Several critics of "NLP" have somehow convinced themselves that the world needs to be warned about the supposed threat posed by this mild-mannered modelling technique and it's related concepts and techniques(*.
Although it does make one or two valid points, the major flaw in this article is that it starts with a misconception and proceeds, aggressively and blindly, from that error. Thus, as with so many critics of whatever it is they think of as "NLP", the level of research that informs the article is, to borrow a word from it's author, pitiful. Indeed, for at least some of the time Levelt doesn't really talk about NLP or the FoNLP, at all. Instead he tends to segue into topics connected to his own speciality, psycholinguistics, and pointlessly criticizes the creators of NLP for not fitting into the pigeonhole he wants to assign them to.
Perhaps inevitably, as a consequence, the article tells us very little about the authentic versions of NLP and the FoNLP.
Before evaluating Levelt's article it is worth asking whether it was in fact meant to be taken seriously.
This may sound somewhat strange, given the senior status of the author at a prestigious institution, but there are at least two reasons for asking the question:
In the two years (approximately) that I have been reviewing and writing about academic criticisms of the FoNLP I have never before come across material by a professional that wasn't referenced. In some instances the referencing has been a little less than perfect, it's true. But in most cases even material that has appeared in books, sceptics' magazines, etc., is as well documented as a paper in a peer-reviewed journal.
Not this article, however. Leastways, not the version that appeared in Skepsis magazine in 1996 and which can still be viewed on the magazine's own web site (see here).
This is, to say the least, an unfortunate choice. It is also somewhat incomprehensible given Levelt's claim that he deliberately set out to study the subject by reading a pile of books that were "de oogst een speurtocht langs Nederlandse bibliothecken naar informatie over NLP" - the harvest of a hunt through Dutch libraries for information about NLP.
Surely this would be an ideal situation in which to compile both quotes and references?
It is also hard to understand why, having claimed to have gone right through his pile of "well-thumbed" books - "Die boeken heb ik inmiddels allemaal gelezen" - I've read all those books now - Levelt doesn't bother to list the books in the pile. In fact he only names two books by Bandler and Grinder, the creators and authorities on NLP and the FoNLP: Frogs into Princes (cited four times) and Reframing (cited once). And even then the quote allegedly taken from Reframing:
Dus, als we toevallig iets noemen waarvan je uit wetenschappelijk onderzoek, of uit statistieken, weet dat het onjuist is, realiseer je dan dat we je een ander niveau van ervaring aanreiken
So, if we happen to mention something that you know from a scientific study, or from statistics, is inaccurate, realize that a different level of experience is being offered you here.
(Frogs into Princes, 1979. Page 7)
Unfortunately, since Levelt does not provide a page number in Reframing we cannot be sure whether the quoted passage is in that book as well. This is clearly not a satisfactory situation, and a very poor way to present information. Especially in an article that criticises the subjects of the article for the way they present information.
What's In a Name?
As indicated above, much of the confusion in Levelt's article seems to be based on the fact that he apparently cannot tell that there is a difference between the terms "Neuro-Linguistic" and "Neurolinguistics". Indeed, the text suggests that he thinks the words are essentially synonymous, that they refer to the same thing. Thus, at one point, he actually uses the word "neuro-linguistic" (with hyphen) when, it would seem, he is actually referring to "neurolinguistic" (no hyphen):
Ik neem aan dat de grondleggers gewoon dankbaar gebruik hebben gemaakt van de glamour die rond de term 'neuro-linguïstiek' hangt.
I suppose the founders just wanted to share in the glamour associated with the term 'neuro-linguistic'.
(Page 26)
From this starting position he goes on to rather pointlessly compare the FoNLP with Neurolinguistics, and Psycholinguistics, and complains because Neuro-Linguistic Programming doesn't even try to do what the other two do.
(We'll come back to this in a bit more detail later on.)
In fact the article contains a number of very basic mistakes which might have been avoided if the relevant research had been carried out:
Searching for a Pigeonhole - and Other Errors
The claim that either NLP or the FoNLP are, or ever have been, forms of psychotherapy is not only incorrect, it seems to serve no useful purpose. Thus when Levelt writes:
NLP is van oorsprong een nieuwe vorm van psychotherapie, in de jaren '70 bedacht door Richard Bandler en John Grinder.
NLP was originally a new form of psychotherapy, devised by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the 70s.
(Page 26)
he forces whatever it is he thinks of as "NLP" into the "psychotherapy" pigeonhole, Yet by doing so, he merely demonstrates his own profound misunderstanding of the subject he claims he has evaluated. This is perhaps not so surprising since the claim is up there in the top three errors made by academically-oriented critics of what they call "NLP" - but it is quite simply wrong. (See Basic Errors for details.)
In reality, the FoNLP is most closely associated with communication skills, based on a specific non-analytical modelling process (see, for example, Thompson (1993, page 154). And it is that modelling process that the label "Neuro-Linguistic Programming" (with hyphen) refers to.
Expert What?
Levelt's next error comes in his claim that the NLP modelling process (at least he knows that there is a modelling process involved), is akin to an "expert system":
Als je dat expliciet kunt formuleren dan heb je een 'model', dat aangeleerd kan worden. We zouden zoiets nu een expertsysteem noemen.
If you can formulate someone's behaviour explicitly then you have a 'model' that can be learned. Something we would now call an expert system.
(Page 26)
Having co-authored a book some years ago, with a professional who had first-hand experience in the design, construction and use of expert systems using the PROLOG AI language - a book which included a section on the basics of building a simple expert system - I have a little understanding of that subject, and from that perspective Levelt's claim seems to be in error for at least two reasons:
- Expert Systems are based on skilled analysis of the choices made by one or more genuine experts in some area. NLP modelling is specifically non-analytical, being based on unconscious/intuitive understanding of how the person being modelled behaves.
- Expert Systems deal with prescribed situations - in banking, making a loan, etc. They are necessarily rule-based and cannot exceed the logical constraints of the information base and the corresponding rule sequences. An expert system asks the user specific questions requiring specific information.
Human beings, on the other hand, are frequently anything but "specific" in the way they act. The outstanding feature of effective behaviour when applying "modelled" information is therefore not characterised by strict adherence to any set of rules. On the contrary, it is about having sufficient understanding of the model to allow flexibility, being able to instinctively appreciate which technique(s) are most appropriate in an ongoing situation, and how to apply them to best effect - including the use of counter-intuitive behaviour when, in a particular context, that is what is most likely to bring about the desired result.
What Works?
Levelt then claims that:
Dát iets werkt heeft, in de NLP-opvatting, te maken met 'subjectieve ervaring,' en NLP wordt steeds gedefinieerd als 'de studie van de structuur van de subjectieve ervaring'.
That something works is, in the NLP-view, to do with 'subjective experience', and NLP is increasingly defined as 'the study of the structure of subjective experience'.
(Page 26)
This is one of those instances where it would be useful to have a direct quote and reference from Levelt, because this seems to be a rather confused description of the situation. It is certainly true that the FoNLP has been defined as "the study of the structure of subjective experience", though equally certainly this was not something that was "increasingly" true in 1995. On the contrary, it has been the case since the early stages of development, and is actually the subtitle of the book Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Volume 1, published in 1980.
As to the idea that "what works" is something "to do with 'subjective experience'", without a reference or quote it is practically impossible to figure out what Levelt had in mind when he wrote this. The expression "what works", in the context of the FoNLP means nothing more than "a specific action, or sequence of actions, which produces a desired result". The phrase is merely meant to make a distinction between what actually works and what "ought to work" according to some theory or other.
Levelt also tells us that the phrase: 'the study of the structure of subjective experience' "is almost exactly how Wilhelm Wundt defined psychology one hundred years ago". Unfortunately he fails to demonstrate that Bandler and Grinder and Wundt actually meant the same thing. And neither does he give any indication as to how, even if the assumed similarity of meaning were correct, this might be significant. So why did he say it? I have no idea.
Mind over Matter?
Still on the subject of subjectivity, Levelt later writes:
Die subjectieve ervaring ontstaat in ons centrale zenuwstelsel; dat rechtvaardigt het adjectief 'neuro'.
That subjective experience arises in our central nervous system was taken to justify the adjective "neuro".
(Page 26)
However, it turns out that the Professor was mistaken, again. The authentic claim is that what we do is the product of our mental activities, and that those activities can be influenced by the words we hear if/when they shape our (subjective) perceptions. According to studies such as the two part "car accident" experiment carried out by Loftus and Palmer (1974), even different descriptions of an event which vary by a single word can modify our perceptions, which will then be committed to memory in such a way as to over-ride our original perceptions. In other words, our actual neurology can be thus altered. Which is surely sufficient to justify the presence of "neuro" in the title.
"Neuro-Linguistic Programming" and "Neurolinguistics"
Having provided his own interpretation of the terms "linguistic" and "programming", Levelt suddenly leaps down our throats with the statement that:
Het is dus al direct duidelijk dat NLP niets, maar dan ook niets met neurolinguïstiek te maken heeft.
It is immediately clear that NLP has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with neurolinguistics.
(p.26)
Which would be a very telling criticism but for one thing: although it is true - it is totally irrelevant.
The full title "Neuro-Linguistic Programming" is, so far as I know, entirely unique. But the term "neuro-linguistic" is not. It was in fact coined by Alfred Korzybski, creator of General Semantics, and it was first used at least as early as 1936 in an article for the American Journal of Psychiatry (see References).
In the context of NLP, the term Neuro-Linguistic has two capital letters and a hyphen in order to indicate that "neurology" and "linguistics" are separate entities which interact, in both directions. In plain English that means that we are allegedly influenced by both the words we use and the words we hear. This is the true meaning of the NL of NLP, and the "programming" is the influencing process itself which begins when we are very young (quite possibly even before we are born) and goes on - to a greater or lesser degree - throughout our lives. Which is why, as Levelt rightly implies, NLP has nothing to do with the study of the effects of brain damage on using/understanding language.
What Levelt possibly overlooked in his flawed assumption is that the term "Neurolinguistics" does not seem to have become the "official" title for this field of study until it was adopted by Harry Whitaker when he founded the Journal of Neurolinguistics in 1985. For the sake of clarity that's ten or eleven years after the naming of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and just over half a century after a documented instance of Korzybski using the term neuro-linguistics in the manner I have described.
Presumably then, if we were to adopt Professor Levelt's logic, we should be claiming that neurolinguists adopted the term "neurolinguistics" because they wanted to associate themselves with the glamour attached to Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
(Only joking!)
Note: Levelt also complains that NLP-related books say nothing about aphasia studies or modern brain-imaging techniques.
Which is also almost entirely true - precisely because, again, NLP has nothing to do with Neurolinguistics. What is interesting here is that a psycholinguist should fall into the black hole of assuming that if two words look approximately the same then they must have exactly the same meaning. Having said that, Dr Carmel Lum, who is also involved with neurolinguistics and aphaseology, seems to have made the same error in her book on "scientific thinking" (2000, page 16), including spelling "Neuro-Linguistic" (as in NLP) without the capital letters and without the hyphen.
Expanding NLP
After a brief sidetrack on the subject of a Dutch Society of NLP-affiliated training company and the cost of the Practitioner course - without comment and for no apparent reason - we come to a statement which is notable, in this article, for being partially correct:
Maar ook zien we een enorme verbreding van het werkterrein. NLP is allang niet meer alleen maar psychotherapie, maar ook communicatietechniek, didactiek, schoolbegeleiding, creativiteits-boosting en noem maar op.
But we also see a huge expansion of the scope of NLP. NLP is no longer just about psychotherapy, but also communications, teaching, school counseling, and creativity-boosting and so on.
(p.26)
But if we check the literature we find this crucial statement by Bandler and Grinder in their Forward to the book Neuro-Linguistic Proframming, Volume 1 (1980):
NLP begins in the early 70's when we found ourselves in possession of a set of extremely powerful and effective communication models. We had originally developed these models for use in the psychotherapy context. It quickly became apparent that they could be easily generalized to other areas of human communication - specifically business (sales, negotiation), law and education.
(Dilts, Grinder, Bandler, DeLozier, 1980. First page of Forward (no page numbers used in the Forward))
Thus to make this point as though it were something that didn't happen until the 1990s ("ook zein we" - we also see") again demonstrates a lack of up-to-date, accurate knowledge of the general situation regarding NLP and the FoNLP.
Of course it may be that Levelt was referring specifically to the use of NLP and the FoNLP in Holland, but if he was then it would have been useful if he had made this plain in his article.
What's That I Smell Before Me?
Next Levelt wanders off into a "discussion" of representational systems, acknowledging in the process that:
De bewering dat onze innerlijke ervaring het resultaat is van representaties in het centrale zenuwstelsel is niet onjuist, maar wel triviaal.
The claim that our inner experience is the result of representations in the central nervous system is not incorrect, merely trivial.
(Page 26)
In practice Bandler and Grinder had nothing to say about where these representations occurred other than that it was inside people's heads. As to whether their claim was "trivial", that very much depends on whether one knows the answer to Levelt's question: "What can be done with this information?" And since his assumptions on that point are pretty far off course his opinion on their usefulness, in the context of NLP and the FoNLP, is consequently of little value.
Diversions, Eye Accessing Cues and More Diversions
At this point Levelt introduces Stephen Lankton's book Practical Magic, and primary [preferred?] representational systems into the discussion. I describe this as a diversion since Lankton is not a primary authority on NLP or the FoNLP, and there is plenty of relevant information on the subject in genuinely authoritative sources such as Frogs into Princes. Moreover, Levelt's comments are both confused and confusing. For example, he seems to think that there is a link between the eye accessing cues and a person's "primary representational system", and that the eye accessing cues consist of only one set of eye positions.
Ironically, at the end of this section of the article Levelt writes:
Dit alles is lariekoek. De genoemde experimentele evidentie bestaat niet, Bandler en Grinder hebben niks ontdekt en de relatie tussen blikrichtingen en actieve representatiesystemen is geheel uit de duim gezogen.
This is all nonsense. The experimental evidence does not exist, Bandler and Grinder haven't discovered anything, and the relationship between gaze direction and active representation systems has been completely fabricated.
(Page 27)
And in a sense he is correct. That is, if his misinterpretation of the authentic NLP-related claims were correct then they would indeed be nonsense. In practice, however, Levelt is apparently unaware of the genuine claims and that his version of the situation is indeed nonsense.
Apart from anything else, Bandler and Grinder's model of how the eye accessing cues applied was far more flexible than Levelt's monolithic explanation suggests. For example, the layout of the eye positions for a "normally organized right-handed person" (Frogs into Princes, page 25) should be taken as a basic set of guidelines rather than a set of absolute rules carved in granite. Thus a few pages later in the same book we find this crucial explanation:
You will find people who are organized in odd ways. But even somebody who is organized in a totally different way will be systematic; their eye movements will be systematic for them. Even the person who looks straight up each time they have a feeling and straight down each time they have a picture, will remain consistent within themselves.
(Frogs into Princes, 1979. Page 27)
It is interesting to note how many academic critics claim to be familiar with Bandler and Grinder's work, yet seem to know nothing whatever about this crucial qualification.
This section ends with a short discussion and this statement from Levelt:
Hier wordt een dubieus psychologisch verhaal in een engrammenmetafoor verpakt die niets toevoegt en geen enkele voorspellende waarde heeft. Het klinkt wel erg wetenschappelijk natuurlijk.
Here is a dubious psychological story wrapped in a metaphor about engrams, which adds nothing and has no predictive value. Though it does sound very scientific, of course.
(Page 27)
What it doesn't sound, however, is like anything from the authentic FoNLP. So whilst Levelt's criticism is for once well-deserved (in my opinion) it has no bearing on the subject he claims he is evaluating. This is beginning to look like nothing more than an extended exercise in "knocking down straw men"*.
(* "knocking down straw men" - making up statements/claims that can easily be disproved (the "straw men") instead of responding to genuine statements/claims.)
John Grinder and the Eskimos
I have dealt with the next section of Levelt's article in a separate box because, for me, it makes a very clear point. In the first place, Levelt attacks John Grinder's credibility as a linguist. And then immediately provides an unequivocal example of what looks, to me, to be the very substandard research that went into this article, again raising the question of whether it was ever meant to be taken seriously.
In the next section of the article (these "sections" are only identified by switches of focus in the text, not by appropriate subheadings), Levelt moves on to the subject of John Grinder, nominalisations and Eskimos. If that looks a little odd, it is, but there is a kind of strangulated logic to it.
Apparently under the impression that Grinder is in some sense the "Head "NLPer", Levelt starts with a seemingly positive comment about him:
Bij herhaling moeten we horen dat John Grinder hoogleraar in de linguïstiek was, dus dat belooft veel goeds. En er wordt inderdaad veel over taal en linguïstiek gezegd.
We have repeatedly heard that John Grinder was a professor of linguistics, so that bodes well. And there is indeed much said about language and linguistics.
(Page 27)
But nothing is quite as it seems. After a brief and not altogether coherent "explanation" of nominalisations, Levelt strikes what he presumably imagines is a "killer blow" - the first of two:
Zonder enige aarzeling vallen de hoogleraar en zijn volgelingen in het zwarte gat van het linguïstisch relativisme: Hoe je het zegt, denk je het.
Without any hesitation the professor and his followers fall into the black hole of linguistic relativism: The way you say something is how you are thinking.
(Page 27)
Well, if that is the correct definition of "linguistic relativism", so be it. To claim that it is a "black hole", however, is plainly incorrect.
Whatever current views there may be in academia on the relationship between the way we think and the things we say, out here in the real world NLPers find that this relationship actually prevails in a sufficient number of situations to provide a practical basis for various useful techniques.
To put it bluntly, out in the real world experience trumps theory every time.
And at this point, as though to deliberately undermine his own credibility, Levelt makes an unsupported and unsupportable claim:
Eskimo's hebben zeventig woorden voor sneeuw, zegt Grinder, een oude misvatting herhalend (ze hebben er in feite maar twee), en daaraan kun je zien wat ze allemaal van sneeuw afweten.
Eskimos have seventy words for snow, Grinder said, repeating an old mistake (they have actually only two), so you can see how much they know about snow.
(Page 27)
Now to be fair, in 1995 Levelt did not have access to the vast store of online data available in 2011. Even so, one might expect that anyone claiming expertise in linguistics would realise that the label "Eskimo" is a rather general term which covers a number of peoples, which have, between them, a number of dialects and subdialects. The suggestion that these groups would share a grand total of just two words for snow is simply not credible. Even in England we have more than two words for snow - snow, blizzard, flurry, slush, etc., etc.
Indeed, an online search revealed the following information:
- The various "Eskimo" dialects and subdialects that have been documented include:
- the Norton Sound dialect
- the Norton Sound, Unaliq subdialect
- Hooper Bay-Chevak
- Nunivak
- General Central Alaskan Yupik dialect
- Yukon River area subdialect
- There are 32 lexemes referring to snow and snow-related notions in Steven A. Jacobson's (1984) Yup'ik Eskimo dictionary, produced by the Alaska Native Language Center, at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Dr Jacobson is Professor of Yupik Eskimo, at thr UAF.
(See http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~atman/Misc/eskimo-snow-words.html)
- There appear to be at least four root words for snow across the various documented dialects and subdialects:
- aput - "snow on the ground"
- gana - "falling snow"
- piqsirpoq - "drifting snow"
- qimuqsuq - "a snow drift"
- In the book West Greenlandic (1984), Michael Fortescue lists some 49 words for snow and ice, see http://tafkac.org/language/eskimo_words_for_snow_derby.html
On this basis it seems that Grinder's figure was a lot closer to correct number than Levelt's.
Again, it seems that Levelt's sources weren't nearly as accurate as he presumably imagined.
|
When in Doubt, Dig a Deeper Hole
At this point in the article the flow of ideas seems to start drying up because instead of moving on we return to the subject of representational systems - "u weet wel: V, K, A of O" (you know: V, K, A or O)) - combined with something Levelt now refers to as a person's "dominante representatiesystem" (dominant representational system). Unfortunately, if - as seems to be the case - Levelt was referring to the preferred representational system concept then his comments only serve to reinforce the impression that he really does not understand the practical application of the concept. For example, he writes:
Eén voorbeeld: Gleitman vond dat één van de eerste werkwoorden die een blind kind leert gebruiken 'zien' is. Een NLP'er zou daaruit valselijk concluderen dat het kind over een V-systeem beschikt. Precies die fout wordt standaard gemaakt ten opzichte van alle NLP-cliënt.
An example: Gleitman found that one of the first verbs that a blind child learns to use is 'see'. An NLP'er would falsely conclude that the child has a V-system. Exactly that standard error is made in relation to all NLP clients.
(Page 27)
Unfortunately Levelt does not tell us who this particular blind child is. And I'm not being facetious. Well, not entirely.
In the first place we have no idea what basis there is for Gleitman's claim.
- We don't know what size sample Gleitman used in the study
- We don't know whether the verb was "see" as in collect visual sense data from an external source", as in "to imagine some visual image in the mind's eye" or as in "to understand"
- We don't know why this is "one of the first verbs that a blind child learns to use". Is it simply because that is one of the first verbs they are taught?
- We don't know which country/countries were involved in the study (in what parts of the world/cultures does this claim hold true?)
- And without a reference we don't even know how long ago the study was carried out or where the results were published.
And in the second place, Levelt's statement is incorrect. A person's preferred representational system is established either by counting the number of each kind of predicate they use over a period of time (their "default PRS"), or by "tracking and matching" (to reflect a person's current PRS).
What verbs a person actually knows and/or the order in which they learnt them is quite simply irrelevant in this context.
Thus the claim that this is some kind of "standard error" is itself nothing more than yet another error.
If Still in Doubt - Keep Digging
And so it goes on. : Or to be frank, it gets a whole lot worse. Firstly Levelt says that:
Op één punt maken NLP-therapeuten een begin van goed gebruik van de taalkunde.
At one point, early on, NLP therapists were using linguistics properly.
(Page 27)
This is another highly problematical claim. Firstly because there have never been any genuine "NLP therapists", and secondly because the way linguistics were being used in the early development of the FoNLP (i.e. in the mid-late 1970s) has not given way to something different. If linguistics were being "us[ed] properly" in the early days of NLP, then people who are using authentic NLP-related patterns and techniques now must logically be "using linguistics properly now".
If some people who claim to be using genuine NLP aren't familiar with the linguistic aspects, or know the authentic material but have chosen to break away (for whatever reason) then the responsibility lies with them, and their behaviour does not diminish the value of "the real thing".
Then he gets critical:
Ze hebben op een wat slordige manier het klassieke onderscheid tussen oppervlaktestructuur en dieptestructuur van een zin overgenomen.
Though they have been somewhat sloppy in the way they have handled the traditional distinction between surface structure and deep structure of a sentence.
(Page 27)
And then he concedes that one of the meta model questions is actually valid (and without giving any evidence of the alleged sloppiness):
De dieptestructuur van een zin kan bepaalde argumenten of andere informatie bevatten die niet tot uiting komen in de oppervlaktestructuur. In de zin 'Het besluit werd genomen' staat niet uitgedrukt wíé dat besluit genomen heeft. Het kan wel eens zin hebben daar bij de cliënt navraag over te doen.
The deep structure of a sentence may contain certain arguments or other information that are not reflected in the surface structure. In the sentence "The decision was taken" there is no indication of who has taken that decision. It can sometimes make sense to ask the client about it.
(Page 27)
No Presuppositions in the NLP-related Literature?
So far, so good. But then Levelt returns to his complaint that "NLP" doesn't try to mimic neurolinguistics or psycholinguistics. On the subject of presuppositions he writes:
Over presupposities bestaat een flinke hoeveelheid psycholinguïstische literatuur.
There is a fair amount about presuppositions in the psycholinguistic literature.
(p.27)
He then gives the simple example of a linguistic presupposition (quoted above) but complains that:
Maar zulke, echt relevante literatuur vind ik in mijn stapeltje boeken niet genoemd.
However there is no mention of these things in my stack of books.
(Page 28)
But here again we have to wonder which books Dr Levelt had in his "stack of books" given that it obviously didn't include Bandler and Grinder's first book The Structure of Magic (1975). How can we be sure of that? Simply because the book in question contains two lists of linguistic presuppositional forms - five "Simple Presuppositions" (pages 211-212) and 24 "Complex Presuppositions" (pages 212-214).
These lists are repeated in several other books such as Bandler's Time for a Change (1993, pages 223-227).
On a slightly different note, same theme, Levelt complains that:
NLP heeft de mond vol van communicatie en interactie, maar nergens is een woord te vinden over conversatieanalyse.
NLP talks about communication and interaction, but nowhere is there one word about conversation analysis.
(Page 28)
Well, not by that name, perhaps, but there is plenty of material relating to the kinds of structures found in conversations - the various kinds of ambiguity such as "syntactic", "phonological" and "punctuational", for example.
It would seem, then, that once again Levelt is complaining because the FoNLP isn't just a version of neurolinguistics.
This reminds me of the American student who, in his Master's dissertation, claimed that "NLP" was at fault because it [sic] didn't claim to be able to tell when someone was lying, which of course it couldn't.
If that last paragraph left you confused them you probably did read it correctly. (If you weren't puzzled, you might want to read it again.)
In practice I think both complaints fit the description: "Damned if you do and damned if you don't".
From Flawed Criticism to Abuse
But then Levelt begins to get abusive:
NLP heeft gewoon lak aan de wetenschap. De grondleggers schrijven (in hun boek Reframing): 'Dus, als we toevallig iets noemen waarvan je uit wetenschappelijk onderzoek, of uit statistieken, weet dat het onjuist is, realiseer je dan dat we je een ander niveau van ervaring aanreiken'. Maar waarom dan toch al dat geflirt met de wetenschap? Ik weet maar één antwoord: voor de verkoop".
NLP doesn't really care about science. The founders write (in their book Reframing): "So, if we happen to mention something which you, from scientific research or statistics, know is incorrect, you must realize that we are providing a different level of experience". But why, then, all that flirting with science? I know only one answer: for sales.
(Page 28)
Firstly, as we saw earlier, though Levelt claimed that he was quoting from the book Reframing, the wording in his quote seems to be an exact match (allowing for translation) for a passage in Frogs into Princes (1979, page 7).
Secondly, having got the idea that the co-creators of NLP weren't interested in science, Levelt then asks about "all that flirting with science". What he doesn't bother to explain is what "flirtation with science" he is talking about.
In this section of the article Levelt is literally arguing against himself. How can he sensibly claim (note the attempts to reify NLP) that "NLP doesn't really care about science" and at the same time claim that "it" is "flirt[ing] with science", a statement for which he produces no evidence other than, presumably, his own inability to tell the difference between "Neuro-Linguistic" and "Neurolinguistics".
This kind of cheap abuse has no part in any article that claims to be a serious critique.
"NLP" - Psychotherapy? Religion? What Next?
Anyway, Levelt continues on this line for a while, consistently failing to tie his comments in to anything in authentic NLP, limiting himself to an attack on someone called Lucas Derks and NLP as an alleged form of psychotherapy.
But since genuine NLP is not, and never has been, a form of psychotherapy, this section of the article is a complete waste of time. Which is possibly why Levelt then tries a new line of attack with another completely unsubstantiated claim, that:
NLP is niet meer en niet minder dan een geloofsleer.
NLP is no more and no less than a religious doctrine.
(Page 28)
Once again Levelt provides no evidence to support his claim, and instead indulges in a direct ad hominem attack on Dr Wyatt Woodsmall.
Ik noemde Grinder, lid van het 'legendarische duo' Grinder en Bandler. Maar wat vindt u van Dr. Wyatt Woodsmall?
I mentioned Grinder, member of the "legendary duo" Bandler and Grinder. But what do you think about Dr. Wyatt Woodsmall?
(Page 28)
But who is Dr. Wyatt Woodsmall, and what on earth has he done to earn Levelt's scorn? Absolutely nothing.
Despite referring to him as "Een gezalfde dus" - an anointed one - Levelt's remarks appear to have been triggered by nothing more than a statement in a Society of NLP brochure that Woodsmall was the first person to be awarded a Master Trainer in NLP certificate by Richard Bandler.
This brochure further inflames Levelt's righteous anger, it seems by claiming that:
Wie zich verdiept in NLP ... verwerft verbazingwekkende nieuwe inzichten.
He who delves into NLP ... acquires amazing new insights.
(Page 28)
Now this description might indeed seem overly enthusiastic - to some people - but is it really completely out of the ball park? Apparently not, because in 1993, Dr B. M. Thompson, who rightly identified the focus of NLP as being on communication skills rather than on psychotherapy, stated that:
NLP, a fairly new and still evolving technology, has many techniques and insights that can help people use auditory and other sensory skills appropriately.
(Perspectives on Listening, page 154)
All the World's A Little Strange - 'Cept Me!
There's more in the article of a similar nature, but the whole essence of the piece seems to be expressed in the highly derogatory closing comment, which (in my opinion) suggests the mind set of the arrogant academic gazing down on the poor fools who don't share his view of the world:
Het grootste wonder van NLP is echter dat therapeuten, onderwijzers, orthopedagogen, mensen uit de wereld van de bedrijfscommunicatie zich in groten getale door zulke volstrekt ongefundeerde beweringen laten verlokken tot het volgen van allerhande kostbare cursussen.
The greatest miracle of NLP is that large numbers of therapists, teachers, special educators and people from the world of business communications are enticed into taking all sorts of expensive courses by such totally unfounded claims.
(Page 28)
Now it is perfectly fair comment to say that there are numerous cowboy enterprises out there offering spurious training courses in the elements of the FoNLP. And it is equally true that NLPers in general, starting with co-creators Bandler and Grinder, have shown little interest in producing any laboratory-tested evidence that the various techniques work.
But this is not exclusively true, and I have to confess that it hardly seems credible, to me, for anyone to make such a sweeping and derogatory criticism after producing an article as poorly researched and flawed as the one we've been examining here.
References
Bandler, R. W. (1993), Time for a Change. Meta Publications, Inc., Capitola, California, USA.
Bandler, R. W. and Grinder, J. (1975), The Structure of Magic. Science and Behavior Books, Inc., Palo Alto, California, USA.
Bandler, R. W. and Grinder, J. (1979), Frogs into Princes. Real People Press, Moab, USA. (UK edition page numbering used here.)
Dilts, R., Grinder, J., Bandler, R., and DeLozier, J. (1981), Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Volume 1: The Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience. Meta Publications, Cupertino, USA.
Korzybski, A. (1936), Neuro-Semantics and Neuro-Linguistic Mechanisms Extensionalization [sic]. General Semantics as a Natural Experimental Science. American Journal of Psychiatry, No. XCIII, July 1936. Pages 29-38).
Levelt, W. (1996), Beware of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. First published in the journal Intermediair, November 17, 1995; reprinted in Skepter magazine, Vol. 9, No. 3, pages 26-28*: September 1996.
Skepter article last accessed online at http://www.skepsis.nl/nlp.html on April 5, 2011.
Loftus, E. F., and Palmer, J. C. (1974), Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior No. 13: pages 585–9.
Lum, C. (2001), Scientific Thinking in Speech and Language Therapy. Psychology Press:Hove, UK.
Thompson, B. M. (1993), Listening Disabilities: The Plight of Many. In Perspectives on Listening, Wolvin, A. D. and Coakley, C. G. Ablex Publishing Corp., Norwood, USA.