NLP – real or hoax?

NLP or neurolinguistic programming is a body of psychological techniques and theories that, depending on who you listen to or read is either a bunch of self-deluded hooey or the greatest breakthrough in psychology since Freud (assuming you think Freud had something worthwhile to contribute). In educational terms, its potential is vast, but can it live up to its potential?

The first challenge is discussing NLP lies in defining it. It was originally an attempt by Bandler and Grinder to understand and copy exceptional human performance. They studied what remarkable therapists from very different ‘school’ did with their clients and tried to find recurring patterns of behaviour. Note they didn’t ask what these great people thought they were doing to succeed, they observed what they actually did.

Based on these observations, they created a collection of techniques which great therapists seemed to use which worked (see The Structure of Magic 1975). And when they taught these techniques to other people, they reported great success with them too. Since the early days, the originators have split up and spent much of the 1990’s in an acrimonious law-suit over, amongst other things, the right to use of the term ‘NLP’. They finally settled their differences in 2000, but have not returned to co-working, and have both since developed ‘new technologies’ with new names. So effectively, now no one can now call a spade a spade for rear of legal ramifications, this makes the problems of definition even thornier.

There have been many studies trying to test claims of NLP, and there is little hard evidence to support many of the claims. The originators, particularly Bandler, claimed to have a mainly pragmatic interest, taking the view that it was not his job to prove his techniques or theories. Negative studies into NLP have often been criticised by practitioners as either misunderstanding NLP or misapplying it. Given the commercial interests involved, it seems likely that there is poor motivation on the part of some in the field to have clear hypotheses, capable of being disproven.

So can we glean anything from this tangle? Well having used a number of NLP techniques myself with clients and with myself, I know that some of the methods appear to produce quick, lasting result. How much of this is placebo or therapeutic effect, I don’t know. How much of the (convoluted) theory is a reflection of neurological reality and how much marketing hype, I can’t tell. 

All I can tell you is that, for all the hype, there do appear to be some useful methods contained in NLP, and it provides an alternative way to view human interactions, which can be interesting if nothing else.