Written and Produced
by Andy Bradbury
 
(author of "Develop Your NLP Skills", "Successful Presentation Skills", etc.)


Reviews: Part 1  
 
 


The Title
Name(s) of the Author(s)
ISBN Number [this will be for the paperback version except where the number ends with (Hb)]

The Art of the Possible
Dawna Markova
0-943233-12-7
Let me say, up front, that I'm not quite sure what this book is.  It may be edited transcripts of courses run by the author and her husband; it might be an autobiography; it might even be a study of the three main PTSs (Primary Thinking Styles) or Representational Styles - Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic.  Whichever it is, one thing is for sure - it's a real "love it or loathe it" text.

The style of the book is very much "aging hippy" with a plentiful supply of marginal quotes from such diverse sources as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Martha Graham, Rumi, Kahil Gibran, J. Krishnamurti .... well, you get the picture.

So, if you're happy with that rather breathlessly enthusiastic style of writing, there is certainly plenty of information here on VAK and how, in Ms Markova's view, the 6 possible variations affect the way we think, learn, form relationships, etc.  If you don't happen to like that style there's more than enough of it to get you reaching for a barf bag.

On the upside, the author makes it abundantly clear that we need to take all three of the PTSs into account and their relative dominance.  On the downside there is no clear emphasis on the fluidity of PTSs, so that novice readers might well get the impression that if you're VAK (for example) at this moment then you're VAK for life.
I'm also less than impressed by the author's failure to acknowledge any NLP sources, either in the text or in the rather limited Bibliography.  Indeed, the back cover blurb carries the specific statement:

"According to Dr. Markova, each person's brain organizes, remembers and creates using three different pathways - auditory, visual and kinesthetic."
If I didn't know any better I'd be tempted to draw the conclusion that Ms Markova (Ph.D) had actually invented this stuff.  But I'd be seriously off beam, wouldn't I!
Any recommendation would be heavily qualified * * *

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Be the Person You Want to Be
John J. Emerick, Jr.
0-7615-0806-6
In a little over 300 pages, John (a qualified NLP trainer) uses NLP to present NLP, covering most of the basic ideas associated with NLP, and taking some of them to a level of detail that other books often overlook.  Indeed, although the book is essentially a beginner's guide, it includes some material that even experienced NLPers are likely to find thought provoking.

Unfortunately the content is rather let down by an unevenness of style.  It starts rather slowly, and it isn't until Chapter 4 that it really starts to reflect the author's expertise.  The next 200 pages are (mainly) good, solid material, but the author seems to have come upon Chapter 10 with the realisation that he had lots of material left to cover, and not much room in which to do it justice.  For me, the last 60-70 pages, interesting though they are, could have done with some expansion - possibly at the cost of a corresponding tightening up of that middle section.

My biggest reservation about the book is the headstrong, even inflammatory, nature of the advice in Chapter 9.  I have no experience of American management, but I'm quite sure that answering a British boss's complaint with a comment like "... frankly you don't have the key to my brain ..." is more likely to inflame the situation than deflect the abuse.  I appreciate and applaud the message John is putting forward - that verbal abuse is best handled by dealing with the underlying presuppositions rather than the surface jibes - but I seriously question whether the suggestions he offers would have the desired effect in real life.

Despite the criticism, I think it's fair to say that this book achieves most of what it sets out to do, and I have particular empathy with John's assertion that one of the key messages of NLP is: take responsibility for everything you do.
Given the qualifications expressed above, Recommended * * * * *

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Change Your Mind (and Keep the Change)
Steve & Connirae Andreas
0-911226-29-X
This book is actually a continuation of an earlier book based on Bandler's 1982 seminars: "Using Your Brain for a Change" (see the main list).
Having said that, and whilst they willingly acknowledge their indebtedness to Bandler, this is very much the Andreas' own book.
In 1987, when it first came out, much of the content of this book was pretty new and novel - Timelines, the Swish pattern, eliciting criteria (a much overlooked skill) and submodalities - and it is interesting to see how relevant it still is.
This is definitely a book most people will find something to learn from, either among the "life skills" sections mentioned above, or the more overtly therapeutically-oriented sections on compulsions, destructive behaviour, etc.
For newcomers I might mention that this book doesn't have the same chatty style of "Using Your Brain ..." As Steve and Connirae explain in the Introduction:

This book is more technological than most, because we know that detailed technology gets results, and that the "coldest" technology can be delivered with humanity and respect.

(Note: The authors do make the point that each their books are laid out, and are best read, in sequence (ie Chapter 1, Chapter 2 ...etc.). This book will also make more sense if read after "Using Your Brain...")
Highly recommended. * * * * * *

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Doing RET - Albert Ellis in Action
Yankura & Dryden
0-8261-6650-4  (Hb)
RET - Rational-Emotive Therapy - is "a philosophically-based approach to psychotherapy.  As such it views an individual's personal philosophy of life as being the main factor in determining whether that individual leads an existence filled with maximum pleasure and self-actualization, or one fraught with needless emotional misery and seld-defeating behavior."

Albert Ellis, the founder/creator of RET in the 1950s claims his ideas were 'fathered' by such disparate characters as Marcus Aurelius (ancient Stoic philosopher) and Alfred Adler (20th century psychologist, one-time disciple of Freud).  The methodology, or at least its offspring - Cognitive Therapy (see Feeling Good, also on this list) - has been more than adequately validated by recent research.  Which kind of a puzzle for NLPers, since Ellis 'trashes' many of the basic precepts of NLP in this small but information-packed book.
He has no time for hypnosis as a therapeutic tool because he thinks that "the best route to wards effecting meaningful and lasting modifications in their personal philosophies [is through] 'hard work and practice' ."  Having said that, Ellis himself is a certified hypnotherapist and is willing to use hypnosis within RET for certain clients.

So why am I willing to recommend a book which is clearly at odds with NLP?  Basically, because I believe it is often possible to learn valuable lessons about a given subject by understanding what it is *not*.  It is instructive, for example, to compare the trance induction by Ellis (pages 121-122) with the descriptions of Ericksonian hypnosis in Uncommon Therapy, Patterns 1 & 2 and Training Trances (all reviewed in this list).
By the same token it is interesting to note that Ellis (who was more or less Erickson's contemporary) actually has some techniques in common with Erickson - such as the use of metaphors and stories (page 82ff), though they are not necessarily executed in an Ericksonian fashion.

As a lively and thorough explanation of RET and Ellis's own views and philosophy (much of it through interviews and transcripts of therapy sessions) - Recommended * * * *

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Dynamic Learning
Dilts & Epstein
0-916990-37-X  (Hb)
Education in the US and the UK - and plenty of other places, for all I know - is currently rooted in ideas and techniques more appropriate to 1898 rather than 1998.
A new approach to education - in general and in the specifics - is an increasingly desperate necessity as we head into the 21st century, and this book contributes many useful ideas to that evolution.  Unfortunately that is only part of the story.

As the primary author, key NLP figure Robert Dilts, explains in the Introduction, "a major portion of [the] book [is] drawn from transcripts of [the] Dynamic Learning Seminar" run by Dilts and his late friend and partner, Todd Epstein.
As a transcript I would guess that this is very well written and well edited representation of the auditory content of the seminar.  But the spoken word isn't all that a seminar is about.  And simply transcribing the spoken content of a seminar doesn't necessarily make a good book.

Much as I enjoyed this book, coming from a lengthy background in teaching and training, my final feeling was one of dissatisfaction.
As a teaching guide to Dynamic Learning, despite the numerous exercises (repeated in an appendix that runs to just over 50 pages!) I didn't feel that the discussion went deep enough to give me a solid, transferable understanding of the ideas behind DL.
As a study of the application of NLP to the field of education, on the other hand, I didn't feel that the discussion was sufficiently wide-ranging.

Having said that, there's a lot of good stuff in this book, including substantial sections on:

  • Memory Strategies
  • Spelling
  • Learning Languages, and
  • Creative Writing

... just four of a total of 11 chapters and 8 appendices.
Whilst I can see how experienced teachers who want to know how NLP can enrich their existing practice, might find this quite a useful intoduction, I still feel that good editing (rather than slavish adherence to the transcript format) could have made this a far better book.
So, a basically enthusiastic but qualified recommendation * * * * *

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The Effective Delivery of Training using NLP
Ted Garratt
0-7494-2142-8
In the right hands this could have been an outstanding book.  Unfortunately Mr Garratt's were not the right hands.  Quite apart from anything else I suspect that Mr Garratt's own training experience is limited to so-called 'soft' subjects - team building, interpersonal skills, etc. - as many of the 'case studies' seem to involve breaking off from the main course to do a little trainee counselling.  Very 'touchy-feely', but none too practical when the point of a course is to transfer a specific skill set in a very limited time span.

My first doubts regarding the book were aroused by the cover blurb statement:

"For the first time NLP and Training methods are brought together in a well-researched, easy-to-read practical handbook."
  • "For the first time..."?  The Effective Delivery... wasn't published until 1997.  What about Training with NLP (1994) and The Excellent Trainer (1996) amongst others?
  • "well-researched"?  By whom?  Apart from the sections on learning styles and humour, almost every single one of the references to scientific studies is mirrored in the bibliography of The Learning Brain (Eric Jensen, 1994).  Is it pure coincidence that Garratt only acknowledges Jensen as his source in those cases where Jensen himself hasn't given a detailed reference?

I'm also extremely wary of anyone who claims to be concerned about people yet describe employees as HR (Human Resources!).

Nor were these doubts assuaged when I started reading the book itself.  It seems that Mr Garratt believes in the principle that if you sling enough mud at a wall, some of it is bound to stick.  Not exactly of the kind of 'elegant' solution that NLP is intended to produce.
To put it quite simply, this author (whose level of qualification in NLP is never stated) gives very little evidence that he has the skills he is purporting to teach.  For example:

  • The intended audience for the book is never specified
  • NLP jargon is almost always introduced without explanation.  On one notable occasion the author goes so far as to say, in so many words: 'You won't understand this but I'm going to tell you anyway'!
  • The reader is frequently instructed to do things they obviously cannot do (e.g. an exercise that includes the instruction to "Use all the available NLP techniques..." when not one technique has yet been described)
  • Many of the alleged explanations don't actually explain anything at all unless you already know enough NLP not to need the explanation

    With regard to specific NLP techniques, etc.:

  • There is one brief reference to 'closure', but nested metaphors/nested loops are never mentioned, let alone explained
  • On the subject of meta programs, 'convincer modes' are only mentioned as an afterthought (described as 'convincer patterns'), and 'convincer channels' aren't mentioned at all
  • The author regularly uses negative re-inforcement such as "This is actually harder than it sounds" ...
  • ... and the whole subject of using negative commands (i.e. "Don't do xyz") seems to be a closed book as far as Mr Garratt is concerned
  • etc., etc.

There are, to be sure, some useful points in this book.  The concise description of the modelling process (page 42), for example, is possibly the best I've come across - again, assuming that you are already familiar with NLP!

So, my difficulty in recommending this book can be summed up quite simply:

  • If you are a trainer with little or no previous knowledge of NLP then this book is so poorly presented it is more likely to confuse than enlighten
  • If you already have a reasonable grounding in NLP this text will tell you nothing you don't already know

If you really want to learn about NLP and training, and you already have some experience as a trainer, then Di Kamp's book The Excellent Trainer is light years better, and only a couple of £££s more expensive.  Alternatively, O'Connor and Seymour's Training with NLP is also a far better (basic) text, and considerably cheaper!
Not Recommended.

(Both The Excellent Trainer and Training with NLP are included in these reviews.)

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The Excellent Trainer - Putting NLP to Work
Di Kamp
0-566-07694-2 (Hb)
The more I read of this book, the more I was reminded of John Emerick's Be the Person You Want to Be (see above).
It wasn't so much the content as the style which led me to make the comparison.  Both books use NLP to teach NLP, both authors clearly care deeply about their subject, both authors place a great deal of emphasis on personal responsibility, and both authors obviously have a real respect for their audience.

Ms Kamp makes it quite clear that this is book designed for readers who already have training eperience and who want to add NLP skills to their toolset.  Read from that point of view I personally found the scene-setting in the first three chapters over-long.
Having said that, once the book gets into its stride it contains a wealth of useful ideas and guidance (facilitation?), covering subjects such as: what makes a trainer "excellent"?, applying NLP to course planning and design, and self-development for trainers.  It ends with a set of 11 activities where 'NLP' ideas can be smoothly integrated into almost any kind of standard training environment.
Apart from the rather strange decision to include Robbins, A. and Covey, S.R. in the remarkably short Recommended Reading list (just 6 books in total), I feel entirely comfortable recommending this book to anyone interested in these subjects (training and NLP) regardless of their existing level of skill and knowledge.

To give just a hint of the author's style let me quote a very short passage from quite early on in the book:

"When someone asks 'What do you do?' and you say you're a trainer, they automatically ask 'What in?' - and we answer!"

If this rings any bells at all, no matter how faint, I believe you'll really enjoy this book.
Highly recommended - I'd go so far as to say that no training company/department library should be without it -     *  *   *  *   *  *

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Feeling Good
David Burns
0-451-16776-7
This is a book on Cognitive Therapy rather than NLP.  It's included here because it includes some useful information on cognitive contortions - deletion, distortion, generalisation, "mind reading", etc.  Especially recommended if you're interested in the theraputic aspects of NLP.

Therapists may care to note that a study of the use of Cognitive Therapy (Antonuccio, DeNelsky and Danton (1995)) discovered that this therapy - on it's own - was more effective than either standard drug treatments or drug treatment plus cognitive therapy in the management of depression.  Effective in the sense that there is a higher likelihood of a removal of the symptoms and less likelihood of relapse. Recommended:     *  *   *  *

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Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution
Watzlawick, Weakland and Fisch
W.W. Norton 0-393-01104-6 (Hb)
Although the copyright on this work was assigned to the publishers in 1974, the publishing details page gives no indication how many printings/editions this book has been through.  Not that it really matters, I guess, since any book that stays in print for over a quarter of a century has got to be doing something for someone.

In case the names don't automatically ring any bells, the three authors were responsible for setting up the Brief Therapy Center at the MRI (Mental Research Institute) at Palo Alto - where Gregory Bateson did some of his most influential work.
What this book shows is that these authors were, at the time the book was written, at the same cutting edge that NLP was about to explore, on subjects like first and second order change, reframing, etc.

The book is divided into three parts:

  1. Part One: Persistence and Change
  2. Part Two: Problem Formation
  3. Part Three: Problem Resolution

For all practical purposes, we might also say that the book is in two halves - Part 1: The Theory (which includes both Part One and Part Two as listed above), and Part 2: The Practice (Part Three from the list above).
I make this second distinction because I suspect that many readers may like Part 1 or Part 2, but not both.

For the sort of reader who will put together a new computer, or any other gadget, without even checking to see if it came with a user guide, the first part of Change may seem to go into far too much detail, several times over.  This was certainly my own impression - but then I write user guides, I don't often read them 8¬).
All I can say here is that you will need to have a reasonable understanding of the material in chapters 1-6 in order to get the best out of Chapters 7-11.

The last five chapters, on the other hand, are entirely practical and full of practical examples.  I suspect that most readers will thoroughly enjoy this second part of the book, packed, as it is, with examples, how to's, and so on.

Although it might seem that a book that pre-dates NLP is unlikely to be worth reading this long after the event, I'd say that Change makes several important observations that I've yet to see mentioned on any formal NLP course.
For example, I guess even the newest NLP practitioner knows what the meta modal questions are.  But do we always know how to ask them appropriately?  As the authors observe, if we ask a client "what specifically would have to happen (or stop happening) so that they" could achieve a (poorly defined) outcome then we are unlikely to generate any benefit since we are actually "asking the wrong question in the first place."

All in all, even though the first half of the book was not entirely to my personal taste, I'd say this would be valuable reading for anyone who wants to understand the practicalities of implementing NLP techniques.  Indeed, it may well provide you with a new view on NLP in general.
Highly Recommended       *  *   *  *   *  *

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The Fifth Discipline Field Book
Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross and Smith
1-85788-060-9
Subtitled "Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organisation", this is the follow-up to Peter Senge's best seller "The Fifth Discipline" which offered his views on how to build an effective "learning organisation". The five disciplines that the earlier book described are:

  1. Personal mastery
  2. Mental models
  3. Shared vision
  4. Team learning
  5. Systems thinking

Clearly this is not an NLP book, as such, and in many ways that makes the contents of the "172 pieces of writing by 67 authors" all the more interesting.
As the list above suggests, the Fieldbook touchs on and overlaps the areas that NLP addresses at many points, and one of the benefits of this book is the number of real-life stories and studies, which provide a wealth of material for anyone interested in modelling organisational behaviour.
Highly recommended, especially for anyone interested in the business applications of NLP:     *  *   *  *   *

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Andy Bradbury can be contacted at: bradburyac@hotmail.com