Metaphors in Mind
James Lawley & Penny Tompkins
The Developing Company Press   ISBN 0-9538751-0-5
As Ernest Rossi (Milton Erickson's long time collaborator) is quoted as saying on the back cover of this book, it is an in depth study of how we can "[help] people learn how to facilitate their own creativity in solving their own problems in their own way."

In essence, this is a detailed introduction to the use of David Groves' therapeutic methodology known as Clean Language, referred to here as Symbollic Modelling.  Though when I say "introduction" I mean a thorough grounding - not just a quick "once round the houses and home for tea"-type overview.

It seems to me that the whole Clean Language approach is essentially based on the kind of thinking summed up in Milton Erickson's observation that clients already possess all the resources they need to find their own solutions, and it demonstrates this fact by the remarkable tactic of using questions which reflect back the client's own words not by interpretation but by almost word-for-word repetition.  For example:

"Client:         I'd like to have more energy because I feel very tired.
 Therapist:   And you'd like to have more energy because you feel very tired.  And when you'd like to have more energy, that's more energy like what?"
(page 253)

I should explain here that the structure of the therapist's responses are in no way haphazard.  There are thirty "clean questions", clearly explained in the course of the book and collected together in an appendix for easy reference.
Every question starts with "and" (to create continuity) follwed by whatever format is appropriate to its purpose - locating symbols, identifying relationships, moving the client forwards or backwards in time, and so on.

Even after watching a couple of David Groves' therapy sessions on video I find myself torn in two directions over this methodology.  On the one hand I have no doubts that the technique can produce excellent and consistent results.  At the same time, however, I find the actual process quite mind numbing, and I cannot imagine using it myself.  Nor can I imagine it being very practical outside a purely therapeutic context, not least because it can so easily seem like the assertiveness technique called "broken record" taken to the nth degree.
For example, though I have seen clean language recommended for use by coaches and managers, can you imagine how this might work out in practice?

"Manager:    Come in Simpkins and take a seat.  And what would you like to have happen?  (The second sentence is the standard opening)
 Employee:   Well, like I told you when I asked for this meeting, I think I'm due for a raise.
 Manager:    And you think you are due for a raise.  And when you think you are due for a raise, what kind of a raise is that raise?
 Employee:   Pardon?
 Manager:    And you think you are due for a raise.  And when you think you are due for a raise, what kind of a raise is that raise?
 Employee:   I want more money, of course."

Okay, I'm being a bit flippant in that example, but the fact remains that the way a therapist and client converse is very different from the way we talk to our boss, our colleagues and our subordinates (if any) in the workplace.  Using pure clean language techniques in conversations at work seems to me to be tantamount to using meta model questions without any verbal padding - ts more likely to get you labelled as an irritating "nut" than to facilitate greater understanding.

And having said that, what I can see is that learning the clean language question set, and the theory behind clean language, might serve very much the same use as does the meta model in providing a set of guidelines we can use to track whether we are actually understanding what someone else is saying to us, or whether we're simply hearing the words.

On this basis I have no hesitation in recommending this book to any therapist, counsellor, etc. I would also recommend it, though a little less strongly perhaps, to anyone who wants to get a new perspective on what happens when we try to explain to each other what is really going through our heads (metaphorically speaking!).
The book is well written and well presented (it's a self-published project, but I challenge anyone to distinguish the book from a first class publishing house production), with plenty of relevant diagrams and, especially important as far as I'm concerned, lots of realistic dialogue fragments and transcripts of two full sessions.

My only other reservaton is that I cannot see anyone really getting a grip on these techniques without some practical experience, and I think some practical exercises would add enormously to the practical value of the book.  I would therefore recommend that you either read the book with a friend, so you can try out the various ideas on each other.  Also, the authors run workshops on various aspects of "symbollic modelling", and I suspect that these would be well worth attending to become really proficient in these techniques.
For therapists and members of related groups: Highly Recommended   *  *  *  *  *  *
For self development, Strongly Recommended   *  *  *  *  *

Consulting with NLP
Lewis Walker
The Radcliffe Medical Press   ISBN 1-85775-995-8
As regular readers of these reviews will know, one of my tests of a book on NLP is how it deals with Dilts' so-called "logical levels" and "neurological levels" models.  Not least because I find that this tends to be a pretty good indication as to whether the book as a whole is likely to have anything useful to say, or whether it is likely to be just another uncritical, ill-informed regurgitation of the standard stuff that characterises so many books on NLP.  (If this seems like a harsh judgement I can only say that it has never failed me yet.)  So naturally I applied the test to this book, and it failed miserably.

The first thing to note about this book is the quite ludicrous price.  Though the main text is only 266 pages, with another 28 pages of Bibliography, summaries of the meta model, meta programs and elicitation questions, etc., the book retails at a staggering £27.95 - in the US, $53.00!  If it were a highly specialised book this might be excusable.  For a book that is basically nothing but yet another introduction to NLP, and an extremely lop-sided introduction at that, this is simply daft.
To get some idea of how outrageous this is, compare the price with Joseph O'Connor's NLP Workbook, which is larger, offers a far more coherent description of NLP, and costs approximately half as much (plus a further 30% off at Amazon.uk.co at the time of writing).  So even if Consulting with NLP was a good introduction to NLP, it still wouldn't be worth the cover price.

One reason why the book falls so short of being useful seems to be described in the book itself.  Thus, in the section where we are introduced to the general/specific meta program, we read:

"People who are general often need to present the big picture first before they can talk about the details. ... Unless you are processing at the same level, it may seem as if they are jumping from one topic to another, often with tenuous links."
(page 78.  Italics as in the original.)

Which describes the layout of this book to a "T".
First we get the "big picture", namely, this book does not deal with the whole of NLP but with the particular view of NLP developed by Robert Dilts.  And since Dilts' approach often deviates completely from authentic NLP this results in a pretty biased viewpoint of the subject.
(The choice to go down this road is particularly incongruous given that late on in the book we are also introduced to Ken Wilbur's Four Quadrants model (though with one axis not labelled, (huh?), a model which actually serves to illustrate the essential confusion of Dilts' "logical levels" models.  Indeed, there is considerable irony in the passage where we are told:

"None of the ways [of viewing experience] have the whole truth, yet when taken together the sum is greater than the parts [sic].  Sometimes we focus too much attention on one area to the exclusion of the rest."
(page 192.  Italics as in the original)

Emotions and Beliefs
Frijda, Manstead and Bem (eds.)
Cambridge University Press   ISBN 0-521-78734-3
This book consists of nine papers with titles such as: The influence of emotions on beliefs; Feeling is believing?  The role of processing strategies in mediating affective influences on beliefs; Anxiety, cognitive biases, and beliefs; and so on.  Its purpose, as summarised by the editors at the end of the introductory chapter, is as follows:

"We hope that this volume will help to convince those working in the neighbouring subdisciplines of cognitive, clinical, and emotion psychology that the impact of emotion on beliefs has been unduly neglected in the past, and that the 4existence of this book will excite their intellectual curiosity and thereby stimulate further theorizing and research on the way in which emotions can influence beliefs."
(pages 8-9)

Which brings me neatly to my only criticism.

This book provides an excellent overview of recent developments in the study of emotions and how they interact with our beliefs, a subject of great importance not only to psychologists but to an increasingly sophisticated lay audience.  NLPers, in particular, have a very practical interest in this subject since it helps to bridge the false division between what Wyatt Woodsmall calls the "Hearts and Flowers" (Dr. McCoy) and "Vulcan" (Mr Spock) schools of NLP.  So what is my criticism?  Simply this, that almost without exception the writers adopt styles that make their work unnecessarily obscure to readers outside the jargon-ridden halls of academe.

It is unfortunately the case, as demonstrated by J. Scott Armstrong, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School [of business], that obscurantism is often highly valued in academic writing, a view that can be summarised as "if I don't understand it, it must be great"!
In some areas of study this trend can no doubt develop and become established as the norm without anyone spotting what is going on.  It is rather hard to understand how psychologists can let this happen, however, unless it is the case that they simply aren't concerned to communicate with people outside their own little world.
I have no idea what the explanation is, and I'm certainly not suggesting a switch to a totally populist approach, but as an ex-technical author in the IT field, with a degree in social psychology, I know it is possible to communicate complex, specialist ideas much more clearly than is the case in this book.

I would like to have said that this book is a great read AND contains a great deal of very pertinent and useful information about how our emotions interact with our mental maps.  It would be more accurate, however, to say that this is a fairly difficult read BUT in the end it is worth the effort BECAUSE it contains a great deal of very pertinent and useful information about how our emotions interact with our mental maps - for anyone who has the patience to dig it out.

On the basis of the quality and quantity of the information, rather than the quality of the writing, I rate this book
Strongly recommended:     *  *  *  *  *  *