Andrew, firstly I’ll refer you to this article I wrote some weeks back, please do read:

http://adam-eason.com/2010/08/27/are-hypnotherpists-intelligent-enough-to-see-both-sides/

My opinion is that we should aim to see both sides of any subject matter and not just believe in everything we are taught and the angle it is presented.

I think this of NLP.

But I also think it of hypnotherapy applications. CBT applications. Gestalt applications. And don’t even get me started on energy/meridian therapies that seem to proliferate our fields. I was asked about NLP in the first instance and so commented upon it. NLP was not getting picked on.

I still teach NLP. I still have great passion and hold much value for the subject. I am just talking about being objective and intelligent about what we are taught. I am not slating the field and I stand by everything that you were taught.

Placebo are not just sugar pills. Not at all. The techniques are often measured against ‘no treatment’ waiting lists of people, as well as those with whom conventional methods are applied and the placebo mesured trials are much more sophisticated than sugar pills these days. Indeed, over the years, the academics and researchers have considered the issues you raise, many people before you have raised the same concerns and the idea is to do what we can to test the effectiveness of treatments. Triple blind, peer reviewed studies that feature in formal journals are the methodologies should consider investigating. They are very robust.

That said, everyone and everything develops. Certainly I do not like standing still. As I wrote to you in the forum, I was trained in hypnotherapy initially 15 years ago and I hope that course has been updated during that time because much has changed in the field.

Likewise, I want to be at the forefront of the fields I am involved in. In the past 3 years for example, systemic NLP and new code NLP have made a lot of sweeping statements about the way NLP was (and sometimes still is) taught in the past 5-10 years… And these are people like Robert Dilts and John Grinder talking about updates in the field. They admit to many developments in their own work over time.

…and finally, Andrew, it is healthy to discuss this stuff, good for us both, I am still and shall certainly continue to be your friend, take care 🙂 Adam.

It just seems unrealistic to apply objective scientific method to therapies that are of their nature subjective and expect any meaningful results. Comparing a simple sugar pill to the sort of work you do with hypnosis and NLP is not comparing apples with apples – or even oranges.

Are you saying that you don’t believe that there’s something useful in all the NLP techniques you taught me and others? You certainly taught them like you believed in them. Now I don’t necessarily agree with all of NLP – there are so many authors and ex-spurts out there for that.

So how exactly do you scientifically test NLP or Hypnosis against a placebo? I assume you mean a sugar pill given without any conversational diagnostic work – the therapy starts with the interview. When Irving Kirsch tested the NLP phobia cure against a placebo, did he just say to the client ” Hi, I understand you have a phobia, here take one of these pills”?

I can’t argue with your comments about “ad ignoratum” apart from observing that it works in both directions. To quote Carl Sagan, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”.

Still your friend, I hope, Andrew

Hi Andrew,

I empathise with part of what you write. However, the “ad ignorantiam” (appeal to ignorance) approach is not exactly the best route to argue. (The truth of a claim is established only on the basis of lack of evidence against it, this is basically whereby someone says something is true, because there is no evidence to prove it is not.)

Because there is no evidence disproving something, does that mean that it works? I do know what you mean in relation to Michael Heaps work, though it does get people discussing it and looking at the field with some objectivity rather than just (potentially naively) happy clapping about the topic and agreeing blindly about every element of it.

Irving Kirsch has many documented research studies that he pursued with some excited expectancy with the field of NLP), but found the fast phobia cure, for example, to be no more effective than placebo in controlled trials.

Why not argue the point by offering up some references that support the efficacy of NLP? In the same manner that I did today with my blog entry about memory retrieval, for example.

I’d love to see some proper studies supporting the field of NLP and the efficacy of the techniques – but none seem to be forthcoming. I wonder why that is?

I am not against NLP. I teach it. It has been a love of my life. I admire many people from within that field and it has been central to my work for years. Should I just accept every element of it without question? I have started to like to see evidence to support what I do and consider it responsible to be that way… These days I need more than just anecdotal evidence too.

And my comment about the pyramid selling was about the field in general, which is not wholly unrelated to the subject matter.

Whereby the map is not the territory, I understand that the students and teachers are not the subject matter. But they are contributing to the field and I think you are arguing that small point because you take offence to anyone daring to question NLP, which is a subject I know you love.

Always a pleasure hearing from you Andrew,

Best wishes, Adam.

I can’t argue with you about the pyramid selling approach. I’m also concerned that more graduates of NLP seem to want to teach it than use it therapeutically. However, in selling, I’ve often heard the expression, “what’s the product got to do with sales success?” The problem with pyramid selling is primarily the sales technique not the product.

Yours argumentatively,

Andrew

Hey Matt, good to hear from you.

I still think NLP has much to offer. They are huge parts of it that people need to understand are flawed and without much use. Micheal Heap and Irving Kirsch have both exposed bits of NLP that are proven to be flawed.

Yet, it still offers a great deal – heck, it was originally modlelled on the work of effective therapists!

I think the field of NLP needs to be less like a pyramind selling scheme, needs people to be able to think for themselves and not consider it all to be the law, and to be realistic about it all. Then perhaps it will make some progressive strides forward.

Best wishes, Adam.

Thanks Grá, they are fascinating fields.

On my training diploma we do an REBT exercises where each person has to argue the opposite side of a popularly held belief. The idea being that if done with a client, the client gets to argue (via therapeutic roleplay) the other side of a limiting (potentially harmful) belief they hold true. It is illuminating stuff!

Good hearing from you 🙂 Adam.