Written and Produced
by Andy Bradbury
(author of "Develop Your NLP Skills", etc.)
Reviews: Part 34
Written and Produced
by Andy Bradbury
(author of "Develop Your NLP Skills", etc.)
Reviews: Part 34
The Title
Name(s) of the Author(s)
Publisher and ISBN Number [this will be for the paperback version except where the number ends with (Hb)]
Healing ADD
Thom Hartmann
Underwood Books ISBN 1-887424-37-7
I have to start by saying that what I knew about ADD before reading this book would have fitted on the back of a postage stamp and still have left room for all the important bits of Darwin's Origin of Species. I have therefore had to rely on the opinions of people who have direct knowledge of ADD/ADHD - from personal experience, dealing with ADD clients or through a relative or close friend - for views on that side of things.
It is perhaps unfortunate that after a fairly liesurely introduction and VAK preference test (Chapter 1) the book launches into a virulent rant in Chapter 2 which often overplys it's hand. For example, one paragraph starts:
"The third (possibly ADD) group, who Hitler felt represented the greatest threat to his new world order, were those 'whom natural gifts and/or education have taught to think independently, ...' [ The quote is from Hitler's book Mein Kampf ]"
(page 21)
Then, despite having offered absolutely no justification that ADD was in any way involved, at the start of the very next paragraph the author's rhetoric has carried him so far forward that he writes:
"Hitler knew he had to do something about these ADD rebels and freethinkers."
(page 21)
This kind of exaggeration serves no valid purpose. Indeed, there is a danger that it will actually antagonise any intelligent reader who spots the pretty blatant attempt at propaganda.
Which would be great shame. Because once the author has vented his spleen, the rest of the book is, in my opinion, entirely positive, sensible and well-written.
Or take the chapter Choosing States (pages 46-47) which is good in parts, yet in the section on Interview states offers a technique for creating an appropriate state which looks vaguely like the Circle of Excellence technique, but makes no mention of anchoring the resulting state in any way!
The book's subtitle reads:
"Simple Exercises That Will change Your Daily Life."
and this is one thing I'm really not sure about.
The exercises, like much of the text, are essentially NLP-based. But Hartmann doesn't always make it entirely clear when he is setting up an exercise. Nor are the instructions particularly explicit in every case. Is this likely to make it harder for someone with no previous experience of NLP to actually carry out the exercises?
It's my guess that after the racy start, Hartmann has deliberately gone for a rather laid back style of presentation which he presumably believes is suited to the kind of people with most to gain from reading the book. Since he has a child of his own who has been diagnosed as having ADD. Combined that with the fact that he had worked with literally thousands of children and adults with ADD over a period of 17 years at the time the book was originally published, I'm prepared to suppose he has some idea of what he's doing by now.
So, with the qualification that I neither have ADD, nor know anyone first hand who has been diagnosed as such, I'm not convinced that this does provide a useful slant on how to apply NLP techniques to ADD, whatever the nature of ADD turns out to be (Hartmann lists 5 possibilities in Chapter 4).
Recommendation: Not necessarily very useful to the NLP community as a a whole, and not much evidence that it would be useful for anyone involved with or having ADD, either. * *
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Virginia Satir: The Patterns of her magic
Steve Andreas
Real People Press ISBN 0-911226-38-9
To put it bluntly, this is another of the books which I would find hard to justify if I were their publisher.
Which is a shame. Because parts of the book could have been the basis for a very useful book on presuppostions - the linguistic structures, that is, rather than the specific set of "NLP presuppositions."
What we actually get is primarily the annotated transcript of a videotaped session of Satir at work. Taken in conjunction with the DVD (as it is now), the book may be a very useful guide to what's happening onscreen. Although even then, due to the ill-considered layout of the transcript (see comments below), I'm not convinced that would be true.
And taken on it's own it is my feeling that the book is basically another waste of good trees.
When this book was written (copyright date 1991), a very similar book - Satir Step by Step - by Satir herself (with Michele Baldwin) had already been out for about 8 years.
I mention this because the earlier book also included a transcript of Satir at work - annotated by both Baldwin and Satir. If this book, taken on it's own, had furthered our understanding of Satir's work then it would have been a useful addition to any NLP library. But in my opinion it comes nowhere near achieving that aim. On the contrary, the 90 pages of annotated transcript is in many places so poorly formatted that it is literally a strain just to figure out what's going on. Rather than try to explain this in words I've taken a single page to illustrate the problem, firstly as it appears in the book, and then as it could have been formatted to make it, in my opinion, "reader friendly":
| 14:25 VIRGINIA: Next time she says that, you can bet--
because you've already developed a system where she's going to say
that, and then you are going to have to do whatever you do. Now, the
next time she says that -- (Virginia turns to Linda's "mother") Would
you please tell her that she's too skinny? (Since Virginia has reframed
the mother's behaviour in general as meaning "she had a tough life"
rather than meaning something bad about Linda, Linda is able to
feel new feelings toward her mother. Virginia's next task is to con-
nect these feelings to the mother's specific behaviors that used to
make Linda feel bad.) (Virginia begins to describe the cybernetic loop of stimulus- response between Linda and her mother.She then shifts to enacting it, which will give Linda a more intense personal understanding [asso- ciation]. This will also give Virginia an opportunity to intervene and change Linda's response if it's not yet resourceful, or if it's in a form that would not be likely to get a useful response from her mother.) |
| 14:34 "MOTHER": You're too skinny. |
| 14:36 VIRGINIA: Now (Linda) would you go up to her (ges- turing toward her "mother") and thank her for noticing you [linkage and direct command]. (Many people would quickly accept this mean- ing reframe and command, even though it's a jump from the foregoing discussion about understanding her mother's behavior as a result of her difficult childhood. When Linda hesitates, Virginia pushes her toward her "mother." Linda looks to the side and appears reluctant, but does go over to her "mother" and takes her hands. The group laughs. Up to this point Linda has quickly and willingly done every- thing Virginia has asked her to do. However, Linds balks at Virginia's attempt to reframe her mother's comments as evidence that she notices her; Virginia persists.), |
| 14:40 VIRGINIA: Take her hand and thank her for noticing you [direct command], and then say, "You know I've been meaning to share [this] with you before. I know you've often noticed me like this, but I would just like to tell you how I feel about my body." But first you thank her for her noticing you [direct command], and then say you'd like to share how you feel about your body, because I think she thinks you're going to die if you don't eat enough. |
In addition to the confusing layout the formatting is inconsistent. For example, in section 14:36 the phrase marked as "linkage", and in section 14:40 the phrase marked as "direct command", are not italicised, though they are elsewhere - see the "direct command" in section 14:40, for instance. And surely the two instructions to Linda to tell her mother how she feels about her body are also "direct commands"?
Here is what I believe is a more reader friendly format:
| 14:25 VIRGINIA: Next time she says that , you can bet - because you've already developed a system where she's going to say that, and then you are going to have to do whatever you do. Now, the next time she says that - (Virginia turns to Linda's "mother") Would you please tell her that she's too skinny? |
Since Virginia has reframed the mother's behaviour in general as meaning "she had a tough life" rather than meaning something bad about Linda, Linda is able to feel new feelings toward her mother. Virginia's next task is to connect these feelings to the mother's specific behaviors that used t make Linda feel bad. Virginia begins to describe the cybernetic loop of stimulus-response between Linda and her mother. She then shifts to enacting it, which will give Linda a more intense personal understanding [association]. This will also give Virginia an opportunity to intervene and change Linda's response if it's not yet resourceful, or if it's in a form that would not be likely to get a useful response from her mother. |
| 14:34 "MOTHER": You're too skinny. |
|
| 14:36 VIRGINIA: Now (Linda) would you go up to her [linkage] (gesturing toward her "mother") and thank her for noticing you [direct command] |
Many people would quickly accept this meaning reframe and command, even though it's a jump from the foregoing discussion about understanding her mother's behavior as a result of her difficult childhood. When Linda hesitates, Virginia pushes her toward her "mother." Linda looks to the side and appears reluctant, but does go over to her "mother" and takes her hands. The group laughs. Up to this point Linda has quickly and willingly done every-thing Virginia has asked her to do. However, Linda balks at Virginia's attempt to reframe her mother's comments as evidence that she notices her; Virginia persists. |
| 14:40 VIRGINIA: Take her hand and thank her for noticing you [direct command], and then say, "You know I've been meaning to share [this] with you before. I know you've often noticed me like this, but I would just like to tell you how I feel about my body." [direct command] But first you thank her for her noticing you [direct command] and then say you'd like to share how you feel about your body, [direct command] because I think she thinks you're going to die if you don't eat enough. |
Of course this kind of layout would have taken up more space. But this interview - apparently the whole reason for publishing the book at all - is only 90 pages in length. So even if the revised layout made the interview section approximately 2/3rds longer (i.e. a further 64 pages, because the printing costs of a book are normally based on multiples of 16 pages), this would still bring the total length of the book to less than 260 pages. Still over 20 pages shorter than Satir Step by Step.
In addition to which it would make it a damn sight easier to appreciate the flow of Satir at work, and (I imagine) would make it considerably easier to follow the interview if one was reading the text whilst watching the DVD version.
Another flaw in the transcript, in my opinion, is the poor calibre of the explanations. I didn't bother to count them, but at one point it felt like nearly every comment started with "This sentence presupposes ..." For all I know - I think I must have segued into a kind of death wish somewhere about this time - the commentary may be entirely accurate. But the unrelenting repetition of this one idea created, for me, the impression that: "Virginia Satir only has one technique - using presuppositions." Again it might have felt quite different if I had been watching the video and reading a well laid-out document, but on both counts that isn't what the book offers. And if the book is offered separately from the DVD then I believe it should reflect that fact.
It seems quite amazing, for example, that someone with such a long history in NLP would overlook just how much crucial non-verbal information is available in the videoed recording, but absent from this transcript. As the saying goes, a throwaway description like "(Virginia gestures towards Linda's 'mother')," for example, patently raises several questions, and answers none!
All of which belies the quality and usefulness of The Major Patterns of Satir's Work, which occupies pages 1-41, Appendix I: Presuppositions (pages 139-152), and Appendix II: Physical Contact (pages 153-159). All of which I found easy to read, interesting and genuinely informative, though not as "complete" as they might have been.
I accept Steve Andreas' comments about the importance/effectiveness of the skilled use of presuppositions, along with his claim that their value is largely overlooked.
All the more pity, therefore that the book doesn't even describe the 29 forms, as set out in The structure of Magic 1. Let alone provide details of how each one can be used to best effect. Given the popularity of An Insider's Guide to Submodalities, despite being a relatively small book (less than 120 pages); and given that Steve is his own publisher and can suit himself what he writes and publishes, it seems to me it might have been a far better policy to publish the transcript on it's own, and a guide to the structure, use, etc. of presuppositions on its own, and let readers decide for themselves which they want - if not both.
With all of that in mind, despite the "good bits," my recommendation is: If you have the time and the money, read this and Satir Step by Step If you're only going to read one or the other I'd go for Satir Step by Step (see review elsewhere on this site) rather than this. p; In my opinion it is clearly superior.
Recommendation: * *
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NLP Coaching
Phil Hayes
Open University Press ISBN 0-33-22059-2
According to an "infobubble" in RadioTimes (3-9 Nov. 2007, page 58)*:
"High School Musical was just the working title, but no one could think of a better one"
(* RadioTimes is a popular weekly guide to radio and TV programmes in the UK.)
Which is fair enough, since the central motif in the film is a high school musical.
I mention this, simply because I understand from the author of this book that NLP Coaching was likewise a working title which got left in place. In this case, however, the reason appears to be (IMO) that either no one gave it a second thought when it came to publication time. Or because they did notice, but no one could think of a better one.
If the first reason is correct then the title is apparently inaccurate through carelessness. If the second reason is more accurate then whoever was ultimately responsible for deciding on the title (I'm assuming that someone had to commission and sign off on that cover, and someone higher up the ladder had to OK it) apparently didn't care enough about the accuracy of the title to change it.
Because unlike a the products of a certain UK manufacturer of woodstains and varnishes, the contents of the book certainly does not do "what it says on the tin." For example:
So at least the back cover blurb is accurate, after a fashion. That is to say, the book does NOT, in fact, give "a clear description of what executive coaching actually is," (in the text executive coaching is simply lumped in with several other kinds of coaching in a list on page 6), but at least the description of NLP is indeed "similar" - in its lack of accuracy and clarity.
But what really puzzled me about this book was that the author, who clearly has a lot more going for him than the proverbial "two brain cells" would make a comment like that in point 4.
I don't know what the author had in mind when he wrote it, but two possibilities for making such a statement sprang to mind when I first read it:
Which (if either) is correct in this case? I have no idea.
What I did find intriguing, however, is that every so often the author comes out with a statement such as:
"One of the features which underpins both coaching and NLP (and therefore makes coaching using NLP so powerful is the focus that the coach has on the process rather than the content."
(page 7. Italics as in the original.)
What this means in plain English is that the NLPer/coach should concern themself with facilitating the work the client/subject is engaged in (usually some kind of change process), and not with the specific details in the mind of a particular client/coachee. This emphasis on process over content looks to me like exactly the kind of consideration which does indeed separate what "is" NLP from what "isn't" NLP. So why is the author saying that he doesn't know the difference?
(Note: When I refer to "what 'is' NLP" I do not mean "that which is 'exclusive' to NLP". There are indeed places when NLP has borrowed techniques from other sources, or has at least devised new techniques based on existing ideas. The question of what is or isn't NLP refers to the underlying attitude(s) and principles which inform all authentic NLP.)
And now, back to the story.
Could it be that the author wishes to avoid the "is/isn't NLP" question because the book sets up this standard (of process rather than content) - and then ignores it?
Certainly the inaccurately named "logical levels model" is a typical example of concentrating on content over process. Yet the model has a section and illustration of its own (pages 92-3). It is also incorporated into the thoroughly confused and confusing section on meta programs (which the author for some reason erroneously claims are called "meta-patterns" in NLP) and beliefs which follows straight after (pages 94-97).
This is all the more incomprehensible if we note that only a few pages earlier we are reminded that:
"As with most NLP, and indeed most coaching, the coach needs to know little or nothing about this content."
(page 88.)
By the same token, why are we told, in an earlier section on "perceptual positions", that:
"...the whole exercise, as with all coaching, should be about facilitating process rather than trying to understand or interpret content."
(page 55.)
Yet find on the very next page we find the comment:
Repeat the question, 'How do you feel when you look at X?' several times, until the client runs out of answers ... it is common for the feelings described to consist of a mixture like 'affection,' 'admiration,' 'anger and 'frustration'."
(page 56.)
When did a description of one's feelings cease being "content"?
And where is the wisdom in telling the reader that "it is common for..." anything to occur? When someone as senior and experienced as this author make such a statement it surely isn't rocket science to realise that many readers will consciously, or worse yet unconsciously, take on board that these are the kind of feelings the coach can expect to find - with all the unwanted side effects that having built-in presuppositions about another person's thoughts and feelings can entail?
There are plenty of other reasons for dismissing this book as an unreliable guide to the use of NLP in any context. Including the list of 8 alleged meta "patterns"/programs (on page 94), 2 of which aren't meta programs at all, and another one which is actually a lone example of taken from the range of "modal operators". Or the strange labeling on the eye accessing cues chart (page 48) which claims that the standand visual and auditory construct directions indicate that the person is thinking about "future or imagined images and sounds" (?) whilst the kinesthetic direction (down left from an observer's viewpoint) is labelled: "TOUCH/TASTE/SMELL/FEELINGS/EMOTIONS." I couldn't find one word of explanation for these deviations from the standard model.
Moreover, since the text violates the author's own definition of what is an essential element of coaching, I cannot see any reason to recommend it as a book on coaching, either.
This view is reinforced by the fact that the book is, in my opinion, ridiculously expensive. On Amazon.co.uk, for example, the paperback version is priced at £18.99 (no discount), whilst the hardback version is a whopping £55 in its stockinged feet, (discounted to £52.25). Even at 3rd party prices of £14.56 (paperback, new) and £50.17 (hardback, new) these figures are plain daft for a book that runs to only 126 pages including Bibliography and Index.
Before making a recommendation I must, in fairness, point out that I have acted on one occasion as guinea pig for two trainees about to complete the coaching course offered by this author's company. On that occasion I was impressed both by the two trainees and by the trainer who monitored the session. They all behaved in a most professional manner, and the two trainees managed the session most effectively.
Having said that, even during that session, several weeks before I read this book, I was aware that whilst there might be NLP influences in the background, what I experienced most certainly did not warrant the description "NLP coaching."
Moreover, as impressed as I was at the time, I subsequently found that nothing whatever of the session had actually had any lasting effect.
Of course that was only one coaching session, of approximately two hours, with two trainees, and I certainly wouldn't evalute the company's training on such slight evidence. But after reading this book I'm not particularly surprised, either.
I agree with this author that coaching and NLP seem like natural partners, and I would really have liked to have been more enthusiastic about this book, but I simply cannot think of any reason to give it any recommendation at all, either to coaches, or to NLPers.
Andy Bradbury can be contacted at: bradburyac@hotmail.com