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My take on the book is that there is 'some good stuff' in NLP and he is a fan of some people (Bandler) and some books (Persuasion Engineering) but he has doubt about other things in NLP, citing unspecified (why unspecified?) tests of (for example) eye accessing cues that he says (I've not seen them) don't hold up NLP's claims. He criticises people's willingness to believe and 'find what they believe' in spite of this testing.

If he was here contributing to a thread on eye accessing cues, I suspect he'd pose a challenge something like this: When you do the eye accessing cues exercise, are you doing that 'find what you seek thing' - only noticing the eye movements that comply with the model and deleting all eye movements that don't? And do we confabulate to explain what we observed?

It's a reasonable challenge to make. But then again, if there is an eye movement the model (as far as you've learned it) doesn't predict, what conclusion do you draw? Does it 'prove' the model wrong? (That would be bad thinking all by itself. That's 'evidence' + 'holder's beliefs' = 'conclusion'.) Or that there is more going on that just accessing a picture, a sound, etc? Or that the eyes do other things besides just access? Or that the model is a simplification - albeit a useful one - of what's going on? Or that the questioner unintentionally elicited another access (perhaps by tone or physiology)? Or that the responder goes off on a TDS? Or something else.

(Brown himself admits that the eye accessing cues 'seem to hold up' in his experience and he uses them in spite of his skepticism.)

I got the impression it was the fanatical, rigid and 'true believer' behaviours around NLP that he was most preturbed about.

I found the book interesting, challenging and informative even if I didn't entirely agree with his map of the world.

Cheers

Hi Rich,

I think it's a bit more subtle than that. Brown was an evangelical Christian as a teenager, who flipped to the opposite polarity in his twenties and became a hard-line skeptic.

As I recall from browsing the book (I decided 15 minutes of speed reading in Borders was enough for me!), the Mckenna-Breen large group training he went to felt too evangelical for his liking - a bad pattern match for him given his background.

BTW, even wholly positive reviews of large group Bandler trainings talk about the audience going into "sheep mode", and predictably, this didn't sit well with Brown and felt a bit "culty" to him.

However, in his recommended reading list he raves about Persuasion Engineering, and recommends it as one of his favourite NLP books. He also incorporates submodalities into the methods of some of his tricks (and no, not always as a red herring ), which are undeniably pure NLP.

So he's an anti-evangelical hypnotist, and some of NLP apparently gave him the heebie-jeebies, but he highly recommends people read the books.

So I think it's fair to say he has mixed feelings about NLP. However, it wasn't exactly brilliant publicity for people attempting to raise the credibility of NLP, especially since it was a bestseller.

All the best,

Joe

Well his book also shows him talking about the need for empirical evidence. I think thats a fundamental difference. NLP continues despite never being able to present empirical evidence of efficacy. And I have to say I respect the practitioners who are always so cutting edge that they know empirical evidence to be a waste of time.

He's fundamentally a de-bunker. And I don't think you can really split the so called evangelicals from the so-called psych business types. His pseudoscience section is just too rigorous in scientific terms.

Its a fundamental belief-action matter. He dissociates with NLP deliberately because he wants to be a pseudoscience debunker. Thats his thing.

Its a fundamental flaw in his method I believe. To be cutting edge you have to stay away from the shackles of empiricism.

I respect his view, and that of any other debunker. But I do pitty them also, as I pitty any NLP practitioner who craves empirical support.

Its quite against effective and flexible NLP mindset. Keep in mind that Brown is first and foremost a showman who sets up tricks.

And NLP is about being productively flexible in the real world.

Rich

I found Derren Browns book interesting. I think the thing that we have to remember is that he is a showman first and foremost who uses misdirection on a grand scale. As I read his book I must be honest that I had a hard time telling when he was being serious and when he isnt at times.

I get the feeling from reading Tricks of the Mind that he found value in some of the basic techniques of NLP and the work of Bandler and Grinder and found amusement in some of the more modern stuff that people have claimed for NLP.

Also I think that some of the things he achieves on his shows can be done in a number of ways and not just through the application of NLP. Of course as people who are interested in NLP we are probably going to leap to the conclusion that NLP was what he was using in that particular situation.

A good book - very entertaining.