I'm not defending NLP. I just wanna clear up some of the nonsense I've been in contact with recently!!!

In browsing through the web recently, I came across a number of articles that were attacking NLP. Some called it 'plain epistemology' rather than a more dramatic ontological approach. Some claimed that it was now redundant compared to (quite strangely) the author of the articles new approach. It is funny. Each article was written so convuluently that I got flash backs to Psychology in college.

What I've spent most of my time in NLP doing since I first got involved is learning the most complicated and advanced parts and making them simple. I believe I am becoming quite successful as that. My reasoning is that if you can teach that to anyone it improves more peoples lives than just giving them the basic jist. What I am sad to see is that there are still and enormous amount of names out there (some of them VERY big names) spending time trying to complicate NLP and devise their own versions (all of which they claim are far ahead of the original). To me they are all simple applications. When someone speaks in a different language than you, they are still speaking language.

Language underlies all the different kinds of language. It is responsible for their creations. It would be quite ridiculous if we all started claiming English was the best language and therefore Language itself is redundant. To me, NLP underlies all of these areas. These people publish books, set up newsgroups and spend so much time arguing with each other claiming that their approach is the best. And yet the sad thing is, one of the least practical exercises to do.... is exactly the kind of behaviour that provoked the creation of NLP: Therapists arguing back and forth about which was the most effective form of therapy.

Now, we have followers in different camps which is good as people are using their choice. What is bad is that they simply don't appreciate where it came from. They use the same arguments over and over again with complicated jargon an they get their rocks off about it. Unfortunately there are many seekers in the field, searching for the one true way and like Freud did back in the 1800's and even early NLPers did, these new trainers claim they have, at last, found this way. Thus the seekers, move on from NLP to these other methods, always searching for that which will change everything for them easily. The harsh reality is though that there is not one way... there are many and all of them have flaws. The originators of every brilliant idea are human and do not live it perfectly all the time. This delusion causes people to not actually use the skills.

I would well believe that the vast majority of people who have learned NLP don't actually use it but either talk about it excitedly, claim they use it always or claimed it didn't work for them... and yet they never use it. To me, I do my best to use it as much as possible but I don't all the time. I have found when I do, it works strangely enough. The best therapists are those that can use NLP with clients and teach and motivate and persuade the clients to use it themselves.

To me, people like Robert Anton Wilson does a fantastic job as in his genius writing although not called NLP, he focuses on installing the one point over and over again and the more we hear it from him the more it gets through to us. We all live in different reality tunnels. You can choose which reality tunnels you use. To me, NLP is a fantastic way of doing this.

I learned most of what I know from Dr Bandler. That's why I don't spend oodles of time trying to use big words and sound important. To me, understanding NLP in a kindergarden mode is the best way to do things. That, I believe, is real choice. Instead of getting wrapped up and wasting my time in any of these Alt newsgroups or criticising the next 10 books by a certain author that has more books written than he has skills and has only been around 10 years, instead of that, I figured I'd explain my point of view here with you my friends.

So, be warned, there are many that will claim they have found the real secret. They are just another wanna be guru basking in their creative use of NLP. Some of their stuff will be really good and some will be rubbish. So learn it and use it and focus on simplifying it through all their efforts at complication. That way, you'll be surprised and delighted that when all the michegas clears away... it's all about teaching people to change their experience of the world by teaching them about language, running their brains and communicating with themselves and others.

I could speak jargon filled epistemological ontological explorations all day, I could make up my own names for NLP and claim I came up with it. For some reason I don't. I guess I feel I'd be selling out... to prestige, to money, to my ego. Instead, I teach NLP an my own applications of NLP and I do all I can to simplify, simplify, simplify. Beware those with big words.... it often means a big ego. Now if you disagree with anything I said here, then, as a good friend of mine says in reply to someone who said to her "Lets agree to disagree." Let's not do that. Lets agree that you're stupid!!! :)