From: lady@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Lee Lady)
Subject: Re: Unpleasantness re: inner child discussion
Followup-To: sci.psychology
Organization: University of Hawaii (Mathematics Dept)
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 01:32:24 GMT

In article <167C3AC85.JHARTLEY@cmsa.gmr.com> JHARTLEY@cmsa.gmr.com writes:
>   ...
>One last point, here.  This is the first of about 70 posts by you in
>which you have not broadcast your love and devotion for neurolinguistic
>programming.  You may be a little sensitive to scientific scrutiny and
>that was reflected in your bitter and snarling post about "ultrascientific"
>people.  I hope you understand the distinction between something being good for
>one person and finding out if it would be good for others, why it is good,
>the bounds of its effectiveness, and so on.  I'm just tickled plaid that
>[NLP] is good for you.  But when you make the sort of grand claims that you
>have about anything like NLM to a newsgroup of psychologists, YOU SHOULDN'T
>BE SURPRISED OR PUT OFF BY THEIR ATTEMPTS TO VERIFY YOUR CLAIMS.
 [Emphasis added.]  

Well I would be damned pleased to see some clinical psychologists do some
rigorous studies to test the claims that NLP makes.  (There are in fact a
few such studies.  Many too few, in my opinion.)  I don't in the least
blame academics for being highly skeptical of these claims.  What does
bother me though is the INDIFFERENCE by the clinical establishment to
such claims.  

NLP claims, for instance, that a simple phobia can be cured in one
session.  It claims that the same technique will neutralize traumatic
memories just as quickly, so that PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome)
becomes an easily treatable problem.  It claims that certain other anxiety
disorders, such as compulsions and performance anxiety, can also be
cured in one or two sessions.  There are a very large number of NLP
practitioners out in the world using these techniques for these
purposes.  If the claims are in fact false, then it would seem
important to protect the public by exposing them as unfounded.  If, on
the other hand, there is even some degree of truth to these claims,
then I think that clinicians who continue to take people's money and
offer them inferior treatments are guilty of ripping off their
clients.

I'm tired of running into therapists who say "I've never heard of
NeuroLinguistic Programming" or "I've heard the name but I don't know
anything about it."  I'm tired of describing a technique that takes ten
or fifteen minutes to a therapist (and which doesn't conflict with any
other approach he might want to use) and having him say "No, I'm not
willing to try it out."  Or hearing therapists say that it would be
unethical to try out a very simple technique on a client because it's
an unproven approach.  To me, one of the most unethical things a
professional can do is to continue seeing a client and taking their
money for session after session without solving their problem.

(I don't see what's wrong with saying to a client "There's a technique
I've learned about recently which is very quick and which some people
claim is very useful in cases like yours.  It hasn't been scientifically
validated though, and I can't guarantee that it will work.  Would you
like me to spend half an hour today trying it out with you, or would you
prefer to just continue the approach we've been using?"  Now THAT is a
therapist that I would like to go to.)  

There are a lot of therapists, many with academic credentials, who have
been through NLP training.  Some of them even read usenet.  I hear from
them sometimes by email but they choose not to post articles because
(presumably) they don't want to get all the flak that results from such
postings.  That's fine.  But I DO CHALLENGE ANY THERAPIST WHO HAS HAD
SOME NLP TRAINING OR SOME EXPERIENCE WITH NLP AND WHO FINDS IT WITHOUT
VALUE to speak up.  My god, if the stuff is worthless than you would be
accomplishing something good just by getting me to shut up about
it.  :-)  

In the meantime, I will continue to post articles whenever I can
attempting to explain what NLP is about and describing some of my own
experiences with it, both as a therapist and as a client.  My intent is
not to convince people that NLP is good.   Only evidence or personal
experience could do that, not arguments on usenet.  But my hope is that I
can convince a few academics that NLP is worth learning about.  I believe
that even for scientific psychologists NLP can be valuable as a source of
ideas and -- most especially -- new questions to investigate.  Of course
I'm not a psychologist.  But I am a scientist who has spent twenty years
doing publishable research (in mathematics) at universities.  I do think
I have a little sense of what sorts of things are of scientific interest
and worthy of investigation.  And it doesn't require any commitment or
investing any enormous amount of time and energy to look through a few
books or watch a few videotapes. 


Apparently all my posts seem bitter and snarling to you.  Maybe you
should put   "/lady@uhunix/h:j"  into your kill file.  
--
Lee Lady                                               
Dept of Mathematics                      lady@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu   
University of Hawaii                     lady@uhunix.bitnet
Honolulu, HI  96822                     
From: twhite@hpsmtc1.cup.hp.com (Tom White)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 06:18:43 GMT
Subject: NLP Presentations, Bay Area ONLY!
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino