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Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Complementary and Manual Therapies

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a pseudoscientific approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy that first appeared in Richard Bandler and John Grinder's book The Structure of Magic I (1975). NLP asserts a connection between neurological processes, language, and acquired behavioral patterns, and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life. According to Bandler and Grinder, NLP can treat problems such as phobias, depression, tic disorders, psychosomatic illnesses, near-sightedness, allergy, the common cold, and learning disorders, often in a single session, and can model the skills of exceptional people so that anyone can acquire them. NLP has been adopted by some hypnotherapists and by companies running seminars marketed as leadership training. No scientific evidence supports the claims made by NLP advocates, and it has been called a pseudoscience; scientific reviews have shown that NLP is based on outdated metaphors of the brain's inner workings inconsistent with current neurological theory and contains numerous factual errors, and that research favoring NLP contained significant methodological flaws while higher-quality studies failed to reproduce its claims.

Facts
Classification
Status
Discontinued or Obsolete 1
Origin Year
1975 2
FAQs

Where did the techniques of neuro-linguistic programming come from?

Bandler and Grinder say they drew on Satir, Erickson and Perls, though critics dispute some of the claimed influences.

According to Bandler and Grinder, they derived many of the fundamental techniques from the work of Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson and Fritz Perls, and they also drew on the theories of Gregory Bateson and Noam Chomsky. The link to Chomsky is disputed: Chomsky himself has no association with NLP, and linguist Karen Stollznow describes the reference to such experts as namedropping. Other than Satir, the people they cite as influences did not collaborate with Bandler or Grinder.
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia Foundation
2. Neuro-linguistic programming (Wikipedia)
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming, lead section
    Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a pseudoscientific approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy that first appeared in Richard Bandler and John Grinder's book The Structure of Magic I (1975). NLP asserts a connection between neurological processes, lan
  • Lead section
    first appeared in Richard Bandler and John Grinder's book The Structure of Magic I (1975)
  • In Group: Mind-Body and Psychological Self-Regulation Practices, Introduction
    Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a pseudoscientific approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy that first appeared in Richard Bandler and John Grinder's book The Structure of Magic I (1975).
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