The Skeptic's Dictionary

Go Peter!

You tell 'em! You'll get Bandler and Grinder sorted in no time!

Oh, and thanks for the compliments! I do indeed feel like a 10 year old and make people feel like happy children again when I clown around!

But to be fair, I'm not the fountain of ALL knowledge. After all, I believed those doo-doo brains Bandler and Grinder about NLP for over two decades until you came along and set me straight!

Still waiting for the new techniques, BTW! Please get them uploaded as soon as possible!

Be Well,

Michael Perez

Hi Sam,

Breaking out of my Peter trance for a moment , what's the point of this line of discussion from your point of view?

Bandler says NLP isn't therapy.

Grinder says NLP isn't therapy.

No major NLP trainer or developer I know of, and I know of most all of them, says it's therapy.

And you still want to discuss the question why exactly? Help me to understand this.

Of what help would it be to you if NLP were therapy, for example? What about that would be useful to you, I wonder?

Thanks in advance for your answers here!

Be Well,

Michael Perez

Bandler says NLP isn't therapy.

Grinder says NLP isn't therapy.

Hi Michael,

I always enjoy your insights. What you said above was my point.

And you still want to discuss the question why exactly? Help me to understand this.

Of what help would it be to you if NLP were therapy, for example? What about that would be useful to you, I wonder?

Thanks in advance for your answers here!

Be Well,

Michael Perez

Thanks for asking for my personal opinion. I don't think those 2 questions above are totally relevant, nor do I think I'm the most qualified to give an opinion on this subject. My point was we can use NLP applications to any field we want (many people such as John La Valle have said this is what excites him the most about the potential of NLP)

As to if NLP was therapy, I don't think it's really relevant. I think it works no matter what the label.

If anything I was jumping to the defence of those who were saying NLP isn't therapy rather respectfully, while still acknowledging the points Peter and others were making.

When threads degenerate to the point of personal insult I usually leave it alone, or if I think it's worth savlaging, interject some 'facts' and see if it'll get back onto a more interesting track. Basically I was thinking we could take the thread in terms of thinking of all the 'applications' for NLP. Now, That seems exciting.

Now, in answer to your question (as generally when I post one of my outcomes is to take the post in a slightly new and better direction) is basically if hyperthetically (spelling?) NLP was therapy, then it'd probably just shape the viewpoint of those who don't have much exposure to it, I was basically saying Grinder says NLP isn't therapy, Bandler says NLP isn't therapy, but if somebody does see NLP as therapy here's why.

Let me add, as we believe in NLP the meaning of communication is the response we get, as a lot of people seem to have gotten the impression that NLP is therapy (such as the structure of magic using transcripts from therapists), maybe we can do something to help not give people an image that NLP is therapy, or do something to define a whole new image for NLP. I think NLP is most commonly applied in the therapeutic context (as most people who apply it in business probably aren't aware they're even learning NLP). I think it would be exciting if as an NLP community we could use some strategies to help give NLP more of an impression that it can applied to sports performance, book editing and others areas.

Personally I think it would exciting if the phrase NLP was synonymous with the phrase 'tools for personal enhancement'. I think we could change our culture and society if people would think in terms of NLP as a set of applications that could be applied to stream line the hospital system and so on, rather than just tools in the therapeutic context.

We have the potential to have people think, we need to radically improve our waiting times for patients in our emergency room at our hospital, let's get in an NLP practitioner to design some systems. I think we'd need to do some things at a community to help change our image.

This is where people come in who can help define a mission statement, a core set of values, an environment that shapes individuals beliefs, strategies to help put team members in an optimum state, and so on. I do agree with John Grinder's viewpoint that people don't need to re do the whole corporation as was poularized in Michael Hanmer and James Champy's reengineering the corporation, rather need to find those points that if changed, will have the most affect on the whole.

I'd be interested to learn some models top NLP trainers have used to make dramatic shifts in organizations.

Be well,

Sam

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the clarification. And don't worry about coming to my defence. I'm indefensible (as well as incorrigible and obscene, things I cultivate and greatly enjoy! )! Besides, who needs to be defended from compliments, no matter how they might have been intended?

After following the discussion and having made a last-ditch effort to point out the silliness inherent in deciding that one knows more about the intentions behind the creation of a field of knowledge than the people who created it, I'm just not sure that any reasonable approach is likely to work here.

Communication can only ever take place between two people who are willing to meet one another's map of the world in the best way they know how. I'm not seeing that happening here. And, of course, you might see things differently and you're welcome to continue to try. I've been wrong before!

Be Well,

Michael Perez

Bandler says NLP isn't therapy.

Grinder says NLP isn't therapy.

No major NLP trainer or developer I know of, and I know of most all of them, says it's therapy.

Karen Hastings apparently says so, and she is The Ultimate Authority on NLP. Even though her homepage doesn't even say who she trained her, even though the information on who certified her is nowhere to be found, even though noone else but Peter has ever previously heard of her....

I just made an interesting google-search.

"nlp is not therapy": 190 searchhits
"nlp is therapy": 8 searchhits

Lets look into the details of what all of these 8 searchhits say:

1. I’VE HEARD NLP IS THERAPY IS THIS TRUE? This is not true. NLP is not therapy.
2. In the past couple months more and more clients have been thinking that NLP is therapy when it is not.
3. Myth 6 - NLP is therapy. No it isn’t.
4. Myth #6 - NLP is therapy. No it isn’t.
5. Possibly the most common application for NLP is Therapy
6. From my point of view, that goal hasn't been achieved as long as there are people who think that NLP is therapy.
7. Because systems have now been developed within NLP to cure Phobias, allergies and depression (amongst others) some people believe that NLP is therapy
8. If you are thinking that NLP is therapy, it is NOT

So on one side we have Peter Daniels, a forum hothead spewing insults to the left and right, stating that everyone who doesn't agree with him knows less about NLP than Karen Hastings. On his ringside is also Karen Hastings, a previously unheard of hypnotherapist that claims to be an NLP Master Practitioner but other than that doesn't state her credentials and not even the certifying body. She has, according to Google, written exactly 0 books about NLP, 0 books about therapy and 0 books altogether.

In the other ringcorner we have Bandler and Grinder, the two who founded the entire field of NLP and defined it. Amongst their more known supporters, we (ie Google) find Lenny Darnell and Jamie Smart that claim that NLP is not therapy. Backed up by, so far, half a dozen NLP Connections forum members.


Let the fight begin!

What was that about "bickering" again.....?

Hi Nigel,

I'm sure if you think about it, you'll notice the difference between entering and exaggerating someone else's map of the world to illustrate a specific point without making any personal attacks and bickering. You might also notice the TOTE model in use and an exit point being reached and used when said strategy did not provide a useful outcome given my directionality.

Or you might not!

Be Well,

Michael Perez

Michael 'The Pretentious One' Perez,

This guy regards NLP & TFT as therapy, maybe you have vaguely heard of him :-
Sky One note article it is written by him!

Oh yeh, if you want to see him using Therapy in action, check out :

YouTube - Paul Mckenna - I can change your life - Programme 1

several other episodes available there also. He treats people & uses therapy on them.

You conviently dodged the question as others have - is what he is doing in that series therapy or not - simple YES/NO? If no, just explain why not & why it differs so much from treating those same people with other forms of therapy?

Or you want to be very silly indeed and claim (go on give us all a right good laugh & claim it!) that he uses Therapy - Hypnotherapy (note second part of the word - mmmmm?), TFT - Thought Field Therapy, but when he uses NLP on these people suddenly he is NOT doing therapy? Is that what you would like to laughably claim?

Or you want to claim he doesn't know what he is talking about & he is not using NLP as therapy?

Again, as Guru & Fountain of All Knowledge, you will know far more than this man, and must be more successful than him also so he may well be wrong and yourself right.

Actually, in that Sky One article, Paul doesn't actually state that NLP 'is' a therapy, he talks about "therapists who practice NLP". And in his show "I Can Change Your Life", Paul obviously uses skills from NLP in a therapeutic context but again he doesn't state NLP 'is' therapy.

NLP and therapy are related in the same way that Maths and, say, Engineering are related. One is applied in the other, but it doesn't make them one and the same.

NLP can also be used in sales, but that doesn't mean NLP 'is' sales.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Hi Peter,

This will most likely be the last interaction I have with you in this thread (except perhaps to clarify my meaning, if needed).

You have chosen to take ahold of a position and and have decided, consciously or otherwise, to use a sorting strategy or filter that reinforces your position for yourself. Nothing wrong with that per se, sometimes it's a real useful thing to be able to do, especially once you learn to do it on purpose.

I made an attempt to use some humour and sarcasm in an attempt to bypass this filter and perhaps get some cogent points of logic through in that way. It didn't work, but I thought it might be worth a try.

So, here we are. You hold your point of view for whatever reasons you choose to and I hold mine for whatever reasons I've chosen to. You're not going to convince me and I'm not going to convince you, and I'm happy with that.

I do hope that you benefit from whatever use you get out of holding your point of view as I do from my own.

Be Well,

Michael Perez

Watching this thread has been like watching a dog play tug of war with a piece of rope tied to a tree!! Amazing..

In summary, everyone agrees NLP is a therapy but NOT only a therapy. Arguing ridiculous semantics that it can be used as a therapy yet is not a therapy is comical!

As afore mentioned example with Paul Mckenna he uses Hypnotherapy (note the suspicious hint with latter part of the word - 'therapy'), but it is not only a therapy, a stage hypnosist makes someone bark like a dog or run around naked where is the therapy (or if you really wanted to you could say it's use is Hypnosis, if used to help people it becomes Hypnotherapy)? TFT - Thought Field Therapy (again that suspicious last word there is dead give away).

And he uses NLP which is a therapy but not only a therapy, and he does not cease using therapy as soon as he uses any NLP techniques.

Again that mysterious difference nobody here can put into words -
Paul McKenna Downloads 'if you were to see a therapist.......', yet when P.M. deals with phobias he is either according to those here :

a) not a therapist, therefore not using therapy
b) he is a therapist using therapy (Hypnotherapy/TFT/NLP)
c) as b, except he stops being therapist & using therapy as soon as he uses any NLP because NLP is not a therapy.

There are those who specifically call it 'NLP Therapy' such as :
NLP Course, Neuro Linguistic Programming London, NLP Training & Coaching UK

As afore mentioned those that believe NLP is therapy :
Karen Hastings, Occupational Therapy, CBT, Hypnotherapy, NLP, Edinburgh 'NLP is therapy'
Shiatsu, Hypnotherapy, EFT and NLP alternative complementary therapy in Shoreham-by-Sea West Sussex near to Brgihton and Worthing UK NLP one of range of therapies.
Alternative Approach offers a range of alternative therapies to help bring health and balance back into your life. NLP one of range of therapies.
Healthy Life - Find a Therapist in Essex 'Therapies offered...NLP'
and masses more but they are all wrong, or people here resort to using the attack the credentials stance such as people have done with Karen Hastings who believes and states categorically 'NLP is therapy'.



'There are so many alternative Therapies....NLP.......' :
Phillip Holt's World of NLP, Hypnosis, PhotoReading, Mind Maps & Memory: NLP, Alternative Therapies against Antidepressants



If people here want to get very silly with semantics NLP Therapy is not a therapy OR NLP is not a therapy unless called specifically 'NLP Therapy', bt many who believe NLP is therapy just call it NLP (& do not refer to it as 'NLP Therapy') :
Therapeutic use of Neuro-linguistic programming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Like many of the regular contributors to this forum, I teach NLP - and I will be doing so today.

Today we're going to be modeling a kungfu expert and a ballerina, and we'll also be exploring some of the practical applications of formal logic, which we explored earlier.

Looks like I've had it all wrong this whole time.

Guess I'll have to go redesign so I can teach something else today. Maybe I'll just teach people how to operate a CD player.

After all, if playing music for people to listen to is used by therapists in a therapeutic context to achieve therapeutic outcomes, then anyone who plays music for others is therefore a therapist doing therapy, right? So if NLP is therapy and playing music is therapy, then teaching people how to operate a CD player constitutes teaching them NLP, right?

That's much simpler. That way I don't need to think very much at all - just show people how to press the play button. I think this is going to save me a lot of time in future ...

Ok, I'm done. Peter, you're right. Everyone else is wrong. You win! You have successfully demonstrated your cerebral superiority and crushed all of our puny and ill-formed attempts at claiming that NLP is not therapy - which is clearly preposterous to anyone with half a brain. Congratulations.

I'm out.

Cheers,

James

I think we could all learn something from this thread. Once we make a public commitment as human beings we don't like to go back (remember the bone marrow example?), and you need to give people an opportunity to save face, rather than jump on them.

I attempted to take the discussion in a new direction last post which no one seems to take and run with

1/ What have we done as NLP'ers to give some people the impression that NLP is therapy?
2/ What other applications could we apply NLP to that is being overlooked? (ie. How would you go about using NLP to decrease waiting times at a hospital)

I'd also like to interject some controversial comments. Is NLP enough for people to use as a therapist? ie. If you used NLP would it be enough to go out and be a salesperson, or a brain surgeon, do people have enough skills as an NLP practitioner to be running a practise similiar to a 'therapist'? What other skills from other fields could they integrate?

I've made the point before, do you think if somebody applies only NLP in the therapeutic context they have enough skills and are warranted to tinker with suicidal people, sexual/gender issues, couples on the brink of divorce and so on? Do they understand childhood development and have the right to tinker with people who are being divorced and the impact it's having on their kids? Do they understand how a divorce will affect an 8 year old rather than a 13 year old? Do they know the differences in needs between little girls and little boys?

I think sometimes if forget than NLP is only one tool in our arsenal (and probably the most powerful) and we should be pulling from as many fields as possible. The giants of the co founders who came before us pulled from a variety of fields (cybernetics etc). Some people in religion will only read books pertaining to that religion, yet those who write the books have to read and draw on books from other fields and hence are the educated one.

James Tsakalos,

Your very lame circular reasoning attempts at discussion are unnecessary, you just keep repeating them ad infintum like a broken record.

There are many NLP people that believe NLP is Therapy, there are numerous 'NLP Therapy' sites. NLP is NOT only therapy, but to say it is not a therapy as you assert but that it can be used in a therapeutic context is banal semantics.

Paul Mckenna does therapy he helps & treats people, he uses Hypnotherapy, TFT, NLP, etc. The fact Hypnosis has other uses that are not therapy such as on stage, or that NLP has other uses and not just for therapy, are irrelevant - it is all therapy, & does not stop being so because some have other uses besides therapy.

You are basically saying with those tired & very lame circular reasoning arguements that anything that has another use other than therapy is not a therapy - it would entail anyone that plays music is a therapist, etc.

Anyway, NLP is a Therapy, but it is NOT only a therapy.
Many therapists such as Paul Mckenna do not use exclusively NLP, that's about it.

There are many NLP people that believe NLP is Therapy, there are numerous 'NLP Therapy' sites. NLP is NOT only therapy, but to say it is not a therapy as you assert but that it can be used in a therapeutic context is banal semantics.

Peter,

The quantity of people who believe something does not have any relationship with whether something is true or correct. There are many 'NLP people' who believe all sorts of nonsense.

Chris Collingwood

Robert Cialdini talks about the principle of consistency. When they interview someone whose just placed a bet on a winning horse, the indivdual is much more confident of the horse winning, than they were moments before placing the bet.

I think perhaps more important that what we've all been discussing is what if someone does a 3 day practitioner training, goes out calls themself a therapist and starts fiddling round with peoples content.

I think that's what we have to be aware of as an NLP community. I've met so many people who call themselves an NLP practitioner when they've done a 2 day course somewhere, and rather than do 6 step reframing, swish patterns etc, they're giving people advice like Jerry Springer, "girl you need to kick him to the curb..!" calling it NLP.

I think a good question is how can we protect the public from seeing someone whose done a 3 day course (and in my opinion) has no right to fiddling round with peoples lives.

I have so many colleagues who have done a 3 day course or a 'module' of NLP in something else and to be quite frank, I'm appaled with their skills. I've had many people come into see me who've seen an NLP person, I know of, whose seen them for 12 sessions and got very little results. Or will see someone for 2 or 3 sessions before even starting on solutions under the guise of 'NLP'. I've even had clients in who have had phobias installed in them by NLP trainers. Or I've been in seminars with trainers who work for well known people who don't know what O and G stands for.

I think the question is how can we muster our compassion, intelligence and integrity to better police our industry. A policeman can only call himself a policeman after going through a certain standard of training that is standard to everyone.

An NLP practitioner can call themselves that if they've had 3 days of training, or 21 days. I've sat in so many NLP seminars where the quality of the trainer was appaling.

Chris,

You are right regardng quantity but some people believe NLP is therapy, many in fact nearly all practicing NLP use it in a therapeutic context, and there is even 'NLP Therapy' movement. Remember values, and respect their values & there is no truth , only your perception of truth.

NLP is used extensively in therapy by the majority of NLP practitioners, whether they regard it as therapy or not is utterly inconsequential, they are using it as a therapy full stop.

Speech Therapy is definitely a therapy, does it mean anyone hat helps another with their speech is doing Speech Therapy, of course not! Some people use music as therapy or part of it, so all who play music are doing therapy, of course not, the following whilst moving and emotional music is not therapy:

YouTube - Hilarious Jingle Fart Season Song

James Tsakalos,

Your very lame circular reasoning attempts at discussion are unnecessary, you just keep repeating them ad infintum like a broken record.

Repeating them ad infintum like a broken record? You mean kind of like someone who keeps referring to Paul Mckenna (and fail consistently to present anything at all that he ever claimed NLP is therapy) over and over and over and over again?