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NLP...Is it woo?

Calcas

Graduate Poster
C
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I've been watching some Derren Brown videos and they're very entertaining.

Here are a couple that I found interesting.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...297&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...52&start=10&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=3

Now, I know the guy is a magician/illusionist/hypnotist/ but I have never seen someone get people into a "trance" so quickly.

Is it real or just TV fakery?

After some "googling", I found some info on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques that he supposedly uses. The "handshake interrupt" is especially fascinating.

http://www.persuasion-skills.co.uk/system/viewarticle.asp?ANUM=8

Am I going down the "woo" road?????

Hep me...hep me....;)
 
Here is the skepdic entry.
It seems that NLP develops models which can't be verified, from which it develops techniques which may have nothing to do with either the models or the sources of the models. NLP makes claims about thinking and perception which do not seem to be supported by neuroscience. This is not to say that the techniques won't work. They may work and work quite well, but there is no way to know whether the claims behind their origin are valid. Perhaps it doesn't matter. NLP itself proclaims that it is pragmatic in its approach: what matters is whether it works. However, how do you measure the claim "NLP works"? I don't know and I don't think NLPers know, either. Anecdotes and testimonials seem to be the main measuring devices. Unfortunately, such a measurement may reveal only how well the trainers teach their clients to persuade others to enroll in more training sessions.
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Interesting and thanks for the info and links.

But, I'm more interested whether Brown is using some kind of "instant" trance inducing technique(s) or whether it's all smoke and (TV) mirrors.

He doesn't claim to be psychic or doing anything paranormal. It just intrigues me.
 
I would guess that the people are stooges, nothing more.
 
Well, when I was just coming out of my woo, a close friend got "certified" in NLP. I was still highly suggestible. Her description of NLP completely set off my woo meter, and the techniques she used did absolutely NOTHING for me. So I vote smoke and mirrors.
 
In a sense merely engaging in discussion is an act of mutual programming but the extent to which that is effective is clearly dependent on many variables. NLP is far too simplistic a model that promises far too much.
 
Mmmrrrrrr. I'm reading Snow Crash, which features neurolinguistic programming (though not the organization you're talking about) as one of its plot points. Snow Crash makes me want to get involved with this group about as much as I'd like to jab an unsterile hypodermic directly into my eyeball.
 
A lot of NLP is based on the work of a psychiatrist/hypnotherapist called Milton Erikson.

Like most therapies, some things work for some people, other things work for other people.

I have been on an NLP course, and found while that some people seemed to take it ALL onboard, others (generally whispering to me!) would state that they didn't feel any difference.

Language is very important though, and how we phrase things, whether to ourselves, or others, can make a vast difference in how we feel and respond. So I guess that some techniques work with most people, and these are generally the 'common-sense' ones where everyone can see how re-phrasing (or reframing, as they call it) would work. ('Glass half empty/glass half full' as an example springs to mind.)

The more off the wall methods, such as the Swish technique? To tell the truth, I don't know whether they work or not, but I would guess they would as a placebo model, more than anything else.

The work of Milton Erickson is worth checking out in its own right, his use of language, especially metaphors, to change people, is a fascinating study.
 
Derren Brown uses "magic, suggestion, psychology, missdirection, and showmanship". From what I know NLP would be covered by the second and third term, but it is not all he uses.
Do not forget that Derren Brown is a magician and knows things that the NLP people have no clue about. You will not learn to do what Derren Brown does if you limit your studies to NLP.

I only miss that he does not do his cardwork any more, he is wonderful with a deck of cards.
 
I think NLP implies that you can make people your puppet basically, changing their beliefs and behaviors... But that doesn't happen, becuase if it did, the politicians would be using it.
 
Here is a Derren Brown video on youtube. If you click on page 7 and 6 of the comment section a rascal whose name may sound familiar gives a theory how the effect was done. Notice this was posted before I ever excepted any agreement at the wonderful JREF site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5DB5crSsrA&mode=related&search=

NLP and Eriksonian handshakes are apparent during the entire video. The rascal (and if you look forward, the rascal flirted with a young woman named Nurenka) gently explained why he was offended enough to offer his opinion.
 
Seems like a bunch of woo to me.

With stuff like this, it's hard to tell if there might be some smallish, but real effect there or not, because the whole thing is caked in so much overblown woo. Then again, if it was "real", they wouldn't need to exaggerate it so much, I guess.
So I vote "woo".
 
Senex said:
Here is a Derren Brown video on youtube. If you click on page 7 and 6 of the comment section a rascal whose name may sound familiar gives a theory how the effect was done. Notice this was posted before I ever excepted any agreement at the wonderful JREF site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5DB5crSsrA&mode=related&search=

NLP and Eriksonian handshakes are apparent during the entire video. The rascal (and if you look forward, the rascal flirted with a young woman named Nurenka) gently explained why he was offended enough to offer his opinion.
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I think your explanation is probably correct. A lot of this kind of stuff is based on very, very basic trickery. Fancy psychobabble explanations make GREAT smoke and mirrors.
 
Here is what Derren Brown himself says about NLP in his book Pure Effect:
NLP is a communication tool that blends aspects of Behaviourism and Chomskian Linguistics into a highly evangelical package. It has built around itself a rather creepy scene and in a rather dubious and unchecked way has become a massive industry in the worlds of trendy management-training and alternative therapies. Having trained with the highly likeable founder of NLP, I find it a mixture of sensible and appealing methods for dealing with low-level pathologies such as phobias and fears on the one hand, and sheer daft nonsense and massive rhetoric on the other.
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Plasmadog said:
Here is what Derren Brown himself says about NLP in his book Pure Effect:
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In other words, it's a bunch of fancy sounding woo gobbeldygook, but it makes an ok placebo effect type thing for treating phobias?
 
In other words, it's a bunch of fancy sounding woo gobbeldygook, but it makes an ok placebo effect type thing for treating phobias?
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I wouldn't put it that way. I thinks it's more that it is mostly woo, but with a few useful nuggets if you know what to look for.
If you read his book it becomes clear that there are some things taught by NLP practitioners that he does find useful in his performances, like eye accessing cues, for instance. However, he also makes it clear that while he does look for eye cues, which he considers useful but unreliable, he is also looking at the whole body for any unconscious movements that may give away what someone is thinking.
He is apparently a firm believer in the concept of anchoring. He talks about this a lot in the book, and you can see it in use in many of his performances.
There's a great clip on YouTube that shows him using several NLP techniques. He only talks about one aspect of it, but you can see him anchoring (he asks the man to think about what it feels like to see something that you really want, and then touches him on the arm. He then frequently touches him in the same place to recall that feeling), and I believe there is an interrupt as well, when he places the man's hand on the table in a way that would seem strange in a normal social interaction.

Another quote from the book:
There is really no substantial support for the specific claims that NLP makes and much of it can be dismissed as vacuous nonsense. But the ideas there triggered in me an interest in exploring these kinds of signals, and now I am pushing my performance closer into these areas.
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Plasmadog said:
I wouldn't put it that way. I thinks it's more that it is mostly woo, but with a few useful nuggets if you know what to look for.
If you read his book it becomes clear that there are some things taught by NLP practitioners that he does find useful in his performances, like eye accessing cues, for instance. However, he also makes it clear that while he does look for eye cues, which he considers useful but unreliable, he is also looking at the whole body for any unconscious movements that may give away what someone is thinking.
He is apparently a firm believer in the concept of anchoring. He talks about this a lot in the book, and you can see it in use in many of his performances.
There's a great clip on YouTube that shows him using several NLP techniques. He only talks about one aspect of it, but you can see him anchoring (he asks the man to think about what it feels like to see something that you really want, and then touches him on the arm. He then frequently touches him in the same place to recall that feeling), and I believe there is an interrupt as well, when he places the man's hand on the table in a way that would seem strange in a normal social interaction.

Another quote from the book:
Click to expand...

See...the thing about DB seems to be that it's always a trick wrapped in another trick. Sort of like a Russian doll of trickery. Any time you see an effect, and DB gives an explaination, it seems like much, most, or possibly all of the explaination is just another layer of the trickery.

I'd be surprised in NLP has anything at all to do with the effect seen on that video. I find it more likely that the dude really did write down "BMX bike" and they just switched the piece of paper. And the NPL stuff is just another layer of the trickery played on us, the audience.
 
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