It is difficult to define Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) because those who started it and those involved in it use such vague and ambiguous language that NLP means different things to different people (a fact, which also is quite revealing). I think, though, that the critical thinker Robert T. Carroll, has done a quite good job in his critique of NLP. In the following I will use parts of Carroll´s definition and critique, supplied with my own critique of NLP.
Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) was begun in the mid-seventies by a linguist (John Grinder) and a mathematician (Richard Bandler) who had strong interests in (a) successful people (b) psychology (c) language and (d) computer programming.
NLP has something for everybody, the sick and the healthy, individual or corporation. In addition to being an agent for change for healthy individuals taught en masse, NLP is also used for individual psychotherapy for problems as diverse as phobias and schizophrenia. NLP also aims at transforming corporations, showing them how to achieve their maximum potential and achieve great success.
While it is difficult to find a consistent description of NLP among those who claim to be experts at it, one metaphor keeps recurring. NLP claims to help people change by teaching them to program their brains. We were given brains, we are told, but no instruction manual. NLP offers you a user-manual for the brain. The brain-manual seems to be a metaphor for NLP training, which is sometimes referred to as “software for the brain.”
Furthermore, NLP relies heavily upon (1) the notion of the unconscious mind as constantly influencing conscious thought and action; (2) metaphorical behaviour and speech, especially building upon the methods used in Freud´s interpretation of dreams and (3) hypnotherapy as developed by Milton Erickson.
NLP is also heavily influenced by the work of Gregory Bateson and Noam Chomsky.
In short you can say that there is three main sources of inspiration:
1) The New Thought movement (see my article The New Thought movement and the law of attraction)
2) Humanistic psychology (see my article Humanistic psychology, self-help, and the danger of reducing religion to psychology)
3) Management theory (see my article Management theory and the self-help industry)
In short you can say that there is three main sources of inspiration:
1) The New Thought movement (see my article The New Thought movement and the law of attraction)
2) Humanistic psychology (see my article Humanistic psychology, self-help, and the danger of reducing religion to psychology)
3) Management theory (see my article Management theory and the self-help industry)
A central problem of NLP is pseudoscience (see my article The pseudoscience of New Age and reductionism). NLP is extreme in its way of creating scientific-sounding terms in order to add weight to claims and persuade non-experts to believe statements that may be false or meaningless. NLP is also using established terms in idiosyncratic ways, thereby demonstrating unfamilarity with mainstream work in the discipline.
An example of this is the use of the term paradigm shift. John Grinder denies, that his and Bandler´s work is an eclectic hodgepodge of philosophy and psychology, or that it even builds from the work of others. He believes that what he and Bandler did was “create a paradigm shift.”
The following claim by Grinder provides some sense of what he thinks NLP is:
My memories about what we thought at the time of discovery (with respect to the classic code we developed – that is, the years 1973 through 1978) are that we were quite explicit that we were out to overthrow a paradigm and that, for example, I, for one, found it very useful to plan this campaign using in part as a guide the exellent work of Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) in which he detailed some of the conditions in the midst of paradigm shifts. For example, I believe it was very useful that neither one of us were qualified in the field we first went after – psychology and in particular, it´s therapeutic application; this being one of the conditions which Kuhn identified in his historical study of paradigm shifts. Who knows what Bandler was thinking?
As a comment to this Carroll says: “One can only hope that Bandler wasn´t thinking the same things that Grinder was thinking, at least with respect to Kuhn´s classic text.”
Kuhn did not promote the notion that not being particularly qualified in a scientific field is a significant condition for contributing to the development of a new paradigm in science. Furthermore, Kuhn did not provide a model or blueprint for creating paradigm shifts! His is an historical work, described what he believed to have occured in the history of science. He made no claim that anything similar happens in philosophy and he certainly did not imply that anything NLP did, or is doing, constitutes a paradigm shift.
So, a central part of NLP is the use of obscurantist language, and use of apparently technical jargon in an effort to give claims the superficial trappings of science.
Michael Corballis (1999) stated that “NLP is a thoroughly fake title, designed to give the impression of scientific respectability”. NLP adapted many scientific sounding terms, such as eye accessing cues, non-elective surgery, metamodeling, micromodeling, metaprogramming, neurological levels, presuppositions, representational systems, and submodalities.
None of these terms have any scientifical meaning at all.
In the following I will go into four central aspects of NLP:
1) NLP as a user-manual for the brain
2) NLP as observation of behaviour
3) NLP as a Primary Representational System
4) NLP as Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT)
NLP as a user-manual for the brain
One common thread in NLP is the emphasis on teaching a variety of communication and persuasion skills, and using self-hypnosis to motivate and change oneself. Most NLP practitioners advertising on the internet make grand claims about being able to help just about anybody become just about anything. A presupposition is that “if someone can do something, anyone can learn it.”
NLP claims that its experts have studied the thinking of great minds and the behaviour patters of successful people and has extracted models of how they work. “From these models, techniques for quickly and effectively changing thoughts, behaviours and beliefs that get in your way have been developed.”
So, you can say, that NLP is about programming your brain with such models, like when your are downloading a new program to your computer.
This statement comes from people who claim they understand the brain and help you reprogram yours. As Carroll says, then NLP wants you to think that the only thing that separates the average person from Einstein or Paverotti or the World Champion Log Lifter is NLP.
In order to explain NLP Dr. Steven Novella (MD) tells about that there is an episode of Spongebob (one of those cartoons accessible to both young children and adults) where Patrick, upset that his friend Spongebob has won so many awards and he has won none, decides to copy everything Spongebob does. Patrick is a lazy, dumb, pathetic, (but charming) do-nothing, and he is no less so by simply mimicking Spongebob´s every move. NLP, at its core, takes the Patrick approach to success and counseling.
Briefly NLP is based upon the notion that success can be achieved by simply modeling the language, behavior, and thought patterns of successful people. Various versions of this have been applied to counseling by simply modeling the language and behavior of supposedly successful counselors.
Teachers on NLP courses (also the so-called “qualified” and “listed” NLP educations) keeps on telling the students, that everything the teachers say and do, are supported by “new research”, without making account of who has carried out this research (the thought distortion Reseach has shown that...). NLP has in fact been investigated scientifically. And it turns out that the assumptions of NLP, namely that our cognition, behavior and emotions can be “programmed” by mimicking the more superficial aspects of those with desirable attributes (for example posture and mannerism) are wrong. The last thirty years of research have simply shown that NLP is bunk. NLP has failed every test of both its underlying theories and empirical tests of its efficacy. So, in short, NLP does not make sense and it doesn´t work. In fact: NLP has been recognized as among a Top Ten of Most Discredited Interventions, according to a published research survey by Norcross et al (2008)
It turns out that improving one´s cognitive ability and emotional stability is hard work – there is no quick short cut. The brain is not infinitely reprogrammable – it can learn and change, but there is an underlying structure and function that is pretty resistant to change, and this resistance increases as we age. Change is possible, but it is hard work. You can´t just download a new personality.
If you want to read more about this scientific research read the articles Neurolinguistic Programming and other Nonsense, by Steven Novella, and NLP – no longer plausible, by Donald Clark. Also do yourself a favour and read the comments to these two articles, where you see how advocates of NLP are attacking the scientific research with a battery of pseudoscientific techniques and thought distortions such as Argumentum ad hominem, Testimonials, Anecdotal evidence, Research has shown that..., Pseudo-profundity, Rhetoric, etc., etc. - see my article A dictionary of thought distortions. For a definition of pseudoscience, see my article The pseudoscience of New Age and reductionism. Also see my article The Sokal Hoax, about how postmodern intellectuals are attacking science (while themselves are claiming their theories to be science).
The concept of resistance to change is also very known within spirituality and religion, where they talk about original sin and negative karma (see my articles The emotional painbody and why psychotherapy can´t heal it, and The value of having a religion in a spiritual practice).
So, besides the scientific problems, NLP is also filled with spiritual and philosophical problems. One of these problems is the problem of hypnosis.
Hypnosis is a typical sophistic technique. Being hypnotized is usually characterized by (a) concentration (b) relaxation, (c) suggestion, and (d) expectation.
The versatility of hypnosis is unparalleled. Hypnosis occurs under dramatically different social settings: the showroom, the clinic (hypnotherapy), and the police station.
The best definition for hypnosis is probably The Power of Suggestion. All hypnosis effects are simply the power of suggestion. The more suggestible someone is, the better their results. And the more suggestions someone complies with, the more likely they are to comply with further suggestions.
What is then the problem with hypnosis? The problem is not, that it can help some people loose weight, quit smoking, or overcome their fear of flying. The problem is that it opens you for the power of suggestion. If you open yourself for the power of suggestion you close yourself to your own essence. This shows in four philosophical ways:
1) A rational where you take your assumptions, conceptions and values for absolute truths (hereunder subjectivism and relativism), and hereby end up in a contradiction between your thoughts and your lived life.
2) A life-philosophical, where you are circling around your own past and future, and hereby create a closed attitude, inattention, absent-mindedness and ennui.
3) An existence-philosophical, where you in your opinion formation and identity formation strive towards being something else than what you are, where you imitate others, are a slave of others ideas and ideals, and where your actions are characterized by irresoluteness and doubt.
4) A spiritual where you are identified with your lifesituation, are dependent on religious or political ideologies, and where you hereby exist on a future salvation.
Read more about hypnosis in my article Hypnosis, hypnotherapy and the art of self-deception. About the four philosophical ways, read my article The four philosophical hindrances and openings.
Read more about hypnosis in my article Hypnosis, hypnotherapy and the art of self-deception. About the four philosophical ways, read my article The four philosophical hindrances and openings.
NLP as observation of behaviour
NLP is said to be the study of the structure of subjective experience, but a great deal of attention seems to be paid to observing behaviour and teaching people how to read “body language.” That implies that NLP has some conclusions to what a certain body language or behavior means. This is invalid simply because there are far too many other alternative reasons for why persons, in certain situations, with certain inner and outer impulses at that certain moment, are behaving as they are. Ignoring this is to end in the thought distortion Ignoring alternative explanations (see my article A dictionary of thought distortions).
As Carroll says: “If someone tells me that the way I squeeze my nose during a conversation means I am signaling him that I think his idea stinks, how do we verify whether his interpretation is correct or not? I deny it. He knows the structure, he says. He knows the meaning. I am not aware of my signal or of my feelings, he says, because the message is coming from my subconscious mind. How do we test these claims? We can´t. What´s his evidence?”
Carroll is here touching the problem of the Hermeneutics of Suspicion.
The philosopher Paul Ricoeur has referred to the “hermeneutics of suspicion” encouraged by writers such as Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. What people think, and the reasons they produce, may not be the real reasons at work. It then becomes easy to become suspicious of the motives of everyone, whether as the representative of an economic class or the purveyor of a morality, or just as an individual with psychological problems to solve.
To try to have a normal conversation with NLP coaches and psychotherapists can be an odd experience. Often they just look at you with these empty eyes that says: “Well, it might well be that you think what you think, and that you produce the reasons you do, but I know better, I don´t think that is the real reasons at work. I think you have some psychological problems to solve!”
But how can they know this? How can they play the role as someone who know who you are better than yourself, at the same time as they totally deny and renounce what you think, and the reasons you produce; that is: your experiences, your education, your arguments, your articles, your books?
Well, the only way they then can get their knowledge from, is from their own theories. It is a refined way of justifying prejudice. Prejudice is a belief held without good reason or consideration of the evidence for or against its being true. Philosophy is opposed to prejudice. We are all riddled with prejudices on a wide range of issues, but it is possible to eliminate some of them by making an effort to examine evidence and arguments on both sides of any question. Human reason is fallible, and most of us are strongly motivated to cling on to some beliefs even in the teeth of evidence against them (for instance wishful thinking); however, even making small inroads into prejudice can transform the world for the better.
But the NLP analysis (leading us to think of groups or individuals “what is in it for them?”), is not only corrosive of trust in society. It is bound eventually to undermine it´self. Why are such views themselves being propagated? What are those spreading them going to gain? - read more about The Hermeneutics of Suspicion in my article The hermeneutics of suspicion (the thought police of the self-help industry) and why I am an apostle of loafing.
NLP as a Primary Representational System
NLP claims that each of us has a Primary Representational system (PRS), a tendency to think in specific modes: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory or gustarory. A person´s PRS can be determined by words the person tends to use or by the direction of one´s eye movements. Supposedly, a therapist will have a better rapport with a client if they have a matching PRS. Again: that implies that NLP has some conclusions to what certain words and eye movements means. This is invalid simply because there are far too many other alternative reasons for why persons, in certain situations, with certain inner and outer impulses at that certain moment, are using their words, and moving their eyes, as they are. Ignoring this is to end in the thought distortion Ignoring alternative explanations (see my article A dictionary of thought distortions).
PRS has therefore not been supported by the scientific literature.
What is interesting is, that NLP in a session of NLP-psychotherapy, or NLP-coaching, praises the neutral approach, while forgetting that the therapist is sitting and using a theory (PRS), which not at all is neutral. NLP is here the victim of the thought distortion called Priming effect. Another thought distortion involved is Communal reinforcement (see my article A dictionary of thought distortions).
What is interesting is, that NLP in a session of NLP-psychotherapy, or NLP-coaching, praises the neutral approach, while forgetting that the therapist is sitting and using a theory (PRS), which not at all is neutral. NLP is here the victim of the thought distortion called Priming effect. Another thought distortion involved is Communal reinforcement (see my article A dictionary of thought distortions).
Let us look at this “value neutrality.” NLP is often connected with so-called “spiritual self-development”. Many NLP therapists are connecting NLP with everything from Akasha healing and hypnotherapy to the personality typology The Enneagram. But in order to get some “scientific credibility” other NLP consultants are discriminating sharply between NLP and spirituality. It is from such consultants that you hear that NLP is a complete neutral theory, yes even that it is not at theory, but a neutral practice. This is also what you hear from other coaching directions (coaching as such is building on the same sources of inspiration as NLP).
And these sources of inspiration are based on subjectivism and relativism; therefore not at all neutral. A central mantra in NLP is for example, that the map is not the landscape, which might seem like some kind of absolutism, where it must be possible to discriminate between the map and the landscape, subject and object. But at the same time NLP claims, that you can´t go beyond your own linguistic mappings, behavior or thought patterns. This of course leads to the Socratic question: From where does NLP then know, that the map is not the landscape? And we have just seen, that the NLP consultant claims to know your body language, because he knows the structure, the meaning behind, which is coming from your subconscious mind. But how can he know the whole of this, actually quite complicated landscape, when at the same time telling, that nobody can know the landscape?
Anyway, the only thing you can do, is to change your linguistic mappings according to what you yourself find positive. Because it is only your own subjective evaluation, which can provide something with value. There neither exist valid values, which come from the community, or objective values, which come from nature, the universe, or life itself. Nothing has value in itself, unless it comes from the individual´s subjective experiences, will, needs and wishes.
So, there is nothing “neutral” in this view of truth and moral. And NLP´s view on moral is not only a subjectifying, which attributes the source of morals to the subjective itself, but also an emotionalizing, since it is the individual´s feelings, which decide the moral quality of something. What it is about is to do what “feels” right. It is the individual´s emotional exeperience of something, which defines values, not conversely. And this is fully in thread with Consumer Capitalism, where the customer (and his or her´s experiences, wishes, will and needs) always is right. The consumer society, the therapeutic self-actualization, and the subjectifying of the moral, go hand in hand. The moral – the individual´s relation to himself – is therapized, and the moral is subjectified.
Iben Kroghsdal is a researcher on Science of Religion on Aarhus University in Denmark
But it is not evident. The question To whom is it positive? is again a Socratic question. When the assumption about the positive intention behind all behavior is the basic assumption, then you must accept, that everything from Nazism, Fascism, Dictatorship, popular murder, terror and violence is as equally positive as democracy, negotiation and dialogue.
NLP often uses phrases such as “There is no such thing as failure. There is only feedback.” As Carroll says, then this would imply that NLP could be invented by the US Military to explain their “incomplete successes.” When the space shuttle blew up within minutes of launch, killing everyone on board, was that “only feedback?” If I stab my neighbour and call it “performing non-elective surgery” am I practicing NLP?
Another version of this is, that NLP often refuses critique, because the critic "falsely is assigning bad motives to the good intentions of people", and therefore somehow is a bad person. That is another version of the thought distortion called Ad hominem move, which has absurd consequences, because a lot of dictators, terrorists, and other ideologists probably all have "good intentions" - read about the thought distortion Good Intentions Bias in my article A dictionary of thought distortions.
Another version of this is, that NLP often refuses critique, because the critic "falsely is assigning bad motives to the good intentions of people", and therefore somehow is a bad person. That is another version of the thought distortion called Ad hominem move, which has absurd consequences, because a lot of dictators, terrorists, and other ideologists probably all have "good intentions" - read about the thought distortion Good Intentions Bias in my article A dictionary of thought distortions.
This reductio ad absurdum problem is the problem of all the management theories and the self-help industry as such. As I have mentioned before, the Danish psychologist Nina Østby Sæther says that the psychologized self-help ideal about the self-actualizing human being seems in remarkable way to remind about the actual behavior of the psychopath (see my articles The self-help industry is the development of the modern psychopath, and Humanistic psychology, self-help, and the danger of reducing religion to psychology).
Kroghsdal writes furthermore that the NLP method was introduced in Denmark by the NLP therapist Ole Vadum Dahl, who has written the basic textbooks on NLP, which are used in Denmark Denmark
Kroghsdal´s book also has some wonderful inside knowledge about how NLP is used in connection with sickness and healing. It is namely so that NLP consultants in public forums are more cautious about the statements they are using.
The NLP teachers on the education weren´t hiding, that they think NLP can heal all kinds of sickness, both mentally and physical, and both mild and severe illnesses. And that is actually fully in thread with the claims that you via NLP can become whatever person you like; there are no limits. As they say, it depends on how skilled you are in using NLP. And, precisely as in the positive psychology of New Thought, they think that all sickness are due to negative thoughts.
Also here there are some objections from the students. One student says: “But there must be a bottom limit! For example in connection with children with cancer - children don´t die because they think they are going to die? Often they don´t know it!”
The teacher answers: “Children can easily sense the adults´ anxiety and worry: children take everything in, they are very well aware that it is serious.” When the student keeps on holding on to, that there must be a bottom limit, another woman says: “So, that is your point of view! Who says there is a bottom limit? Who says that everybody can´t be healthy?” The teacher agrees and says: “What you say is that the Earth is flat!” She says that one day such a point of view would die out (page 101).
Another (wonderful) example is when one of the students, Carl, is complaining about having fever. The teacher begins to use NLP on him. And not surprisingly he comes to the conclusion that Carl´s fever is due to his negative thoughts. If he hadn´t had negative thoughts, he would not be able to catch any illness at all. But the teacher goes even further, and talks about that it can get directly dangerous when people not only have negative thoughts, but also a negative identity.
Here Kroghsdal herself is asking the teacher, if he isn´t inducing people great guilt, when he says, that they can think themselves healthy. In other words: Kroghsdal talks against the thought, that people´s illnesses are their own fault. The teacher answers that there in him neither exists shame or guilt: “You can´t use those concepts for anything” he says. “They are namely negative thoughts. You are always yourself the cause of your illness, everything comes from yourself!” – note here the similarity with the self-help coach that seduces a female client as a part of personal development – see my article Humanistic psychology, self-help, and the danger of reducing religion to psychology.
The same day, when the students were going to train in groups, one of the students refuses to sit next to Carl, because he was afraid catching the fever. The teacher says: “Just tell yourself that you are not going to be ill!” (Really not an advice I would encourage people to follow).
A few days later Carl is well again. His fever had shown to be a severe stomach poisoning due to a dinner on a restaurant. He asks the teacher what this has to do with his thoughts? Strangely enough the incident doesn´t have any influence on neither the teacher nor the students. So, we see that NLP involves prescisely the same mind cure problems as the positive psychology of New Thought - read more about these problems in my article The New Thought movement and the law of attraction.
Kroghsdal´s book is also loaded with all the self-contradictions the teachers are involved in. On one page they say that everything comes from within, on the next they talk about how other people influence us in a bad way. On one page they can talk about how the unconsciousness only allow things to come in, which it wants to come in, on the next about how the society are inducing bad things in it. On one page they say that all kinds of sickness/suffering can be abolished by the power of the thought, on the next that sickness is controlled by something that is greater than thoughts, for example past lifes and karma, etc., etc., etc.
Such self-contradictions can of course not be tolerated on any serious education.
Back to PRS. The problem with PRS is the same as the problem of personality typing.
There exists several different kinds of personality typing, and there are still coming more. Each new number of a New Age magazine with respect for itself, must include at least one new “revolutionary” theory of personality types, in the same way as it must present at least one new “revolutionary” spiritual theory “proved” by quantum physics (see my articles Six common traits of New Age that distort spirituality, and Quantum mysticism and its web of lies).
Both in New Age, and in coaching, which claims to be purely neutral and scientifical, the so-called Enneagram is very popular. It is a New Age mandala, a mystical gateway to personality typing, and through this to spiritual consciousness and fuller being. The enneagram represents nine personality types. It is original developed by Oscar Ichazo (b. 1931), who claims to have received it in a vision.
Later the enneagram has turned up in several new versions, funny enough often developed by people, who also claim to have received it in divine visions.
So how the types are defined depends on whom you ask. The classification systems seem to have been modified according to the inventors´ own idiosyncratic beliefs. Often they do it in relation to astrology.
A personality typing theory categorizes people in different psychological types. Such theories of psychological types are comparatively easy to invent, and earn money on, and they are certainly harmful because they also involve all the problems of the Hermeneutics of Supicion.
There is no evidence for such type-theories at all. How do we test these kinds of claims? We cant. (Read more about personality typing in my article Personality typing is a refined system of prejudice).
NLP as Large Group Awareness training (LGAT)
NLP is one of many New Age Large Group Awareness Training programs (LGAT). NLP is a competitor with Landmark Forum. Tony Robbins, and legions of other enterprises which, like the Sophists of ancient Greek, travel from town to town to teach their “wisdom” for a fee.
Tony Robbins is probably the most successful “graduate” of NLP. He started his own empire after transforming from a self-described “fat slob” to a firewalker to (in his own words) “the nation´s foremost authority on the psychology of peak performance and personal, professional and organizational turnaround.”
Robbins says: “I built my fortune by modeling the success of others...Now you can copy my mindset and make your millions!” - read my article A critique of the Indian Oneness movement and its use of Western success coaching about Tony Robbins´ involvement in this cult.
We have already looked at how philosophy of existence is turned upside down in NLP. Philosophy of existence traditional says that you in your opinion formation and identity formation must be yourself, live in compliance with your own essence, and thereby achieve authenticity, autonomy, decisiveness and power of action.
If you follow NLP the direct opposite happens: In your opinion formation and identity formation you will strive after becoming something else than what you are, you will imitate (model) others, be a slave of others´ ideas and ideals, and your actions will be characterized by irresoluteness and doubt. The paradox is, that while NLP is claiming to create the authentic, automonous, resource-filled and competent human being, at the same time is doing the exact opposite: it is making people dependent of therapeuts, coaches, others´ ideas and ideals; making them imitate and modeling so-called successful people, et., etc. (read more about this paradox in my articles The hermeneutics of suspicion (the thought police of the self-help industry) and why I am an apostle of loafing, and The four philosophical hindrances and openings)
Such existence-philosophical shipwrecks are much more widely spread than most people think. You see them in the talent shows and reality series of the Mass Media, where they have closed down the professional editorial offices, where there were people with knowledge about their areas. In the Mass Media the level of entertainment is higher valued than objectivity, so that all points of views are seen as equally good, and the contempt for professionalism goes from top to bottom.
The winners in this meritocracy are therefore not receiving their talents from being, from the Source itself; the Good, the True and the Beautiful, but from the masks and roles they are playing, from their ability to tell stories. It is a meritocracy of people wearing The Emperor´s New Clothes. Such ideas of personal power and success are often based on a NLP induced, self-imagined X factor (I am a fantastic superhuman).
LGAT is a personal development training program in which dozens to hundreds of people are given several hours, to several days, of intense instruction aimed at helping participants begin to discover what is hindering them from achieving their full potential, and living more satisfied lives.
LGAT, or self-help programs, have also been developed for corporations and public agencies, where the focus is on improving management skills, conflict resolution, general institutional strengthening, and dealing with the eternal problem of employees who drink too much or use too many drugs (see my article Management theory and the self-help industry).
LGAT gurus claim to know to help people become more creative, intelligent, healthy, and rich. They focus primarily on the role interpersonal communication plays in self-esteem, and in defining our relationships with others. LGAT gurus claim to know why their participants are not happy, or why they are not living fulfilled lives. They assume everyone are being hindered by the same things, and that one approach will suit all.
Some LGAT gurus use public television and books as their vehicles. Others give seminars in hotel ballrooms. Some use infomercials and peddle books and tapes to the masses to help them on the path to self-realization and success.
It is a typical American phenomenon, which we see copied all over the world. It is penetrating everything, even on the highest political levels. We all know the concept of spin doctors. The famous coaches within the area travel around in the world as superstars, and their “shows” - with extremely high fees on tickets - are being attended by the highest placed politicians and business leaders, who worship them as divine beings.
Though some coaches within the area advocate visualization, self-hypnosis, and other techniques for achieving self-actualization, most LGAT programs focus on communication skills and the effect of language on thought and behavior. As with other personal development phenomena, the whole thing is mixed with religion, spirituality and philosophy: a New Age phenomenon.
As Carroll says, then the importance of the messenger and the way the message is delivered can´t be overestimated in LGAT. The messenger must be believable. He or she must appear sincere. He must exude confidence. She must know how to use her voice and body to get her message across. He must be a master of communication skills. She must have wit and humour. He must be a raconteur. She must not only talk the talk but appear to clearly walk the walk as well. And he must do it with a large group and utilize the energy and enthusiasm of the group members to infect each other. If she or he is successful, the participants will leave charged up and ready to take on the world. The revival will have revived them. They will be running on sixteen cylinders. They will be tuned up, turbocharged, and empowered to change their lifes. They will have experienced a peak experience.
But there are also examples of people having a psychosis after such LGAT seminars. And people are going bankrupt one after the other. Criticism is often brutally crushed. Many LGAT gurus are so rich, that they can sue almost anyone. And that is precisely what they do. It is a scare tactic. Which company wants to be sued for running a critical story? These days none. Because the whole thing is also about eliminating critical thinking. Are you critical? Then you really are a nasty person/company. And there are examples on, that LGAT gurus have crushed newspapers´ criticism, because they didn´t want the hassle of dealing with the lawyers of these gurus. People, who were about to write critical about LGAT in books, have been stopped. The exact same tactic as Scientology, and it works; especially because it is a way of violating the freedom of speech, which has been governmentally accepted as legal.
So those running programs within LGAT must exel in persuasion skills. The trainers (coaches) are motivators. They must use their powerful communication skills to persuade the trainees to believe, that they only have experienced a small taste of the wonderful pleasure and fulfillment that await´s those who sign up for advanced training. In short: the trainers are not just teachers, they are sellers. Their main job is to motivate participants to buy more services, i.e., sign up for new courses.
The whole thing typical goes off as follows: you are being invited to attend a free course in for instance NLP. This course is about persuading you to buy an “actual” course in NLP. If you then go on and buy this course, then this course is about persuading you to buy a more advanced (more expensive) course and so on it continues. You are still not becoming that Einstein you would like to be. The only thing you might have learned, is how you yourself can become a coach; that is: a seller of courses (if you not have gone bankrupted). And if you complain, critizice, well then you must have psychological problems to deal with.
The fact that trainers are unlikely to do any follow-up on their trainees, exept to try to persuade them to take more courses, indicates that their main interest is not in helping people lead more fulfilling lifes (they can´t, because the theories are wrong from the start – just look at the existence-philosophical shipwreck of NLP). No, the trainers have a sales job to do. They are paid commissions for the number of people they recruit and train, not for the number of people they truly help. It is not their interest/ability to do follow-up studies of their trainees. It is in their interest to do follow-up recruiting calls. Often this is done as hard pressure direct contact with participants, including phone-calls that border to harassment, according to some participants.
Some critics even think that recruitment is the main goal of the program. So there is a hard sell to sign up for future participants. Leaders encourage people to bring friends and family to a free session to celebrate their newfound love of life and invite them to enroll in the next available weekend, and hereafter pay the fee.
Personal development programs such as LGAT and NLP (and even cults like scientology) can point to many “successes.” They can demonstrate that their programs “work”. They can bring forth to testify on their behalf hundreds, if not thousands, of satisfied customers, among of them famous celebrities. But it is important to know, that testimonials do not validate a self-help program. Scientifical seen this is pure nonsense, and deeply manipulative. All talk about that testimonials are a proof, is a sign of pseudoscience. Furthermore, the sense of improvement, for instance peak experiences, might not be matched by improved behavior. Just because they feel they have benefited doesn´t mean they have. Often they just have become a nuisance for their non-initiated surroundings (we have already looked at the problem about the question To whom is it positive?).
The problem with LGAT, NLP, and other similar programs - and their way of distorting philosophy - can be seen by comparing them with the relation between the Sophists and Socrates. Socrates was a true philosopher, he was seeking wisdom, an absolute truth that transcends us, and his way to reach this truth was through the Socratic dialogue. But this is certainly not what is meant with great communication skills within LGAT and NLP. No, LGAT and NLP must support the Sophists.
The Sophists were subjectivists and relativists. They didn´t believe in any absolute truth that transcends us, but in, that there are many truths, which each of us create through our senses and language. And because there is no objective truth-criterium to decide truth, each truth must be equally true; but not equally good, because some truths fascinate us more than others. And here we precisely have the slogan of the management theories: “It is not facts, but the best story, which wins!”
The Sophists were teachers of rhetoric, who against a fee, taught people how to persuade other people about their “truths”. Rhetoric is precisely the art of persuasion. Rather than giving reasons and presenting arguments to support conclusions, as Socrates did, then those who use rhetoric are employing a battery of techniques, such as emphatic assertion, persuader words and emotive language, to convince the listener, or reader, that what they say or imply is true. The Sophists taught their pupils how to win arguments by any means available; they were supposedly more interested in teaching ways of getting on in the world than ways of finding the truth, as Socrates. Therefore any charlatan is welcome.
Epilogue
On a more cheerful note, Bandler has sued Grinder for millions of dollars. As Carroll says with a smile:
“Apparently, the two great communicators and paradigm innovators couldn´t follow their own advice or perhaps they are modeling their behaviour after so many other great Americans who have found that the most lucrative way to communicate is by suing someone with deep pockets. NLP is big on metaphors and I doubt whether this nasty lawsuit is the kind of metaphor they want to be remembered by. Is Bandler´s action of putting a trademark on half a dozen expressions a sign of a man who is simply protecting the integrity of NLP or is it a sign of a greedy megalomaniac?”
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