my life when I studied NLP almost obsessively , and I can definitely say I found ideas and methods of great value in it.
I did try to find some rigorous scientific research about its claims and my conclusion is that it’s either very well hidden for some reason, or very little has been done. I would love to see some more scientific research. I think a lot of the ideas and methods of NLP will be supported, and some of them won’t. But hey, no discipline is perfect.
Eduard
Hi Tim, I enjoyed this.
I am a firm advocate of NLP, I teach it and use it regularly… Yet it does have some shaky ground when a microscope is placed upon it in other ways too.
There is a page at wikipedia highlighting the evidence that people have found for elements of NLP to be misleading or lacking in efficacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLP_and_science
And I know Kevin Hogan wrote about the problems with eye-accessing cues:
http://www.kevinhogan.com/NLPeyeaccess.htm
And then there is the issue you cite, with so many individuals attempting to wield NLP without any depth of knowledge or understanding and instead end up flailing with it and giving it a tarnished reputation.
I tend to cast a critical analyst’s eye upon lots of the field of NLP and those that use it these days.
Best wishes, A.
@Tim: Yeah, I do. There’s more to it. It was designed strategically to really make a psychological effect. To really get ingrained. It’s based on what will create positive results on the mind. It wasn’t just some random method that someone created. I realize that.
But I like the fact that it’s tangible and that it can be done by yourself. Hell, you could spend 10 minutes a day, every day using this method and it would undoubtedly go a long way in giving one more self mastery over themselves.
If you want to change a habit you may not know what the hell to do. I mean, you could just sit there and exert will power — and that’s important. But when you have a set visualization as this; something totally tangible — it becomes a great discipline that you can do any time you want. That’s much better than being without any game plan!
And this one has been tested to be strategically designed to create results. Good stuff. I’d recommend its usage to anyone with a habit they’re trying to transcend.
Tim
Sure I’d like an ‘ask the life coach’ section. You might get flooded with questions though, so be careful what you wish for!
Like one of your other commenters, I also struggle with guilt, so that would be a good one.
Also, fear of change. How do you know when something is a gut feeling and how do you know when it’s actually fear?
I have a very hard time distinguishing the two.
Hi Tim,
This is probably inappropriately long for a comment but, in response to what readers would like to see, I’m a new subscriber but would very much like some advice about overcoming what my research suggests is called ‘cognitive dissonance’ – in other words, when you have two different beliefs in conflict that are causing problems.
One personal example is money. I believe that being financially secure is a worth goal and that it’s better to look like part of the solution than the problem if you want to help others.
I also believe that if people are good at what they do, they should enjoy the monetary rewards that come with it.
However, I also have terrible feelings of guilt about money and when I walk down the street and see homeless person I feel terrible that I have money that they don’t.
The reality is that, financially, I’m barely scraping by on a shoestring in my own life. Still it has occurred to me recently that, much as I believe I should be rewarded for my efforts and abilities, I will never achieve financial independence while I hold these contradictory views.
How is that I can believe life should be a meritocracy but also seem to feel that I should be giving all my worldly goods away to the less fortunate if I want to be a ‘good’ person?
Similarly, I am a professional musician and I absolutely love what I do. I’m convinced that music and art make the world a better place and that there is no worthier pursuit. I also think that artists should be paid well for their efforts and that the work they (we) do is more important than the vast majority of company directors.
However, I also seem to believe deep down that being a musician is not a ‘proper’ job and that I am somehow wasting myself by following this career. I am constantly dogged by feelings of guilt and have been flip-flopping between artistic and ‘proper’ jobs for the last ten years without finding any peace.
I have looked at many ‘self-improvement’ sites for help with this but there doesn’t seem to he any answers out there. The suggestion is that once you sort your beliefs and values out, you’re sorted for good – but that isn’t the case in my experience, I constantly feel torn between two extremes and it stagnates and tortures me.
What happens if your beliefs and values are totally at odds with each other much of the time?
I realise I’ve gone into some individual details here but I’m sure I can’t be the only one experiencing this kind of conflict so I’ll post it in the hope that any advice you have will help many of your readers…
@ BF – I think what you say is true, although there is obviously a lot more depth than that and of course I know you know that.
I actually prefer the linguistics side of thing although it’s not quite as sexy. Such is my life I guess ;-)
@ Duff – It definitely is amazing and useful imo too.
You’ve been lucky bud because you have worked closely with one of the true giants in the field in Steve Andreas. He’s on a par with pretty much anybody you care to mention.
I agree with pretty much everything you say.
Training doesn’t guarantee a thing, although I would say people who seek out training are PROBABLY more likely to excel in their field because the interest is there to find a boat load of cash up front. Not always the case of course, but as a rule of thumb I think it’s fairly accurate.
And yeh, I have met some therapists that thought rapport was a place in Southern France.
NLP is amazing, and extremely useful in my opinion. But I also agree that there have been exaggerated claims (many started by Bandler), lack of rigorous research, and low training standards for many NLP training companies.
Therapy and coaching are practices and arts. Even if a therapist sticks only with well-tested methodologies like CBT, they might be terrible at getting the purported results because they don’t know the first thing about rapport, for example.
Unfortunately, nothing guarantees a good therapy or coaching session–not a Ph.D. in Psychology or Psychiatry, nor NLP training. But yet there are many great therapists and coaches who know what they are doing and are very helpful.
From the little I’ve read of NLP it seems to me to be an effective way to focus the mind on one’s goals and prime one for action.
Though, I don’t think anything is bullet proof. And as you’ve mentioned in the above, I think the person has to really want to change otherwise any technique will ultimately fail.
But I’m impressed with NLP and like the swish pattern. It’s a form of visualization to me. I think it’s a great method to use to remind oneself of what and why they want to accomplish something. Empowering.
Also… I’d say that repetition is of great importance. Many things can fail if done only once. But if done consistently, they can have lasting and significant benefit.