"David",

Finally you are starting to see sense!

I studied Psychology for 3 years at University and a 7 day NLP course put University Lecturers and Psychology Professors to shame. Psychologists can talk a lot of shit and waft a lot of hot air without really helping anyone.

NLP is a breath of fresh air and thank god it is free thinking and revolutionary. I am delighted that you are distancing NLP from Psychology, it is a common missunderstanding that beginners make about NLP.

Again, if NLP is no repulsive to you, why are you here?

Chris, I am suprised you wasted your time on this plonker, so far he has claimed scientist and psychologists are united under a similar way of thinking towards NLP, was there a meeting I missed? When was the vote taken which united science and psychology against NLP? If this chap looked at the facts and not creating false arguments to give his argument some credibilty he would know that NLP courses are full of scientists, Doctors and Medical MD's who are taking NLP into their practices.

This is another total incompatibility between NLP and science

And despite dozens of threads highlighting the incompatible relationship between NLP and Science, you came to this conclusion all by yourself- didnt you?

Thanks,

Matt

I'm just pointing out that sweeping the horseshit of quantum mechanics in self development and communication is the same as sweeping the horseshit of the metamodel in self development and communication.

Its the same strategy:

Refer to reliable research in the subjects of linguistics, psycholinguistics, quantum mechanics, cartesian maths, or whatever the claim, and then when you find its horseshit, sweep it away.

There is nothing open minded or free thinking about dismissing reliable research in favour of fancy sounding horseshit.

Hypnofact wrote:

Look at a book on undergraduate linguistics or psycholinguistics. NLP and the metamodel do not comply with what has been known about psycholinguistics and linguistics and psychology for decades.

The metamodel is only a set of questions for encouraging someone to be a bit more specific. It is by no means exhaustive and there are hundreds of other useful question towards achieving the same aim that are not included. How do you even measure the accuracy/usefulness of a set of questions scientifically? In what way is it a bad idea to get someone to be more specific when they are being vague?

When I came across it years ago, I didn't think "oh this is how language actually works", I thought about where those questions might be practically useful (and also where not!). I know many born again true believer type NLPers might take these models too far but that happens with any line of thinking (as you say actually living "the map is not the territory" is far more difficult than just saying it often enough).

You could also learn useful and interesting ways of using language and asking questions from comedians, writers, poets etc. If you were a young comedian and an experienced comedian gave you 10 useful ways of asking questions so as to interrupt a heckler, would that not be useful whether scientific or not?

I think a lot of these arguments here are simply trying to map "ways of using something" (the art of) vs "how something works" (the why of) which is just a crazy thing to do. How you use a telephone is very different from how a telephone works. You can't logically map them easily. I have watched this thread in despair at both sides!

In the spirit of discovery for which I enjoy science as well as art, why don't we take a single objection of yours and carefully break it down. It might be good for other people here I'm sure to really understand what doesn't work, faults in the maps and why. It might even stimulate some better ideas in the future.

Dear Hypnowhatever,

Quote

"Look at a book on undergraduate linguistics or psycholinguistics. NLP and the metamodel do not comply with what has been known about psycholinguistics and linguistics and psychology for decades."

I celebrate your insight, and,

"NLP is based on concepts that were always either wrong or simply did not exist in accepted knowledge or genuine research."

Fantastic, that is what promotes my interest.

If NLP started out as orthodox, it would have been dismissed by me before the introduction of "Frogs into Princes".

Traditional thinking was not getting anyone very far, other than yourself it seems, who has a presupposed knowledge of what you clearly have not experienced.

Good luck defending your fortress, but until you venture into the surrounding domain, it is difficult to respect what you think you know.

Before you call me a fool, don't I know it, and am kinda proud, like you.

Thanks

MH

malcombhead wrote:

If NLP started out as orthodox, it would have been dismissed by me before the introduction of "Frogs into Princes".

Traditional thinking was not getting anyone very far, other than yourself it seems, who has a presupposed knowledge of what you clearly have not experienced.

snip

Well if that is your interest, it is the same as someone being interested in quantum linguistics in NLP.

They are both way off the mark in their claims. People here keep claiming that the metamodel is really powerful for getting to the root of problems, for modeling the abilities of amazing people and so on.

But it turns out the linguistics in NLP are wrong or misapplied. Are you using the subject of linguistics in the same way as Deepak Chopra is using the quantum mechanics term?

Because when you line each up side by side, there seems to be a consistent pattern going on: Lots of fancy horseshit dressed up to sound fancy.

Dear Hyp,

I trained in NLP in the 80's and 90's. I have never heard of quantum linguistics, do not care and can only hallucinate a meaning.

That does not however detract from the "classic code" that I was exposed to, the communication skills I rehearsed over and over in seminars, and my day to day interactions with clients.

Your rather feeble criticism therefore has no meaning to me, soz, pal.

By taking select phrases out of context, you place yourself out on a rather tenuous limb, as it is largely you who are using these terms with little or no reference point that means anything to me.

I think Deepak Chopra is an interesting writer whose use of metaphor has made him popular, but not with me particularly, and I would not align myself with any of his "teachings".

I do not consider that I line up side by side with anyone in particular on this forum, and so your veiled criticism is lost in your own tortured maze of complex equivalences.

If you want to play, get out of your ivory tower and share some of your own experiences, rather than those of others.

I do not care for the academic pedigree to legitimise my behaviour. that is the horses*** to me. I care much more for the person in front of me, what they are doing, and what I might do to help them.

Regards (sort of)

MH

Its true, NLP was a very easy target for criticism in the last decade. It seems to be childsplay to point out its gross inconsistencies now. NLP is well recognized as being discredited. Its predictable how the peddlers are going to behave. I just want to hear how the newer proponents try to justify wasting their resources on it.

Hypnofact wrote:

Its true, NLP was a very easy target for criticism in the last decade. It seems to be childsplay to point out its gross inconsistencies now. NLP is well recognized as being discredited. Its predictable how the peddlers are going to behave. I just want to hear how the newer proponents try to justify wasting their resources on it.

It seems to be childsplay, yet you are unable to do it without twisting categories to fit your blinkered world view.

The meta model does not claim to be anything other than a model of how language can be used and explored. It doesn't claim to be anything that went before it.

This is not the case with 'cartesian logic/coordinates'. These are claimed to be something to with Descartes. They aint.

If the meta model had been called 'Chomskian Linguistics' then it would be more akin to 'Cartesian Coordinates'. But it wasn't, and it has never been claimed to be.

For someone so in love with science and academia, you seem to have very poor acuity for noticing crucial difference.

Can't believe I am being pulled back onto this thread.

Call me for a chat, if you think you can handle it.

James

Hypnofact wrote:

Its true, NLP was a very easy target for criticism in the last decade. It seems to be childsplay to point out its gross inconsistencies now. NLP is well recognized as being discredited. Its predictable how the peddlers are going to behave. I just want to hear how the newer proponents try to justify wasting their resources on it.

I'm sure Anton Mesmer would be easy to criticize for his use of animal magnetism as well, given what we know now of hypnosis and suggestion. However, it doesn't change the fact that he seemed to get results with people, even though his perspective on why animal magnetism worked may have been off the mark.

David, I'm curious to know, have you ever experienced or witnessed NLP training or change work first hand?

hyp_gnosis wrote:

I'm sure Anton Mesmer would be easy to criticize for his use of animal magnetism as well, given what we know now of hypnosis and suggestion. However, it doesn't change the fact that he seemed to get results with people, even though his perspective on why animal magnetism worked may have been off the mark.

David, I'm curious to know, have you ever experienced or witnessed NLP training or change work first hand?

I think some of the NLP techniques that appear to work (when they do) actually work for very different reasons than most of the explanations I have heard in NLP circles. I have mostly stopped going to local practice groups these days because my questions tend to upset the congregation and I find that all a bit too odd for my liking.

mrlimbic wrote:

I have mostly stopped going to local practice groups these days because my questions tend to upset the congregation and I find that all a bit too odd for my liking.

Hi Mr Limbic,
I am just considering either setting up a practice group or getting involved in an existing one so I am very curious about your experience. If you dont mind sharing I would be interested in an example of your questions and the reaction from your group.

Tom

ps..Yes NLP is fake, an illusion like everything else we beleive to be a reality. Time is also an illusion but I still wear a watch

nlp_seo wrote:

If you dont mind sharing I would be interested in an example of your questions and the reaction from your group.

Ok but in private. PM me and we could arrange a skype or something.

jamesrolph wrote:

It seems to be childsplay, yet you are unable to do it without twisting categories to fit your blinkered world view.

The meta model does not claim to be anything other than a model of how language can be used and explored. It doesn't claim to be anything that went before it.

This is not the case with 'cartesian logic/coordinates'. These are claimed to be something to with Descartes. They aint.

If the meta model had been called 'Chomskian Linguistics' then it would be more akin to 'Cartesian Coordinates'. But it wasn't, and it has never been claimed to be.

For someone so in love with science and academia, you seem to have very poor acuity for noticing crucial difference.

Can't believe I am being pulled back onto this thread.

Call me for a chat, if you think you can handle it.

James

The meta model takes linguistics concepts and makes a lot of wild claims about them. It uses the concept of nominalizations and says they are a sort of distortion. That does not follow in linguistics or neurolinguistics. It is horseshit in the same way that adding cartesian logic to self development is also horseshit.

hyp_gnosis wrote:

I'm sure Anton Mesmer would be easy to criticize for his use of animal magnetism as well, given what we know now of hypnosis and suggestion. However, it doesn't change the fact that he seemed to get results with people, even though his perspective on why animal magnetism worked may have been off the mark.

David, I'm curious to know, have you ever experienced or witnessed NLP training or change work first hand?

Of course I have. The experience is one of joining an NLP workshop and finding that their it was about making wild claims about things. They were also about giving extremely distorted feedback on how effective things were supposed to be.

Ten years later, and the same sort of crap goes on as a matter of course. People here are routinely talking about horseshit as if it was shit hot. Then when someone catches an extreme claim they don't like, they complain about it as if it was different from the extreme claims that they do like.

Experiencing NLP first hand can be done by reading what people have written here about various how-tos. Its incredibly easy to point out the incongruence. Then it becomes even more obvious when people deny it.

The pattern is generally: Make wild claims, and when it gets criticised, tone the claims down and ignore the fact that legit names are routinely being used for lots of fake stuff.

So why bother your poor ickle head with the silly things that other people believe and do? I can tolerate a world in which Morris dancing and colonic irrigation are choices for sane adults, so why don't you stop stressing yourself out about something you've clearly had a bad experience of?

I am pointing out your inconsistencies. It’s easy, not stressful at all.

Someone complained about removing one type of vacuous nonsense, but they had to stop at an arbitrary point when they realized that it would lead to neuro linguistic programming itself being removed.

Neurolinguistic programming and Morris dancing are similarly ritualistic. But Morris dancing is openly and admittedly just for adding entertainment to ale.

If Morris dancers started claiming that their dance could be used to transfer the patterns of genius from one person to another, and they started using fake neurological or linguistic terms, then I would have something to say about it. As it is, neurolinguistic programming is the one with the really fake bells and whistles.

Problem being, you have such a tiny experience of NLP -- going to one practice group -- that you have generalised what you say happened there to encompass an entire field. Much like me stating that chemistry can be summed up by a lesson when I was 13 when magnesium was put into the chemistry teacher's pipe with the result that several of us were given a detention.

You're denying things you have no experience of, and which many of us have witnessed, done, or had happen to us. Which is why you're bewildered by us not clearing out the Aegean stables of all the crap that's there, when we perceive value since we KNOW that there is plenty of use there, and that some of it is obscured by poo piled on top of it.

Mind you, because of that blindspot in your own perceptions -- a thoroughly unscientific one may I add -- you will dismiss this posting as any other from someone convinced by at least some of NLP's claims as nonsense.

adrian r wrote:

Problem being, you have such a tiny experience of NLP -- going to one practice group -- that you have generalised what you say happened there to encompass an entire field. Much like me stating that chemistry can be summed up by a lesson when I was 13 when magnesium was put into the chemistry teacher's pipe with the result that several of us were given a detention.

You're denying things you have no experience of, and which many of us have witnessed, done, or had happen to us. Which is why you're bewildered by us not clearing out the Aegean stables of all the crap that's there, when we perceive value since we KNOW that there is plenty of use there, and that some of it is obscured by poo piled on top of it.

Mind you, because of that blindspot in your own perceptions -- a thoroughly unscientific one may I add -- you will dismiss this posting as any other from someone convinced by at least some of NLP's claims as nonsense.

Are you trying to claim authority in bullshit? It sounds like it.

People claim to witness alien abductions all the time. Should I believe them? People claim all sorts of crap.

As for science, you have not provided any reliable evidence at all of NLP being valid or empirically efficacious. You present a lot of hot air though.

Do you want that reference again that shows very reliable support for the view that NLP is discredited? It got into a top ten of most discredited interventions. Thats against some pretty stiff competition also.

I would like to hear more from people who are not "claimed authorities" on NLP though. Perhaps someone who is new to NLP can tell me why anyone would waste their resources on it?

I am not new to NLP now but I once was. And I spent time on it because the strategies and communication patterns I learned made a difference. I learned patterns that claimed to make me feel very confident and they did. I learned patterns that claimed to get people into rapport with me quickly and they did. I learned patterns that claimed to collapse phobias and they did.

Incidentally, I was at my dentist's the other morning. He's one of the most highly qualified and academic people in the UK. And he's just started studying social science. I have no idea why he told me this, but he started talking about how much useful information there is outside empirical science- especially when dealing with people.

I didn't comment but it is also my experience. I have a science degree. I understand Physics, Mathematics, etc. In fact my current books are on Formal Logic (a revision, as it's 20 years since I studied it) and Relativity. I also studied Psychology. (And spent 10 weeks learning theories about how children learned only to be told at the end of it that people are not so sure those theories are reliable.) And I wince every time some employment consultancy rolls out one of those personality tests that's designed to box me up as a completer-finisher-introvert-analytic-or-whatever. Now that's something I have primary experience of being unreliable.

So, as I've said before, I am not 'anti-science'. I am very 'pro-science'. And I learned NLP because my experience is it works. And I tend to agree with my dentist that there is plenty of valid stuff to learn outside empirical science. Especially where 'people' are concerned. I must confess, I still haven't got very far through your list of citations but what I've read so far confirms what I already knew about testing in NLP. And that is that science hasn't 'disproven' NLP. But rather it failed to support some (now out of date) concepts and stopped. Most other criticism seems to be conceptual and from people who don't even know much about it. And yet even the mainstream medical profession is embracing NLP as approved training.

So that's why I waste my resources on NLP. So now it's your turn David. Why do you waste your resources on it?

Cheers

My wife and I have just spent two weekends on a "relationships" course run by two qualified psychologists and a psychologist in training. The workshop was based upon the research of John Gottman (The Gottman Institute -) and run by a national not for profit organization.

We are both trained in NLP and hold numerous professional qualifications in other areas as well. We both observed the Psychs use various techniques that we could easily parallel in NLP. We were both pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the unexpected validation of the processes we have learned and continue to apply.

The Psychs may have used different terminology for what they did, but the processes were very similar. What I found interesting was that the interventions they were employing were apparently proven by Gottman's "research" to be effective.

David, it would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bath water in respect to NLP. I'm sure there is plenty of science out there to support NLP in the psych community, it just has a different name tag and hasn't been directly linked or attributed to NLP.

Maybe, if you were to change the way you sort through scientific information, and instead of sorting for difference, you seek to look for sameness, you might just actually start to find relevant supportive science that validates aspects of the field of NLP. In order for you to do so, it may require you to become more familiar with NLP patterns and processes in order to do it. Doing so would assist you in identifying some of the meta patterns associated with some of the techniques, rather than simply looking at the base techniques themselves. If you get caught up on the difference in terminology then you won't get to the heart of the issue, which is - the application and subsequent effect of the process itself.

Personally, it doesn't bother me if there is "science" to support all of NLP or any of NLP. When I see useful, ecological change in the people I work with who are seeing me because they have tried traditional modalities that have not worked for them. Then that is all the "proof" I need.