Whats the case for NLP?

[drichardson]

We've all read Bandlers "Frogs into Princes" and "The Structure of Magic". The latter even earning a citation in Palmers fairly modern "Introduction to Counseling and Psychotherapy". While the concepts are interesting, looking to validate the claims made in those books has proven quite difficult!

Stephen Lanktons book "Practical Magic: A Translation of Basic Neuro-Linguistic Programming into Clinical Psychotherapy" (1980) inadvertently signs NLPs death warrent, while being fully supportive of it's claims. In the mid 80's, seriously skeptical papers started to appear. Sharpley goes as far as to ask in the title 1987 "Neuro-linguistic Programming: Non supportive Data or an Untestable Theory?" By the 1990's NLP had gone from "Popular Theory" to "New Age Nonsense" yet I still see NLP in practice.

As hypnotists, we all suffer from ridiculous claims made by the less savory practitioners of our art. The rise of alternative medicine brought out every kook who could hold a watch and cash a check! As a result, legitimate counselors, psychologists, and other medical professionals have stayed fairly clear of hypnotists in fear of embracing pseudoscience. I can only imagine the mountain of solid research that simply hasn't been done because of unwarranted skepticism.

Has NLP simply suffered the same fate as hypnosis? Has NLP developed beyond Bandlers early work? Most importantly, is there any current research on NLP?

If you use NLP in practice, I'd love to hear your insights.

[Connie]

I use it. I love it. It's powerful. It works.

[Docresults]

As a result, legitimate counselors, psychologists, and other medical professionals have stayed fairly clear of hypnotists in fear of embracing pseudoscience. I can only imagine the mountain of solid research that simply hasn't been done because of unwarranted skepticism.

Dr. Richardson,

I suspect the fear of embracing pseudoscience and instead going for real science has produced the following which says a lot about legitimate... (in another the reason the legitimate (medically established and approved) professionals stay away because there isn't much money in hypnosis/NLP as they remove cause and do not prolong illnesses, etc. as legitimate therapy does.

(Also most psychologist I know do some form of "Brief Therapy" [hypnosis/NLP/Energy Psychology] if the patient request it.)





Do you have faith in conventional medicine?

How long can you turn a blind eye to the truth?



Sloppy hand writing causes 7000 deaths each year and preventable medical mistakes hurt 1.5 million patients yearly.

Every year 7.5 million UNCECESSARY medical and surgical procedures are preformed.



At least 106,000 people die every year from adverse drug reactions. Only 6% of all adverse drug reactions are properly identified. Most side effects are identified as new disease symptoms, leading to further drugging and unnecessary medical procedures, increasing the risk of death even further. Most of these deaths are from expected adverse reactions, because they are extensions of the drugs action.



The mortality rate of people between the ages of 45-64, who took their prescription drug CORRECTLY, rose 90% in just FIVE years. As of 2001 Pfizer is the number 1 most profitable of all the fortune 500 companies. Their profits that year were 7.8 Billion dollars, which is MORE than all the Fortune 500 companies in the homebuilding, apparel, railroad and publishing industries COMBINED. (That’s just ONE Drug Company.)



Modern Medicine is no longer about health. It is a for-profit disease industry that can only survive if millions of people get sick and stay that way. It’s an industry that refuses to consider vitally important aspects of health, like how stress lowers the immune system and how the cells are the front line and backbone of the immune system. How processed foods, alcohol, excessive calories and insufficient exercise are recipes for disease. How the soil no longer has the needed nutrients for strong cells and a stress and disease resistant immune system. How exposure to the tens of thousands of toxins in our environment and food supply, have direct links to the illnesses humans suffer. We are told to stay out of the sun… yet 50,000 people die of cancer each year because they don’t get enough sun exposure.



Why are we kept in the dark? Why is the truth not being sought? FOLLOW THE MONEY!



More than half of the United States populations have received unnecessary medical treatment, that’s about 50,000 per day… 42% have been directly affected by medical mistakes, from a procedure or drug, and 84% of our population personally knows someone who has been the victim of a medical error. (45 million are without health insurance.)



These medical errors equate to 6 jumbo jets falling out of the sky each and every day. The only difference is the media coverage-there is no public display of grief for those who die of faulty medicine. The error rate of Intensive Care Units is like the post office losing more than 16,000 pieces of mail every hour of every day or banks deducting 32,000 checks from the wrong account each and every hour –every day – year in and year out.



The American Medical System is the NUMBER ONE killer in the United States.



The deaths caused by conventional medicine, IN JUST ONE DECADE, equates to approximately 8 million

That is more than ALL the casualties from ALL the wars the United States has fought in its entire history.



In 2006, health care spending reached TWO TRILLION DOLLARS. We should have the best medicine in the world, - preventing and reversing disease and knowing how to do minimal harm. Instead we are getting buried prematurely.



Adding to the problems of this flawed system…

The deceptive marketing practices that have changed our eating patterns, so now, more than 90% of the money people spend on food is for highly processed, unhealthy food, also the fact the American soil is depleted of the necessary minerals and nutrients to produce healthy food.



Sugar in soft-drinks is the number one source of calories in the U.S. which now causes one in three Americans to have diabetes or pre-diabetes, and two in three Americans to be overweight. Half of them are obese.



How many will have to step off the cliff and die before you step out of line? Toxic medications will never reverse poor health that is due to poor nutrition.



Think about it…

What can outweigh a statistically proven risk of “unintentional death” as a side effect of most drugs?



Are you ready to stand up and take charge of your health?

Or will you let Big Pharmaceutical take you down and cover it up?



You don’t have to become a statistic.

This is your life own it. Protect it.

[John B.]

I'm afraid that objectively validating the efficacy of NLP suffers from the same problems as hypnosis. Both modalities depend upon the interaction of the practicioner and the client and presuppose that the correct course of action is dependent upon the individuality of the client, not the problem presented. This makes objective evaluation difficult, if not impossible.

As a hypnotist, I believe that my function is to guide my clients to the realization that they have the innate ability to change their lives and to become the persons they wish to become. Anything that helps reinforce that belief in themselves is useful.

It makes sense to me that modalities such as hypnosis, NLP, EMT and the like, whether dubious from a scientific perspective or not, can foster that change by reminding people that they are control of their lives. I'll use whatever techniques appear to work for my clients, and let them judge the effectiveness for themselves.

[Terry]

Personally, I don;t see a problem. Each of us is given a mind to develop and use for whatever purpose we choose. You say doctors and scientists are being scared off by seudo practitioners, I say nonsense. You say NLP is suffering the same fate as Hypnosis, pray tell what you see that fate to be, because from my viewpoint, the medical profession is reaching out to us as we speak..
I have personally declared war on Cancer, and I confess I don;t give a damn what nayssayers mumble, I am me, and I walk werever I choose regardless of those who sneer. In doing so, I have come across what the medical profession dealing exclusively with Cancer has to say about our art, and it is not negative at all, I quote:- Alternative therapies and complimentary therapies, "CAM", are valuable in helping those with cancer to deal with it successfully.In alphabetical order, these are the aproved methods promoted.....
Acuncture, Art therapy, Energy therapies :Reiki",Hypnosis, Meditation, Spiritual Healing. These are some of the recomendations being promoted by those in medicine that deal with the mind. Others cover diet etc and are not included here though I will be happy to include them for anyone interested in going to distance to eradicate cancer as a killing disease.
My answer to the poster is simple and not intended to be insulting, it is this. You my friend are suffering from stinking thinking, and it is time for you to get off the pot and do what you were trained to do regardless of the oposition. Now of course you can believe whatever you wish, and that will have no effect on me and my course of action, but I hate to see anyone whinning because there are those who don;t BELIEVE, who gives a rats arse what others choose to believe just so long as we function to our best ability and help our neighor? I believe in God, and that is my choice even though others choose to ask for proof before they join the ranks. They matter not since they have no mind of their own having chosen not to develop it.

"Would that thou were hot or cold, but because thou art lukewarm, I will vomit thee out of my mouth"....

[drichardson]

I didn't expect such a quick response!

Connie:
I'm glad to hear that you've had such success with NLP. I'd be grateful if you could elaborate a bit further. When do you find NLP to be an effective or how do you determine when best to employ NLP? Under what circumstances have you found NLP to be more effective or less effective than alternative techniques?

Docresults:
Call it a poor choice of words. You've given me quite a bit to look at and you can rest assured that I'll examine the claims made to the best of my ability. Very quickly, at risk of straying off-topic, at least part of the Fortune 500 claim appears inaccurate. In 2001, Exxon Mobil claimed the #1 spot with 210,392 million in revenue and 17,720 million in profit. Pfizer came in at #53 with 29,574 million in revenue and 3,726 million in profit.

John B.:
Not only hypnosis and NLP. Pain makes for a wonderful example. While it's a purely mental experience, it is still possible to determine if a particular treatment is effective. There are numerous studies on the efficaciousness of hypnosis for pain management. That is to say, while psychological phenomenon are often difficult to evaluate, it's certainly not impossible.

In order to evaluate some aspect of NLP, you'd need to know what result you expect from it's application, how it is to be applied, and a measure of of one kind or another.

I'll assume from your response that you use NLP regularly and have been satisfied by the results. I'd like to hear about the outcomes that you expect when applying NLP and the techniques used that lead to a positive result. I'd be equally interested in what you've found to be ineffective.

Terry:
I certainly didn't intend to sound negative! I suppose I've made more than my share of communication errors in my original post.

In the business of helping, it seems only proper to evaluate the methods used if for no other reason that to avoid a bit of time-wasting.

If I may quote you: as we function to our best ability and help our neighor I find that in order to function to the best of my ability requires that I continue to learn and challenge my own understanding and beliefs. In order to help my neighbor I need to avoid doing things that do not.

There is a danger, as well, to applying an ineffective technique. I'm sure many people here have used hypnosis to aid smoking cessation even though hypnosis has shown itself to be a less than productive technique. As I'd hate to ruin a serious quit attempt with an ineffective treatment (or an outright refusal), I recommend that hypnosis is used only in conjunction with other assistance (nicotine replacement, quit lines, bupropion, etc.)

The bit about "suffering the same fate" was poor wording on my part. Yes, hypnosis is quickly gaining new ground with lot's of new research. I'd say it's recovering nicely. Recovering, that is, from a tarnished reputation. As there really isn't much research regarding NLP, I was wondering if it was only by reputation (earned by unethical practitioners, same as hypnosis) that it fell out of favor.

-------

I hope to take what I learn here back to the literature to see how it fits with current theory -- In a way, to see if bits of NLP have found their way back into the mainstream.

[Don]

Dr. Richardson, you're doing what is called "falling into the client's trance."

In this case you have made a number of assumptions based on Allopathic medicine and the techniques of the so-called "hard" sciences. Although there may be crossovers between the study of NLP/hypnosis and the study of the hard sciences, in many vital cases they do not overlap.

For example, there was a famous study done at a university that showed only 70% (or something like that) of people could be hypnotized. The methodology, however, was to have students read an induction script to others. So the truth is not that only 70% of people can be hypnotized, but that when people with no training read a script 70% of people listening to it will still become hypnotized.

You wrote, "I'm sure many people here have used hypnosis to aid smoking cessation even though hypnosis has shown itself to be a less than productive technique." Once again, you show you're in the client's trance. The truth is, you're focusing on the technology and hypnotherapy is client based, not process based. A good hypnotist will be close to 100% effective in smoking cessation among those he or she takes on as clients. If you look at workshops where a hypnotist works with 500 people or incompetent hypnotists or clients who don't really want to quit you're going to have lots of failures. As a hypnotherapist, I don't have to accept someone who doesn't really want to quit.

I'm not going to recommend that anyone takes more poison into their body (nicotine is designated as an "extremely deadly" poison ) or a drug (bupropion) that for smoking cessation has a 27% failure rate, a 21% rate of mood swings, at one time taken off the market because it caused seizures, and has a notice that it may induce suicide!

I'm going to assume from your signature that you are an MD. If so, Why, in heaven's name, are you giving poisons to patients? Why are you giving them substances that cause seizures and increase the urge to commit suicide?

I'm sure you can produce lots of reasons why you (or if you are not an MD, why doctors) give people these substances. But the fact is, I'm coming from a different paradigm than the Allopathic paradigm. I focus on individual clients, not on processes. As a result, hypnotherapy is a "soft science" and not a "hard science," and to analyze what is done takes a great deal more time, effort, study, and money than analyzing a hard science.

[skip]

Dr Richardson,

I may be wrong, but it sounds as if you have read about NLP, but dont actually know how to practice it. I say this because if you did know how to practice it you would not feel the need to ask if it works and when to use what.

Nor would you wonder if it had moved beyond the original body of work.

I could take you, for about an hour, and working with clients, show you exactly how I can decide what to change, how to make the requisite shift, and how to know I have made exactly the shift I wanted.

In being able to be this precise, I can KNOW, before the client leaves that I have accomplished, what I wanted to accomplish.

This is done by 'calibrating' to the problem 'state', and calibrating to the 'solution state'; as they are evidenced, to me, by the clients honest unconscious responses.

Then after I make the requisite shift, I can test my work by covertly eliciting the former problem state, and noticing whether, or not, the client honestly unconsciously responds with the desired behavior or the old unwanted behavior.

This shifting and testing is done 'outside' of the conscious awareness of the client. The client is aware and conscious, and responding to instructions, but consciouly unaware of the point of the instructions, or what outcome I am accomplishing, at any given time.

For me it is behavior change without guess work. For the client, it is fun, often seemingly pointless, and they often leave consciously unaware that they are responding differently (the way they requested).

Now all this can be easily tested, if someone wants to.

Most people who learn NLP, just use it.

On themselves, and others, and get results, and feel no need to 'test' it.

That is because they can 'see' the results immediately, and thru time.

I hope that has been of some beniit,

cheers,

skip

[drichardson]

Skip:
Thank you. I found your reply insightful and quite helpful.

Don:
I should have picked a better analogy. I agree that the study of "soft sciences" is far more difficult and less accurate than in the "hard sciences". Though I don't see any reason that the techniques used psychological and sociological research couldn't be usefully employed in the study of NLP. In the case of hypnosis, there is a wealth of new and well conducted research produced by the psychology community every year.

Of course, I didn't post here to argue a point! I came here to learn what I could from the experience of the membership here.

[Don]

You're absolutely correct. There is a plethora of research on hypnosis produced every year.

If you would like to fund some studies, I'm sure experts like Skip and Poodle and others would be honored to be hired for research.

[Merlin]

Virginia Satir never called her work NLP.
Fritz Perls never called what he did NLP.
To understand NLP, you must look to gestalt therapy and Fritz Perls etc.

NLP is merely the codifying of the work of others.