A Really Good Article Regarding Research In NLP- From Steven Andreas...

I just read this article and kept saying to myself... "I couldn't agree more..."

Definitely worth a read.

It starts out with...

Research in NLP: Update

Posted: 07 Sep 2011 01:36 PM PDT

By: Steve Andreas

I am often asked whether there is any “hard science” academic research that supports NLP. There is some good news, and some bad news.

First the bad news…
(If you don’t like bad news, feel free to skim or to skip this section.)

Most of the research directly on NLP concepts was done in the 1980s and 1990s; little or no research has been done directly on NLP in the last decade or so. The vast majority of studies that were done earlier addressed the concept of a primary representational system (PRS) — that people are primarily visual, auditory, or kinesthetic — or the impact of matching sensory predicates on rapport.

There’s a problem with this. Bandler and Grinder had introduced the idea of a PRS primarily as a teaching tool in the 1970s, to direct students’ attention to people’s sensory predicates and eye accessing. Soon after that, they pointed out that the idea of a PRS was a deliberate and gross oversimplification, only somewhat true in a particular problem context. Despite this, the bulk of research, supposedly “on NLP” at that time was done in an attempt to verify or disconfirm this concept.

**And you can read the rest of the article here: http://www.nlpco.com/2011/09/research-in-nlp-update/

Tags: Linguistic, NLP, Neuro, Programming, Research

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Comment by Kevin Cole-NLPTrainingQuest.com on September 10, 2011 at 12:00am: @Ricky... I haven't set the 2012 dates yet. It's possible I'll put Florida on the map. I'll keep you posted...

Comment by Bill Kennedy on September 9, 2011 at 1:38pm: Thanks Kevin. This is a valuable resource. While there may be a lot of research on hypnosis, I'm not so sure that it's current, done by a recognized academic institution and independently funded.

Comment by Ricky Strode on September 9, 2011 at 1:04pm: @ Kevin,

I know exactly what you mean, lol. Eye accessing cues are very useful, but many forget to make the distinction that it helps out a lot to find out what does what by asking questions, but also make sure to remember that nothing is ever absolute. I did enjoy the article and I would still love for you to visit us here in Florida. I definitely agree that many many techniques or methods have statistical value, but I am against statistics (my statistics professor did not like that, especially since I am very good with math of all sorts). Many people take statistics as truth when they are only a measurement of specific contexts and experiences.

I like pointing out any paradoxes when I see them. Thanks for sharing the article :).

With The Best Yet To Come,

Ricky

Comment by Kevin Cole-NLPTrainingQuest.com on September 9, 2011 at 11:56am: Ricky~ I agree there's plenty of research in hypnosis and that's growing all the time... And of course you can't be using NLP without hypnosis- even though you can use hypnosis without NLP.

I think what I liked most about the article is how it helps people really understand some of the ways NLP has been misunderstood in regards to what's really valuable, what's not, and... what's really accurate and what's not.

The primary representational system part being one example that I agreed with strongly, and have been teaching for I forget how many years at this point. I only wish he also mentioned "Eye Accessing" and the reason(s) why that has actually been falsy "proven" inaccurate in at least one study that I know of, is because it has also been taught wrong. It too has been taught for far too long as an extreme over simplification (I hate to say it but I think even Steven and some other highly respected trainers have written and taught some of these over simplifications, but I could be mistaken). No judgment, I used to tell people that it was impossible to do EFT wrong- until I saw someone do it horribly wrong and now teach otherwise.

All of that said, It's not that eye accessing isn't useful (It's Incredibly Useful), however just because someone looks up and to their right- doesn't necessarily mean they are visually creating something- and just because they look there one moment and actually are visually creating something- doesn't mean that's where they are always going to look when they visually create. Much like someone's "primary rep system".... It's contextual and can change in certain contexts (sometimes simply being more comfortable because of physical positioning of the persons head/body). If you'd ever try and eye access me, you'd find that I almost always look up and to my right whether I'm visually remembering- of visually creating something... And no, I'm not left handed, which some will claim makes the difference between right and left (it's not true when tested in real life).

These are some of the many things that make NLP so much more of an Art, rather than a "hard science" but... as Steven pointed out- even with the usage of this Art form- many of the techniques have highly predictable positive outcomes and are simple to duplicate. They are just very seldom- if ever really- performed in the exact same way.

Anyway... Just some fun stuff to think about...

-Kevin

Comment by Jackie Spencer on September 9, 2011 at 8:56am: It's going to take quite a few re-reads to really absorb all this. Thank you, Kevin.

Comment by Ricky Strode on September 9, 2011 at 2:57am: I have to disagree. There is plenty of research on hypnosis and it is only every increasing. So, with that said there is research on NLP, but not specifically on "techniques" or "methodologies". However, to try and say one is not the other and one is opinion and not fact. In fact, Bandler himself has stated many times that NLP is the structure of hypnosis. There more to it than that, but I have a bunch to do. Just wanted to put that out there. However, this is still a good article.