Hi

This is my first post here and I just wanted to ask about views on NLP and whether this is percieved to be inextricably linked to LGATs or if this linkage is just a recent phenomenon?

I have recently undergone NLP training and my path to this was via an organisation modelled on Tony Robbins. My feeling is that NLP was the "vehicle" for this particular seminar business in the way that "stock market success" might be for other seminar businesses.

As such, I have found the NLP extremely useful and have recognised in the seminar experience some of the LGAT attributes described here, and it has been something I have taken selective learning from rather than a sense of indoctrination or mind control.

So, unlike others here, I have not come to this web site as an LGAT victim or sufferer although I can understand a lot of what I have read here. Pretty much all of what I have seen here horrifies me and the extreme coercive behaviours were not evident in the course of my own experience of seminars.

This does lead me to wonder if all of these seminar environments are all as bad or if there is a threshold beyond which they should not go - and evidently some do. I should add that, I am not defending the seminar business and am not part of it, I am just trying to relate my experiences to others here.

Lastly, having seen some of the posts here, this message is absolutely not meant to be inflamatory and the last thing I would want is to upset anyone - I hope this can be seen the be the case.

Your inquiry leads me to a question: If your experience with NLP was a great and positive experience, how or why did it lead you to a cult awareness/watchdog site?
In my opinion; if it is something known to be used for manipulation of the mind, whether that manipulation be for 'good' reasons or for 'bad' reasons, it is still manipulation and should be regarded as suspect, period.
If you check for info on NLP even just on this site alone, you'll find alot of informative articles pertaining to NLP. IE: who plays with it and why, or the reasons it was developed.

at www.culteducation.com/reference/general/general628.html is just one article I found interesting. There are others and a quick google search alone may give you pause about considering NLP to be an untarnished tool of mind manipulation.

The ends don't always justify the means. Beware of where you leave control of your mind and to whom.
BTW, what course or training did you participate in?

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ON2 LF
Your inquiry leads me to a question: If your experience with NLP was a great and positive experience, how or why did it lead you to a cult awareness/watchdog site?
In my opinion; if it is something known to be used for manipulation of the mind, whether that manipulation be for 'good' reasons or for 'bad' reasons, it is still manipulation and should be regarded as suspect, period.
If you check for info on NLP even just on this site alone, you'll find alot of informative articles pertaining to NLP. IE: who plays with it and why, or the reasons it was developed.

at www.culteducation.com/reference/general/general628.html is just one article I found interesting. There are others and a quick google search alone may give you pause about considering NLP to be an untarnished tool of mind manipulation.

The ends don't always justify the means. Beware of where you leave control of your mind and to whom.
BTW, what course or training did you participate in?

Hi. Thanks for your response. The reason I came to be in this web site was a posting on the seminar company's (Inner Compass by the way) own online discussion forum and I found the LGAT debate here very interesting. I do not see a direct conflict between having a positive experience with NLP and being willing to understand other viewpoints such as those presented here - particularly about LGAT settings.

I understand your point about innappropriate use of NLP and agree with you. Surely this would also be true of any psychotherapy or behavioural therapy technique being used innappropriately, and hence, tarnished? I would be interested to understand if you feel that hypnosis is seen in the same light.

In this context, you appear to suggesting that NLP is universally a bad thing even in non-LGAT settings. Is this what you meant?

NLP is nothing more than a way of refining behavioral and perceptual nuances, and understanding, to some extent, how external experience is mapped in the brain, and if luck, how to change that map for the better...

There are at least three major caveats when dealing with the NLP dog'n'pony show:

1. Now that a few trainers are making serious money with this, and the majority are not, some intensely f*cked up control dynamics have entered the game... the worst of these slimy little manouvers is waiting until you are right at the door, then presenting you with a sheaf of documents... one organization will require you to sign a document that states that if you have any cause to sue their organization, ot if they have any cause to sue you, YOU will pay ALL of their legal costs... in other words, regardless of merit, regardless of validity, if they want to sue you, YOU have agreed in advance to pay their legal costs, and all legal actions will take place in the jusidiction of their choosing... and futhermore, you will under no circumstances attemt to teach NLP or ANYTHING related to NLP (that's actually explicitly stated in the agreement you sign)... which means you have to keep buying your way up the scale until you are a "certified trainer", and you further agree to take "retrainings" with them every two years (and quite considerable expense) to maintain your trainer status....

2. One of the co-creators of NLP, John Grinder, was so disgusted with this practice that he has returned to directly training trainers because the quality of trainers had gotten so sleazy, slovenly, and all around causing right minded people who might otherwise be interested to run for the exits...

3. The other co-creator of NLP, Richard Bandler, was promoting himself on Paul McKenna's website as THE inventor of NLP, with no mention or reference to John Grinder, until John Grinder reappeared to straighten out the mess... now, mysteriously, Richard Bandler is described as the "co-creator" of NLP on McKenna's website.... cheezy or what ?

4. After a few days of having your head softened with endless NLP inductions, you will be in a state of hightened suggestibility... I have caught one well known trainer slipping in subtle suggestions of "addictive dependency" around day 3..... like some of us are too dumb to pick up on that, tight ?

5. The trainings usually make extravagant promises, while the staff, trainer assistants, and other support people are typically poorly trained, full of condescending or patronizing attitude (in the case of two organizations I've dealt with) or bored to tears and asleep on their feet....

6. the venues for these things are lousy hotel ballroom affairs often with bad lighting (hey, got to keep those electricity costs down) and wretched PA systems, rotgut coffee, and bad chairs.

7. many of the exercises are rehashes of things they've been doing for 20 years without any innovation... so much for "creativity" ... face it, there isn't much creativity or innovation in NLP... because the creative and innovative people bailed out years ago...

8. For what they deliver, they are apallingly overpriced.

9. There is almost no visible outside validation of their work or their theories, yet they speak in terms of solid, settled truths. They don't seem to enjoy being closely questioned either...

10. and remember, you signed a document saying that they can remove you from the training for any reason, or no reason, purely based on their opinion, and should you prove to be "difficult", meaning retaining a firmly critical stance and sticking to you inquiry, they can throw you out and if you sue them they will submit their legal bill to you...

Go figure. You want to be associated with this ?

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Surely this would also be true of any psychotherapy or behavioural therapy technique being used innappropriately, and hence, tarnished? I would be interested to understand if you feel that hypnosis is seen in the same light.

In this context, you appear to suggesting that NLP is universally a bad thing even in non-LGAT settings. Is this what you meant?

Obviously, if anyone is misusing NLP, which in my opinion is a tool designed for misuse anyway, then they too are being reckless. Accredited psychotherapists and behavioural therapists are NOT above error or unethical practice but that doesn't mean that every 'back yard' psychotherapy organization has the right to compare its practices to the real deal. Accredited professionals are accountable for their mistakes, the back yard wanna bees aren't, so they are in a totally different league as far as comparison goes.
I do not speak for anyone regarding hypnosis or whether others feel it is a good or safe practice, I speak for myself on this; I DO NOT agree with hypnosis under any circumstances. I do not believe there is ever just cause or good enough reasons to suspend your will or your mind for manipulation...not for any reason! That is my opinion. If NLP requires hypnosis to get the job done, I question the job and why it should be done.
My non-expert opinion again, NLP is something that if it is required to help a person enhance performance or ability with work or study, the person seeking NLP assistance for these results really needs to question if the goal is really worth the cost. Maybe consider other alternatives like harder effort and committment to earning progress over the long term, and giving up the 'quick fix, quick success' ideas.

Regarding the actual "technique" of NLP, was recently reading a mainstream pasychology book(the Counseling Primer by Leonard Austin) which states ( page 15)

"Cognitve counseling includes the following theories and proponents:Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy,Reality Therapy, Nerolinguistic Programming, Transactional Analysis, Trait-Factor Analysis,Hypnotherapy, CognitiveTherapy, Cognitive-Behavioral therapy ,Family Systems Therapy ,Donald Meichenbaum,Aaron Beck."

So at least this author, considers NLP as a potentially mainstream counseling tool.

All counseling has the potential for abuse; hence the strong ethical guidelines for mental health practitioners. Even the seemingly non manipulative Rogerian "unconditional positive regard" approach can be misused as "love bombing"

Sometimes it is not the tool, but what is done with it, that is the problem.

NLP is not exactly "a tool"... it is more akin to a toolbox filled with various instruments derived from a multitude of sources, many of those sources WERE established therapists who Richard and John "modelled", or att,mpted to extract the purest essence of what made Erickson, Satir, Farrelly, Bateson, and others tick... so NLP itself IS in many ways a set of derivitaves of high quality skill sets.... the problem with advanced skills, as you may note, the typical NLP course sells itself on teaching "influence and persuasion" skills, some of the greasier byproducts of NLP focus on seducing women... or giving lonely men the fantasy that they will be able to hypnoticallly seduce women... others promise a near magical, near instantaneous, and of course, cost free resolution to life's nagging problems, depression, fatness, unlovablity... while, of course, asking nothing in the way of introspection... NLP, you see, will simply reprogram away your difficulties, like painless dentistry was advertised 50 years ago... and it may be reduced to some esoteric sounding programming bug, such as a kink in your "timeline"... all that said, NLP has some excellent potentialities when delivered by intelligent, realistic, ethical, skillful people... the quality of your NLP experience will be greatly dependent on the character of the person delivering it to you.