The Faq

Answers to common questions:

Q: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF ALT.PSYCHOLOGY.NLP? A: There are many:

Alt.psychology.nlp is intended as a forum for practitioners of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to share and discuss information with each other.

Alt.psychology.nlp is also a forum for presenting and representing the attitudes and skills of some of its practitioners to the interested public.

It is a place for those who use NLP for self-improvement to share ideas and ask questions of practitioners.

It is a forum for discussing the wider implications of NLP; its future, its impact on other communications and therapy models (and vice versa), and its contributions to society at large.

Q: WHAT IS NLP?

A: A: NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) is a constantly evolving set of models, presuppositions, patterns, techniques, and observation-based theories resulting from the study of the structure of subjective experience, behavior and communication. Beyond understanding, NLP seeks to enable remedial and generative change quickly and ecologically. ToC

Q: DOES NLP REALLY WORK? HAS IT BEEN SCIENTIFICALLY VALIDATED?

A: It's difficult to prove that something doesn't work or doesn't exist. (e.g. Smoking has not yet been "scientifically proved" to cause cancer.) There is massive anecdotal evidence that NLP works. Few studies have been done on particular aspects of NLP with mixed results.

Q: ISN'T NLP REALLY JUST HYPNOSIS?

A: No. NLP is not *just* hypnosis. Milton Erickson was a strong influence on NLP's founders, but NLP includes aspects of many other disciplines as well. For more information on hypnosis, you might want to check out alt.hypnosis.

Q: CAN NLP BE USED ONONESELF?

A: Yes. Many people use NLP as a form of self development. If you are interested in self development, you may also want to read alt.self-improve or the excellent alt.self-improve FAQ.ToC

Q: WHAT ARE THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF NLP?

A: Here are some of them.

No one is wrong or broken. People work perfectly to accomplish what they are currently accomplishing.

People already have all the resources they need.

Behind every behavior is a positive intention.

Every behavior is useful in some context.

The meaning of a communication is the response you get.

If you aren't getting the response you want, do *something* different.

There is no such thing as failure. There is only feedback.

In any system, the element with the most flexibility exerts the most influence.

The map is not the territory.

If someone can do something, anyone can learn it.

You cannot fail to communicate.

Q: WHO STARTED THE ALT.PSYCHOLOGY.NLP NEWSGROUP?

A: I. Chris English set up the newsgroup back in 1994 and originally created the text version of this FAQ.