When NLP fails…

NLP is the ultimate hypnotic metaphor for analyticals. They love to believe that working with people is exactly like programming a computer.

The problem is, it’s not a fair comparison.

Here’s why.

There are too many parameters and variables involved in a human for that model to work. A computer is a controlled environment where what you do and what affects your code is clearly defined and controlled. There are no complexities and other factors affecting what goes on.

A person is a very complex thing in which every communication has so many variable effects that to say “if you do X then Y will happen” doesn’t hold up.

You can point to trends and techniques that often lead in the direction of a desired outcome, but to think about it in black and white terms, that A always results in B,like a computer, like NLP does, that doesn’t really work.

A fair comparison to a computer would be to one that is constantly being programmed by many other programmers too, that has been previously programmed in many ways that interact and change how the things you’re inputting affect it, that you have poor information as to the input and output at any given moment, and that has it’s own free will and choice to accept or reject what your inputting!

How many times has the “subconscious” agreed to change using real genuine ideomotor signals, and then hasn’t changed… According to NLP that can’t happen.

How many times has the fast phobia cure not worked. According to NLP it MUST work. I heard an interesting interview with Jorgen Rassmusen who talks about being by a seminar by Bandler where Bandler did the FPC and it didn’t work. How Grinder fails. How they all fail. Even though they do the techniques perfectly.

This misperception that NLP installs, that people can be simply manipulated with perfect results by using this model, simply doesn’t hold up in the real world with real clients.

Find someone who claims it does, and thats someone telling you that he doesn’t actually work with clients.

And thats why so many NLP guru master trainer people are still messed up… Why don’t they just go in there and zap a few submodalities around?!

Once you realize that we aren’t working with computers, that we’re working with real, live, complex, human beings, you begin to look for ways to maximize your success and for ways to create the most change possible, realizing that even after the ‘perfect session’ it’s still possible that the problem remains!

This is one of the core concepts I work with and teach.

If you found these ideas useful, you might be interested in joining my online supervision group.