Big Money Phenomenon

Finally, a credible take on this thing called Neuro-linguistic Programming and it appeared in the ST, written by Andy Ho (Of course, I wrote about it briefly once here at http://akbywerk2.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/fearful-phenomenon/):

Neuro-linguistic classes? Think twice

13 November 2010

WITH the end-of-year school holidays upon us, parents may be packing their children off to learning camps involving ‘neuro-linguistic programming’ (NLP). But some worried parents are asking if this is ‘brainwashing’ as NLP trainers say they analyse learning styles and reprogramme brains to improve learning.

Though popular among personal development circles, NLP remains taboo for health-care clinicians. This is because it has never been thoroughly subjected to scientific scrutiny.

The meagre scientific research on NLP involves mainly lab studies conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s. These did not find support for NLP.

However, the use of NLP in real clinical contexts has never been scientifically studied. Academics are leery of the fact that anyone can become a certified NLP practitioner after a 14-day course and then be certified to train others after a 21-day trainer course.

Conversely, there seems to be little reason for NLP practitioners to subject themselves to scientific studies as they perceive academe to be hostile.

Despite its name, NLP has nothing to do with neuroscience, linguistics or computer programming. Practitioners explain that ‘neuro’ in NLP refers to the neurons in the brain that send, receive and process signals that become information; ‘linguistic’ refers to the signals moving across the networks of neurons in our brains that are interpreted into thoughts; and ‘programming’ is about manipulating the content of those signals into useful thoughts. One’s internal experience (neuro), language (linguistic) and behavioural patterns (programming) are purportedly interconnected in systematic ways.

In traditional psychotherapy, building long-term individual relationships between therapist and client to unearth the roots of a psychological problem is stressed. By contrast, in NLP, dozens of trainees are together subjected to days of intense instruction on how to unearth their personal obstacles towards a fulfilling life.

Much is made about observing behaviour and learning how to read ‘body language’. Unlike psychotherapists, NLP practitioners do not look for the roots of a psychological problem. Instead, they focus on how to solve it by homing in on how one communicates. What they emphasise is one’s verbal language, body language and eye movements.

The basic premise in NLP is that how people express themselves outwardly reveals how they perceive and represent their problems internally. That internal representation may involve any of the five senses, which is supposedly mirrored in one’s choice of words, tone of voice, body posture, eye movements and so on.

For example, someone in a visual mode may say, ‘I see a way to…’, while a person who has auditory images could say, ‘That sounds right to me’. If I tweak my nose while talking to you, I think your idea stinks. And so on.

But the small body of scientific research available shows no correlation between word choice or eye movement and reported thoughts.

In NLP, your words are analysed, your facial expressions scrutinised and your body language monitored. In this way, your internal state is elucidated and any negative mental associations therein identified. Next, your thoughts are remodelled to overcome these associations. The way to do this depends on learning about and imitating the patterns of thinking successful people supposedly have. Thus recognising successful patterns of thinking is key to modelling human excellence in NLP.

Practitioners have supposedly studied the thinking, language patterns, internal imagery and behaviour patterns of individuals who are masters of a particular capability.

They have extracted models of how these individuals – say, Walt Disney – work, which lesser mortals may then adopt.

Writing with co-author Carmen Bostic St Clair, in the book Whispering In the Wind, NLP co-founder John Grinder says people can be trained to model these patterns and assimilate the exemplar’s capability.

NLP promotes the idea that ‘reality’ is something one defines and constructs individually. Such constructions are maps of the world to guide action even if they are not truly the same as the real world.

Trainers agree that NLP seeks to manipulate behaviour by installing new beliefs or ‘reprogramming’ the brain. They often exhort trainees to test NLP for themselves.

But such ‘testing’ is subject to peer pressure and the fear of a backlash (imagined or real) if a trainee expresses scepticism. Remember, trainee participants are closeted away from the real world in a small group where there is likely to be intense peer pressure to conform. Moreover, one is probably loath to express disbelief in something for which one has paid a tidy sum.

But glowing testimonials are no substitutes for real data from rigorous scientific studies conducted under controlled conditions to ensure people are not deceiving themselves.

If you have the money to put your child through some motivational programme, NLP may do little harm. But your child may not get straight As next year as a result. Take these claims with more than a pinch of salt.

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A lot of things are unproven in life but people still would believe in them, and the power of belief is strong (eg: placebo effect) and it may ultimately work. The trick/trigger is confidence.

Coincidentally where I’m working at now there is currently consideration about engaging a team of trainers to ‘impart’ some skills to some of the teachers/lecturers here, and strangely I ended up on this team by no design of mine. And coincidentally this team of trainers were the ones who were engaged by my previous employer to train us. There’s also no surprise if I am to tell you that we (at my previous employment) didn’t have many good things to say about takeaways of the training as we have already been either well-trained by Moe’s or seasoned by the brutality of time and tide at AMK. To be fair, they probably are useful, but we were the wrong crowd to be trained. I think I know who were those smarty pants who believed we needed those skills, who assumed we didn’t have those skills (I think there were indeed a few really clueless ones who needed the help, but nobody consulted us on the supposed needs where it was apparently not obvious that our needs were time time time.) That’s a lot of money wasted.

So anyway, after the initial meeting with the boss of the team (I think he was slightly harrowed when he was reminded that I was from that college), the impression I got was that it’s going to be the same old thing over again (I mean, who would want to invest so much time and effort recreating things when you can reuse, reduce and recycle? Only us folks at that college do! Well, most of us, and I’m proud of it.) But thankfully now I have a bigger say here in charting the direction of this workshop for my fellow colleagues, and so I proposed a few things just so that history doesn’t repeat itself (since we cannot do away with that training). I mean, I think some people will benefit, so I think the smartest thing to do is to check with would-be participants what they like to get out of it and we’ll try to ‘force’ the trainers into complying. wahaha… (I think I was really curt with my reply when my colleague, weeks ago when she heard that I had attended the workshop before, asked what I thought of it. There’s just so much animosity in me with regard to those not-so-useful workshops. The scars are deep. I didn’t know I was that traumatised!)

But it was doubly cathartic (when I scared the hell out of my colleague and the boss of the agency). But I shouldn’t be that mean to these ‘enrichment programmes’ since I may just want to dabble in that in future–that’s where the money is.

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