Customer Reviews
NLP Like it Never Was:
The subtitle to this book - on the front cover but not on the title page - is “A COMPLETE INTRODUCTION AND TRAINING PROGRAMME”. But what is a “complete introduction” to NLP? In their book ‘Introducing NLP’, authors O’Connor and Seymour give what they describe as a ‘Three Minute Seminar’ on NLP. That might equally qualify as a “complete introduction” to NLP, depending on your interpretation of the words “complete” and “introduction”.
And does the word “complete” apply to “introduction” only, or to the rest of the subtitle? In either case I’d seriously question its accuracy.
And what about the claim, in the Foreward, that:
“[the authors] have synthesised the NLP practitioner information and brought a new clarity to the field. … While Harry and Beryl are not the developers of NLP, they play a critical role in moving NLP to the next level.”
It turns out that all this comment means is: “The authors got an NLP book published by a mainstream publisher.” Yes they did, but rather a long time (several years) after O’Connor and Seymour, so hardly a “critical role”.
This book is, in fact, a rather verbose and not particularly competent introduction to the SOME of the basics of NLP. A “training programme” it is NOT, for the same reason that no book is a training programme - human beings learn very little just by reading about it. Especially in this particular field of activity.
I personally found the writing uninspired, conveying nothing of the ‘magic’ of NLP. Moreover, having decided to write the whole book in E-Prime (a fad if ever there was one!) the authors trap themselves in the kind of sentence construction that NLP highlights as being the basis of poor communication. For example, what did the authors mean by this statement:
“Our personal mind programmes (sic) constitute the ‘map’. They include so-called ‘meta programmes’ (sic), our higher-level thinking patterns such as our values, beliefs and other personality traits.”
Is that supposed to mean that our “personal mind programmes” include meta programs AND our “higher-level thinking patterns”; or does it mean that ” ‘meta programmes’ (sic)” ARE “higher-level thinking patterns”?
And why is ‘meta programs’ spelt ‘meta programmes’? Are the authors not aware that the ‘program’ in ‘meta program’ is adopted from computing terminology?
We also need to ask why the authors refer to them as “so-called ‘meta programmes’(sic)”? Do they mean that meta programs aren’t really meta programs in some sense? And is that why meta programs are almost totally ignored in this allegedly “complete introduction”?
Indeed, the more I read of this book, the more I wondered if the authors really knew what they were writing about. For example, there are several references (more than the 6 referenced in the Index) to left and right brain activity, such as:
“This calls upon natural, ‘right brain’ intuitive skills …”
Surely this myth of exclusivity in left and right brain activities was laid to rest years ago?
“Neuro-Linguistic Programming builds on the ideas of the anthropologist Gregory Bateson.”
What - the whole of NLP? What about Satir, Erickson, Korzybski, Perls, etc., etc.?
The notion that “Auditory Digital” is a representational system in its own right, but apparently taste (gustatory) and smell (olfactory) no longer qualify. Thus the original list of representational systems - visual, auditory, kinesthetic, Olfactory and Gustatory (VAKOG) - has been transformed, with no explanation, into VAKAd!
Then there is the very confused section on ‘Switching Submodalities’ where the authors quite rightly observe that:
“Association tends to intensify a feeling. Conversely, recalling a traumatic experience in a dissociated way will typically cause less pain …”
but only after they have recommended that the reader switch to the associated state when recalling an unhappy memory in order to apply “the ‘happiness code’ to the content. Such switching may work well under the direction of an experienced guide, but I seriously doubt the wisdom of recommending this course of action to a complete beginner.
And why does the discussion of The Convincer Strategy (day 17) cover convincer modes (what kind of evidence is convincing) but not convincer channels (how frequently or for how long the evidence must be encountered to become convincing)?
Returning to Bateson, on page 197 the authors state that “the anthropologist Gregory Bateson originated a model of neurological levels, later developed by Robert Dilts as shown in figure 14.1.”
Not actually true, I’m afraid, for the following reasons:
Bateson invented a model of “logical levels of learning - which had to do with levels of abstraction (learning, learning about learning, learning about learning about learning, and so on) - which has nothing to do with neurological levels.
On the contrary, where Bateson’s model is both logical and about “levels”, the Dilts model isn’t logical, and doesn’t feature any true “levels”.
Moreover, the illustration in figure 14.1 isn’t the Neurological Levels model at all, though the authors keep calling it that. It is, in fact, just the plain Logical Levels model, a fact that is easily verified since the illustration doesn’t include a single one of the ‘nervous system’ labels that are in Dilts’ Neurological Levels model.
Having said all that, its only fair to mention that there are several passages in the text which must stand out as worthwhile in anybody’s book (!). I’m particularly thinking of the section entitled ‘Soft Front Ends’, which gives some very useful advice on how to ask meta model questions with sensitivity; of the exercises at the end of the chapter on metaphors; and of ‘ALIGNMENT’, a section which demonstrates how to apply the idea of neurological levels to real life situations.
Unfortunately, for the reasons stated above I really wouldn’t be happy about recommending this book to a complete novice. And unless you are a complete novice I can’t see any reason to read something this basic. Especially when you consider that O’Connor and Seymour’s ‘Introducing NLP’ is more accurate, more complete, and cheaper!
In short, definitely ‘Not Recommended’.
