I've moved these posts over to Fight Club (from the NLP swept for horsesh*t thread).

Yes NLP is too obviously fake, and this is where pseudoscience fails. Placebo is a scientifically verified phenomenon, you don’t need horseshit.

You really don’t have to lie.

So you really don’t have to say this will submodality thing will work - because NLP maybe works - because there is reliable evidence that neuroscience works.

All you have to do is find an intervention that has had empirically verifiable results, even if it is conceptually wrong. If it will make the condition better, and there are reliable results that show the condition gets better, then it is ethically fine to use.

If it is conceptually wrong, plus it has shown to have failed testing, then its crap. NLP unfortunately falls into that category. Whatever is unique to NLP seriously fails. Associate an intervention with NLP you are asking for puny results.

Drinking more clean water, good food, exercise that has an aerobic aspect, human contact, friends, relaxation, etc all have a good result. Relaxation especially, in the modern fee paying world!

If you stroke or massage someone, they will tend to feel better, whether they are suffering from a common cold or cancer. It will make the condition better. If you honestly tell them it will make the condition better, then you are telling the truth.

If you give them a small bottle of water that you got for them from the tap with tender loving care and tell them that it will make them feel better, they will probably feel better!

If you also tell them that going to their general practitioner is a huge benefit, then you will add to the power of the general practitioner also. You will be collaborating with the reality, not just fucking about with fantasy maps!

If you tell a schizophrenic that taking their pills will improve their life over all, it will probably add to their quality of life. That is probably where Bandler and Hubbard can go take a running jump!

This also applies to the management training field, where training is mostly about motivation, concentrating on what’s important, and coping. It’s not about being powerful, it’s about surviving when the chips are down, or bouncing back (staying normal and functional) when they have given their hardest punch, or when they relentlessly nag for profits!

Find your own bloody method. Print your own certificates. Anything other than neurolinguistic programming! It’s too fake and too many people are wise to the scam. It has ceased to have any meaning to people.

Use something that does. Get adaptive!

Scientific proof has been found to be horseshit over and over again and ultimatly everything we currently know will be rediscovered with more detail and accuracy applied, be very careful what you decare as being facts as they are only 1 test away from being ridiculed as inaccurate. Find yourself a 50 year old text book and see what 'absolute facts' and 'unchallengable facts' have changed. I am openminded enough to know that what works (placebo or whatever) is worth replicating and trying again. If I have a problem I would rather have a working solution than a hypothetical or one tested by bias testers. Look at the contrast to dealing with depression, Prozac is supported by the scientific community but even if we overlook the appalling side effects how many people have a batch of tablets and have their depression "fixed"? Prozac is so good that some people are on it for decades and see it as the only answer to their problems as their bodies develop crippling dependences and their lives fall apart. If I had a loved one who became 'depressed' then I'd eb heading for my NLP resources and taking a wide berth away from pill popping.

I am a teacher and make more progress with ADHD kids using NLP techniques that those who are high on ritalyn. Science supports ritalyn as an aid but never in a million years would I let any child I care about go down the path of taking that shit. There are loads of drugs that work, if only we could create enough illnesses to keep the drug companies working science fact to their best interests they will continue to ignore ours.

What works for you works for you, for me it is different. Personally I would get nothing out of joining a web forum of a topic I hate with a passion, for you it works and I am happy you are getting whatever it is you are getting from it.

Hypnofact wrote:

Yes NLP is too obviously fake, and this is where pseudoscience fails. Placebo is a scientifically verified phenomenon, you don’t need horseshit.

You really don’t have to lie.

Gee Dave - you know a lot! You must be really clever!

James

Thanks for the extra horseshit Matt

Thats exactly what we wanted to hear. The idea that a few misdiagnosed sufferers outweigh the majority who benefit.

What you are missing is benefit plus benefit

If you are not interested in win win, then you have your head in the wrong place

OK - Here's my excuse. I have Chickenpox. I am on strong anti-virals. My thinking is addled. Starting this thread was probably ill judged.

I started this thread so that NLPers (rather than trolling 'skeptics') could put forward their nominations for what they think could do with clearing out or tidying up in NLP.

I used the word horsesh*t (politely written as well), as a metaphor for such as I find the word trivially amusing, and fancied it may draw some interes.

What I didn't do was specify criteria for 'horsesh*t' - bad me.

Because the last thing I wanted to do was stir up the old 'scientific validation' debate. Not because it can't be fun, but because it has been done time and time again on NLPC already. And I have no energy to fight the crusade against 'pathological skepticism' - certainly not by keyboard (I don't type fast, because typing is pseudoscience).

So David - if you want a chat about why I think that NLP is not science, not just placebo and is of great value, then have a look on my profile (I have one) and call my number so we can chew the fat.

Matt - I am not getting your point really. Which is probably my current brain state rather than any problem with your expression. If you could make it a little more simply, I would appreciate the clarification.

And finally CAN ONE OF THE MODS PLEASE MOVE THIS TO FIGHT CLUB! Thanks.


All the very best

James

Yes I was half expecting either excuses, or NLP (no content). Thats what I got.

You asked for sweeping away horseshit. I swept it away.

You can commit to something new and of your own design, or you can stick with a group of quantumology programists who palm you off with junk. Its up to you!

Hypnofact wrote:

Yes I was half expecting either excuses, or NLP (no content). Thats what I got.

You asked for sweeping away horseshit. I swept it away.

You can commit to something new and of your own design, or you can stick with a group of quantumology programists who palm you off with junk. Its up to you!

David - like I said, give me a call. How is that an excuse?

James

Given there's so much of NLP that obviously does work well - such as the Meta Model as a tool in Coaching and business communication; the goal-oriented feedback loop as a methodology; the phobia technique; anchoring and collapsing anchors; metaphor as a tool for indirect communication; etc - it is clearly ridiculous to say the whole of NLP is horsey doo.

As far as I'm aware, none of the things in that list have been tested in a scientific setting, though they have a lot of general support (enough that they are approved CPD training for doctors and are mainstream in most training for Coaches and in sales and business) and have often been demonstrated.

Though I haven't gotten very far through David's list of reports in the other thread yet ('Science and NLP'), what I have read so far confirms what I already knew ...

It is relatively well known that about twenty years ago, there was a brief interest in formal testing of NLP which seems to have focussed on the testing of 'preferred rep systems' as a concept / tool. Interest in testing declined after tests failed to support PRS. It seems that the scientists involved believed that PRS was the foundation of all NLP and so dismissed the field as a whole. I think this is a mistake as do others.

Despite this, general support for NLP has grown and the NRC, which is one of the bodies that found little support for PRS is said to be impressed with NLP as a modelling method. And clearly there are other bodies impressed with NLP, given how mainstream certain elements have become in such fields as sales and business training. (See above.)

I do intend to read up more on the various academic reports on NLP but pending that I must chip in and disagree about the whole field being dismissable.

Back to your original question, James, I think (based on the testing) that PRS is a candidate for your list.

Personally, I think it's important to honestly and tenaciously try everything out - though I am concerned that some of this new stuff might the result of people perhaps taking too long a reach to try and come up with something new and clever - possibly branching into confabulation rather than modelling.

There's something that comes up a lot in martial arts - everyone wants to learn the 'advanced' stuff and come up with the new idea but what the Masters all know is that the 'real' most powerful techniques of the art are what was under the student's nose all the time - the long-established, well-worked basics. It's just it's the integration of those that's powerful, not the 'formulaic', sequential application of them. I tend to suspect this might apply to NLP too.

Cheers

Hang on. This thread started with someone saying quantum linguistics doesn't follow, cartesian stuff in NLP doesn't follow, so it needs sweeping. But then you didn't follow. Apply that to the rest of the stuff that needs sweeping.

Talk to an expert. NLP linguistics doesn't follow. So NLP modeling, metamodeling, etc doesn't follow. Its the same horseshit. Sure someone 20 years ago said it was interesting, but then they dropped it. The research now says its discredited.

NLP neuroscience doesn't follow. PRS was wrong, eye accessing is wrong. It doesn't follow.

Anything unique to NLP simply doesn't follow. You do anchoring in NLP and you are just associating anchoring with stuff that doesn't follow and is discredited.

You don't need any of it. You must have picked up something over the years though. Use that instead, and stop screwing it up by calling it neurolinguistic programming. You'll be better off if you step out of the horseshit.

David,

I am interested can you tell me what if anything within NLP does work? and can you point me to the relevant scientific studies that have refuted NLP I honestly want to read them.

Jason

Hi Jason,

There are a list of references in the thread 'Science and NLP'.

Clearly I disagree with David's claim that 'science' has proven that [the whole of] NLP doesn't work. Let's bear in mind that NLP is not one thing but rather a fairly large collection of skills and models, most of which have never even been tested in a scientific setting but have large general support in professional fields.

I think the more accurate claim is that some testing of some concepts took place and - fair do - those tests didn't support the NLP claims of the time.

I'm aware of no test that proves the Meta Model doesn't work. I'm aware of no test that proves the phobia technique doesn't work. And so on and so forth.

However, this was all done to death in that thread.

Cheers

Hypnofact wrote:

Hang on. This thread started with someone saying quantum linguistics doesn't follow, cartesian stuff in NLP doesn't follow, so it needs sweeping. But then you didn't follow. Apply that to the rest of the stuff that needs sweeping.

David

In what way is what you have said here coherent?

What is this 'follow' you are talking about?

And when did I ever say anything 'needs' sweeping!

Call me! Seriously! And get off the thread - you have your own 'science' thread, don't you?

James

It was you who brought up the notion of removing all fake stuff from NLP. As you said, Cartesian coordinates simply don’t fit. They miss the mark. They convey gross inaccuracies.

Look at the rest of NLP. It is full to the brim with that problem.

You started using that strategy, not me. So following through would be consistent if you are interested in a “sense of resolution”.

If you think modelling using NLP linguistics or NLP neuroscience has more than a “superficial resemblance” to the genuine article, then you may aswell start selling NLP using Cartesian coordinates, quantum linguistics, nucleosynthesis, astrodynamics, cosmic rays, quantum decoherence, and time travel.

Hypnofact wrote:

It was you who brought up the notion of removing all fake stuff from NLP. As you said, Cartesian coordinates simply don’t fit. They miss the mark. They convey gross inaccuracies.

Look at the rest of NLP. It is full to the brim with that problem.

You started using that strategy, not me. So following through would be consistent if you are interested in a “sense of resolution”.

If you think modelling using NLP linguistics or NLP neuroscience has more than a “superficial resemblance” to the genuine article, then you may aswell start selling NLP using Cartesian coordinates, quantum linguistics, nucleosynthesis, astrodynamics, cosmic rays, quantum decoherence, and time travel.

If Tad James applied some concepts from Cartesian Logic, then fine.

Bandler and Grinder [I]did[I] apply concepts from linguistics, and they don't claim it to be 'Chomskian linguistics' or anything like that.

Just because you put chalk and cheese in the same category, doesn't make them the same thing.


James

PS

Call me! I will discuss anything you like by 'phone.

This is my last post, 'cause I no longer have Chickenpox and am a busy man.

jamesrolph wrote:

If Tad James applied some concepts from Cartesian Logic, then fine.

Bandler and Grinder [i]did[i] apply concepts from linguistics, and they don't claim it to be 'Chomskian linguistics' or anything like that.

Just because you put chalk and cheese in the same category, doesn't make them the same thing.

Bandler and Grinder applied concepts from linguistics in a way that simply does not follow accepted linguistics theory or practice.

The terms they use do not follow. They have no real connection with the subject that they allude to. It is the same as using quantum mechanics in modeling someone. Its just a lot of fancy terminology with no reliable relevance to doing anything.

David,

You seem to forget (or did not know) that Grinder was a professor of linguistics at the time of developing NLP with Bandler.

I do understand that the linguistics they applied at the time of developing NLP has since been superceded.

However, despite the name, NLP (to me) represents instruction in neither neuroscience nor linguistics (though Bandler at least recommends that NLP-ers read up on and stay abreast of what's going on in those fields). Rather, it represents behavioural and linguistic patterns (as well as mental strategies) that come from modelling people who are having the kind of success NLP was designed to replicate.

The fact an older model of linguistics was used to describe The Meta Model doesn't detract from the fact it was a succinct model of what successful therapists were doing at the time; and it doesn't detract from it's usefulness as a model. It worked then, it works now even though the linguistics used to describe it were of a certain time.

The fact these skills all come from modelling and (admittedly, non-scientific) testing, is what makes them more practical than ideas dreamt up in imaginations and ivory towers.

To re-iterate something else that comes up - NLP isn't a search for 'truth', it's a search for skills, models and strategies that work, at least some of the time, in helping people do new things and feel more empowered.

And the fact that so many people get results with these models is testimony to their usefulness.

I don't dispute the lack of scientific testing, or that NLP does not represent neuroscience or modern linguistics, or that it doesn't belong to or follow the rules of the annointed academic clubs. I just dispute the inference that these things equate to NLP being useless as a model.

I, like others, judge NLP according to my own experience of trying the models out and seeing what happens.

Cheers

It makes no difference whether Grinder was an associate professor or an undergraduate in home economics. The concepts are wrong according to linguists and psycholinguists.

This is another total incompatibility between NLP and science. You look for gurus, personal experience, and confirmation. Science looks for reliable independent evidence because it is well recognized that personal experience can be highly unreliable. The "map is not the territory" in NLP is something that is never followed through.

Neurolinguistic programming exemplifies incongruence.

Working "some of the time" equals being statistically unreliable.

Anyone can believe in whatever personal evidence they have for anything, from alien abductions to the blessed orbiting teapot. NLPers will remain among that terminally unconvincing fraternity unless they start paying attention to reliability for once.

You just said that a linguistics professor is wrong "according to the linguists".

He is a linguist! He doesn't say he's wrong, does he?

The best you can say is that one subset of linguists have said another subset of linguists are wrong... but then your argument starts to seem even sillier... doesn't it?

Grinder hasn't been an associate professor for over 30 years. Since then he has been trying to sell a method of copying the abilities of geniuses and so-called geniuses.


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.

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

It is the same thing in principle as trying to sell a method of self development using quantum mechanics, time travel, or trigonometry. Sounds fancy, but the relationship is so remote that its beyond the fringe.