From: steiny@steiny.com (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Change, NLP, and science (was NLP)
Keywords: NLP  NeuroLinguistic Programming
Date: 13 Sep 92 19:52:37 GMT
Organization: Don Steiny Software


	One of the claims made most often in this discussion is that 
traditional psychologists are opposed to NLP because it claims to make
quick changes in people and traditional psychologists do not believe in this.

	Balony.    First off, I have a friend who had intensive therapy
from David Gordon, Robert Dilts, and Leslie Bandler for THREE YEARS. 
How quick is that?    As any NLP follower must know, these three are part
of the original "inner circle" that developed NLP in the late 70's, so
you can't chalk it up to inexperience.

	Second, the idea of brief therapy was invented YEARS before NLP and
is still widely used.    The idea that real change happens instantly and
is not a gradual process it the subject of numerous books, many of which
I have posted before,  Paul Watslwick, Jay Haley, Gregory Bateson, Virginia
Satir, and many more.   The life work of Milton Erickson is filled with
hundreds of such examples.

	It is understandable why a scientist would be a bit put off by some
of the claims of NLP.    I have personally heard Bob Dilts claim that
NLP can cure cancer.   That is a pretty tough claim to prove or disprove,
especially if someone who is going to an NLP therapist has his or her
cancer go into remission, they can claim it was the NLP, and if they die,
they claim that they "wern't doing it right."    That is the exact same
strategy that faith healers and other con artists have used for millinia.

	It is easy to attack science because some scientists (I read the 
"Skeptical Inquirer" each quarter to get this point of view), equate "not
scientifically proven" with "not true."   But this is a misnomer.   Science
does not "prove" anything.   The scientific method is to form a hypothesis,
and test the hypothesis.    If the test fails, the hypothesis is disproven,
if it does not fail, it is not disproven.   Therefore scientific assertions
fall in to two categories, "disproven" and "not disproven", there is no
category "proven." (That is why the creationists have so much trouble with the
"theory" of evolution).    

	There are cases where it is not possible or practicle to run an 
expirement.    An example of that is nutrition.   Short of incarcerating
people like lab rats, we cannot be 100% certain of a person's diet to 
be 100% sure if beta-carotene or vitamin C help prevent cancer.   There
is statistical evidence that this is true, but it is not "science" because
there is no way to test the hypothesis.     Personally, I take vitamin C
and beta carotene.   I find the statistical evidence adaquate.   

	It is frustrating and infuriating that the DEA is attempting to make
it difficult for me to continue to take vitamin C and beta carotene.   They
reason that since it has not been shown that it really works that I should
be protected from myself.    What is maddening is that there is probably no
way to show they work and thus the FDA can claim a justification for banning 
them.

	A simplified way to put it is to say there is "true" "false" and
"don't know."   Each side wants to own the "don't know" category.   Scientists
seem to want to claim that "don't know" means "false" and others want to 
claim that "don't know" means "true."   Probably in future times more of the
"don't know" category will get partitioned out into "true" and "false," but
it will probably continue to be larger than both.

	A less simple but more realistic way to look at it is to say that there
is no such thing as "true" and "false"--that it is all "don't know", but that
there are more compelling arguments to say one thing is "true" than something
else.    

	Which is the key to the discussion on NLP.   Personal experience
becomes less and less compelling the more distant from the person who has
the experience, and that is what a lot of "evidence" for the effectiveness of
NLP is based on.    However, telling a person that he or she did not experience
something that he or she knows darn well he or she experienced is also a
poor argument.   

	It seems to me that there is ample room for NLP in a group called
"sci.psychology."    The problem is that so few NLP people on the net have
bothered to read such things as the enormous research on hypnosis done
by Milton Erickson.   He was a doctor and a scientist and his research
is respected as scientific.    John Grinder is a Phd linguist and a very
demanding individual with respect to claims.    There is a lot to the 
original "meta-model" that can be discussed in terms of cognition.  Scientists
cannot work totally inductively, by simply observing nature until a theory
falls out.   They have to use their intuition.    People are apparently
seeing results and enhancing their clinical practices using NLP.   What is
going on?

	For instance, I have a theory.   There have been studies that show 
there is no corelation between eye movements and accessing any particular 
representational system.    However many people have found that once they
started looking at people's eye movements they had a better life in some 
way and attributed it to their "NLP skills."   I think that what is going
on is twofold.    First, I think that once people are convinced that they
need to look at other people to figure out what responses the other person
is having to their behavior, they have a better life.   For example, once
they learn to notice that what they are saying is pissing someone off and they
shut up, they get along with people better.   Second, I think that because
they are looking at the person's eyes, they are making eye contact and the
person feels like they are being listened to.    So, results happen, but
not for the reason that students are told.    I would not put it past 
John and Richard to have done this on purpose.

	As for trying to ban NLP discussions from this group, I should point
out that there are many people who do not believe psychology is a science
either, so the idea of "scientific psychology" is an oxymoron.

-don
-- 
Don Steiny
Don Steiny Software
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(408) 425-0382
Newsgroups: sci.psychology