Understanding NLP
Frances Kay and Neilson Kite
Kogan Page   ISBN 978-0-7494-5509-5
This book is, to be blunt, rubbish from the front cover to the back.  Even the title has been "borrowed" from elsewhere, having previously appeared on Peter Young's book Understanding NLP (originally published by Crown House about 10 years ago and still in print).
Once inside the book, according to the Publisher's note, on the back of the title page, we are told that:

Every possible effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this book is accurate at the time of going to press, ...

So isn't it strange that they immediately follow this claim with the qualifier:

... and the publishers and authors cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, however caused."

Mind you, the qualifier is hardly surprising in this case, since the undertaking that "Every possible effort has been made" is simply not true.  On the contrary, the publishers did NOT make the most obvious "possible effort" - which would have been to have the original manuscript reviewed by another author whose book on the FoNLP they have been publishing since January 1997.  This I know because I am that author, and the first I saw of, or even heard about, the book reviewed here was a week or two after it was published.

This is highly relevant to this review, because if the authors and publishers were really going for accuracy - not perfection, just a basic accuracy - then this book, as it is now, would never have been published.

Take this statement on page 4 where, on the last page of the Introduction, the authors tell us:

'We have used NLP in practice for years ...'

And then, on page 224, the last page before the index, on the page that is supposedly about 'Further Reading', we find this statement:

'The authors are grateful to John [Caines] for his help and wisdom in supporting the demystification process behind Understanding NLP.'

Now it's possible, of course, that I'm being a little slow off the mark here, but if someone claims to have "used NLP ... for years" (which suggests, I think, at least 5-10 years previous experience?), and if they present themselves as having sufficient accurate knowledge to write a book called Understanding NLP, then why on earth do they need someone else's help to (allegedly) demystify the subject?

But let's not beat around the bush.  This book looks, to me, to be nothing more than an exhibition of monumental arrogance, and a complete waste of paper.  The authors claim to be offering us "A new way of understanding NLP", but what use is that "new way" when it is little more than beads of misinformation strung together in a necklace of incomprehension?
Harsh words?  I don't think so.  Let's start with the authors' complete ignorance of NLP itself:

Another important NLP technique and principle is modelling - the process by which you emulate someone else's successful behaviour and approach in order to have a basis on which to improve your own.'

That's it.  That's what we get on the subject of modelling which, by the way, is a technique, but is definitely not "a principle".
In fact NLP is a specific modelling process, and nothing more.  So what the authors are really telling us is that "An important modelling technique is modelling".  "Holy conundrum, Batman!  How's that for 'a new understanding'?"

Again, according to the authors:

The specific objective of this book is to make NLP more readily accessible for anyone in a working environment so that they will immediately be able to apply its principles to achieve personal and organizational goals.  A further objective is to do so in a language (and to describe situations) that are likely to be familiar to readers."
(page 1)

In other words, 'We'll make it easy by removing the jargon'.  A process commonly known as "dumbing down".
But the FoNLP isn't really about "principles" - it is a fairly extensive set of detailed techniques which can be applied in a wide variety of contexts.  The FoNLP is pragmatic, not a vague philosophy, or as the co-creators, Richard Bandler and John Grinder put it:

We call ourselves modelers. ... We are not psychologists, and we're also not theologians or theoreticians.  We have no idea about the "real" nature of things, and we're not particularly interested in what's "true."  The function of modeling is to arrive at descriptions which are useful.
(Frogs into Princes, 1978/1979. Page 7.  American spelling as in the original text)

What we find in the book under review, however, is a great deal of theorizing (most of it highly simplistic if not downright inaccurate), but without the saving grace of providing any clarification.  I mean, does the average person know what "neurotransmitters" are (page 19)?  Or "strap lines" (page 21)?  Or how to "make a pitch" (page 28)?  Or what is meant by an "IT project" (page 29)?  Or where to find "the metaphorical path" (page 32), etc., etc.?  Or how about this for a typical piece of dialogue such as us ordinary folk might utter: "NLP postulates that there is a stratum of language that overlays other language in often unhelpful ways." (page 13)!
Far from answering the genuine requirements of a genuine audience, it seems that the authors are writing a book that fits well in their particular world, with little or no thought for anyone else.

And that's not the end of that particular story.  For when we turn to the Glossary we find some definitions - of words and phrases which allegedly represent the "basic NLP vocabulary" - which in several cases are not only inaccurate but downright incomprehensible, such as this truly mind-boggling definition of the Away from half of the Towards/Away from meta program:

Away from (cf towards) - this indicates someone's tendency to move in the opposite way to their preferred logical preference.  This is a negative as compared to a positive tendency.
(Understanding NLP. page 220)

Presumably the authors think they know what a "preferred logical preference" is, but I'll be jiggered if I can make sense of it.

And coming at the situation from the other side doesn't make any more sense.

On page 2 we find the claim that: "Despite [NLP's] exceptionally powerful attributes, it suffers, notably in the boardroom and other business environments, though having developed an exclusive vocabulary of its own. ... Sticking to NLP jargon would be tantamount to asking someone: 'Please pass the sodium chloride', or 'I love acetic acid in my cooking".  But this is a false analogy.  A more accurate analogy, given how many business people play golf, would be that they have no trouble at all saying 'He sliced at the 15th', rather than: 'When he was playing on the 15th section of the golf course he hit his ball in such a way that it flew off in a banana-shaped curve to the right rather than going where he intended it should go'; or 'he birdied the 9th' rather than 'When he reached the green of the 9th hole (that's the beautifully manicured bit of grass where the little hole is that you have to get the ball into) he took only one stroke with his golf club to hit his golf ball into the little hole.'

So we certainly are not talking about dimwits who have trouble learning anything other than the plainest form of Queen's English, as the comment about using familiar language implies.  And even if we were, how on earth would these authors be offering a valid "understanding [of] NLP" when their own ideas on the subject are so far adrift that they define the term "Eye accessing cues" as "the ways in which eyes move in one direction as compared with others to indicate what the person might be thinking.  Different eye directions denote, for example, honesty, thoughtfulness, dishonesty, etc." (page 221).
(In fact, according to Bandler and Grinder in their book Frogs into Princes, the eye accessing cues - patterns of eye movements - will tell you literally the whole sequence of sensory system accesses - using sights, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells which someone goes through as they think something through.  One thing they certainly will not tell you is whether someone is being honest or dishonest.  And I'm afraid there is no reason whatever why anyone with even a basic working knowledge of NLP and the genuine NLP-related techniques would make such a profound error.)

So what exactly is this book about?

Firstly, there is a list of 18 "NLP presuppositions" (pages 8-9) which the book says are "beliefs and assumptions on which [NLP's] philosophy is based" (page 8); which is somewhat hard to credit, since authentic NLP is not based on any "philosophy" at all.  Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, the real NLP presuppositions were originally extrapolated from a list of existing NLP-related techniques.
Added to which, at least five of the alleged presuppositions in this book seem to be decidedly dodgy.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a booming market in "business tips" publications.  These were usually printed off on 'duplicator' machines (also known as mimeographs) and sent out to subscribers.  The majority of this book consists of similar tips, strung together with fairly frequent claims that "NLP says..." "NLP rejects ...", "NLP assumes..." and the weirdest of all, "NLP believes ..."*, and so on.  Some of these tips are either blindingly obvious, or so vague as to be useless, but some of them are still worth knowing.  The trouble is, the book is called Understanding NLP, and the one thing these tips have nothing whatever to do with is authentic NLP.

(*   These claims are ridiculous because NLP is a specific modelling technique, around which various related techniques have accumulated over time.  And last time I checked, not even modelling techniques have powers of thought or belief.)

Anyway, the list of "presuppositions" is eventually followed by Chapter 2 (starting on page 16) with some equally dodgy "explanations of what the prepositions allegedly mean, including some thoroughly anti-NLP comments such as: "NLP assumes that the more choices we have, the easier it is for us to take control" (page 28).  Compare this emphasis to the regular version of this presupposition which goes something like, "The person with the greatest flexibility (biggest range of options) is the one most likely to achieve their outcome)  In this example and elsewhere in the book, there is more emphasis on using the "stick" rather than the "carrot", again harking back to a time before NLP was ever thought of.

Put all of this together with various pieces of nonsense such as:

NLP calls on various manifestations of psychology including Freudian thinking on ego states.  The hypothesis, in simple terms is that any given time we are all in (or in and out of) one of three ego states. These are nominated as Parent, Adult and Child and relate to any of the transactions that we have with another human being.  The system is called Transactional Analysis as it analyses what is going on when two people interact"
(page 48).

Although the authors spend nearly two pages discussing this notion, I'm still not sure whether they think that "NLP" is part of Transactional Analysis, or TA is part of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.  But in the final analysis (!) it really doesn't matter, since the entire discussion is based on nothing more than a figment of the authors' imaginations.

This has got to be one of the three worst books claiming to be about NLP that I've come across so far.  Even at 10p or 15¢ for a brand new copy it would be overpriced.
Recommendation:   Avoid like the plague.

The Trousers of Reality
Barry Evans
Green Code Publishing   ISBN 978-1-907215-00-1
I'd really like to be able to recommend this book, subtitled,
"Why things like Agile, Lean, NLP, Systems Thinking and Theory of Constraints are essential for effective project management"
but in order to be fair to the majority of the readers visiting this site I won't.

The book is enthusiastically recommended by Wyatt Woodsmall (co-author of perennial favourite Time line Therapy and the Basis of Personality, long-established Master Trainer, and co-founder of INLPTA).  In his Foreword, Woodsmall tells us that Evans "has the unique distinction of being a trainer of Neuro Linguistic [sic] Programming and a master of software development and business and project management and consulting" who "has an amazing ability to explain complex concepts in terms of everyday experiences that we all share" (page i).  Which would be a great recommendation, if only the rest of us moved in the intellectual realms occupied by Woodsmall and Evans.

When Woodsmall says, as he does on the back cover: "The Trousers of Reality goes far beyond NLP and IT" he is pretty much spot on, in my opinion.  And I speak as someone who is an NLP Master Practitioner as well as having had the best part of 20 years experience in IT as a programmer, trainer and technical author.  Yet having said that, although I thoroughly agree with some parts of the book (in the chapter on Balance, for example) I personally found the book extremely heavy going, and I was only motivated to finish reading it because I'm not in the habit of reviewing half-read books.

It is my suspicion that the book will really only make sense to people who themselves have a similar background to Barry Evans and are thus able to take enough of the technical details in their stride to get the full benefit of the metaphorical nature of the text.

Whether there are enough such people to constitute a market for a book like this remains to be seen.

I wish Barry, and his Trousers, luck.  But I'm afraid it may take a lot more than luck to keep this enterprise afloat.  Rightly or wrongly, in the final analysis I felt the book could have been a lot more accessible without losing it's edge.
Recommendation:   *   *

Mind Control
William Horton
Xlibris Corporation   ISBN 978-1-4257-3563-0
Probably the best thing I can say about this book is that it sometimes rises to the level of mediocre.
Though for the most part it seems content to be turgid, confused and waaaaaaay out-of-date.

Let me deal with that last point first, mainly because it illustrates so well what a poor level of NLP went into the writing of it:

I would bet if you monitor most of your friends especially your closest friends, you would find you use the same communication styles.  This is natural.  You do not have to work at communicating with them - you're already on the same wavelength.
(Horton, 2007.  Page 30)

And over the next two pages, less a few lines, we get three sets of bullet points which allegedly describe "Visual people", "Auditory people" and "Kinesthetic people".  Which may seem fair enough, until we consider what Bandler and Grinder said on the subject in a seminar held about 30 (thirty) years before Horton's book was published:

How many here now see clearly that they are visually oriented people?  How many people see that?  How many here feel that they are really kinesthetically oriented people in their process?  Who tell themselves that they are auditory?  Actually all of you are doing all of these things we're talking about all the time.  The onmly question is, which portion of the complex internal process do you bring into awareness?  All channels are processing information all the time, but only part of that will be in consciousness.
  At seminars like this, people always go out at lunch time and try to figure out what they "are," as if they were only one thing" (Bandler and Grinder, 1978/1979.  Page 34)

Or again, the Horton version (referring in this case to the eye accessing cues), goes:

The easist way to remember these is:

• If you look up, you are making pictures.
• If you look side to side, you are making sounds.
• If you look down, you are are either talking to yourself or accessing a feeling

(Horton, 2007.  Page 32)

And the Bandler and Grinder version goes:

You ask somebody a question.  They say, "Hm, let's see," and they look up and to their left, and tilt their head in the same direction.  When people look up, they are making pictures internally.
  Do you believe that?  It's a lie, you know. All generalizations are lies.
(Bandler and Grinder, 1978/1979.  Page 18)

Who, then, do we believe?  The co-creators of the field of NLP (FoNLP, or someone whose knowledge of the subject seems to be rather less than current, even when their book was published.

My claim that the book is turgid (stody, boring, uninspired and uninspiring, etc.) is concerned, this is down to three basic elements:

1. The author's writing style leaves a lot to be desired.  He is by no means illiterate, just lacking any va-va-voom.  Even reading at the rate of 10 pages a day I found it had to stay focused ....
    
2. Which was itself down to the author's constant harping on about himself and all his alleged training activities and awards, etc.  In fact this goes so far that, where most books (if they have anything at all at the top of each page) have the chapter title on each even numbered page, and the book title on each odd numbered page (or vice versa), in this case the book title is on each odd numbered page, but it is the author's name at the head of each even numbered page!  Was he afraid we's forget who he was if we weren't constantly reminded? ....
    
3. And the boredom is further increased by the amount of pointless repetition.  In the case of a list of characteristics of these "Visual", "Auditory" and "Kinesthetic" people, for example, there is a bulleted list of their characteristics on pages 30-31, then three more such lists, almost identical with one another, on pages 36, 38 and 105.
    
   Given that the main text takes up only runs to 105 pages, this kind of repetition is not only a waste of space, but, given the quality of the book as a whole, raises the question of how long the book would have been if he had not resorted to such space-filling devices?