From: amanda@INTERCON.COM (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Date: 19 Aug 92 02:17:25 GMT

If you can read this, I'm back :).  Anyway, to respond some to Carol's 
request for concrete objections to NLP:

Representational Systems:

	NLP's treatment of language and representational systems
	is liable to make any professional linguist run
	screaming from the room, or at the very least pound on
	the table :).  One thing that you find as you study human
	language at deeper and deeper levels is that it's much
	*less* intuitive and understandable than it seems.  In
	fact, the details and mechanisms of human language
	processing above the phonetic level are among the greatest
	mysteries of modern science.  This is especially true at
	the semantic and discourse levels, where no one has any
	clue about what's going on overall, despite lots of
	interesting data and theories about particular phenomena.

	Now, some of the claims of NLP can be attributed to
	the relatively strong position transformational grammar
	held in the 60's and 70's in the linguistics community,
	but it is far from the comprehensive theory of language that
	people like Bandler present it to be.  In particular, more
	modern approaches (such as GPSG or LFG) abandon the dichotomy
	of surface structure vs. deep structure completely, because
	it introduces as many problems as it solves.  This application
	of TG beyond its scope of applicability is part of why NLP
	is held in such low regard among linguists, especially
	syntacticians who *know* TG inside and out.  Having a
	computational linguistics minor, I've done quite a lot of
	work with TG & other topics in syntax, formal language
	theory, and have a fairly reading knowledge of semantics
	and semiotics.  To me, the claims that NLP makes about
	language are like the claims that people like Gary Zukav
	make about phsyics--they've got some of the ideas, but have
	missed the scope of applicability completely.

	Now, the ideas of representational systems, matching
	predicates and language style, etc. are valid.  They are
	not, however, new.  Any text on rhetoric or debate will
	give you a lot more useful information on strategy, and
	any introductory syntax text will give you far more accurate
	information about language and its structure.

Incongruity, Sensory Channels, etc:

	The basics (the Satir modes, Bateson's "Ecology of Mind,"
	Ericksonian hypnotic therapy, etc.) are fine, but hardly new.
	Suzette Haden Elgin's "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense"
	is a much better treatment (in part because she's a professional
	linguist), as are Deborah Tannen's books on communication styles.
	This material isn't as crackpot as the stuff about language, but
	is all stuff that's been around for quite some time.

Besides, you might as well read the sources themselves.  There's no need to 
spend money for "official" NLP training :).

Now, to be charitable, I suppose that NLP could have been highly revamped in 
the ten years since I looked seriously at it, which could lower the crackpot 
factor :).  However, I still have no reason to believe that there is
anything in it that cannot be found in more traditional and reputable sources.


Amanda Walker

Newsgroups: alt.magick