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1. It's said you have severe reservations about NLP. Please explain.
1. It's said you have severe reservations about NLP. Please explain.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming contains some very powerful therapeutic techniques indeed.
And I use a number of these as first choice in tackling a therapy client's problems.
However, I do have severe reservations about NLP being presented, taught and used
as if it is a complete and cohesive set of theories, models and techniques.
Firstly, it is theoretically weak. There is no unified or even connectionist set
of theoretical underpinnings. In terms of theory, it is a ragbag of disjointed models
which are not properly integrated. Put the vMEMES of Spiral Dynamics at the core
of NLP and most of it starts to make sense. Even then it ignores many facets of the
human psyche covered in other schools of Psychology. This, unfortunately, does not
stop many NLPers - including 'guru' figures who should know better - from claiming
that NLP can be used to tackle any and every form of psychological problem. It can't!
For one thing, since many NLP therapies require the client to enter a light trance,
people who are low in suggestibility - ie: they have difficulty entering a hypnotic
state - will struggle to engage with the therapeutic process.
As for temperament, NLP has nothing to say about it. Since, according to the likes
of Hans Eysenck and Jerome Kagan, temperament is basically at an instinctual, biological
level pre-cognition, NLP techniques can't be used effectively as there is no cognition
involved to explore. NLP and Cognitive techniques can certainly be used to deal with
schemas which have formed around temperament but temperament itself is best dealt
with by Behavioural conditioning.
The average NLPer, how ever well-intentioned, is, in my view, potentially dangerous.
With little knowledge of Psychology beyond the 20 hours training they undertook to
get their Practitioner certificate, they are all too often led to believe they have
the tools to 'cure' major psychological problems. Not only will they have little
clue as to the effects of temperament; but, without Spiral Dynamics, they will have
little understanding of how motivation works. So techniques which are very potent
in some respects but useless in others, in the employ of people who think they can
solve anything and everything but have no understanding of the likely effects of
their interventions on motivation and temperament. For example, say techniques were
used to boost self-esteem - a common-enough (and quite honorable) aim for many NLPers.
That would most likely be very life-enhancing for those high in Impulse Control and
very much dominated by one or more of the Spiral's 'cool' vMEMES. Achieve the same
aim with someone who is high in Psychoticism and very much dominated by RED - and
their 'monster quotient' would be substantially increased!
NLP has done a huge amount to enlighten our understanding of the human psyche with
models such as Robert Dilts' Neurological Levels and Michael Hall's Meta-States.
And the therapies it endorses, when worked through with people at least reasonably
high in suggestibility, can be incredibly powerful. My 'beef' is not with the content
of NLP, which I see as adding much to Integrated SocioPsychology, but with the way
NLP is presented, taught and so often used.
