The Flavours of NLP
Jun0
As far as I am concerned the NLP Community is fractured and pulling in different directions.
A quick search on the net will produce results about NLP trainings that feature mixtures of mysticism, New Age Spirituality and so on and so forth. I mean “Quantum NLP” - what exactly is that? The use of scientific sounding prefix, which actually means nada, seems to smack of some neat marketing ploy rather than a development within the NLP approach or mindset.
Amongst other things NLP is about the use of ‘clean’ language so why is it necessary to cloud the issue with over nominalisations. Trainers could consider Meta-Modelling their own advertisements.!
This posting was really inspired by the Skeptoid podcast mentioned in my previous blog and since venting some of my spleen (to use the vernascular) yesterday I have been reflecting upon exactly what flavour of NLP I am.
I know I’m not one of those trainers who pack hoards of people into a room and offer intense ‘practitioner trainings’; nor am I one of those who worship at the altar of the ‘quest for personal excellence’. I guess that’s why I’m not making the big bucks!
I do know that the small training sessions I run have had profound effects on me as well as the ‘trainees’ on the course. It’s that old thing of the coach often learning more than the coachee. I know I have been blessed with the opportunity to work with people from all walks of life who want to ‘learn’ NLP for a wide variety of reasons. More interestingly perhaps has been the feedback I have recieved via them about the material being taught on ‘other’ courses…. or perhaps more accurately not being taught on other courses.
NLP does have a core set of attitudes, tools and approaches that give it an identity. Many of these approaches derive from the work of others. Bandler & Grinder (with a few oft forgotten others) really based NLP on pre-existing models and approaches. What made it ’special’ was the way these ideas were combined to produce teachable models.
NLP is a structured conversation wherein the ‘practitioner’ encourages the ‘client’ to explore their world. It is often provocative (deliberately so) and so seeks to challenge perceptions, beliefs and attitudes. The key issue here is that the NLP neurological metaphors were created over 30 years ago. Neuroscience has moved on since then…
It often amazes me when I hear of NLP trainings which do not spend time looking at the NEURO bit of the NLP trio of ideas. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that NLP, designed as a ‘generative’ and ‘evolving’ approach is still trapped within the mental straightjackets of the 1970’s.
Now this does not apply to ALL NLP trainers and training programms, but it does to far more than would seem appropriate.
Of course there are those courses which celebrate the integration of ‘new age’ ideologies and NLP approaches… hence, perhaps, the marketing terms “quantum”; “hoographic”, “fourth dimensional”, “paradigm”, “integrative”….
So what flavour of NLP’er am I?
Hell I’m not sure - I look at the ‘classical’ models and see how they can be applied with what we are now learning about the brain and mind. Of course the ‘hard question’ philosophical debate is still a cross-over point between traditional NLP and esoteric (mystical) philosophies. BUT, and here is the point, NLP needs to move towards being an science AND evidence based discipline with practitioners who are commited to developing the field. In this way it will get the credibility it deserves and produce the ‘coaches’ who can make a difference.
NLP does not stand in conflict with other behavioural therapies.
It often does conflict with traditional counselling approaches.
NLP is an attitude, an approach, to questioning all those aspects of our personal reality and the ‘filters’ that create it.
Alan
NLP on Skeptoid
Jun0
Firstly I just have to say that I am a fan of Brian Dunning and his Skeptoid podcast… everyone should listen to this it’s a breath of fresh air. Skeptoid and The Skeptics Guide to the Universe are shows I always listen to and heartily recommend.
On the 26th May the Skeptoid podcast was on NLP - and as ever Brian did a great job.
As an NLP guy myself I often think that the flavour of NLP I am promoting is not quite the same as that which is presenting itself to the ‘New Age’ and ‘Alternative Community’ today.
NLP does have history somewhat fragmented history and indeed legal wrangles, sex, drugs, rock and roll together with the odd murder do feature. No one would deny that in the ‘heady days’ of NLP’s rise to fame those that were swept along with it had more than a little of the ‘rock star’ approach to life.
Anyone really interested in NLP needs to listen to and read Brian Dunnings analysis. He is coming at the subject as someone who has not been caught up in the rhetoric and hyperbole of some of the practitioners ‘out there’. I mean let’s face it NLP does tend to attract more than it’s fair share of ‘charismatics’. I’ve been in training with both John Grinder and Richard Bandler and there’s no two ways about it - these guys have ’something’.
Brain focusses the bulk of his comments on the dogged, terrier like approach that the ‘Meta Model’ takes with what people say and the vague, wishy-washy statements that the “Milton Model” (or Inverse Meta-Model) leads practitioners to make. More importantly however is the generalised observation that many NLP Practitioners seem to focus on these two language patterns almost exclusively as the ‘patterns for change’.
The problem here I think is that so many of the ‘professional level’ trainings (in the UK) are of the ‘intensive’ ‘nuts and bolts’ type. I mean, seriously, how can anyone learn effective communication patterns that can be applied in a therapeutic context in five or six days?
The motivating factor for many of these trainings is purely and simply ‘money’!
NOW, I started by saying that I think I think of NLP differently to some of those who have been through the NLP sausage machine. Welll that may, in part, be due to my training in education and counselling. For me NLP is NOT a tricksy all singing all dancing therapy… NOR is it the ‘power play’ demonstrated by the superb psychological illusionist Derren Brown (I am also a magician and member of the Magic Circle so am aware of the wonderful interplay of fact and fantasy woven by Derren).
NLP is a set of ideas about HOW our minds make sense of the world around us.
NLP presents a number of ‘models’ about how people MIGHT be responding to subjective relaity. (Philosophically the model pays more than a passing nod to Radical Constructivism and Psychologically owes a lot to Skinner and Adler).
The NLP ‘tools’ are approaches which, to all intents and purposes, help people shift their ‘perspective’ on issues, problems and challenges. Such dialogues, linguistic and mental mind games can bring new insights and considerations.
Many NLP ‘models’ deal with finding ways of describing behaviours. Exploring the consequences and possibilities of these actions externally whilst creating frameworks (metaphors) around which the internal emotions and motivations can be explored.
It’s not simply a question of to Meta-Question or Not Meta-Question the application is much broader than that.
There is no way that NLP Practitioners who have been subjected to an ‘intensive’ course with a charismatic leader should consider themselves as therapists of any tone, colour or falvour. Unfortunately many do. Hence the somewhat icy reception NLP has with it’s closest therapeutic counterpart CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy).
NLP is a mindset - and approach - which is infact more art than science. The narrow consideration and promotion of it as a method of gaining influence and power over people is ethically questionable and demonstrably improbable. (Derren Brown is a magician with a brilliant grasp of the psychology of deception as well as the psychology of human behaviour - in magician old speak he is a Mentalist… like Banacek, Kreskin, Max Maven…. and that should in no way detract from his skill!). However the internet is awash with NLP Trainers promising the secrets of “personal power” and somehow trips neatly into the psuedomystical hogwash we know as the Law of Attraction (see my Rational Mystic blog for some thoughts on that one).
Somewhere along the way some of the folks in the NLP community turned to marketeers rather than people helpers; entrepreneurs rather than explorers and some of the heart was lost. NLP is certainly not the ’star’ it once was and some of its proponents are reinventing themselves as Svengali like perveyors of mind manipulation or as Mystical Mavericks who actually really undertsand the ‘quantum nature’ of the mind-body link and the way energy ‘transduction’ works. (Yes there is a course being advertised on Quantum NLP and I’ve seen one being promoted as “Fifth Dimensional NLP”)…. OH PLEASE!!!!
Nothing could be further from I what I though NLP was aspiring to be than this pseudo-msytical nonsense. Now I’ve no problem with mysticism (actually I think of myself as part Mystic) BUT you can’t have it both ways - ie. claim scientific credibility and follow an approach which recognises the subjectivity of human experience. The two are imcompatible…. scientific process and mystical experience.
What NLP can do, is provide a neutral third position from which to question the assumptions we make about the reality we perceive. It does this by exploring behaviour within the context of a number of ‘what if’ postulates - what NLP folk call the key NLP presuppositions. In having this conversation, as in any focussed and deep conversations, attitudes can be explored, behaviours challenged and personal benefits derived. When such conversations are supported by tools to encourage creativity, behaviour flexibility, emotional expression (as in exploring emotional intelligence) and set ‘targets’ that are motivational people do find a benefit.
Talking to someone does help …
NLP is not a psychotherapy as it would like to be considered, neither is it counselling as it tends not to rely on narrative, but it is a form of coaching which can help people understand something of themselves. I think NLP practitioners need to think carefully about what they say they do and what they can actually do.
Thanks Brian for stirring these thoughts and maybe starting some form of debate within the NLP community.
Alan
NLP - mindset
May0
One of the things which qucikly becomes apparent when ‘living with’ NLP is the way it effects your thinking and impacts upon your life.
Every individual is a complex mix of experiences, beliefs, memories, attitudes, emotions and perceptions.
Being REAL is about being in the moment; about being present with what ever is happening to you and through you.
If your emotional buttons are being pressed then you react emotionally - momentarily - present-ly.
In NLP terms this is called “first position”.
But the NLP WAY means that once you internalise the patterns and models you will find a’switch’ in your head that moves you into a ‘third - neutral - position’. It’s a kind of weird detachment which gives you the ability to see all sides and all aspects of an argument or position.
If your personal stuff and your NLP MIND is at odds then behaviourally this can produce a weird kind of ’stasis’ - a sense of inactivity because you are being pulled in opposing directiions.
I remember some time ago looking at psychological experiements where such a behaviour stasis was produced in laboratory mice. In the experiement the mice had be ‘trained’ to assocoiate a particular stimulus with a small electric shock and a second, different stimulus with a reward. If both stimulii were triggered at the same time the conflicting internal drives of the mice produced a kind of “faltering” or hesitant behaviour. It was as if one part of their minds was directing them towards the reward and another was pushing them away from the punishment.
In your life how often do you find your behaviour ‘faltering’ or ‘oscillating’ between the choice of two different situations?
Perhaps attempting to balance what you want to do with what you feel you ’should’ or ‘need’ to do…
The ‘third position’ allows you to question the ‘needs’ and ’shoulds’ - but we are emotional-social creatures and that means on a personal level in personal situations, application of the techniques that you have access to as a NLP Practitioner often evades you.
STASIS.
So. whenever you hear criticism on practitioners whose own personal lives have been a rollercoaster of emotions it would behove you to remember that ‘technique’ and ‘application’ of technique is one thing - being real, human and vibrant is another.
Alan
NLP - a beginning
May0
NLP has and is more than just a collection of tools and neat psychological tricks!
It is an attitude and approach to how we as people think about and relate to the world.
Reality is something which exists outside of ourselves.
Our senses percieve changes in the environment and our minds make sense of these changes by creating personal, subjective realities.
To begin your journey in NLP you need to start by asking the question… “Who’s driving my bus?” and in so doing start to pay attention to what’s going on inside as well as outside.
Mind Watching is about watching your own minds as much as it is trying to make sense of others!
Alan
The question “Who’s driving your bus” is attributable to Richard Bandler