Guru

What a great quote. I've linked to it.

Why not just stick to Organisational Psychology and forget the NLP brand and its selection box of tools?

If anyone can make sense of this post, can they please send me a translation (English is my first language).
I was drawn to this article because I know about NLP and am always interested in reading about it from all points of view. However I found it extremely difficult to make sense of this article.
Can someone explain it to me, please?

Doug
www.dougwoods.com

NLP has always been dubious. The very term is an obscurantism (a pretentious pseudoscientific term). Neuro (riding on the coattails of legit neuroscience), linguistic (its not linguistics and its linguistics ideas are junk), programming (we are not programmable and only scientologist types think we are). Neurolinguistics is a legit science based concern. NLP is new age pseudoscience.

Business psychology is full of useful and evidence based interventions. There is also an effort to prune back the bullshit left/right brain thinking, dichotomania, and easy to swallow pseudoscience that various bragards have chucked around. Its encouraging. But new code NLP is intractable junk. Basically anything with NLP in its title is going to be bad news. Both founders (bandler and grinder) are new age junkies who do weird occult stuff all the time and NLP is always full of crystal chasing kooks. Luckily its a well labeled minefield to avoid. I noticed that most NLPers get branded as flakes on site in the companies I have worked with. Its just too embarrassing for those in the know to be associated with.

Scott states that John Grinder has not endorsed a book since the '80's. Actually he and his partner Carmen Bostic St Clair wrote the preface to our book "The NLP Field Guide" which was published in 2001.

Thanks Guru - nice blog.

It's interesting to me that, in most cases, being professional is a list of things you shouldn't do - does this expand our options or reduce them?

thanks for the link Rick.

Scott - Yes, many of the most effective practitioners of NLP do not refer to it in their promotional material to avoid the negative stigma. You would be hard pushed to find a leadership programme that does not borrow heavily from NLP. (for quite some time I used the banner 'applied psychology')This does nothing to support the practice of NLP.

Doug - can you specify your question; what about the article is difficult to make sense of?

Sam, I'm not sure where to start; Your comments are very familiar to me, I have presented NLP to quite a few Psychologists, and I suspect you would be surprised at the outcome of such interactions. The University of Surrey is calling for papers on the subject so perhaps you would be well positioned to comment. If you are genuinely interested in challenging your existing paradigm, I would point you in the direction of 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas Khun, University of Chicago Press 1970'. From there, check out 'Steps to an Ecology of Mind - Gregory Bateson, again - University of Chicago Press'. I hope that you take the time to look into it - remain sceptical but also push the boundaries of your existing 'knowledge' on the subject.

Chris - yes your comment is correct - my slightly over enthusiastic PR agency have made a bogus claim there.

As someone who has studied and trained in NLP Im very pleased to hear some critics of it.At first as a psychotherapist I was distinctly interested however after a while the love affair began to cool as no one seemed that interested in answering the many questions that can be asked about NLP its borrowings from this and that, such as General Semantics{itself not beyond criticism}.I am frankly also rather concerned about the various and often distinctly odd people who promote it as a cure all.Look at any New Age type site and you will find people who do NLP alongside Shamanic Soul Retrieval,Reiki,Holistic Massage,Astral Travel,Jungian Analysis and God knows what else.It all smacks of intellectual indigestion to me and a bulk head mentality that cannot or will not allow themselves to be aware of the contradictions not only within NLP but the other therapies they so often do.

I am familiar with the book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn and presume that you are saying that NLP is a similiar paradigm change as between Terra Centric and Solar Centric Astronomy.Just because someone has unusual ideas than challenge accepted scientific world views etc does not make them true.It should not be forgot that scientific advances that change our ways at looking at ourselves or the universe still depend on a new body of testable evidence?Does NLP provide this?

I just came back to see if there was any reply in response to my comments on Thomas Kuhns The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Just a point, its always useful to either have been, or imagine yourself to be persecuted for your beliefs etc.Then the old trump card can be pulled-they persecuted so and so and they turned out to be right etc.Pesecution is the evidence of truth, therefore on this sort of arguement.Sad to say I dont think anyone in NLP has been persecuted ,so it has not been argued thus.However that the "establishment"{whoever they are?} reject NLP I have quite often seen argued is evidence of its truth.

I pretty much agree with Doug

Would you start scientology again? Voodoo again? David Icke again? The enneagram again? NLP is in the same category, just slightly better disguised.

NLP is baseless pap.

The business schools that offer NLP as a subject do so alongside the astrology/tarot card style pick and mix circus of the 70s. They offer it as a chance for most of the students to ridicule the whole thing.

The fact is, NLP is in the core of the category of scientology, emin, and all the other new age cults, within literature that examines those sorts of social phenomena (new alternative religions). If you are into NLP, or admit to being into NLP, then simply stopping and referring to realistically supported methods instead will sort you out very easily. If you are pushing NLP as anything other than an alternative religion, or gaining money selling it as "powerful" then society needs to tattoo large bullshitter signs on your forehead.

Hi Douglas and George (and anyone reading the conversation):
Yes, the new age associations are unhelpful. There are practitioners of NLP that link it to all kinds of nonsense. My personal pet hate it people that talk about 'energy'. I have no clue what this is about - unless you are talking about joules - one joule being the amount of energy to raise 1cl of water by 1 degree centigrade at room temperature and sea-level atmospheric pressure - then you've lost me. The field of NLP is a mess. I am unable to converse with most NLPers on the subject and they would probably find my book more challenging and upsetting than you would. Most people in the field of NLP are unable to even define NLP correctly, and the simple intention of the process that underpins nearly all techniques remains elusive to them – and I’m fairly loose about the parameters that I would consider an acceptable definition – Frankly, I’d be happy with anything that isn’t completely wrong.

Obvoiusly I can only go so far with this on a blog - if you are genuinely interested in this debate, I would encourage you to read the first two chapters of my book and get back to me.

I have little time for individuals who join the cult of NLP and are foolish enough to believe anything they are told and challenge established scientific method without a precise understanding of where the established paradigm falls down with respect to human sciences. Similarly it’s pointless attempting to enter into a balanced dialogue with a cynical zealot who is so married to the existing paradigm that the first response is to defend it without exploration.

If you are sceptical I’m interested in discussing, if you are cynical it’s a waste of time. Furthermore, anyone who is unable to distinguish between entropy and sacrament should hold their tongue. NLP is in it’s infancy and there is still much to be done.

In terms of effectiveness, yes there are people practicing NLP ineffectively. To draw on personal experience it’s highly effective. One of my clients (a friend of a friend) came to me with debilitating panic attacks and an acute blood phobia. He had been through counselling, followed by three years of psychotherapy, and 3 months of CBT to no avail. His problem behaviours were gone within 4 sessions with me. It’s now three years on and they have not returned. NLP changed his life - he would react very strongly to your comments about the effectiveness of NLP.

Love the comments from the chap called herbert...
Compering as an analogy NLP to walking.... everyone walks differently.... some people just walk, others want to understand why/how they walk, some people hardly walk anywhere, some people walk everywhere,

dont think we need to start again with walking, why should we with NLP, unless its a marketing ploy to scam people out of introductory/intermediate/advanced/superadvanced/intergalactic level certificates