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Neuro-linguistic programming

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a controversial approach to psychotherapy and organizational change based on "a model of interpersonal communication chiefly concerned with the relationship between successful patterns of behaviour and the subjective experiences (esp. patterns of thought) underlying them" and "a system of alternative therapy based on this which seeks to educate people in self-awareness and effective communication, and to change their patterns of mental and emotional behaviour".^[1] The co-founders, Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder, claimed it would be instrumental in "finding ways to help people have better, fuller and richer lives".^[2] They coined the title to denote their belief in a connection between neurological processes ('neuro'), language ('linguistic') and behavioral patterns that have been learned through experience ('programming') and that can be organized to achieve specific goals in life.^[3]^[4]^[5]

NLP was originally promoted by its co-founders in the 1970s as an effective and rapid form of psychological therapy,^[6]^[7]^[8] capable of addressing the full range of problems which psychologists are likely to encounter, such as phobias, depression, habit disorder, psychosomatic illnesses, and learning disorders.^[9] It also espoused the potential for self-determination through overcoming learned limitations^[10] and emphasized well-being and healthy functioning. Later, it was promoted as a 'science of excellence', derived from the study or 'modeling'^[11] of how successful or outstanding people in different fields obtain their results. It was claimed that these skills can be learned by anyone to improve their effectiveness both personally and professionally^[12]

Despite its popularity,^[13] NLP has been largely ignored by conventional social science because of issues of professional credibility^[13] and insufficient empirical evidence to substantiate its models and claimed effectiveness.^[14] It appears to have little impact on academic psychology, and limited impact on mainstream psychotherapy and counselling.^[14] However, it had some influence among private psychotherapists, including hypnotherapists, to the extent that some claim to be trained in NLP and apply it to their practice. NLP had greater influence in management training, life coaching,^[15] and the self-help industry.^[16]

History and founding
Applications
Criticism and controversy

Professional credibility issues
Ownership dispute
Varying standards
Scientific criticism

See also
Notes and references
Further reading
External links

History and founding

NLP originated when Richard Bandler, a student at University of California, Santa Cruz, was listening to and selecting portions of taped therapy sessions of the late Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls as a project for Robert Spitzer.^[17]^[18] Bandler believed he recognized particular word and sentence structures which facilitated the acceptance of Perls? therapeutic suggestions. Bandler took this idea to one of his university lecturers, John Grinder, a linguist. Together they studied Perls' via tape and observed a second therapist Virginia Satir to produce what they termed the meta model, a model for gathering information and challenging a client's language and underlying thinking.^[19]

The meta model was presented in 1975 in two-volumes, The Structure of Magic I: A Book About Language and Therapy and The Structure of Magic II: A Book About Communication and Change, in which they expressed their belief that the therapeutic "magic" as performed in therapy by Perls and Satir, and by performers in any complex human activity, had structure that could be learned by others given the appropriate models. They believed that implicit in the behaviour of Perls and Satir was the ability to challenge distortion, generalization and deletion in a client's language. For example:

Client: "I just feel terrible."

Therapist: "What specifically do you 'feel terrible' about?"

Client: "... my performance yesterday."

Therapist: "What 'performance', specifically?"

"..."

The linguistic aspects were based in part on previous work by Grinder using Noam Chomsky's transformational grammar.^[20] Challenging linguistic distortions, specifying generalizations, and recovering of deleted information in the client utterances, the surface structure, was supposed to yield a more complete representation of the underlying deep structure, and to have therapeutic benefit.^[21] They drew ideas from Gregory Bateson and Alfred Korzybski, particularly about human modeling and ideas associated with their expression, 'the map is not the territory'.^[22]^[23]

Satir and Bateson each agreed to write a preface to Bandler and Grinder's first book. Bateson also introduced the pair to Milton Erickson who became their third model. Erickson also wrote a preface to Bandler and Grinder's two-volume book series based their observations of Erickson working with clients, Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, Volumes I & II.^[24] These volumes also focused on the language patterns and some non-verbal patterns that Bandler and Grinder believed they observed in Erickson. While the meta model is intentionally specific, the Milton model was described as "artfully vague" and metaphoric; the inverse of the meta model. It was used in combination with the meta model as a softener, to induce trance, and to deliver indirect therapeutic suggestion. In addition to the first two models, Bandler, Grinder and a group of students who joined them during the early period of development of NLP, proposed other models and techniques, such as anchoring, reframing, submodalities, perceptual positions, and representational systems.

At the time, the human potential movement was developing into an industry, at the centre of this growth was the Esalen Institute at Big Sur, California. Perls had led numerous Gestalt Therapy seminars at Esalen. Satir was an early leader and Bateson was a guest teacher. Bandler and Grinder claimed that in addition to being a therapeutic method, NLP was also a study of communication, and by the 1970s Grinder and Bandler were marketing it as a business tool, claiming that 'if any human being can do anything, so can you'. After 150 students paid $1,000 each for a ten-day workshop in Santa Cruz, California, Bandler and Grinder gave up academic writing and produced popular books from seminar transcripts, such as Frogs into Princes, which sold more than 270,000 copies. According to court documents, Bandler's NLP business made more than $800,000 in 1980.^[19]

Applications

In contrast to mainstream psychotherapy, NLP does not concentrate on diagnosis, treatment and assessment of mental and behavioral disorders. Instead, it focuses on helping clients to overcome their own self-perceived, or subjective, problems. It seeks to do this while respecting their own capabilities and wisdom to choose additional goals for the intervention as they learn more about their problems, and to modify and specify those goals further as a result of extended interaction with a therapist. The two main therapeutic uses of NLP are use as an adjunct by therapists^[25] practicing in other therapeutic disciplines, or as a specific therapy called Neurolinguistic Psychotherapy (NLPt)^[26] which is recognized by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy^[27] with accreditation governed at first by the Association for Neuro Linguistic Programming^[28] and more recently by its daughter organisation the Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy and Counselling Association^[29]. While the main goals of Neuro-linguistic programming are therapeutic, the patterns have also been adapted for use outside psychotherapy for interpersonal communications and persuasion including business communication, management training,^[30] sales,^[31] sports,^[32] and interpersonal influence.^[33]

Criticism and controversy

Professional credibility issues

In the early 1980s, NLP was hailed as an important advance in psychotherapy and counseling,^[34] and attracted some interest in counseling research and clinical psychology. In the mid 1980s, reviews in The Journal of Counseling Psychology^[35] and by the National Research Council (1988; NRC) committee^[33] found little or no empirical basis for the claims about preferred representational systems (PRS) or assumptions of NLP. Since then, NLP has been regarded with suspicion or outright hostility by the academic, psychiatric and medical professions.

In the 1980s, shortly after publishing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Volume I^[36] with Robert Dilts and Judith Delozier, Grinder and Bandler fell out. Amidst acrimony and intellectual property lawsuits, the NLP brand was adopted by other training organisations.^[33] Some time afterwards, John Grinder collaborated with various people to develop a form of NLP called the New Code of NLP which claimed to restore a whole mind-body systemic approach to NLP^[23]^[37] Richard Bandler also published new processes based on submodalities and Ericksonian hypnosis.^[38]

Ownership dispute

In July 1996 after many years of legal controversy, Bandler filed a lawsuit against John Grinder and others, claiming retrospective sole ownership of NLP, and also the sole right to use the term under trademark.^[39]^[40] At the same time, Tony Clarkson (a UK practitioner) successfully asked the UK High Court to revoke Bandler's UK registered trademark of "NLP", in order to clarify legally that 'NLP' was a generic term rather than intellectual property.^[41]

Despite the NLP community's being splintered, most NLP material acknowledges the early work of co-founders Bandler and Grinder, and also the development group that surrounded them in the 1970s.

Varying standards

In 2001, the lawsuits were settled with Bandler and Grinder agreeing to be known as co-founders of NLP. Since 1978, a 20-day NLP practitioner certification program had been in existence for training therapists to apply NLP as an adjunct to their professional qualifications. As NLP evolved, and the applications began to be extended beyond therapy, new ways of training were developed and the course structures and design changed. Course lengths and style vary from institute to institute. In the 1990s, following attempts to put NLP on a regulated footing in the UK, other governments began certifying NLP courses and providers; for example, in Australia, a Graduate Certificate in Neuro-linguistic programming is accredited under the Australian Qualifications Framework.^[42] However, NLP continues to be an open field of training with no 'official' best practice. With different authors, individual trainers and practitioners having developed their own methods, concepts and labels, often branding them as "NLP",^[43] the training standards and quality differ greatly.^[44] The multiplicity and general lack of controls has led to difficulty discerning the comparative level of competence, skill and attitude in different NLP trainings. According to Peter Sch�tz, the length of training in Europe varies from 2?3 days for the hobbyist to 35?40 days over at least nine months to achieve a professional level of competence.^[44]

In Europe, the European NLP therapy association has been promoting its training in line with European therapy standards.

In 2001, an off-shoot application of NLP, neuro-linguistic psychotherapy, was recognized by United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy as an experimental constructivist form of psychotherapy.^[45]

Today, NLP is a lucrative industry, and many variants of the practice are found in seminars, workshops, books and audio programs in the form of exercises and principles intended to influence behavioral and emotional change in self and others. There is great variation in the depth and breadth of training and standards of practitioners, and some disagreement between those in the field about which patterns are, or are not, "NLP".

Scientific criticism

There are three main scientific criticisms of NLP. First, critics argue that NLP's claims for scientific respectability are not based on the scientific method. In response advocates of NLP argue that NLP is a pragmatic discipline, largely interested in what "works" rather than existing theory. Second, there is a lack of empirical research or evidence to support the core aspects of NLP or the claim that NLP is an effective and rapid set of techniques for enhancing psycho-therapeutic practice, interpersonal communication and social influence. One of the originators of NLP, John Grinder, retorts that the meta model was based on his expertise in linguistics and empirical work in collaboration with Richard Bandler in the early 1970s. However, critics maintain that the experimental research that does exist has been overall unsupportive of the central assumptions and core models of NLP, and that it is therefore up to the proponents to back up their models and claims of effectiveness with evidence.

In a recent article, professional psychologist Grant Devilly (2005) stated that at the time it was introduced, NLP was heralded as a breakthrough in therapy, and advertisements for training workshops, videos and books began to appear in trade magazines. The workshops provided certification. However, controlled studies shed such a poor light on the practice, and those promoting the intervention made such extreme and changeable claims that researchers began to question the wisdom of researching the area further.^[34]

Critics argue that NLP's claims for scientific respectability are not based on the scientific method. They believe the title of "neuro-linguistic programming" is simply a pretense to a legitimate discipline like neuroscience, neurolinguistics, and psychology. Michael Corballis (1999) stated that "NLP is a thoroughly fake title, designed to give the impression of scientific respectability".^[46] Furthermore, NLP adapted many scientific sounding terms, such as eye accessing cues, metamodeling, micromodeling, metaprogramming, neurological levels, presuppositions, representational systems, and submodalities, intended to obfuscate and to give the impression of a scientific discipline. According to Canadian skeptic Beyerstein (1995) "though it claims neuroscience in its pedigree, NLP's outmoded view of the relationship between cognitive style and brain function ultimately boils down to crude analogies."^[47]

There is a lack of empirical research or evidence to support the core aspects of NLP or the claim that NLP is an effective and rapid set of techniques for enhancing psycho-therapeutic practice, interpersonal communication and social influence. Heap (1988) remarks^[14] that if the assertions made by proponents of NLP about representational systems and their behavioural manifestations are correct, then its founders have made remarkable discoveries about the human mind and brain, which would have important implications for human psychology, particularly cognitive science and neuropsychology. Yet NLP is rarely discussed in learned textbooks and has limited number of journal articles dedicated. Most often, NLP has been taught via short seminars and workshop, audio programs and books in a variety of application areas rather than at university. Although it is sometimes taught at continuing educational colleges connected to university. A small number of universities offer postgraduate courses in neuro-linguistic programming in the United Kingdom, and in Australia a postgraduate course is accredited.^[42] Heaps states that generalisations about the mind and behaviour, such as the those purported by NLP proponents, can only be arrived at through prolonged, systematic, and meticulous investigation of human subjects using empirical procedures. Heap (1988) stated "There is just no other way of doing this". In general, authors in the field of NLP have rarely expressed an interest in providing a coherent theory; instead, they often state their primary aim in modeling "what works". They also claim there is ample evidence for NLP as an eclectic approach drawing from existing "cognitive-behavioural approaches, Gestalt therapy, hypnotherapy, family therapy, and brief therapy.^[48] A counter example is offered by John Grinder who argued in retrospect that the meta-model, for example, drew from his expertise in transformational grammar and empirical work in collaboration with Bandler between 1973 and 1975.^[23] Tosey and Mathison state that "the pragmatic and often anti-theoretical stance by the founders has left a legacy of little engagement between practitioner and academic communities".^[49]^[50]

The experimental research that does exist was mostly done in the 1980s and 1990s, and on the whole was unsupportive of the central assumptions and core models of NLP.^[51] It consisted of laboratory experimentation testing Bandler and Grinder's hypotheses^[52] that a person's preferred sensory mode of thinking can be revealed by observing eye movement cues and sensory predicates in language use.^[49] A research review conducted by Christopher Sharpley which focussed on preferred representational systems, in 1984,^[53] followed by another review in 1987 in response to a critique published by Einspruch and Forman,^[54] concluded that there was little evidence for its usefulness as an effective counseling tool. Reviewing the literature in 1988, Michael Heap also concluded that objective and fair investigations had shown no support for NLP claims about 'preferred representational systems'.^[14] A research committee^[33] working for United States National Research Council led by Daniel Druckman came to two conclusions. First, the committee "found little if any" evidence to support NLP?s assumptions or to indicate that it is effective as a strategy for social influence. It assumes that by tracking another?s eye movements and language, an NLP trainer can shape the person?s thoughts, feelings, and opinions (Dilts, 1983^[55]). There is no scientific support for these assumptions."^[56] Secondly, the committee members "were impressed with the modeling approach used to develop the technique. The technique was developed from careful observations of the way three master psychotherapists conducted their sessions, emphasizing imitation of verbal and nonverbal behaviors... This then led the committee to take up the topic of expert modeling in the second phase of its work."^[56]. Von Bergen et al. (1997) state that "the most telling commentary on NLP may be that the latest revision of his text on enhancing human performance, Druckman omitted all reference to neurolinguistic programming.

These studies, in particular Sharpley's literature review, marked a decline in empirical research of NLP, and particularly in matching sensory predicates and its use in counsellor-client relationship in counseling psychology.^[57] Barry Beyerstein (1995) states that NLP was based on outmoded scientific theories, and that its 'explanation' of the relationship between cognitive style and brain function was no more than crude analogy.^[47] According to Efran and Lukens (1990), claiming that "original interest in NLP turned to disillusionment after the research and now it is rarely even mentioned in psychotherapy"(p. 122).^[58] In a 2006 Delphi poll of experts in psychology and psychotherapy, 73.3% of respondents reported they were familiar with NLP as an approach to treatment mental and behavioural disorders ranged, and most of them reported that NLP has been discredited for the treatment of mental and behavioural disorders.^[59]

NLP practitioners Tosey and Mathison, have argued that the experimental approach to research is inappropriate for researching NLP ^[60]. Recent attempts to create a phenomenological approach to research in NLP have been criticised by Gareth Roderique-Davies who states that "NLP masquerades as a legitimate form of psychotherapy, makes unsubstantiated claims about how humans think and behave, purports to encourage research in a vain attempt to gain credibility, yet fails to provide evidence that it actually works. Neurolinguistic programming is cargo-cult psychology".^[61] Roderique-Davies also states that "despite the cloak of respectability, the truth about NLP borders on the worrying", and "NLP is an ill-defined chameleon that masquerades as a discipline open to the rigours of academic enquiry, when in fact there is spectacularly no evidence to support NLP beyond personal testimony and anecdote".