Talk:Neurolinguistic programming

I just picked up a book called Practical Magic at the transfer station, subtitled "A Translation of Basic Neuro-Linguistic Programming into Clinical Psychotherapy". With an intro by Leslie Cameron Bandler. Was thinking of putting it next to my L Ron cassette lectures to see if a unicorn flies out of a wormhole. 00:15, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Proof against and For pieces of NLP, an analysisDretch01 (talk) 18:56, 3 September 2016 (UTC) Dretch01
I would agree that many of the claims made by NLP people are a bit inane regarding the curing of diseases and other "instant success" schemes. I will point out from the prospective of a social engineer, the basic contentions of NLP are quite effective in the manipulation of view point. The theory that NLP uses to tie these manipulative techniques together is questionable(comparing the human mind to a computer) but in its era I am sure that such comparisons were common. I will explain the five parts of NLP tested to "work"; mind you not in the instant way shown on their ads.

The Chameleon Effect study showed that looking like and sharing similar body language could increase like-ability. Duh, salesmen have known this for years. (Actually long before "NLP" was coined) Thus I must point out that some of the basic contention of Rapport is essential for social engineering and or persuasion. Listening to the person, and not alienating them, can help with sales. I knew a salesman who would change his voice, atire, and mannerism, depending on the neighborhood he was in. However I also might mention that sociopaths are quite dangerous and successful because of how they mirror their prey, and in reality have no personality that they themselves would show anyone. Thus if we admit the chameleon effect, salesmen, and sociopaths have success, then it is only reasonable that NLP (which modeled on "great persuaders" *cough* sociopaths *cough*) would be able to persuade people better than strolling in and saying whatever one felt like. If one submits to the concept that in therapy, belief, trust, and persuasion are somewhat important, then there may be a reason why these NLP "experts" can persuade people to put a spider on their hand. They trust the therapist, regardless of the weird theory(some of which is logical, other parts of it are just complex language)

Anchoring is a weird thought, it seems that the idea is behavioral conditioning. There is a possibility that we can be affected by anchoring in much the same way that lab rats could be made to have superstitious behavior in BF. Skinners "operant conditioning chamber". As for the classical conditioning, it is known that several stimulations are needed in animals, most of these NLP persons on their videos are conditioning the subject over and over, soaking them with conditioning attempts. I would like to believe that people would notice it, but humans do respond to conditioning, perhaps "better" than animals do. So there may be a quality of truth to "anchoring". However like "rapport" it existed before Bandler and Grinder used it in their new "model".

Meta Model seems to be gestalt theory. No need to really disprove that we "distort" content and make mental shortcuts. Again existed before "NLP" was coined. Also I might add that "Framing" is simply content and context changing to manipulate a persons response to something. Debaters have used "frames" for years. As for the use of scope as a frame, again existed before "NLP" was coined.

Eye Accessing Cues: little to no studies of any real scientific nature can prove this one, as it appears to be bunk. Sorry NLP people no support on this one.

Mind Reading: Fancy term in NLP for listening to a person and judging what they may be thinking from their personality type, aka mediums but not about dead. No cool telepathy here.

Milton Model: essentially slight of mouth patterns and hypnosis, which also existed before "NLP" and has been used by hypnotists, sociopaths(see sociopaths using misdirection to win arguments), and change artists. Again totally explained by pre-existing theories. Cognitive load explains this as well.

Framing: yet another tool that sociopaths, politicians, and social engineers use. Change the context or pretext of a thing(see leading the witness, and Jury persuasion) and it will be perceived in a different way. Again existed before "NLP" but it has and does work. Even police interviewers are told to frame crimes as "perfectly understandable" to get confessions

That about sums up the major parts of NLP, Rapport, Framing, the Models, and Anchoring. We see that they do work, but have existed in sales and debates long before Richard Bandler and John Grinder packaged them together as Neuro-Linguistic Programming under a kind of Cognitive Psychology theory(what that means is up to you, as Chomsky did not really get involved at all in NLP, they used his concept as a container for their new tool-kit of persuasion and "therapy" tools). So if you dont like the concept of NLP yay!, its not totally original or even high tech. But if you do like it yay! there is some proof for its pieces. I remember learning conversational associations, misdirection, framing, miming, and filters(views of the world and the "map" if you will) in debate team and in cult psychology, then I found a book on NLP, which did not surprise me much, but was a fun read.