A person came in and looked at the title of my book and asked if I was a psychotherapist. I explained I wasn't and told him what I did and what my credentials are.
He turned out to be an NLP practitioner, so he joined the table and we chatted.
Soon the discussion (much like yesterday with the non-smoking) came to visualization. I explained that the science is not backing NLPs visualization techniques. Visualizing yourself in that size 32 jeans, looking your best is not going to make you any thinner. HELL, science even proved that it can actually make you thicker.
The argument was friendly but heated! I'd definitely stepped on his 'religion'!
He claimed that NLP had solid proof that visualization does work and is a very good force to self-motivate and make you feel happy. I explained that the latter is true, when you visualize yourself in that size 32 jeans, it does make you feel happy... Briefly but happy but it doesn't help at all with the goals.
I quoted a nice piece of social-psychological studies at Harvard where they asked one group of students to visualize getting a good grade for an upcoming test and the control group to not visualize. What happened was, that the visualization group had significant lower grades than the non-visualization group and the rest of the class. It reaffirmed the fact that when we visualize a goal we actually start to believe we've reached that goal and become lax. As shown in the study journals that the two groups were instructed to keep. The visualization group actually studied 15-23% less than the control, obviously a direct cause of the lower test scores!
So I asked the guy to proof his statements. He took out his blackberry tablet (very nice!) and showed some unaccredited junk from several NLP training institutions, claiming 'scientific research has proven'. But no references to the research, I actually have my study book with me and got it from my room and showed the many chapters with detailed studies and why visualization doesn't work on a cognitive level.
Soon the defense went to the fact that you have to do visualization in a "trance" state.... *sigh* So I asked him to define a trance state, sitting with your eyes closed completely absorbed in a mental image is a trance like state in most hypnotists handbook.
He then put a nail in his coffin by saying: "No! A skilled hypnotists has to induce a trance state that's the only way you get into a real trance." So I laughed and mockingly said: "So all those NLP self help books and trainings about self change are nonsense because you can not do it by yourself?"
Well here came the struckling: yes, no not quiet etc etc etc
Soon the discussion shifted (sign that he did not have any counter arguments) to modalities. I explained that working with modalities is indeed a first step but not a cure in itself. I also explained that actually pushing against a table or wall as you get rid of a negative image will engage the natural "push off" patterns we all have but that the mental image is still in the brain and that the 'reduced' negative feelings can help with actual therapy but that most stable people do not have very emotive reactions.
He was amazed to hear about the 'push pull' theory and conditioning, priming. I actually performed my old lecture effect, Prime Time on him completely ungimmicked to show how easy it was to slow a person down.
So why do people still teach these ridiculous visualization techniques? Especially in multi-thousand dollar courses?
NLP and Hypnotherapy has nothing todo with science and therapy any more but how to earn money from ignorant students who want to learn but simply choose the wrong institutions to learn. NLP and Hypnotherapy has become nothing short of religion in its most basic form.
Shouldn't science rule? Where bold statements and questions are actually tested and retested before making a definite conclusion?
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