Rapport 8 - Summer 2007 by ANLP International CIC

ISSUE EIGHT

SUMMER 2007

Paul McKenna

On NLP and Thought Field Therapy

NLP in a Clinical Setting A GP’s view

Time on Task

NLP Training for Teachers

Christina Hall Working from the heart THE MAGAZINE FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

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contents

summer 2007

Regulars 4 LETTERS 6 DEBATE Welcome to the Summer Issue

of Rapport. We are looking forward to a fantastic summer so whether you are reading this on a warm sunny beach, or on an equally warm tube train, we know you’ll find something in this issue that inspires you and warms your heart. My friend was recently telling me how her father had reacted to news he had received from his GP. Dr Susan Elton, a GP in Leeds tells Eve about her experiences of using NLP to enhance communications and patient care in her busy surgery. We all know the challenges faced by teachers. Joanna interviews Roger Terry and Richard Churches about their brilliant programme, ‘NLP for Teachers’. They offer practical advice which will empower and support both teachers and their pupils. Christina Hall, who was in the UK earlier this year, talks to Andy about her values and her experiences in the world of NLP. What an amazingly inspiring trainer!! Leadership and Horsepower? Caitlin gives a touching and honest account of her day spent with Paul Hunting, a leadership coach who inspires his clients with a little help from his mare, Maddie. She was so impressed that Rapport readers have now been given the chance to experience Maddie for themselves. Paul McKenna shares his views on TFT, as well as giving us some insight into what makes him tick. Joe Cheal writes a thought provoking article on Robert Dilts Logical Levels; Lisa Wake explores the challenges (or opportunities?) facing the NLP community; and Sharon Sullivan exposes the inside story of training with Tony Nutley and UKCPD. I am always inspired by the trainers I meet, so thank you Tony, for inviting me to share the fun filled final day...and night! And if you have any free time over the summer then you may just find a course or workshop of interest listed in our diary. Whatever you are doing this summer, take time to enjoy the sunshine. Wishing you well...

Karen Moxom

How many years did you study at University to be able to do this?

8 WHAT’S NEW

The latest news

12 NLP NEWS

What’s happening in the NLP community

30 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Can reﬂective diaries enhance development

40 DIARY

Events taking place over the next 3 months

43 BOOK REVIEWS

The latest books reviewed by our panel

44 AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Gladeana McMahon

46 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Get your message out

48 REGIONAL GROUPS

44 Cover stories

NLP in Dorset

50 ENDNOTE

Does NLP need regulating?

Features 10 NLP

18 EDUCATION

NLP Training for Teachers

22 CELEBRITY

Paul McKenna on NLP and TFT

Christina Hall Working from the Heart

25 PROFESSIONAL

14 PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

26 HEALTH

Who am I, what is me?

Reinventing the Wheel

NLP in a Clinical Setting

Editorial Team: Caitlin Collins, Andy Coote, Joanna Goodman, Eve Menezes Cunningham, Mandy Smith Team@rapportmag.com, 0845 053 1162 Art Editor: Enzo Zanelli Advertising: David Hammond david@rapportmag.com, 0845 053 1189 Membership, subscriptions and back issues: Lala Ali Khan Members@anlp.org, 0845 053 1162

Publisher: Karen Moxom karen@rapportmag.com, 0845 053 1162 Company Reg No. 05390486 Phoenix Publishing Ltd PO Box 3357, EN5 9AJ Rapport published by Phoenix Publishing on behalf of ANLP. Printed in the UK Design: Square Eye Design

32 NLP APPLICATIONS

Why Talk to a Guru...When You can Whisper to a Horse?

34 BUSINESS

NLP goes Multi Media

38 TRAINING

UK College of Personal Development

DISCLAIMER The views within this magazine are not necessarily those of the publisher, nor does the publisher endorse the products or services promoted in the magazine. Articles are for information only and intent is to inform. Readers should seek professional advice before adopting any suggestions or purchasing any products herein.

rapport - Summer 2007

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LETTERS

Send your letters to: The Editor, Rapport Magazine, PO Box 3357, Barnet, EN5 9AJ or email letters@rapportmag.com

Dear Rapport In the last issue I greeted the article telling me that “Its all about Rapport” with a bit of scepticism, after all anyone with a basic knowledge of NLP recognises its importance. However, after reading the article I realised that it’s so important to keep reinforcing the messages that we think we already know. It’s not enough just to know it, we need to practice it. When my neighbour and I exchange cold glances and I curse his rudeness, I am forgetting that I am supposed to be the one with the knowledge and tools to make the situation better. Thank you Rapport and Sonia for reminding me that NLP doesn’t work unless it is used! J.D, Preston

Dear Rapport I found the article about La Rue Eppler and connecting with your soul really touching. So often we are striving for a “quiet life” continually trying to shut out all the “noise”, when what we should be doing is listening to all the clues

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Summer 2007 - rapport

that we are giving ourselves. La Rue has hit the nail on the head with her SoulTalk method as it perfectly demonstrates the mind/ body link and the importance of paying attention to what we really feel and want. R.K, Worthing

Dear Rapport Having read your article “Is ‘The Secret’ really a secret?” I logged into their website and watched the ﬁlm. My ﬁrst impression was one of disbelief. Just think positive things and the ‘Law of Attraction’ will take care of it? Yeah, right! How come my mobile phone got stolen? I must have been thinking the wrong thoughts. So I started to approach things differently. I looked around my house and collected all the old mobiles that had been lying hidden away, discarded because they were too old or just not ‘cool’ any more. I sent them off to an environmentally friendly organisation that recycles mobile phones, and two weeks later I got a cheque for £49.50. This covered

the cost of replacing my stolen mobile. Now I’m expanding on these thoughts and I’ve had moderate success attracting more positive things into my life. So does ‘The Secret’ work, or is it just common sense? It can...and I’m now waiting for my Aston Martin to turn up! MJ, Tunbridge Wells

Dear Rapport I was really interested in reading your article (Spring 2007), which linked NLP with Feng Shui. I had never really thought of making that connection before, and yet if you consider that both NLP and Feng Shui do have a Spiritual aspect, then suddenly the link seems obvious! Now that the connection has been made in my mind, I wonder if NLP and Feng Shui can also be linked at the environmental level of Robert Dilts logical levels model. We understand how our environment can have an affect, not only by the symbolism, but also the clutter, disorganisation and broken things that may surround

us. So if we have considered many different options and our client still seems ‘stuck’ or unable to move on, maybe there is a simple environmental inﬂuence that is having an effect on their wellbeing? I will certainly bear that in mind in future...perhaps I could niche myself as a Clutter Coach? TM, Hendon

LETTER OF THE ISSUE

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DEBATE

How many years did you study at university to be able to do this? In a recent Dragon’s Den on BBC in the UK, one of the proposals was based upon using NLP as part of an overall solution. Turning down the proposal, one of the Dragons (potential investors) asked the question about qualiﬁcations. Andy Coote asks some people inside and outside of the NLP community if NLP needs to embrace a higher standard of qualiﬁcation to be credible

ntroduce the A word – Academia – into the NLP community and the responses are quite polarised, as I found when I asked this question recently. Michael Beale expressed a point of view at one end of the spectrum. “We all coach people anyway and in our day to day interactions with them we cannot fail to have an effect. So NLP can help you to do what you already do, but better and with more impact.” Christine Miller and Lisa Wake, on the other hand, have both experienced the problems that arise when, as Christine Miller puts it “people get into challenging states whilst training and need intervention from the trainer. When we are working with people’s minds, we need to take great care.” Lisa Wake comments that “I have encountered three individuals who were going through a psychotic process because of interventions by well-meaning NLP practitioners.” Nicole Bachmann, a coach who has no formal training in NLP, recognises the problem. “Much of NLP at the techniques level is powerful and works well. But some people seem to get a missionary zeal for NLP and try to convert people to it. If they lose sight of the person, it can become manipulation.” Christine Miller is also concerned about the glibness of

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Summer 2007 - rapport

claims made for NLP by some practitioners which, she feels, can lead “to a snake oil” reputation” for the wider community”. Training for NLP is generally organised in a hierarchy of qualiﬁcations, but are they clear and are they consistent? What, for example, does NLP Practitioner mean and what can

When we “ are working with people’s minds, we need to take great care

”

one do with that qualiﬁcation? Michael Beale suggests that “Practitioner is about you. Basically it deals with you as a person and allows you to try out the techniques on yourself. It would be ethically wrong to use techniques on others that you haven’t experienced yourself.” Christine Miller points out that, as a result of the organic growth of the NLP community there are many versions of practitioner training

“from 21 days to some accelerated courses lasting 7 days, some with pre learning at home and some without.” With several of the contributors, I explored the possibility of differentiating between using NLP for personal change, coaching and therapy. In reality, as Nicole Bachmann points out, NLP is used, but often not named, in a lot of management training, so, maybe personal use is already catered for. Once you use NLP with others, no matter that it is simply an extension of what you do naturally, as Michael Beale suggests, there is a danger that something simple could trigger a bad reaction. At the very least, several contributors agreed, there needs to be training in how to stabilise and refer if the situation gets out of the practitioner’s ability. Michael Beale sees Practitioner as the starting point of a journey. “People who are good at NLP go to lots of practitioner courses and to master practitioner courses because they know that they will learn something new at each”. The NLP model is that of master and apprentice and an apprentice in one relationship becomes a master in another, thus passing knowledge and expertise directly from person-to-person. “Good people will become assistants and do lots of courses, thus themselves

DEBATE

becoming teachers.” This model does seem to have served the NLP community well thus far. In my interview with Christina Hall (this issue) she describes how she became a master trainer of NLP by just this approach. So what might change things? Competition and external pressure are two possibilities. There seem to be four stages to the regulation of an industry from no regulation through to individual initiatives by companies and groups (which give competitive advantages) to crossindustry self-regulation and then to external regulation. Related disciplines are already well down this route. Lisa Wake points to the work that UKCP and BACP are doing to create an industry accreditation scheme for counselling and psychotherapy. During her time as chair and deputy chair of UKCP, she was involved in developing a White Paper setting out the approach. “The UKCP and BACP are working to bring coaching into the counselling and psychotherapy regulation system. I can see that NLP, especially where it is used for clinical support, could also take its place here.” Lisa Wake is also working, for her own training company, with a UK university to develop an MSc where NLP Practitioner and NLP Master Practitioner modules are worth 30 credits at level 4. The MSc also requires some research with a mix of quantitative and qualitative data, a dissertation and 450 clinical hours of practice. There are also courses being developed at NVQ level 3 and 4 for Life Coaching, NLP and Hypnotherapy. Nicole

Bachman adds that “The National Coaching Federation and CoachU have been proactive in developing qualifications that are based on practice including the documentation of 2000 hours of coaching. If the market demands qualifications, more will follow.” Why might the market demand such approaches? Nicole Bachmann suggests that larger companies may lead the trend as they have done in other areas of standardisation. “Two to three years ago, coaching was a booming market but the market is consolidating and buyers are becoming more discerning. Companies will want ways of making better buying decisions and the industry faces a dilemma. If Individual organisations and groups continue to create their own qualifications there will probably be confusion in the minds of the consumers as to the value of the qualifications that are presented.” Selfregulation is a way of ensuring that the industry speaks to governments and to the buyers with a single and clear voice. There is one other powerful force at work in an increasingly litigious society, insurance. Darren Jarmin is an Insurance Broker who works with a number of professional bodies to offer professional liability cover. He sees advantages to practitioners to be accredited by their professional bodies. “At present, because there is no regulation in this industry, it is always difficult for us to accurately assess what training is ‘good’ and what is not. This is why we predominantly provide discounted schemes for associations such as ANLP, BACP, UKCP etc, as these organisations know far more about their particular field than we would, and as a result they will set guidelines, codes of conduct, ethical standards etc that all members have to adhere to - This in turn means that the insurers are happier to take on the risk knowing that set standards are in place. In return for providing the insurers with a lower risk, they will offer

the policy at a reduced rate, so I guess you could say that it is encouraged as it reduces the exposure to the insurer.” Is it possible to find common ground between the parties to this debate? Michael Beale sees problems in making NLP a pure academic subject because “ NLP is about exploration not about academia.”. Christine Miller is also keen to ensure that qualifications are based on practice as well as research and learning. “I don’t necessarily believe that research has to be ‘scientific’ as there are effective ways of using qualitative research. We can have valid and reliable results without huge samples and without ‘double blind’ testing. In counselling, masters and doctorates are based on reflective practice. That is looking at our own practice and our own self and how far the espoused theory matches with what you actually do.” The MSc that Lisa Wake is developing certainly stresses practice as much as research. ANLP is also taking on board the principle of reflective practice with their new online CPD programme. “It is a reflective outcomes based record and it will be available to all members by the beginning of June” comments Karen Moxom, “it may just provide one solution to this debate.” It seems that there really could be a ‘third way’ for NLP. We’d like to hear from our readers on this topic. Is it important to the future of NLP or are there alternative ways to move forward? Have you encountered negative attitudes towards your NLP qualifications? Contribute to the debate at http://www.anlp.org/ forum/default.asp

The Participants Lisa Wake Awaken Consulting and Training Services http://www.awakenconsulting.co.uk/ Michael Beale PPI Business NLP http://www.ppimk.com/ Nicole Bachmann Brook and Mann http://www.beatprocrastination.com/ Christine Miller Founding Editor, ReSource Magazine http://www.resourcemagazine.co.uk/ Darren Jarmin Cert CII Business Development Executive Towergate Professional Risks http://www.towergateprofessionalrisks.co.uk/

rapport - Summer 2007

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WHAT’S NEW

Save over £170!

ANLP Support for Trainers

apport is sponsoring a 1-day introductory Horse Assisted Transformation (HATTM) session with Paul Hunting on Thursday 4th September. Now is your chance to experience this profound work directly and evaluate its potential to enhance your own life and practice.

What can ANLP do for you?

The normal cost of an intro day is £250 +VAT. For Rapport readers, Paul is offering six places on 4th September 2007 at the reduced rate of £95 + VAT which also includes a copy of his highly acclaimed book on the art of natural leadership: Why talk to a guru? When you can whisper to a horse. Visit his website at www. horsejoy.com or you can call him now on: 01608 663 916.

Wheel of Life

ould you like to be introduced to the worlds ﬁrst online Wheel of Life and Vision board? All you need is internet access and a land line phone! How many times have you advised your clients to write down and share their goals? To visualise their goals? To clear any obstacles and take the action necessary to achieve their goals? Lifemastering invite you to an online meeting where you and other NLP coaches can see a demonstration on your own P.C. By clicking on a link you will see what the founder does on her computer AND simultaneously receive guidance via the teleconference call! Rapport readers who attend the teleconference meeting will receive an offer to purchase the tool for only $57 (approx £30) – and be able to use it freely for 2 years! Please send an email to onlinemeeting@lifem astering.com saying you would like an invitation for the meeting.

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Summer 2007 - rapport

n response to recent feedback from Trainers, ANLP have now produced a speciﬁc brochure for all students of NLP, giving support to the Trainers recommendation to join ANLP. The brochure clearly outlines full membership beneﬁts and gives advice on what information is required to join. The brochures distributed also state the Trainer’s unique referral code on the application form, thus allowing the Trainer to proactively increase their passive income from ANLP using the existing Trainers Referral Scheme. If you would like further information about the Trainers Referral Scheme and would like to receive copies of the brochure for your students, please contact ANLP on 020 8275 1175 or email admin@anlp.org.

Tell Us About Your Success.....

ANLP has a new Mission!

ollowing the launch of the exciting new website in April, ANLP are inviting members to submit case studies that can be used to inform the public about successful practical applications of NLP. The public area of the website currently lists various practical applications including business (e.g. management, personnel, sales, consulting), training and development, education, dyslexia, the helping professions, health, relationships, writing and the arts, sports, parenting, hobbies and personal development - anywhere communicating and excelling are important. If you can provide an easy to read case study that demonstrates success in these areas (or introduces further applications not yet listed), please do submit by email to admin@anlp.org. All case studies reproduced on the website will include contact details thereby further promoting your services.

NLP constantly endeavour to serve their members in the most effective, professional and ethical way. It is also important to frequently evaluate and review what the aims and objectives are as an organisation. With that in mind ANLP have released the following new mission statement. “To encourage practitioners to deliver NLP in a professional, responsible and congruent way in order to collectively make a positive difference to society.” Karen Moxom, Director of ANLP, says “we have been reviewing the mission statement for some time, and we kept on tweaking it, because something wasn’t quite right. We now have a Mission Statement that feels totally congruent with what we do...and I can remember it easily, so I know it comes from our core.”

Honorary Lifetime Fellowship of ANLP

NLP are pleased to report that so far, Steve and Connirae Andreas, Judith DeLozier, Robert Dilts, Charles Faulkner, Christina Hall, Bill O’Hanlon and Wyatt Woodsmall have accepted the inaugural Honorary Lifetime Fellowships of ANLP, awarded to those individuals who have made signiﬁcant contributions to the ﬁeld of NLP.

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NLP

Working from the Heart Christina Hall knows NLP and has trained many thousands to use and teach it. She began working with both Grinder and Bandler. She remains as fascinated by people, language and creating change now as she was in 1977. She talks to Andy Coote about her experience and her values

ome people can make you feel at ease in a moment. Christina is one of those people. As someone who wants people to ‘walk their talk’ she is certainly congruent with that aim herself. We spoke in late February after she had presented the first half of a Trainer training with Leicester-based Salad. In 1977, Christina was a therapist with a Masters in Family Therapy and a PhD in Psychology and Language. Experiencing some challenges working with a particular client, she and the client went to visit her supervisor for his help “My supervisor did some amazing things with the client, like nothing I’d learnt in my graduate work, and I saw some amazing changes happening with my client – and, to an extent, with me. I asked my supervisor “Where did you learn to use language like that? You didn’t use any techniques that I was aware of.” It was her first encounter with NLP. Her interest engaged, Christina went to a workshop in Los Angeles on the use of language to make changes and found it “unique and unorthodox”. She was intrigued. “I went to everything I could go to after that. I was interested in change and what it means to someone to make changes and what was happening when those changes were being made. Richard Bandler and John Grinder were amazing together. The rest is history – I was hooked” In the early days there were no practitioner programs, just a lot of experimentation and exploration. Within a year or two though, Practitioner trainings had begun. Christina took as many practitioner programs as she could, often working in support of the trainers. “I always learned something new – always expanded my learning.” Christina found herself becoming a trainer. “I didn’t get into NLP to be a trainer. I was quite terrified by being in front of groups but in a way, training chose me.” Working with Richard Bandler could be an unpredictable experience. “Just after I moved to Santa Cruz in 1981, Richard called and told me that a trainer had dropped out of a workshop the following day. “You’re coming with me” he said and hung up. I didn’t even have the chance to say yes or no”.

The development of the Swish pattern was part of a series of innovations that came “out of paying attention to how people perceive something and what it means to them and then asking ‘how can that be useful’ and experimenting until we could answer that question.” Returning from training, Christina’s colleague “was talking about some challenges he was having. He said that it was ‘all blown out of proportion’. Still on a high from the training, I took him literally and asked him if he saw it as a picture ‘up close and in your face’. He replied that it was and that it was unmanageable, that he couldn’t do anything about it – it was so overwhelming. I asked him to try something as an experiment. I asked him to shoot the picture away from him until it was a small dot – the further away, the better. He did that and he told me that he could manage like that. I asked him to blow it back up again and he again found that it was unmanageable, so we made it small again.” “I called Richard and explained what had happened. He felt that it could take NLP to a new level, so we spent some time developing it and called it the Swish pattern after the sound the picture made as it shrank into the distance.” These days, Christina travels the world, teaching NLP at a variety of levels and across many cultures. She takes the time to meet up with trainers and former students to “talk and explore”. Teaching is, she feels, “an opportunity to explore and to push the boundaries. I like to expand the range of people’s thinking – to help them achieve more change, more quickly than they thought possible. Change is a process that can lead to WOW moments – and I like those moments.” There is no question that NLP has some great techniques, but, Christina feels, it is much more about purpose – both that of the practitioner and of the client. For example, “Rapport is an ongoing process, not a single event, but some people feel that all they have to do is to do a few matching techniques and you have rapport and you can do anything after that. You have to work from the heart, walk your talk and behave congruently.”

Change is a process “ that can lead to WOW moments - and I like those moments

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Summer 2007 - rapport

”

NLP

Outcomes are important but not at any cost. What matters is whether “the outcome is worth achieving in the context of the client’s purpose”. Christina views the use of NLP techniques for entertainment on the stage or TV by their purpose and ethical framework. “It depends how they do it, on their ethics and their purpose and whether it is simply to make money or impress. If it is purely manipulative, I can’t support it. NLP is not something done to someone, it is something done with them. I want people to be able to impress and inspire themselves by what they find they can do for themselves and not feel bad about the experience.” Training, too, is always a shared experience. “I have learned a lot from training and a lot from people. We are all shaping this process. The trainer is part of the system and not separate. You don’t train or lead in a vacuum. When the trainer stops learning, they’ve changed jobs without knowing it.” Christina spends a lot of time in travel around the world. She enjoys observing how “cultures shape people and people shape cultures”. Different cultures seem to share many values. “They include connection, a sense of belonging and love. Doing work that they really enjoy and where they feel that they are making a contribution, seem also to be shared values”. When she first took her workshops to Japan, “people told me that the Japanese wouldn‘t do my exercises but with good pacing and observation, I found that they were happy to get involved and learned equally well as people from other cultures. It became clear to me that some of those comments were projections of the speaker’s experience of the culture and not the culture itself.” In one part of the world, Christina was able to work with others to make a major difference using NLP. During a training in Switzerland, discussions centred on the trauma and tragedy that was taking place in Kuwait during and after the Iraqi invasion. Christina, along with Dr Dr Sybille Roskother, Robert Klaus and Ulrich Götzen, put together a package of solutions for psychological and therapeutic support for victims of the conflict to be pitched to the German Government. In the event, the package was not adopted for Kuwait, but did get used for victims of the war in Croatia. In 1991/2, Christina and her colleagues were away for two weeks in every six working with a group of professionals – including some

Bosnian refugees - chosen by the German government. “We trained the professionals in a variety of skills and techniques so that they could go out and train people on the ground to use them – thus achieving a multiplier effect. There were some terrible things happening in that conflict and I’m extremely proud and humble to have been able to have taken part – it was a great opportunity to help people.” Christina believes that practice is crucial to skills development. Planning also plays a major role. ”People are sometimes surprised to learn that I plan every workshop in some detail. They seem to expect me to wing it. Even when I plan, I find that the reality of a workshop is that I’m winging it a lot of the time. Without the planning – and years of practice – I wouldn’t be able to do that. As Grinder once said, “you only have the luxury of winging it if you have done your homework”. With practice, skills, like driving a car or playing piano, can become unconscious competences. Even when you are highly competent, you should still practice and be open to new ways of approaching old tasks.” During an awards party in 1991 following 15 consecutive days of training, with several colleagues, Richard Bandler announced that he had a special award “for somebody who had given more to the field than most.” It was a new level of award – Meta Master Trainer. “When he called out my name, I was totally shocked. I appreciated the words from Richard and took them as meaning that he respected and appreciated that I continued to experiment and explore. That my attitude was one that he approved of.” Need anyone say more? Christina Hall will be back in the UK in 2008 with Salad. NLP Trainer program Part 1 - 4-10 February 2008 Part 2 - 5 – 11 July, 2008 Location – Leicester More at www.saladltd.com. More about Christina at her website http://www.chris-nlp-hall.com/

rapport - Summer 2007

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NEWS

ANLPNews

ANLP CPD Visit www.anlp.org for more information Online now live

Europe’s only ABH Hypnosis Trainers Training

The Change Corporation wins awards...

NLP trainer member, Lindsey Agness, is pictured with not one but two prestigious business awards. The Change Corporation was a finalist for most promising New Business of the Year and Lindsey herself a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year with the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce. Lindsey was a change management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers for 11 years before establishing The Change Corporation in 2005. Her company has grown fast and now runs NLP open programmes, corporate development programmes and coaching. Lindsey was a recent speaker at The Vitality Show at Olympia and has just finished her first book called ‘Do You Want it or What?’ Her corporate clients include Nokia, Canon, Henley Management College and Hampshire County Council. At the awards ceremony, Lindsey was asked by the judges about the secret of her rapid success. She said it was about having exciting goals and total focus on both the business and clients. Her clients say that she is a mixture of skill, charm and gritted determination. Lindsey is currently studying to become one of the first female Master Trainers of NLP in the UK. To train with this award winner call +441304 621735 or visit www. thechangecorporation.com.

avid Shephard and The Performance Partnership are running Europe’s only ABH Hypnosis Trainers Training between the 9th and 13th October this year. The programme is designed to empower people to train and certify hypnotherapists. Course leader and founder of The Performance Partnership, David Shephard sees the scope of his programme as signiﬁcantly broader than this. Commenting on the training, he says “Of course I want to certify brilliant trainers of Hypnosis and that is just the starting point!” He goes onto explain that “Hypnosis is the ultimate form of inﬂuence” and that he wanted to create a programme that would “use leading edge hypnotic techniques to empower people to be better therapists and better communicators. With the exception of behavioural psychology, all therapeutic modalities have hypnosis at their core, and for that matter so does any effective communication. For this reason, elegant trainers of Hypnotherapy are brilliant communicators and therapists as well as great teachers.” For information on the programme, please call +44 (0) 208 9929523 or visit www. performancepartnership.com/docs/courses/ hypnosisTrainersTraining.php

Join the Rapport Book Review Panel

n the world of NLP we all love a good book and have a constant thirst for more knowledge and skills. To help quench some of that thirst have you considered becoming a member of the Rapport Book Review Panel? This would give you the ideal

opportunity to read and review some of the leading self-help, personal development, coaching and business publications as and when they are published. Find out more by contacting us on 0208 275 1175 or by email to members@anlp.org

The ‘Sea of Change’ Conference 2007

id you know that Dorset has more holiday homes than any other county in England? Where else can you buy a rickety old beach hut with no water or electricity for the same price as an average family semi? There’s got to be something special going on here. So what is so alluring about this magical county of ours? According to a recent survey, Bournemouth is the happiest town in Britain and it’s a place where people feel younger than they actually are. Some say it’s the fresh sea air, or perhaps there’s something in the water. Whether you’re a seasoned practitioner or new to NLP join us at our ‘Sea of Change’ Conference this summer where you can dip your toes or dive right in. Summer 2007 marks the inaugural conference of NLP Dorset Forum. This one-day event is aimed at anyone interested in NLP regardless of skill level. Sessions are likely to include the most recent work by

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Forum members including: NLP in Youth Development Culture, NLP in General Medical Practice, Integrating NLP and EFT, Business Applications, The Therapeutic Integration of NLP, LAB Proﬁling and much more. For all the information you need visit www.nlpdorset.co.uk or speak to John on 01202 424250 or Brian on 01202 716562. Discover more about us in the Group of the Month feature near the back of this issue of Rapport Magazine. Saturday 25th August 2007 - Cliffeside Hotel, East Overcliff Drive, Eastcliff, Bournemouth BH1 3AQ - £20 pre-booked or £30 on the door (includes a buffet lunch)

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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Who am ‘I’? What is ‘me’?

How the NLP Logical Levels can help us with the Big Question. NLP Trainer Joe Cheal talks to Caitlin Collins

t may be true to say there’s something childlike about many NLP enthusiasts. I hope so! It’s certainly true to say that many NLP enthusiasts are keen to go for the Big Questions, the ones about Life, the Universe, and Everything; the ones that most people probably asked as children, before the wall went up (thank you, Pink Floyd). Joe Cheal is one such enthusiast; he’s been asking the Big Question: Who am I? And he’s been finding the NLP model of Logical Levels a helpful resource in his enquiry. This model, which used to be known as ‘Neuro Logical Levels’, was introduced to the NLP world by Robert Dilts. Many people have found it a useful analytical tool for gaining insight into how they are living their lives, and great for highlighting areas that are working well and areas where changes might be beneficial. For those not familiar with the model, Joe offers a Spirit quick overview of the levels. Environment is at the base; without an environment or context, Behaviours either can’t take place, or are meaningless. Capability Identity can be considered a logical level ‘up’ from behaviours because without behaviours, we can’t develop capability. Beliefs and Values are a bit of a jump from Beliefs/Values capability, although perhaps it could be argued that we couldn’t have beliefs without the capability of thinking. Regarding Identity, we might find it hard to develop Capability a sense of self without our beliefs and values. Spirit is a bit of a question mark in the model; however it appears to include our connection with others who are, indeed, a collection of identities. Behaviours As illustrated here by Joe, Robert Dilts presented the model as a pyramid in which each level contains the one directly below (eg a capability or skill is a collection of behaviours). We can also see that a higher level can’t develop properly until the preceding level is in Environment place (eg a skill cannot develop without the necessary behaviours). A change at any level will affect those above and below it although a higher level change is likely to have more effect on the lower levels than vice versa.

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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT So, given the interconnectedness of the levels, rather than asking the question ‘Who am I?’ simply from the obvious level of Identity, Joe suggests that it may be more enlightening to check out the whole lot. He sets out how this might work in this table.

Logical Levels Or Simply Aspects Of Self ? Before encountering the Logical Levels model, Joe used to use a simpler but similar model called Aspects of Self, depicted by concentric circles. This model could demonstrate two things: ﬁrstly, that a person is more than just the sum of his or her thoughts, memories, experiences etc., and, secondly, that it’s possible to separate a person from his or her behaviour – a crucial requirement for any kind of positive change-work.

Level

Personal Identity Question

Spirit

How is who I am connected to the bigger picture, the human race? What legacy am I creating?

Identity

What is my sense of self? (Also, when I ask ‘Who am I?’ at this level, is my ego playing self-referential tricks?)

I USE I HAVE

Beliefs and Values

How did I develop my beliefs and values and how might they help and hinder my being ‘true to myself’?

I AM A SELF

Capability

How did I know to develop the particular skills and capabilities I have?

Behaviours

How are my behaviours an expression of me?

Environment

Who am I in different contexts and environments? Does this change or stay constant?

Developing The Model: Inside/ Outside Logical Levels Joe has developed the Logical Levels model by adding a new dimension of ‘internal’ and ‘external’. ‘Internal’ is the inner working, that which others do not see or hear; while ‘external’ is the manifest, that which is revealed to others. Joe came up with this distinction after a discussion about applying the Logical Levels to an organisation. As he explains, ‘There was confusion as to whether the environment of an organisation is the décor and the appearance of the reception and restaurant etc, or whether it’s the market place and/ or the geographical site. So in this instance, ‘internal’ would apply to the inner environment and ‘external’ would apply to the outside world.’ The internal/ external dimension when applied to an individual is not meant to imply a division or split in a person, but is simply a convenient way of distinguishing different expressions of the same self. The next table illustrates how this distinction might work. Level

‘In Side’(Internal eyes)

Spirit For Whom?

Inner connectedness, my Family, community, ‘transmission’ across lifetimes transmission with others

Identity Who?

Sense of who I am, self image, ego, my mission in life

Mask, expression of self (eg clothing, physical body)

Beliefs, Values Why?

What I hold to be true and important

Expressions of beliefs/ values (eg written, spoken, facial expressions of acceptance or rejection)

Capability How?

‘Out Side’(External Eyes)

States, memory, imagination, innovation, skills, abilities, knowledge, thinking, accessing cues

Demonstrating knowledge and skills, expression of thoughts, adapting to different situations

Behaviour What?

Physiological functions, breathing

Visible actions, reactions, responses, interactions, movements

Environment Where/ When?

Sense of here and now, ‘inside my head’ Internal environment

Location, place, space, time

The inside/ outside distinction can also be useful when using the Logical Levels as a modelling tool. We can model a person’s ‘external’ from ﬁrst ‘Self ’ and third ‘Observer’ perceptual positions; then we’ll need to move to the second ‘Other’ position to model the person’s ‘internal’ (particularly if they’re not there to answer our questions).

THOUGHTS, FEELING, KNOWLEDGE, VALUES, BELIEFS, EXPERIENCES BEHAVIOURS AND SKILLS

This is a great device “ for explaining and

exploring aspects of an individual, a team, a family or an organisation

”

Joe suggests that this concept might offer a new framework for depicting the Logical Levels in a non-hierarchical way, as a set of concentric circles, with Environment outside the circles and Spirit at the core as an interconnection with the ‘spiritual realm’. Rather than a vertical arrangement, this is a horizontal one; it reminds me of a mandala diagram, depicting how we manifest from the centre of our being out into the world. Any investigation of ‘who or what I am’ has to take into account the relative ‘me’ that is alive in the world. Whatever I am, I don’t think it’s any kind of isolated, ﬁndable ‘thing’ in a vacuum; interdependence is inescapable! Joe suggests that looking at it this way could allow us to say that we are the stuff of spirit with an identity; we have beliefs and values, and we use our skills and behaviours in the environment, which seems to me to offer a nicely holistic way of understanding ourselves as multifaceted beings in relationship with our world, not separate from it. ENVIRONMENT BEHAVIOURS CAPABILITY BELIEFS AND VALUES IDENTITY SPIRIT

Practical Problem-solving As well as being a tool for exploration into the larger questions such as purpose and identity, the Logical Levels model is helpful in seeking solutions to problems. As Joe points out, Einstein’s often-cited notion that ‘a problem cannot be solved on the level in which it was created’ is rapport - Summer 2007

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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Level

Possible Language Indicators

If not connected to level directly above

Spirit For Whom?

Vision, purpose in bigger picture, community, transmission, beyond self, global systems, interconnectedness, unconditional love

Identity Who?

Mission, roles, self, sum of parts, personality, purpose I am, me, ego

Isolated, egoic, selﬁsh, lack of connection

Beliefs, Values Why?

Motivation, permission, meanings, willingness, desire, important, reinforcement, should, ought, must, generalisations, rules

Disassociated: ‘I’m not myself today’, split parts, parts disintegration, conﬂicting priorities/ values

Capability How?

Mental maps, plans, strategies, states, memory, imagination, Can but don’t want to, unmotivated, bored, innovation, adaptation, skills, abilities, knowledge, thoughts, direction, lack of drive can/ can’t

Behaviour What?

Actions, reactions, responses, interactions, movements, do, activate, use, utilise, activate, implement

Environment Location, place, space, time, external conditions, surroundings, here, Where/When? now, opportunities, constraints, see, hear, feel, taste, smell, sense a key to the power of Robert Dilts’s original hierarchical model: a lasting solution will tend to be found at a higher level than the one on which it is manifesting. For example, if we find ourselves behaving inappropriately in a certain environment, we could of course change the environment – but our tendency for that behaviour to recur is likely to remain. We might be able to come up with alternative behaviours, but even then the old behaviour would be likely to return if something hasn’t changed in our capability. We need to know how to change, not just what to change! Or, in another example, if we’re having difficulty developing a skill, we can practise and practise without much effect; however, once we begin to gain confidence and positive belief in ourselves, the skill can take off and fly. Joe finds that there are certain typical indicators that can help to establish the level of a problem. The next table shows some indicators that we might hear in our own or someone else’s language, and also suggests some likely problems that might occur at each level if that level is not aligned with the one above. When all the levels are appropriately aligned we are likely to experience a sense of completeness or coherence in our life. Map Or Metaphor? Joe remarks that past criticisms of the Logical Levels model seem to stem from the mistake of taking the model as a map, and therefore expecting it to be a more or less literal representation of reality. As he points out, ‘Some people have criticised the model for not really being “logical” levels at all! However, if you take it more metaphorically, then you free it up to become a very useful tool for exploration. It promotes reflection and

Random behaviours, habits, repeating old behaviours even though they don’t work, ‘freezing’, procrastination, knee jerk reaction rather than response Empty environment, nothing happens or gets done discussion and hence leads to new understanding.’ The Logical Levels model can be a great device for exploring aspects of an individual, a team, a family or an organisation. I certainly ﬁnd it useful both for individual clients and for groups on courses; for example, used early on and then repeated at intervals, it provides a measure of the changes taking place as people gain increasing insight into who or what they are and how they express themselves in relationship with the world. So, after all this: Who am I? What is me? Last word must go to Joe, who responds to our original Big Question with an unbeatable one-liner from John Overdurf and Julie Silverthorn: ‘Whatever you think you are, you are so much more than that!’

About Joe Cheal Joe Cheal, from the GWiz Learning Partnership, has been working with NLP since 1993 and runs both Practitioner and Master Practitioner courses with his partner Melody. As well as being a licensed trainer of NLP, he holds a degree in philosophy and psychology and diplomas in Coaching and in Ericksonian Hypnosis, Psychotherapy and NLP. He is currently undertaking an MSC in Organisational Development and NLT. Joe uses the Logical Levels model in training courses, in executive coaching sessions and in consultancy work to help clients understand and work through their goals and issues on a personal, team and organisational level. For more information about the GWiz Learning Partnership and its courses, email joe@gwiztraining.com or visit www.gwiztraining.com. A more detailed article by Joe Cheal about the Logical Levels can be found on the ANLP website. Further Information • For more detail about the Logical Levels, see: http://www.nlpuniversitypress.com. • For a critique of logical levels, see: http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/nlpfax07.htm • For more information about the Logical Levels of Organisations and the ‘Logical Level Loops of Learning’, see: http://www.gwiztraining.com/Articles.htm

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inspiring natural potential…

2007 EVENTS DIARY 10th July 13th July 4-12 Aug. 1st Sept. 4th Oct. Oct.-Dec. 24th Nov.

Free NLP Taster Event NLP Déjà Vu: Timelines NLP Practitioner Cert. NLP & Magical Relationships NLP Déjà Vu: Anchoring NLP Master Practitioner Cert NLP Negotiation & Persuasion

email: info@gwiztraining.com phone: 01767 640956 www.gwiztraining.com

I�m noticing so much now as I�m speaking to others - their language patterns, sensory information… The programme has created a real shift in me, and I�m finding it so exciting being able to use my learning to help others...

Still assimilating the most amazing nine days of my life and really excited about where the journey will take me...

I�ve also reached new levels of self-awareness that I never felt possible...

The mix of practical exercises, challenging and provocative discussions and knowledgeable and fascinating input, led to a truly memorable learning experience…

Joe Cheal

Melody Cheal

Joe and Melody Cheal are both management development specialists and have been working with NLP since 1993. As well as running Practitioner and Master Prac courses certified by the Society of NLP, they also offer ILM diplomas in Coaching & Leadership.

Are you ready for the experience now?

EDUCATION

Time on Task: NLP in schools

Roger Terry and Richard Churches tell Joanna Goodman how NLP training for teachers is helping to deliver excellence in the classroom

n his 2007 Ashby Lecture on ‘Happiness and Values’, Professor Lord Layard called for a new generation of teachers specialising in ‘emotional intelligence’. ‘NLP for Teachers’ is a one-day course developed by Roger Terry and Richard Churches. It trains teachers to harness their emotional intelligence to communicate better, reduce disruption and get the best out of all their students. I caught up with Roger and Richard at the end of the course. In addition to the enthusiastic response they received from the 60-odd delegates, the fact that schools and local education authorities are willing to pay for their teachers to attend this course is testament to its effectiveness. Roger and Richard both have strong academic backgrounds and their education and NLP credentials no doubt help them to connect with their educated and articulate audience. Roger is a biochemist by training and an NLP Master Trainer. His company, Evolution Training, offers NLP courses at Diploma, Practitioner and Master Practitioner level. He has worked with many challenging schools and has trained hundreds of teachers to use NLP skills in the classroom. Richard, who is studying for a PhD in NLP and leadership at Surrey University School of Management, is Principal Consultant for national programmes at CfBT Education Trust, a worldwide education consultancy. His role involves creating and commissioning national training programmes for teachers, including the Fast Track teaching programme, which is an accelerated leadership programme for graduate teachers. A positive environment for learning Research shows that the best teachers always

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Summer 2007 - rapport

retain their students’ attention and ﬁnd ways to create a positive learning environment. How does NLP help them achieve this? “We train teachers to control their own emotions through state management. We also work with Milton model hypnotic language patterns which are effective in the classroom as they help teachers gain compliance without an argument” says Roger.

Time on task Time on task is another critical success factor. Highly effective teachers spend more time teaching and less time managing their class. But there’s not a lot of advice out there about how to go about achieving that. ‘NLP for Teachers’ helps teachers acquire the personal skills to bridge that gap. “The idea is to generate time on task,” says Richard. “If you’re wasting time gaining compliance and dealing with difﬁcult behaviour, you are losing critical teaching time.” Teachers can get into a downward spiral where they’re constantly telling students off instead of teaching them. NLP offers strategies that help them subtly gain the

compliance of the whole group in a way that doesn’t slow down learning. “We work with teachers on basic NLP skills such as creating rapport with individuals and groups,” says Roger. “Increasing your sensory acuity through NLP helps you pre-empt potentially difficult situations so that you can really be master in your own classroom.” Using perceptual positions to deal with bullies Bullying in schools is a serious problem that attracts a lot of media attention. However, many schools’ anti-bullying strategies concentrate on the victims and their feelings. The bully is generally punished or excluded. “This means that the bully thinks about the school punishing them and doesn’t move on in terms of understanding,” observes Roger. ‘NLP for Teachers’ offers teachers specific strategies to address bullying at its source: by changing the bully’s attitude. One technique that uses perceptual positions has been successful in several schools. “It involves working with bullies to help them empathise with others and encourage them to change their behaviour,” explains Richard. “It’s a quick way of making them reflect on what they did and engage with their victim.” There are three basic perceptual positions: 1. You 2. The other person 3. A detached observer The technique involves taking the bully through the three perceptual positions, using

EDUCATION different areas of the room to take a bully through the ﬁrst position, what it’s like to be them; and the second position – what it’s like to be the victim. Thirdly, you take them through what it’s like to be a teacher or another pupil watching the whole process. “Compelling a bully to look at an incident from different points of view is a really powerful way of getting through to them,” says Richard. Richard and Roger explain how this technique can be applied to a variety of classroom situations. First position is best for giving praise and rewards as it shows that you really mean it. Second position is good for asking questions in a way that draws out learning. It is also the best position for lesson planning – look at the subject from the children’s point of view and think about what will engage them. Roger comments “it’s what brilliant teachers do automatically. NLP gives teachers the tools to model what brilliant people do and achieve that excellence.” Third position is useful for dealing with misbehaviour. Instead of reacting emotionally, it enables a teacher to reinforce rules without eliciting emotional responses. “Teachers’ natural perceptual position is second: they choose teaching because they want to make a difference.” He explains that if you stay in second position you become

a doormat. If you stay in first position, you can get very emotional and self-centred; if you stay in third, you can become detached and unemotional. So the answer is to remain flexible. “It’s classic NLP training,” adds Roger. “The person with the most flexibility controls the system.” NLP and neuroscience Roger and Richard are enthusiastic about connecting NLP to the latest neuroscience research. Ten years ago there was little scientific evidence for NLP, but recent research using MRI scanning has produced findings that support its effectiveness. He offers three examples: 1. Research into mirror neurones suggests evidence for sensory acuity, rapport and modelling. Recent research has shown that people on the autistic spectrum have dysfunctional mirror neuron networks. 2. Internal representations and mental rehearsal are acknowledged to have a positive effect on performance. 3.Hypnotism and hypnotic language are also acknowledged as influential techniques. Recent research has clearly shown that hypnotic language affects the brain. The biochemistry of NLP A biochemist by training, Roger is interested in how NLP techniques such as anchoring

Ten Top NLP Techniques for Teachers 1. Use spatial anchoring for different areas in the classroom – this can help condition group responses from the children you teach. 2. Use perceptual positions for dealing with bullying. 3. Develop your rapport skills– when to have it and when not to. Managing difﬁcult pupils and parents. 4. Use ‘Yes sets’ and inﬂuential language in the classroom. 5. Know Satir categories – these are particularly useful for parents’ evenings 6. Visualise outcomes – how you want the children to be in your classroom, not just what they’re going to learn. 7. Use well-formed outcomes – for lesson planning. At the end of this scheme of work, ask yourself, ‘What am I going to see, feel and hear the children doing?’ 8. Awareness of chunking up and chunking down in questioning. Do you go up to the detail or look at the bigger picture? It’s important to move between the detail and the big picture as well as across categories to encourage higher-order questioning. 9. Learn Milton model language to embed commands. 10. Learn hypnosis for relaxation. You can also embed learning and understanding with metaphors and stories and to create and embed states. This is great for assemblies.

rapport - Summer 2007

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EDUCATION can enable us to change the chemicals in our body and consciously change our state. “When we are stressed or angry our body produces a specific combination of chemicals,” he says. “Eventually, we get addicted to those chemicals and our cells produce more receptors for them. When you fire an anchor, you flood your body with a new set of chemicals and change your state. Building resourceful anchors and deploying them regularly means the anger or stress will fade and become less prevalent.” Anchoring helps teachers take control of their own emotions and this helps them deal with difficult situations in the classroom, avoiding what is known in emotional intelligence circles as ‘amygdala hijack’. Roger explains that the amygdala is the part of the brain that deal with emotions. In emotionally charged situations, it can hijack the brain and flood the body with stress hormones. At the same time, the neocortex is working to control feelings in order to reappraise situations and deal with

Highly “ effective teachers

CASE STUDY Head Teacher Liz Robinson Liz Robinson is head teacher of Surrey Square junior school in Southwark, an inner London state primary school with 240 children aged between 7 and 11. She manages 45 staff, including teachers, premises management and catering staff. Liz first encountered NLP on the Fast Track accelerated leadership programme. She then went on to complete her Practitioner in January 2007. Liz outlines some of the ways NLP helps her manage the multitude of different tasks involved in running a busy primary school. 1. ON A PERSONAL LEVEL As a head teacher, Liz has to deal with children, parents and staff on a day-to-day basis. “Being a head is an enormous job with lots of potential negative energy,” she says. “I have to deal with masses of information and a huge variety of tasks as well as handling lots of people and their different emotions. Primarily, I use NLP to manage my own state and to create an atmosphere in which I can feel supported and calm,” she explains. “The key tools are around anchoring, state management and self-awareness.” 2. STAFF COACHING AND DEVELOPMENT Liz does individual one-hour coaching session with each of the seven members of her senior leadership team once every half term. As well as using NLP to deliver more effective coaching, she has taught teachers specific NLP techniques such as anchoring, which has proved particularly useful in conflict situations around behaviour management. “I’ve taught them how to use positive anchors to get them in a good state when dealing with tricky situations,” she explains.

spend more time teaching

3. WORKING WITH CHILDREN “Children are sent to me when they’ve misbehaved and I use NLP a lot in that context,” says Liz. “For example, I have different spatial anchors in my ofﬁce. So if I need to tell children off, I do it in a certain place and adopt a certain style. If children come to me for good reasons, I’ll be in a different part of the ofﬁce.”

them more effectively. NLP gives teachers tools that help them physically bring their feelings under control and deal with difficult situations. Their forthcoming book includes ‘research zones’ which outline the science that underpins their thinking. Again flexibility is the key. “We’ve been teaching teachers anchoring processes that enable them to recall any state they need,” says Roger. “This means that they tend to get less frazzled at the end of the day. Instead of soldiering on, they’re learning to take control by choosing how they’re going to be.” Richard and Roger have adopted a similarly flexible approach to developing ‘NLP for teachers’. “It’s a learning journey for us too,” says Richard. “It started off as a classic NLP Diploma course. We then asked teachers to tell us what they found most useful and concentrated on those elements. Roger adds that by the end of 2007 approximately 1,000 teachers will have completed the course. NLP for Teachers: How to be a Highly Effective Teacher by Richard Churches and Roger Terry will be available in December from Crown House Publishing.

4. DEALING WITH BULLIES Bullying is a challenge for many teachers. Liz uses perceptual positions to help bullies to see things from a different perspective. “The power of perceptual positions is in getting the bully to be the other child,” she explains. “It’s not just a matter of saying, ‘How do you think it feels for them?’ I actually get them to act out the incident. I say, ‘Sit in this chair and be yourself.’ I then get them to sit on another chair and be the other child. Questions like, ‘What does it look like from their point of view?’ and ‘What do they feel?’ produce a shift in their experience.”

”

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Summer 2007 - rapport

Liz introduces anchoring to children with anger management issues. “I set up positive anchors by getting them to think about times when they felt really calm or really happy,” she says. “I then work with them to find ways to trigger that feeling the next someone is getting on their nerves or calling them names. Instead of calling them a name back, I teach them to think of a colour or a word that will bring back a happy state.” 5. CONFLICT RESOLUTION NLP also helps Liz to resolve conflicts involving parents and/or staff. She applies anchoring, state management and Satir gestures, adding that language is key to conflict resolution. 6. TEACHING AND PEDAGOGY Liz is currently working on applying NLP to teaching and pedagogy – an area that she believes has huge potential. Finally, Liz emphasises that she is careful not to push NLP per se in the classroom, preferring a more gradual approach. “The jargon can be off-putting,” she says. “When I teach my staff a technique such as perceptual positions, they don’t need to know what it is called or the theory behind it unless of course they choose to explore further. From the staff point of view, I’m more interested in their being able to use it in practice.” Nonetheless, NLP is catching on fast at Surrey Square junior school. The fact that two members of her staff joined Liz on the ‘NLP for Teachers’ course is testimony to the effectiveness of her efforts.

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CELEBRITY

Paul McKenna on NLP and Thought Field Therapy

by Eve Menezes Cunningham

Everyone seems to have heard of Paul McKenna. Best known for his supercharged stage and TV performances as well as books like Instant Conﬁdence (2006, Transworld, £9.99), he gives the impression of having been born conﬁdent

ut Paul says, “I wasn’t confident in some areas and I think NLP helped me. I used to work as a radio DJ. I wasn’t a natural stage performer but I used NLP to model people who were good on stage and good on television and learned to be better at it. As a result of that, my confidence developed. But I was already confident enough to become a radio DJ. It’s also helped me to develop my confidence in business and lots of other areas so for me, yes, it’s definitely changed my life for the better. I’ve used what I’m teaching and selling on myself so I feel good about it.” Paul first became interested in NLP when he went to interview a hypnotist. He says, “I’d had a particularly bad day. I’d broken up with my girlfriend, had a row with my boss, the people who lived in the apartment downstairs had been making a racket and I was very stressed out. The hypnotist said, ‘You look rather stressed, why don’t I do some of this on you? Would you let me hypnotise you?’ Well, I was sceptical to say the least but said, ‘Go ahead! Let the healing begin!’ “And I was amazed at how relaxed I felt, almost euphoric. Afterwards, I felt so good I asked, ‘Have you got any books about this?’ He lent me a book by Richard Bandler and I was really amazed at how clever and creative Richard’s writing was. I began practising on my friends and it worked pretty consistently. I was more surprised than they were. ‘Oh! It really does work!’” When Paul demonstrated hypnosis at a party, he realised that while people were falling about laughing, they were also learning that it worked. He still uses NLP on a day-to-day basis and says, “If I need

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Summer 2007 - rapport

Oh! It really “ does work! ”

to relax I use trance.” And when he had writer’s block, Paul blended a few NLP techniques to break through it: “I travelled down the timeline, 6 months or a year in the future, dropped into the timeline, held the book in my hands and the editor I work with said, ‘Tell me what’s in Chapter 1.’ So I’d tell him and he’d make notes and then say, ‘Right, Chapter 2?’ “If you look at it, all the great creative people throughout history used that reverie or state of relaxation to get their creative ideas. Einstein, Mozart and Walt Disney all refer to a type of self-hypnosis or guided imagery. In corporations they do Strategic Planning and corporate executives go off into ‘the imagined future’ to see what sorts of products and services they’re offering. NLP provides a very organised framework for doing that.” While he used to use NLP techniques to increase his confidence and optimism “in the early days” Paul is more experimental now. He spends a lot of time flying to the US so has been using NLP to make the flights seem faster. And it even enhances his music collection. Talking to a friend at a party, he was reminded of the joy of hearing a favourite piece of music for the first time. He laughs, “A couple of days later, I was on holiday. Feeling nice and relaxed, I age regressed myself and went back to 1980 to the first time I heard Sister Sledge’s ‘He’s the greatest dancer’ and listened to it on the ipod. “And it was phenomenal! Suddenly, I could hear the sounds in the way it sounded when I heard it for the very first time. I thought ‘Oh, my God, this is the most amazing disco record I’ve ever heard.

CELEBRITY

So glamourous and punky and all those things. And although it was already a good record, suddenly, I’d recaptured the novelty of the first time I’d heard it. It sounded very fresh to me again so that’s a good example of a bizarre, obscure sort of use. Those are the kinds of things I use NLP for now.” He also finds perceptual positioning helpful for understanding other perspectives, whether it’s someone he’s disagreed with or a potential client before a pitch. Over the past five years, Paul has been bringing Thought Field Therapy (TFT) to a larger audience. And it all started with a psychic reading. Although he was sceptical at first, he listened to the psychic’s insistence that “This is for you and it’s important. You are going to work with this man and it’s very important.” Saying he didn’t see how “this thing where you tap your head” could work, he nonetheless promised to read Dr Roger Callahan’s book. Dr Callahan is a clinical psychologist. He developed TFT to help rid people of all sorts of negative emotions around psychological issues (from phobias and addictions to trauma) in a non-invasive way. TFT has been evolving for 23 years and was adopted by the Kosovan Chief of Medical Staff to help survivors of war traumas. Paul was surprised to find himself so taken with the meridian therapy. He took the book with him to New York and had just got to the section on cravings when his manager mentioned her chocolate compulsion. Paul experimented with her and brought her craving level down from 10 to 5 and then to zero. Hooked, he turned to a woman who looked so nervous about the flight her knuckles

had turned white. Paul said, “Excuse me, madam, are you a nervous ﬂyer? I’ve got a revolutionary technique you might want to try. It looks a little unusual but...” The woman was happy to try and after curing her phobia, Paul turned to the man beside her. In New York, he mentioned TFT to a doctor friend who did a little research and then tried it with some of his patients. A few days later, Paul received an email saying his friend had cured a few phobias and some insomnia. He mentioned it to Richard Bandler and

I began “ practising on my friends ”

he said he knew Roger Callahan so Paul asked for an introduction. He invited Dr Callahan to do a seminar with his training organisation and was very impressed. Paul says, “One guy had had neck pain for ten years since an accident and ﬁve minutes later he couldn’t feel any pain. There was another guy who’d been depressed for years and ﬁve minutes later he couldn’t get the depressed feeling back. A lady smoked too many cigarettes and a few minutes later she couldn’t bear the thought of a cigarette. It’s an amazing miracle changing people and I thought ‘the prophecy came true’. “Since then, I feel a moral obligation to tell people, just as I do with NLP, how amazing TFT is. It’s so simple, it’s completely safe and it’s truly effective in curing such a range of things.” At the moment, Paul’s focus is on his NLP Training Company, writing a new book and

doing some TV work. He runs the company with Michael Neill, Richard Bandler and John Bower and says, “It’s sort of like being in a band. Although we have our very individual styles, it’s great to be part of a team.” Paul says he’s happy to use whatever works. If a clients talks about prayer or Aikido, he’ll use this in the NLP so they’re more comfortable with it. He’s a big fan of learning from the source. He’d noticed that when he was writing about NLP he was quoting Bandler a lot so thought “‘I must like him.’ If you want to learn music, go to Mozart, if you want to learn TFT go to Callahan. When you watch the creator or master at work, you get a much purer interpretation.” Paul has been using NLP since 1985 and, while he’s far from happy about “piracy” and people not giving credit where credit’s due, he is thrilled to see how popular it’s become. Paul’s enthusiasm about TFT and NLP is infectious. Many people come across tools that can make a difference in their lives and that of their clients. But Paul seems unusually willing to put himself out there and try new things. This is probably a big part of the reason he’s so successful. He seems to love learning new ways to help people and has fun with it. Even though I already use NLP myself as well as with my clients every day, meeting Paul has inspired me to experiment more. For information about Paul’s NLP training and to order his books, please visit www.PaulMcKenna.com or phone 0845 230 2062. For more information about TFT, Paul recommends Dr Roger Callahan and Kevin Laye. Visit www.tftrx.com/ callahan.html or www.kevinlaye.co.uk

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PROFESSIONAL

Reinventing the Wheel (of life) by Eve Menezes Cunningham

ounder and CEO of Life Mastering, Birgit Semundseth, is passionate about helping people define and achieve their goals. She says, “We have created a couple of tools to help people do this. We were the first in the world to create a Wheel of Life and Vision Board online.” As a homeopath, Birgit had been treating patients for several years before becoming ill. By the time doctors told her that she’d be on medication for the rest of her life, she was ready to try anything. Then she found a lump on her throat. Birgit says, “After I had been ill for six years, I decided to test out a couple of methods which I knew were scientifically proven. I cut out a picture of a woman who had a beautiful throat, replaced her head with mine and wrote ‘I am 100% healthy’. It looked funny to other people

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but helped me. I put it up on my bedroom door and watched it consciously and unconsciously. After ﬁve months I started to

achieving it.” An American study also found that sharing goals with other people raised the intention and made success even more likely.

It makes goal setting “ more fun and this makes it more effective ” feel much better. I reduced the medicine and then quit completely. It’s supposed to be impossible,” but after 3 years, Birgit says she’s in “perfect health and, as anyone who’s had a chronic illness will understand, I am very thankful and grateful.” It made her wonder: “Why hadn’t anyone created a tool with all these proven methods for going from where you are today to where you want to be? Goal setting works. And the more clear you are about what you want to achieve, the higher your likelihood of

So Birgit and her team created a Vision Board tool. She says, “People can go in and choose from more than 1000 pictures to ﬁnd one that symbolises their goal. Then they upload their own personal pictures and add their written statements. It makes goal setting more fun and this makes it more effective.” As any coach knows, it’s not enough to know what you want. You have to identify and take the practical steps that will help you get there. Birgit’s online tool allows people to identify the actions they need to take and obstacles that may crop up. It also schedules everything into a timeframe. She says, “We have created email reminders and most people choose to receive an email every week.” These emails keep them accountable to themselves. Birgit says, “We also have a Hall of Achievement.” When most people achieve their goals, they move on too quickly. Birgit’s tool means that, “When you achieve your goal, you click and it becomes part of your Hall of Achievement. It’s so important to celebrate yourself, your small and bigger victories. People like the fact that when they’ve deﬁned their visions and goals, they can share them by email with their coach or

someone else who’ll keep them accountable.” Birgit’s tool encourages people to “describe the feelings they’ll have when they reach their goal. The last section is about focusing on what you want to create. You can print out written statements and make them into wallpaper or a screensaver for your computer.” Birgit still uses the online tools herself. She says, “When I set goals for myself, it can be hard to think ‘How can I achieve this?’ It helps to sit down and think about the steps and I have a coach, too.” One of the biggest beneﬁts of Life Mastering is that it can help lots of people more cheaply than individual coaching. Birgit says, “we want to reach as many people as possible and help them to create positive changes in their lives.” They also work with coaches to deliver tools which can make the coaching process easier. Birgit says, “We want to be on the coach’s team. We offer afﬁliate schemes so they get paid 30% of what the licence costs. In Norway, several coaches have used our tools with companies, too.” This is known as Business Mastering. Birgit says, “We have set a big, big goal to help a lot of people at low cost.”

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HEALTH

NLP in a clinical setting in private practice and in the NHS Nick Kemp and Dr Susan Elton explain how it works to Eve Menezes Cunningham

ick Kemp is a well known NLP Trainer and co-owner of Tranceforming NLP. Also a Hypnotherapist and Provocative Therapist, Nick trained with people including Richard Bandler and Frank Farrelly. He regularly appears on BBC Radio as a Phobia Cure Expert using NLP. Dr Susan Elton is a Leeds based GP and NLP Master Practitioner. She is very interested in substance misuse management and assists on Tranceforming NLP courses. Dr Elton says, “The NLP skill set and tool kit are hugely useful for GPs and all other

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communicators, even when they’re ‘not speciﬁcally’ using NLP as an approach in its own right. Within the NHS at the moment, there is great emphasis on healthcare services providing the population with ‘good health’.” “Under the most recent contracts in General Practice, the care given for chronic disease is assessed, and rewarded, as being measurable using given parameters.” She gives the example of the recorded practice population hba1c levels in diabetes management. Dr Elton says, “Good control of this is associated with reduced risk factors for catastrophic events, such as stroke, and reduces the level of end organ disease in the

future. Evidence-based medicine backs up therapeutic strategies and this has been adopted to give more evenly distributed standards of care and therapeutic outcomes.” While most agree fully, Dr Elton says, the challenge is in getting “this rather dry information across to individuals and persuading them to take it on board. There is a natural limit to how much of the gross national product can be dedicated to the NHS, the care given, the hospitals, primary care services and workforce. As a result, some therapies and services are commissioned by the NHS. Other very effective therapies and strategies are only available in the private sector to a population becoming

HEALTH

increasingly informed and interested in their own wellbeing.” According to Dr Elton, people want to know if they can “live effective lives, hold down a job, travel with their families or for work, feel content with their lot in life and take responsibility for their wellbeing knowing more about a healthy lifestyle and making good parenting choices. These are burning questions relevant to the individual rather than to the public as a whole, and different things suit different people.” The good news is that communication skills are part of doctors’ medical school curriculum. Dr Elton says, “Correct advice poorly given falls on deaf ears. There is a huge role for NLP wherever performance outcomes can be improved using effective communication strategies.” Dr Elton recognises NLP’s benefits when talking to yourself and improving everything from “getting up in the morning, time management, attending to paperwork and being in a useful and effective state all day long.” She also finds it helpful “in business meetings, interacting with staff and colleagues, as well as in a therapeutic setting.” Patient expectations are rising and NLP helps GPs use the limited time available for each patient more effectively. Dr Elton says, “The NLP skill set is hugely valuable even without using specific NLP exercises or interventions. Patients often want to be listened to and need to be heard. There are many ways of achieving

this. I have had extremely positive feedback from patients having improved my own communication skills using these tools.” Where patients have issues with substance misuse, Dr Elton says, NLP management “offers enormous opportunities to motivate those with addictions to turn their lives around and return to the wider community with their families and children. It is widely recognised that physical addiction is only part of the story. The psychological elements are multi factorial and far reaching. Communication

The NLP skill set is “ hugely valuable even

problems and in eliciting valuable information needed for a better assessment of particular conditions. Those with substance misuse issues can often have an extremely negative outlook on life, poor self image and achieving even little things can feel overwhelming. Making real friendships and establishing a drug free support network can be a massive hurdle. Assisting someone who wants to turn their lives around but does not yet know how to achieve this and helping them actually achieve a self-responsible, self-motivating, positive future is hugely rewarding for the clients themselves and for their families and children. The NHS has specific limitations, and traditionally the mental health services have been under funded and limited to those with only the most extreme of issues. This means that a huge amount of disease is left to the primary care services, self help groups and voluntary organisations. For many people, their individual misery is unattended to, falling through the gaps in service provision. For those lucky enough to be able to afford and access the specific services of someone working as a qualified NLP practitioner, conditions such as fears and phobias, anxiety and panic attacks, smoking cessation, anger management, certain eating disorders and addictions can all be treated successfully and simply. Often in a minimal number of sessions.” Nick Kemp says, “I have had many successes with clients who had problems with various

without using speciﬁc NLP exercises or interventions skills, which can be greatly enhanced by learning the NLP skill set, can play a huge role here: Gaining trust, assisting engagement and continued engagement with services, attending appointments and complying with therapy.” For these patients, setting well formed outcomes may start out as planning to continue living and to eventually be free of drugs and alcohol. Dr Elton feels that anyone working in the ﬁeld without effective communication skills is letting society as a whole as well as these patients down. She says, “The Linguistic aspect of NLP is especially powerful in giving therapists and practitioners a greater insight into patient

”

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HEALTH forms of addiction. One of the most memorable was a 19 year old client who had an alcohol addiction that resulted in him frequently drinking to the point of blacking out. This often resulted in him waking up in a police cell. When I met him, he had already attended AA meetings, substance misuse help and extensive counselling. In short, he had heard just about everything about the dangers of drink and how it could ruin his life.” After Nick had helped him, the young man’s mother wrote an astonished email outlining the transformation in her son. Nick gets his clients to complete a questionnaire before meeting him. This helps him ﬁnd out what they want from the session, how they’ll recognise that they’ve achieved it, what has stopped them changing before now and how life will be different when the issue has been dealt with. Nick says, “I also audio record each session and give the client a recording at the end of the session on CD to listen back to for the next seven days. This way, I can future pace my suggestions during the session, including such phrases as ‘when you listen back to this, notice what has changed.’” Many of Nick’s clients want help with their phobias. While he still helps people with OCD, anger issues, food disorders, addictions and panic attacks, he has become well known as a phobia cure expert. He says, “In 2006, I was asked by BBC Radio to work with 26 volunteers suffering from a variety of different phobias on a weekly basis. All of them were cured within an hour using various combinations of the classic NLP fast phobia cure and Provocative Therapy.” As some of his clients have had their phobias for over 50 years, Nick feels that it is “an excellent example of the power of the NLP toolkit in a live situation. It really sharpened the mind to know that, within an hour of ﬁrst meeting the person, I was going live on the air to take calls with the client feeding back on how well NLP had helped resolve their phobia.” Nick is part of the international ‘Just Be Well Network’. He says, “Clients often arrive with the unhelpful idea that they have a permanent condition which they have usually labelled as ‘an eating disorder’, depression or other such labels. Many clients have already tried numerous other approaches without success. A major advantage of using NLP is that this approach focuses on where the client wants to be, rather than returning to the “problem” over and over again. My good friend Frank Farrelly, whose work and style was modelled by Bandler and Grinder during the creation of NLP, calls this approach ‘the archaeological dig’.” Dr Elton says, “There is an enormous duty of care when working with clients to use what works best, in an effective responsible fashion, to best serve the interests of all concerned. Failure to do this can be disastrous. The best way to be most effective as a practitioner is to train well, undertake continuing professional development and peer review, be accountable to a professional body and work from a suitable setting with adequate insurance.” Nick hopes that training institutes will “produce practitioners who are self responsible and who can demonstrate results so that NLP increasingly becomes a worthwhile addition to existing medical and psychological approaches. I have found NLP to be an extraordinary set of tools for dealing with a host of different conditions which can often succeed where more traditional methods may not.” With so many patients feeling unheard and helpless when they go to the doctor, the idea of GPs being trained in NLP sounds very positive. For more about Nick Kemp see www.nickkemp.com

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ANLP DEVELOPMENT

Can Reﬂective Diaries Enhance Learning? Dr Rosie Tope, Dr Eiddwen Thomas and Dr Suzanne Henwood

he impact on subsequent practice of a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) seminar is reported rarely. Evaluations tend to focus on whether participants enjoyed the event overall and how they rated the quality of the facilitators, venue and refreshments. Following a recent communication seminar (see full report on http://www.anlp.org) and with the imminent introduction of the new ANLP on line reflective portfolio for recording CPD activities, it is timely to share the results of our evaluation. This demonstrated that following attendance at a two day communication seminar, twenty four nurse practitioners found that keeping reflective diaries had enhanced their learning and helped them to apply the knowledge gained during the event into their practise. At the end of the seminar an information pack including a reminder of the seminar objectives, guidance on how to complete a reflective diary and questions which would aid reflection was given to each nurse. They agreed to write a diary over a four week period, two months after the seminar took place. They were asked to reflect on events or situations and identify whether, and if so how, they were still using the information they had gained during the weekend. More specifically, they were asked to record how information gained during the seminar influenced their interactions with patients and their families and with their professional colleagues. The nurses were asked to include specific examples of where they recognised they had acted differently in planned or unplanned situations. The diary remained

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the personal and confidential property of each nurse. Approximately three months after the seminar we conducted prearranged individual in depth face-to-face interviews. The nurses were asked to provide examples of changes in their practice and to share their thoughts and reflections of recorded events. Every nurse reported not only had the seminar improved their knowledge and skills in communication but that the very act of keeping a reflective diary had enhanced this learning which had a positive impact on their practice. Specific examples given by the nurses of enhanced practice included: • improving listening skills and an ability to use silence effectively • ensuring clients/patients understand what is being said and the exact meaning of any words used which might be open to different interpretations • enhanced awareness of body language in communication • personal reassurance and an increase in confidence leading to a willingness to try out new tools and techniques to aid communication • patient and family empowerment, helping to deliver truly patient centred care • working more effectively within their own team and with other teams • managing their own time more effectively • moving their own practice forward • sharing of ideas and best practice with others • positive impact on self and attitude to work and learning

Several participants admitted that they would not have thought so much about their own performance and communication unless they had kept a reflective diary, nor would they have revisited the seminar’s learning outcomes. Participants claimed that keeping a reflective diary focused their minds on the content of the seminar and encouraged deeper analysis and further insight into their communication skills and practice. Several claimed that this would not have occurred had it not been for keeping the diaries and the thought of a follow up interview. Some nurses had been so impressed with the concept of keeping a reflective diary that they intended to continue the practice. Conclusion It is worth considering the potential value of reflective diaries following CPD activities, even if they are not formally reviewed by trainers. The on line reflective portfolio being developed by ANLP will support members to reflect and review their learning over time. It may also be of value to contact individuals after training events to explore its impact on practice. Our experience suggests that the anticipation of an impending interview also enhanced the reflective process. This would also serve to provide an evidence base from which to demonstrate the effectiveness of NLP training. We hope our results inspire both trainers and students to keep reflective diaries following a CPD activity.

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NLP

Why talk to a guru... ...when you can whisper to a horse? Caitlin Collins meets leadership coach Paul Hunting and a mare called Maddie

’m not here to make you happy. Nor am I remotely interested in whether or not you like me,’ says the ﬁerce old man, scowling down like a thundercloud from his exalted position on a high throne. Sitting in the front row, I am terriﬁed! I can’t imagine anyone not caring whether people liked them or not. The lama pauses, surveying the quaking rabbits in front of him; then continues more gently: ‘I’m here to help you to realise your own true nature. That’s what’s important. This episode took place in a Buddhist temple some 20 years ago. I was reminded of it recently, meeting big black Maddie in a session of horse-assisted transformational coaching with Paul Hunting.

“

Horses don’t care about your income, your beauty, your achievements, your cleverness or your ancestry; they are interested in your trustworthiness right here and now

Sensitivity Expressing our true nature requires us to step outside the conventional barter system of trying to please and wanting to be liked, the learned hypocrisy that prevents our truly honouring either ourselves or another person. Horses are extremely sensitive to human incongruence or hypocrisy; they don’t like it and they will tell us so. They have an extraordinary capacity to respond purely to others’ intentions. Maybe this comes from the fact that as prey animals, their survival depends on their ability to perceive the intentions of a predator. Wild equines such as zebras will continue grazing calmly as a lion strolls by within a few yards; they know the lion is just out for a walk. The same zebras will bolt instantly from a lion they perceive to be hunting. And, as social animals, all equines greatly value the qualities of herd-leaders who can help them to stay safe. The world of personal development coaching has begun to recognise the significance to humans of the equine response to others’ intentions and leadership qualities, and a number of horseassisted coaching systems have come into being. Paul Hunting has been developing the system he calls Horse Assisted Transformation (HAT) for fifteen years: he believes it is ‘the biggest development in personal development since NLP – it’s applying the essence of NLP, accelerating, enhancing, and bringing it alive on many levels.’ Leadership Horse-assisted coaching does indeed take us into a different dimension, out of our familiar repertoire of resources and reactions. You can’t be anything but fully present when in a small space with a very large animal with hair-trigger reactions! You’ll

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”

be highly motivated to find whatever it takes to stay safe and be effective; and that means finding the leadership qualities within you that will enable the horse to relax and be confident in your ability to direct him or her properly. It’s fast, it’s effective, and it’s exhilarating. It’s also egalitarian: horses don’t care about your income, your beauty, your achievements, your cleverness or your ancestry; they are interested in your trustworthiness right here and now.

Resources For Change As with any interaction, there are outer and inner aspects to a horse-assisted coaching session. On the outside, the client is learning how to handle a horse effectively on the ground and how to be present with the horse in such a way that both can enjoy each other’s company. On the inside, he or she is learning to find the resources that allow for such effective interaction: qualities such as awareness, trustworthiness, positive intention, empathy, warmth, patience, confidence, respect, emotional stability, authenticity, and flexibility. Maddie And Me All this brings me to the present experience of standing in a field in the Cotswolds with Paul and Maddie one bright Spring morning. I’ve arrived somewhat distracted: I’m in the process of trying to sell a house. I’ve found another house I want to buy; however my purchasers are delaying exchanging contracts and not only do I risk losing the house I want but I also feel responsible for letting down my vendors; I feel out of control of the situation and my stress levels are rocketing. Paul Hunting usually works in the corporate sphere, helping people to discover and develop the leadership skills they need for effective management. I’m lucky to have him all to myself for the day. An engaging, humorous chap with a knack of extracting the essence, Paul has already helped me identify the specific issue I want to work on today. It’s one that’s probably common to many selfemployed people: I put a lot of effort into my business, for too little return; I also let the admin pile up and get in the way of creative, productive stuff (we are talking about, um, two years of un-filing!).

NLP

I want to find a way to unlock blocked energy in my work and elsewhere in my life. Now Paul assigns me a task that is to act as a metaphor for my issue. I am to lead Maddie away from the other horses and into the round pen. But something strange starts happening as we are talking: the three horses are moving around and forming patterns; at first Maddie comes forward, then she withdraws behind the others. I feel oddly out of control of the situation. Maddie is not wearing a halter, so I can’t just ‘lead’ her in the obvious way, with a rope. What to do? I start trying to entice her, making the sort of chirrupy noises that a horse might like to hear, trying to get her to like me; but she just flattens her ears at me. I switch tactics and try chivvying her, getting behind her and flapping my arms; she simply walks behind her friends so I can’t get at her. Looking about for inspiration, I spot a stick with a string attached to it; I put the string around her neck and pull. Maddie braces against me, but I drag her along regardless and oblige her to accompany me to the round pen. Whew! We’re there at last. Now for the feedback. There’s no getting around the uncomfortable observation that first I tried to entice, then I tried to bully, and finally I forced Maddie to do what I wanted. This leads to the equally uncomfortable question: Is this how I normally treat other people? We move on to the next step: I am somehow to lead Maddie into moving around me in the round pen. I footle about a bit, getting increasingly hot and bothered, while the mare ignores my efforts. Eventually I ask Paul to demonstrate. He and Maddie engage in the most delightful dance, in perfect rapport, with Maddie walking, trotting, cantering round, changing direction, changing canter-lead, happy and confident, responding to subtle shifts in Paul’s energy and body-language. It can be done! I try again. But Maddie is moving reluctantly, as little as possible, while I’m running about a lot! I seem to be working very hard, for small results. Paul reminds me that the task is not important – what’s important is my learning – and I start to relax: my energy comes down from the head, down into the hara or belly-centre; I stop running around and take up a strong, steady stance; I open up physically and emotionally, allowing and inviting Maddie to move around me. And suddenly she is moving and we are dancing, and I am enjoying being here in the sunshine in harmony with this marvellous mare. Later, Paul asks me to close my eyes and identify the moment of change: it was when I stopped doing and

began being. He elicits from me the description of what’s going on: ‘I’m standing strong, allowing, inviting, and enjoying!’ and we anchor that state with posture and words. Other words are also coming up: trust, love, rapport, connection, spaciousness, stillness, openness. We are straying into the realm of the spiritual here; this is like the sort of meditative experience a yogi might strive for years to attain. Wow! Results Happen Well, the wow continues. Changes have happened on outer and inner levels. A couple of days after our session, the apparently immovable house-chain shifted; I’m now sitting in the office of my new home on Exmoor as I type this article. More work has been coming in; however I’m still managing to find time to explore the moor as well as enjoying sorting out the house. I’ve also noticed than I’m becoming more alert to my old habits of trying to get people to like me and placating and pressuring others to get what I want. And the filing? That’s been done; it was easy! In fact it’s amazing how much can be achieved by simply ‘standing strong, allowing, and inviting’! The Horse Assisted Transformation system uses the model of the true self and the conditioned self. The conditioned self lives by the duality expressed in such concepts as right and wrong, praise and blame, attachment and aversion; it’s a limited level of being that masks the deeper truth. Horse Assisted Transformation can help us in a direct, powerful way to discern the falsehood that has been masquerading as truth, transcend it, and step into the truth we can live by: our true nature. And, importantly, the benefits would seem to be reciprocal, for it is only when we stop seeing a horse as an inferior ‘other’ to exploit, and start genuinely connecting with deeper, shared levels of being that the magic happens; and surely the horse can appreciate and benefit from that communion just as we can. Paul Hunting has recently brought out a book entitled ‘Why talk to a Guru? When you can whisper to a Horse’, in which he presents his ideas, describes his coaching methods, and explores the power of traditional spiritual metaphors that point towards the ‘Holy Grail’ of the authentic leadership that we can learn to find and express with the help of horses. See the Book Review section in this issue for more details! For more information visit Paul Hunting’s website: www.horsejoy.com

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BUSINESS

NLP goes multi-media with My Performance Coach My Performance Coach (MPC) is a brand new concept in management training. Its creator, Nick le Clère explains to Joanna Goodman how MPC has brought NLP-based business coaching into an interactive, multi-media dimension

y Performance Coach (MPC) is a DVD-based interactive coaching programme developed by Nick le Clère and his team at Making Change Happen, who have translated tools and techniques commonly used in executive coaching and mentoring into a self-service learning application that can be used on any PC. The aim is to bring the beneﬁts of this type of professional and personal development to middle managers and others who do not normally have access to oneto-one coaching, which is costly in terms of both time and money. “MPC is designed to emulate the processes and methods of top performance coaches in four key themes: performance, change, wellbeing and leadership,” explains Nick. Its aim is to embed leadership competencies across an organisation and inspire and motivate individuals and teams to maximise their performance and that of the business. Where does MPC ﬁt into an organisation? According to Nick, Operations and HR departments use it to support their business improvement and leadership development agendas and deal with stress management, work-life balance and employee wellbeing. It’s also a particularly useful way of encouraging people to take ownership of their learning,” he explains. “They may aspire to further their career, but it may not always be practical for them to do courses.” MPC can be delivered as part of a blended learning approach, which comprises a

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technology component such as an e-learning course accompanied by workshops or workbased experiences. “It can be tailored to link into companies’ own training programmes,” says Nick. “Most internal management training covers workflow and business process, but there’s nothing to help people deal with the human dynamics involved in performance, change management and emotional mastery.” Where did the idea come from? “It’s designed to bring together everything I have learnt,” explains Nick, who has a solid business background, having worked at British Aerospace for 17 years, rising up the ranks of the company from the shop floor through line management ending up as an internal process improvement consultant. He adds that his long series of promotions was supported by management training provided by the company. Shortly after Nick left British Aerospace to become a change management consultant and performance coach, he turned to NLP in a big way, completing some 130 days of NLP-related training. He did his Practitioner and Master Practitioner with John Seymour and PPD training and attended Tony Robbins’ Mastery University in the United States. Why so many courses? “Each one offered tools and techniques which can be applied in different ways,” he replies. “I wanted to learn from them all.” MPC reflects the range and diversity of Nick’s experience as a manager and a coach, blending practical executive coaching techniques with NLP principles such as

modelling, visualisation and mental rehearsal. “NLP tools and techniques can help in many different ways, but most people in organisations don’t know they exist and can’t access them,” he says. “MPC provides an affordable way to bring these valuable resources to middle managers and their teams.” The Hero’s Journey MPC’s underlying inspiration was Joseph Campbell, the academic and philosopher whose concept of ‘The Hero’s Journey’ was famously used by George Lucas in developing the story line for Star Wars. The structure of MPC is derived from Campbell’s model, in that the user embarks on a virtual hero’s journey which culminates in better individual and team communication and performance. How does Campbell’s seminal story line translate into DVD-based e-coaching in the workplace? “It’s not like a training course with a start, finish and end; like ‘The Hero’s Journey’ it’s a continuous, reusable journey,” explains Nick. MPC’s format reflects the different stages of ‘The Hero’s Journey’. There are eight key sections: explore, decide, commit, engage, equip, complete, share and review. The idea is to start by exploring where you are and deciding your strategic path. The next step is to commit and this means crossing the emotional threshold. “After dealing with the cognitive elements of defining your goals and writing them down, the programme turns to the fuelling and motivation elements which

BUSINESS

It can be “ tailored to link

into companies’ own training programmes

”

are often missing in business,” says Nick. He explains that when people talk about change programmes, they regularly refer to the need for more commitment and buy-in to organisational change and performance improvement, but they then try to use mental tools to fix emotional processes. Nick’s strong belief in learning by doing is reflected in the interactive nature of MPC. Each section includes an audio overview and a range of multi-media tools and resources. Many of these are based on NLP concepts. For example the first section, ‘explore’ starts by inviting the user to check their assumptions. “Being a good manager means being able to step into other people’s shoes and understand where they’re coming from,” he says. “That means checking your assumptions.” Modelling is another important theme that runs through the entire programme. Each section includes interviews with inspirational leaders sharing their experiences and opinions on various themes. “It’s about modelling some of the inner game factors of successful people – not just what they do, but how they think and feel,” explains Nick. The video clips have engaging headlines such as ‘Bad Hair Day’ and ‘Stamp your feet on the table’ which are designed to make users curious to find out more. Like conventional coaching and mentoring, MPC is easily adaptable to different learning styles. You can either take a linear approach to the programme or simply dip in and out of

it, exploring the features that are most relevant to your role or a particular situation. “It’s also multi-media compatible for informationhungry generation Y as you can download the audio and video clips to your iPod,” adds Nick. Some of the tools translate the practical side of management training – such as stakeholder mapping and setting SMART (speciﬁc, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) workplace objectives – into interactive applications with a creative edge. These are supported by NLP principles. For example, one section includes a list of questions that enable people to deﬁne well-formed outcomes

and provides a list of descriptive words to help people achieve this. Visualisations and mental rehearsals help connect people with their goals. All this is particularly useful to help people prepare for presentations, meetings and appraisals. State management NLP techniques are used to facilitate the adoption of mindsets and emotions which directly govern high-performer behaviours that deliver results. “Thinking, feeling and doing are all impacted by each other,” observes Nick. “Workplace training tends to be all about how

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BUSINESS we need to think and behave at work; not enough attention is paid to how we feel,” he adds. This principle is embodied in MPC’s innovative ‘multi-sensory’ applications, which all deploy NLP principles. For example, the ‘State Manager’ enables you to upload the music of your choice to inspire particular states and moods. You can select a track that makes you feel energised, inspired, creative or relaxed, depending on the situation. In NLP terms, they could be described as ‘musical anchors’, which can be used with any of the interactive forms, by the user. NLP is also applied to another issue that is a regular feature in executive coaching – managing work-related stress – by offering relaxation tools, including ‘two minute timeouts’ which enable you to take a break and chill out in a virtual happy place. You can choose from a selection of slideshows including a tropical island and a bluebell carpeted wood which I visited a couple of times as part of my research for this article! On a more serious note, feedback from BT Wholesale’s pilot study made it clear that these stress management features were effective and

appreciated by participants at all levels in the organisation. Take a look inside MPC provides practical tools and resources that support managers on a day-to-day basis, e.g. preparing for presentations, meetings and appraisals, managing projects and change programmes and motivating leaders and teams. It includes elements that encourage people to look inside themselves and analyse their feelings and behaviours, which lie below the surface. At ﬁrst glance, this seems a slightly bizarre workplace activity, but we all know that people’s emotions inﬂuence how they communicate with their managers and colleagues and how individuals and groups react to organisational change. As MPC is DVD based, it also gives users the option of privacy. Although the applications that facilitate project management – stakeholder mapping, identifying group goals and objectives and allocating responsibilities – are designed for teams to use together, individuals can explore the health and wellbeing features in their own time – during

breaks at work or at home. “Another advantage of including the personal and lifestyle elements routinely included in one-to-one coaching is that MPC enables employers to demonstrate how they care about their people, by giving them access to this type of tool,” says Nick, adding that employees who feel appreciated as individuals are more likely to be motivated to go the extra mile. MPC is a hybrid that bridges the gap between business and life coaching. It applies NLP techniques to help people harness their personal and professional abilities to maximise their performance in the workplace. It’s a stylish and practical application that supports and motivates leaders and their teams, helping organisations to manage change, improve performance and build leadership capabilities. Best of all it gives managers a bit of ‘me time’, enabling them to take a few moments at a time that suits them to listen to some words of wisdom, revisit their goals, or de-stress by taking a virtual walk in the bluebell woods. For more information see www.makingchangehappen.com or contact Nick le Clère at nick@makingchangehappen.com

Case Study: BT Wholesale Networks Tim Springham, Senior Director of BT Wholesale Networks, saw the potential of My Performance Coach (MPC) to provide an effective and affordable coaching, mentoring and personal effectiveness tool kit. In August 2006, he initiated a three-month pilot involving BT Wholesale’s central change team, which comprises 80 consultants, project managers and support staff. “We take coaching very seriously and believe it can make a marked difference to performance,” he explains. “However, costs mean that we need to limit its deployment.” The purpose of the exercise was to evaluate the effectiveness of MPC and the appetite of BT Wholesale employees for next generation coaching and performance support tools. The initial reaction was positive. Within 48 hours of being invited to participate in the pilot, 70 people had accepted the invitation and MPC DVDs were distributed to various offices around the country. This was followed up by face-to-face training and guided online demos to ensure that people could make the most of the application. The next step was to undertake a training needs analysis so that participants could be guided to the resources that would be most valuable to them. They were also encouraged to dip in and out of the programme at every opportunity. Although there was some concern about people engaging in self-coaching during working time, many participants took the DVD home to explore it further. Significant benefits were soon seen in the workplace. “Line managers were using MPC tools and techniques within their teams to shift responsibilities within performance management processes, help individuals be better prepared for discussions and develop clearer goals and motivations to deliver better results,” says Debbie Rawlinson of Making Change Happen, who supported BT Wholesale’s project team. Feedback revealed that participants had derived benefit and value from MPC in their personal effectiveness and their ability to manage stressful

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situations. The summary of the pilot findings identified four key benefits relating to: • Inner game impacts for greater resourcefulness; • Challenging perceptions, beliefs and thinking processes; • Changing leadership behaviours; and • Inspirational role models and motivational impacts. People had clearly taken the time to explore MPC thoroughly. Many of them had used it to improve stakeholder analysis and engagement, identify personal learning objectives and prepare for important and challenging meetings and presentations. In fact, 70 percent of respondents to the final survey agreed that MPC could underpin training programmes and other learning applications back in the workplace. It was also clear from their comments that participants genuinely appreciated the parts of the programme that covered emotional issues. They were inspired by the leadership videos and enjoyed and benefited from the relaxation and stress management tools and techniques. As well as helping people to define and focus on their workplace and personal goals in order to improve their efficiency and productivity, MPC gave participants a new recognition of the impact of a person’s physical and emotional health and wellbeing, on their professional performance and the way they respond to the ever changing demands of the workplace.

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TRAINING & WORKSHOPS

The UK College of Personal Development: A Story of Personal Passion Sharon Sullivan, who is currently studying to become an NLP Trainer with Christina Hall, shares her experiences of assisting on the UKCPD NLP Practitioner training

was honoured to be invited to assist on the UK College of Personal Development’s first Practitioner Program and delighted when Rapport asked if I would like to write an article about the course. To write something that would express the essence and passion of UKCPD, I decided to interview the guy at the heart of the company, Tony Nutley. What first sparked your interest in NLP? I bumped into NLP some 11 years ago; it was a life changing event. Having left school with little or no formal qualifications I settled into working in customer service roles of various descriptions. I always wanted to “do something important” or in some way make a positive difference in the world. however what this could be, I never really articulated. My first exposure to NLP was on a management development course. It was clear that the program had some underlying principles that were key to the outcome of the program. I asked the tutors for additional information and I stepped into a world of learning that has been amazing, challenging and life enriching in ways that I would never have thought possible. I decided that this was going to be my life’s work.and so qualified as an NLP Trainer. The tools, insights and attitude that I had learnt were so powerful in my life, I knew that this was my opportunity to “do something

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important” and to make a real and measurable positive difference in and to the world. Who is your support network? I wanted to partner with people that shared my passion. My friend, mentor and co-trainer Chris Rasey is a key part to our success, as is the support of the ANLP and the AC. We set our sights high; I became an ANLP Accredited Trainer because we wanted to show potential students that we had the best endorsements and accreditations available.

was designed so that the modules build on each other, with the ﬁrst half of the program concentrating on the tools, skills and techniques of NLP, while the remainder of the course is all about the application of these new skills and becoming a Practitioner. The modules are delivered by Chris and myself, together with a selection of specialist trainers who are invited to deliver parts of the modules relating to their speciﬁc areas of expertise, each bringing their own style and experience into the learning journey.

You don’t just get Tony the trainer... “ you get Tony the person ” Karen and the team at ANLP seemed to share the same values as Chris and I so it was an obvious choice. The inclusion of the AC Coaching Diploma also seemed obvious as coaching is such a popular application of NLP. How is the Practitioner Program structured? The Program takes place over 9 months and consists of 20 days of training – 10 two-day modules on a Saturday and Sunday. Each module is very carefully put together with the exercises structured in such a way as to allow the students plenty of opportunities to experience, evaluate, reﬂect and feed back to each other and the group. The whole program

The students receive a comprehensive manual detailing each module, a learning log journal, their personal copy of the Association for Coaching’s book ‘Excellence in Coaching’ and access to the vast UKCPD library of NLP resources as well as an e-group set up to enable them to share their experiences and keep in touch with each other in between the modules. During the 20 days training, we ask our students to keep a learning log, write an essay, sit a knowledge integration paper and complete a modelling project. This is a LOT of reading for both Chris and me! We also invite members of the public to attend on the ﬁnal Saturday morning for some “free” NLP coaching or NLP Change work. Each student is assigned one of

TRAINING & WORKSHOPS these willing volunteers. They have 45 minutes to make a difference to their client and they are observed by 4 different trainers. What certifications/memberships can the students achieve? On successful completion students receive: • NLP Practitioner Certification, fully accredited by the ANLP; • Diploma in Business & Life Coaching, recognised by the AC; • Diploma in Hypnosis, validated by the GHSC; • Certificate in Advanced Personal Development; • UKCPD College Membership; • A full year’s membership of the ANLP. What was it like to run your first full Practitioner Program? The first day of our first full Practitioner program will be a day that Chris or I will never forget. I was feeling great that we had 16 students on the program, and I was feeling incredibly nervous Once we got going the nerves turned into useful energy and the program got off to a great start. After 18 days training we arrived on the date of the last weekend, the last two days in the program. The morning session went very well with most of the students passing with flying colours. I invited Karen Moxom from ANLP to our evening and she used this opportunity to visit us for the full day. The evening ceremony was excellent, champagne reception for the students, assistants, trainers and other invited guests. This was followed by a meal, a few speeches and then the presentation of the certificates. As I stood up to say a few words, I realised that I had achieved my outcome. It was a great feeling of accomplishment and I knew that the students were going to remember this evening as much as me. What was the experience of the course? For me, the whole journey was amazing. We are now working on the next Practitioner and both Chris and I are designing our Master Practitioner program. We have set up the “Peer Review” so that our students can continue their learning. The peer review is a monthly meeting which covers practice sessions, supervision opportunities and occasionally guest speakers will be invited to deliver

a training session. We wanted the college membership to really mean something, I passionately believe that we have done this and we have some more ideas to implement in the coming months. Sharon’s personal thoughts As I sat here writing this, I reflected on my own experience of the UKCPD program and for me, the culture of the course is one of the things that made this program such a fantastic experience. Tony and Chris believe that your NLP Certification Training will be one of the most significant learning experiences of your life, a time that you will enjoy and treasure the memories of the experience. This belief shone through everything they did and helped to create a very positive, supporting atmosphere where everyone had a sense of being on this enlightening journey together. Having fun while learning is another must for UKCPD training...and what fun we had! One such occasion that springs to mind was during the modelling weekend when we modelled Ceroc (if you imagine jiving while doing the salsa...then you’re pretty close!). One of the students is a Ceroc instructor who, together with her partner, had us all merrily spinning around the room in no time. Chris is already a bit of a dancing King so he was in his element and Tony, well, let’s just say he was very

interesting to watch!! With each passing module, the students’ confidence grew with their evolving NLP skills and attitudes all transforming into those of a NLP Practitioner. Their sense of fun and camaraderie being ever evident, even on the day they were to sit their integration papers. Tony came into the room to find the students all sitting very still and quiet with their coats and jumpers on. Tony’s honed NLP sensory acuity told him something wasn’t quite right and so he asked the question. Everyone stood up with sombre faces then ripped off their outer garments to reveal t-shirts each with a different presupposition of NLP blazoned across the front! The look on Tony’s face before he erupted into laughter was an absolute picture. All too quickly the last weekend was here. The students had come on the program for many different reasons, only one of which was to become NLP Practitioners. As I wandered around on the final Saturday morning when the students were using their NLP skills to coach random members of the public, I was astounded by how far they had come, how confident they were and how skilfully and professionally they conducted their sessions. The transformation was amazing – they were doing it, they were NLP Practitioners, and even more importantly, they were loving it! The celebration dinner was testament to the culture that is UKCPD. Tony had taken the time to organise a very special evening, that would heighten the student’s sense of achievement and one they would remember forever. With the theme tune for Dr Who blasting out, Tony said a few words about each new Practitioner as they were called in to be seated and join the cheering trainers, assistants and guests. If there were any dry eyes still left...it wasn’t long until Tony’s speech from the heart and the presenting of the certificates would take care of them! The evening was rounded off with a disco and of course, some Ceroc dancing. The guests Tony had invited were his partner, a few of his close friends, his first NLP trainer and his mum. You see, you don’t just get Tony the trainer...you get Tony the person. Using NLP to help people create a better world isn’t what Tony does, it’s who he is. And you don’t just get Practitioner training from Tony.... this is his life, his world, his passion and he invites you into it to discover it for yourselves.” E-mail: info@ukcpd.net , Tel: 0870 803 0864

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DIARY

Diary of Events for Summer / Autumn 2007 July 07 Trainers Training - John Grinder - Carmen Bostic St Clair and Michael Carroll 11th July 2007 Covent Garden- Central London Michael Carroll 020 8686 9952 info@realnlp.co.uk Premier Practitioner 11th July 2007 Covent Garden - Central London Michael Carroll 020 8686 9952 info@realnlp.co.uk Advanced Hypnosis Skills - ANLPaccredited Master Practitioner Module 4 13th July 2007 Manchester Airport Holiday Inn Andy Smith 0845 83 855 83 andy@practicaleq.com

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NLP - In the Muscle 13th July 2007 Hempnall - Norfolk Stephen Ferrey 7788154755 info@motivational-coaching.co.uk

NLP & Hypnosis Practise 18th July 2007 Hemel Hempstead Gary Sellors 01923 224419 nlpgary@talktalk.net

NLP Master Practitioner intensive 21st July 2007 Brighton- UK Bronze Dragon 01904 636216 info@bronze-dragon.com

NLP Business Trainer Training 14th July 2007 Redditch - West Midlands Ralph Watson 01788 576626 ralph@dynamic-communication.com

NLP with WomanWisdom™ 21st July 2007 Regents Park College - Central London Sharon Eden MA (Psych) 020 8597 9200 sharon.eden@womenofcourage.co.uk

ACCELERATED NLP Practitioner Certification 22nd July 2007 Cardiff Infinite Excellence - Colette White 0207 249 5051 colette@infiniteexcellence.com

Move 2 Action Encounter 14th July 2007 The Roebuck Hotel - Hertfordshire David Key 0845 434 0149 enquiries@auspicium.co.uk

NLP Master Practitioner training in York 21st July 2007 York - UK Susanna Bellini 01904 636216 info@bronze-dragon.com

NLP Practice Group 14th July 2007 London Jeremy Lazarus 020 8349 2929 jeremy@thelazarus.com

Practitioner foundation 23rd July 2007 Milton Keynes Michael Beale 01908 506563 michaelbeale@ppimk.com Practitioner Basics module 25th July 2007 Milton Keynes Michael Beale 01908 506563 michaelbeale@ppimk.com

DIARY

August 07 NLP SUMMER SCHOOL - CARDIFF 1st August 2007 Cardiff- South Wales Ralph Watson 029 2086 2647 info@aspire2change.com Master Practitioner - Executive coaching 1st August 2007 Milton Keynes Michael Beale 01908 506563 michaelbeale@ppimk.com NLP for Business 7th August 2007 Glasgow Swen Hollestelle 0845 089 5229 swen@mynoggin.co.uk Taster London 7th August 2007 London Michael Beale 01908 506563 michaelbeale@ppimk.com Practitioner accreditation 8th August 2007 Milton Keynes Michael Beale 01908 506563 michaelbeale@ppimk.com Advanced Inﬂuencing Skills - ANLP - accredited NLP Master Practitioner module 5 10th August 2007 Manchester Airport Holiday Inn Andy Smith 0845 83 855 83 andy@practicaleq.com NLP Coaching Supervision 14th August 2007 Bedfordshire Melody Cheal 01767 640956 melody@gwiztraining.com NLP & Hypnosis Practise Group 15th August 2007 Hemel Hempstead Gary Sellors 01923 224419 nlpgary@talktalk.net

NLP - In the Muscle 17th August 2007 Hempnall - Norfolk Stephen Ferrey 7788154755 info@motivational-coaching.co.uk Move 2 Action Weekend Workshop 18th August 2007 The Roebuck Hotel - Hertfordshire David Key 0845 434 0149 enquiries@auspicium.co.uk Femme Vitale - 2 day empowerment workshop for women 24th August 2007 Canterbury - Kent Lindsey Agness 01304 621735 info@thechangecorporation.com NLP - In the Muscle 24th August 2007 Hempnall- Norfolk Stephen Ferrey 7788154755 info@motivational-coaching.co.uk ACCELERATED NLP Practitioner Certification 25th August 2007 NOTTINGHAM Infinite Excellence - Colette White 0207 249 5051 colette@infiniteexcellence.com Excelling in Selling with NLP 28th August 2007 The Roebuck Hotel- Hertfordshire David Key 0845 434 0149 enquiries@auspicium.co.uk NLP Practitioner Programme 30th August 2007 North Yorkshire Susi Strang Wood MRCGP 01287 654175 drsusistrang@aol.com Blow Your Mind! Introduction to NLP 31st August 2007 Plymouth Devon Gavin Wilson 01752 696756 info@mindsionline.com

September 07 Practitioner foundation 3rd September 2007 Milton Keynes Michael Beale 01908 506563 michaelbeale@ppimk.com Master Practitioner - Sales 5th September 2007 Milton Keynes Michael Beale 01908 506563 michaelbeale@ppimk.com ANLP-Accredited NLP Practitioner Training 7th September 2007 Manchester Airport Holday Inn Andy Smith 0845 83 855 83 andy@practicaleq.com ANLP-accredited NLP Practitioner Part I / NLP Foundation Skills 7th September 2007 Manchester Airport Holiday Inn Andy Smith 0845 83 855 83 andy@practicaleq.com NLP - In the Muscle 7th September 2007 Hempnall - Norfolk Stephen Ferrey 7788154755 info@motivational-coaching.co.uk INLPTA Master Practitioner 7th September 2007 South Wales Ralph Watson 01788 576626 ralph@dynamic-communication.com Create The Life You Want free three hour taster 8th September 2007 Canterbury - Kent Lindsey Agness 01304 621735 info@thechangecorporation.com

ACCELERATED NLP Practitioner Certification 8th September 2007 LONDON Infinite Excellence - Colette White 0207 249 5051 colette@infiniteexcellence.com NLP Master Practitioner Programme 13th September 2007 North Yorkshire Susi Strang Wood MRCGP 01287 654175 drsusistrang@aol.com INLPTA NLP Practitioner Training 13th September 2007 London Helen Drake 0208 995 2864 helen@pointtaken.com The Mythogenic Self Experience 15th September 2007 Kingston upon Thames Charles Moore +44 208 974 8974 cmoore@generativenlp.com 2 days of NLP 15th September 2007 Brighton Terry Elston 0800 0746425 terryelston@nlpworld.co.uk Business Coaching Qualification 17th September 2007 Harrogate North Yorkshire Sonia Marie Saxton 07932 637197 smesaxton@saxtonpartners.co.uk NLP Practitioner & Coaching Certification Programme – Module 1 29th-30th September 2007 Tony Nutley 0870 803 0864 info@ukcpd.net

Practitioner Certiﬁcation training 8th September 2007 New Forest- Hampshire Emma Sargent and Tim Fearon 01425 473203 emma@ambo.ltd.uk

To get your workshops and events listed in Rapport, log in as a member to www.anlp.org and enter your events into the online diary. Every issue, online events listed for the next 3 months will be included in Rapport. rapport - Summer 2007

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UKCP Accreditation Pathway t Are you interested in becoming a UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist? t Are you interested in adding to your portfolio of skills as a therapist? t Would you like your CPD to be counted towards Accreditation? Awaken School (formerly Centre Training) is a Member Organisation of UKCP and currently provides training for students who are working towards UKCP accreditation. This 4 year academic pathway, in addition to your vocational supervision and client contact hours, will provide the necessary expertise to take your practice to the next level. Courses are available as stand alone or as a full pathway.

t Practitioner in NLP (Psychotherapy) t Master Practitioner in NLP (Psychotherapy) t Foundation in Clinical Hypnotherapy t Intermediate in Clinical Hypnotherapy t Advanced Patterns in Hypno-psychotherapy Students who may have already taken suitable training may be eligible for APL. Such requests are treated on a case by case basis. Please contact the ofﬁce for further information.

MSc in Psychotherapy Are you interested in a MSc in Psychotherapy? Awaken School are teaming up with a University to develop a pathway to a MSc in psychotherapy. To express interest in the programme, please contact the ofﬁce on the number below. Awaken House 14 Roseberry Court Stokesley, MiddlesbroughTS9 5QT Tel: 01642 714702, Mobile: 07929 170088 Email: awakenschool@aol.com Website: www.hypnotherapy-training.co.uk

BOOK REVIEWS

rapport book review Brilliant NLP David Molden and Pat Hutchinson £12.99, Pearson Books ‘Brilliant NLP’, delivers the goods with clarity and brevity for the curious browser or prospective student. Nasty flashbacks to when I was shuffling around with my first stabs at studying NLP. ‘Crikey...so may long words, alien-phrases and egg-head concepts! This novice-friendly book would have been a welcome introduction to the subject. I have this rude habit of dipping into books and this seems to pass the dipping test quite well. I like my, ‘Help me...I’m an idiot!’, books to be concise, to the point and smooth-reading. David Molden and Pat Hutchinson have fulfilled

those criteria. They explain an idea and illustrate it with a few brief examples. No over-egging the pudding or proving how learned they are. I could be generalizing wildly, but this falls neatly into what I imagine is the British school of selfimprovement publications, understated in tone. Molden and Hutchinson have an easily digestible, casual, light writing style. A few well-placed cartoons and illustrations break up the text nicely. Like all good-puddings, this book leaves you wanting more. Sandra Dunkley, NLP Practitioner

Why talk to a Guru? When you can whisper to a Horse Paul Hunting £19.99, Perfect Publishers This original, thought-provoking book is about more than how to learn from horses. The author’s contention is that authentic leadership requires us to discover our ‘true self ’. In the first part of the book, he identifies obstacles to our fulfilling our potential and reflects on spiritual teachings. Hunting’s writing is grounded in his own spiritual practice, bringing immediacy and authenticity to what he has to say. The second part of the book is about Hunting’s Horse Assisted Transformation system (HAT), and readers can usefully reflect on the theoretical models and carefully structured questioning offered here. One model presents three layers

of ‘self ’, which can be pictured as what we pretend to be, what we fear we are and what we really are. Transcending the ‘false’, conditioned layers of fear and pretence allows us to find the true, unconditioned self at the core. The book offers ways to do just that – with or without the help of a handy horse. Hunting writes in an entertaining, vivid style and the book is very accessible, requiring no specialist knowledge. This reviewer would have liked to see more rigorous editing; but this is a truly inspiring work with a significant message: how we can find our own truth within, and thereby bring about results greater than we had imagined possible.

Presenting with Power Captivate, motivate, Inspire & Persuade Shay McConnon £9.99, How To Books I guess that presenting is something that most of us know zero about. This book shows how to plan, construct and deliver your messege to an audience. Shay McConnon, public speaker, psychologist, magician and author of 17 books presents the basics of how to give effective presentations. The preface states. ‘This is no ordinary book on presentations.’ It bodes well, as he is also the founder member of the Professional Speaker’s Association’. I found it an adequate, instructive introduction which should be handy for the newby presenter. I am pretty sure that many of the techniques for presenting

can be translated into everyday communication, so for this reason it’s an interesting reference for a ‘civilian’ who has no intention of presenting. The chapter which deals with ‘developing conﬁdence and controlling nerves’, may be useful for those who sweat buckets at the thought of addressing an audience. I found the brief section on the effective thirty second sound bite an interesting one which I can develop and put to good use in all kinds of situations. Presenting with Power gives an overview of what I suspect is quite a large subject. Sandra Dunkley

rapport - Summer 2007

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW

I was “ always on the

lookout for new trainings

”

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW

GLADEANA MCMAHON POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY by Eve Menezes Cunningham

ladeana McMahon has been helping her clients and readers make the most of their lives for 30 years. As well as being a fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy she is a fellow and Vice President of the Association of Coaching and is active with other organisations. She says she was drawn to NLP because she was “always on the lookout for new trainings and a number of colleagues were using NLP. I thought it would be interesting to see about the differences” between NLP and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and other psychological approaches. Gladeana says, “A lot of the NLP has crossovers with CBT. It’s renamed and repackaged but works by using cognitive aspects in relation to helping people.” CBT works by changing the way you think (cognitive) and behave. In NLP, we know that we can change our thoughts by changing our state. Even standing up straight, taking some deep breaths and having a good stretch will help a person get into a more resourceful state. CBT works by encouraging people to change the things they do (their behaviour) so they don’t escalate their anxiety. For example, if someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder gets more anxious when they compulsively wash their hands, a CBT therapist would help them ﬁnd another thing to do so they break the cycle. It also ﬁts well with her existing interest and use of Positive Psychology (PP). This new branch of psychology was founded by Dr Martin Seligman. His research shows that

people can become happier (more satisfied, fulfilled and engaged with life and laugh and smile more) regardless of circumstances. Previously, psychology was, according to Dr Seligman, “half baked” because it focussed only on mental illness and repairing damage. Now he wanted to look at the other half – focusing on our strengths and what we’re good at. This branch of psychology and coaching seem like a perfect match. Gladeana has written many books* and confidence and anxiety are recurring themes. She has noticed that more and more therapy clients are benefiting from NLP. She says, “I use the Minus Plus Model. 0 is in middle and represents the normal human condition. 0 might not be happy or sad. It’s what Freud called the ‘neurotically unhappy life’. Minus is for people with emotional issues and distress. This is the counselling side. Therapy gets you from minus to 0. And coaching gets people from 0 to something that will positively add into their lives. Positive and not just being OK but being better than OK. I like helping people get a plus out of life.” At the moment, Gladeana has a small therapy practice dealing with a lot of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and trauma. Her coaching practice is much larger and Gladeana is the Head of Coaching at the City based executive coaching consultancy, Fairplace. Gladeana has worked with clients including Lloyds TSB and Kelloggs. As well as looking into stress management and lifestyle issues, she helps people believe it when they say “I can.”

Gladeana also consults as a psychological coach for TV programmes ranging from Big Brother to Dial a Mum. Along with the BACP, Gladeana has been involved in pioneering Ethical Guidelines for Reality Television. So how does she know who needs therapy and who would benefit more from coaching and NLP? Gladeana says, “They can be combined effectively but you must be extremely clear in your own mind about demarcation points. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If you have a coaching client who has some therapeutic issues, think about your contract and whether you should refer them on.” She points out that the British Psychological Society’s coaching section is growing very fast and thinks that this kind of psychological coaching is a good thing. Gladeana loves the flexibility of coaching and the way it can translate into all sorts of mediums. As well as face to face and telephone coaching, people are benefiting from online coaching courses and self help books. She does warn that training is very important: “What does worry me slightly is when people don’t get the solid experience they need. If you’re looking into it, look at where you are, what you’d like to be doing and make sure there’s a university accreditation or professional qualification at the end. “I was experienced when I went to the US [to train] so would have sniffed out anything that wasn’t right but you can commit yourself to a lot financially. Look for a bona fide course with people who’ve been around for a long time. Until we get national standards, you have to take responsibility yourself.” Gladeana’s books include “Achieving excellence in your coaching practice”, “No more anxiety! – be your own anxiety coach”, “Confidence works – learn to be your own life coach” and “Handbook of counselling and psychotherapy”. Her most recent book, “How to make life happen”(Sheldon Press, 2006, £7.99) is out now. For more information about Gladeana’s coaching and therapy, please visit www.gladeanamcmahon.com or phone 020 8852 4854.

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Get Your Message Out It’s Your Opportunity and Your Responsibility By Mindy Gibbins-Klein The Opportunity If you run your own business, you have probably had to promote that business to your target market. Without making this a lesson in marketing, I think we would all agree that getting the message out is essential to any business. Isn’t it great that if we put time and effort into it, and it pays off in terms of new clients and extra revenue, that we are the ones who beneﬁt from that? You may feel that your income potential is limited, but I can assure you it is not. Even if you currently work with all clients personally and have reached the maximum number of clients you can manage

to do the marketing.” As tempting as it may be to ﬁnd someone else to do that marketing job, you are still the best person to get your message into the market. Even if you do use a marketing or PR resource, you still need to provide the content to them, don’t you? You don’t want to leave the critical job of articulating your value to someone else. Are you very clear about what it is you offer? If so, congratulations because you are in a very small minority. If you are not clear, then getting clarity is the ﬁrst step for you. Spend the time to work through your business proposition, get help from your peers or a consultant, make some decisions. Then you will be able to craft powerful messages to articulate your products and service offering, and the value you add.

Creating presence “ requires having a sense of purpose beyond pleasing others

”

on a daily or weekly basis, you can still create other products and services to bring in more income. The opportunities truly are unlimited. One of my contacts recently added nearly a hundred products to his online store and he is seeing an incredible boost in his income from those. Creating more products and services gives you even more opportunities to promote those to your target market. It’s much more fun to talk about different products than just one and there’s more of a chance people will buy something if they have a choice of products, rather than just a yes/no choice. Some people at the top of their professions cleverly market all of their products to loyal clients, who insist on having the whole set! It’s Your Responsibility “But I only like doing the work; I don’t want

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Be Persistent It’s great when other people are talking about you but they don’t always get it right. Case in point: over the past five years, I have met thousands of people at networking events, many of them several times. I appreciate that in the coaching profession you sometimes need to explain what you do in greater detail; I mean, it’s not like being a plumber or florist and having people understand immediately exactly what you do. And I can see how easily ‘book midwife’ could be misinterpreted. So I used to ask for very specific referrals and introductions to people who were thinking of writing a book but hadn’t written it yet. It used to amaze me how many people still gave me referrals of people who had already written their books. You really need to repeat your messages many times before people hear you. There are a lot of distractions out there in the marketplace and everyone is busy. If you do something a bit different, be prepared to deliver your elevator pitch hundreds of times to get the message out there.

But Be Flexible Of course, you can always adjust what you offer, depending on the message coming back from the market. Having so many people ask me about publishing prompted me to offer a CD on publishing options, and then a consultancy session to help people choose the right option for them. Finally, if it weren’t for the constant barrage of publishingrelated requests from business and coaching professionals, Andy and I might not have conceived the idea of Ecademy Press. Listen to your market – it could pay off. Mindy Gibbins-Klein is better known as The Book Midwife (TM). She has helped hundreds of experts get their message out into the market by writing and publishing the best possible books, ebooks, articles and other products. A trained coach and marketing consultant with over 18 years of experience, Mindy passionately believes that every book deserves to be written and published, but only if it is the best book it can be. The Book Midwife™ delivers workshops, information products and private coaching and consultancy. For more information, see www. bookmidwife.com

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REGIONAL GROUPS

rapport networking contact Practice Group of the month

ormed in February 2006 by John Chisholm and Brian Morton, the NLP Dorset Forum offers a diverse network of people with a platform from which to share their experiences in the application of NLP. Over 100 active members provide the Forum with an abundance of expertise in NLP and many associated ﬁelds. At our monthly meetings members come together in an informal and relaxed atmosphere with the emphasis on creating the perfect environment in which to develop each other’s skills and understanding of NLP. Collectively the group supports members at all levels of ability whom in the main have trained in NLP with Brian and John. All our presenters offer their time

John Chisholm and Brian Morton of the NLP Dorset Forum

and knowledge without charge enabling us to run meetings completely free of charge; this gives our Forum a real sense of community. Although professional backgrounds vary, there is a strong bias towards the therapeutic applications of NLP as many of our number are psychotherapists, doctors and nurses using NLP elegantly everyday in the ﬁelds of primary mental health, drug, alcohol and young offender rehabilitation to name but a few. Together it is our pleasure to support both the NLP community and local communities in Dorset. Visit www.nlpdorset.co.uk for details of our ‘Sea of Change’ Conference on the 25th August in Bournemouth.

England - North

Manchester NLP Group

England - South

Croydon

Harrogate Achievers Club

Tel: 08707 570292

Bedfordshire

Tel: 020 8686 9952

Gary Plunkett

Sonia Marie Saxton

Email: enrol@high-achievers.co.uk nwnlpgroups@aol.com

Email: smesaxton@saxtonpartners. co.uk

Harrogate Practice Group

Tel: 0845 257 0036

Elizabeth Pritchard

Tel: 01326 212 959

elizabeth@zeteticmind.com www.zeteticmind.com

Lancaster Practice Group Dave Allaway

Tel: 01524 847 070

E: dave@depthfour.com www.depthfour.com

Lancs - Nr Clitheroe

Melody and Joe Cheal

Email: info@realnlp.co.uk www.nlpacademy.co.uk

Newcastle Upon Tyne

Email: info@gwiztrainig.com www.gwiztraining.com

Hants - NLP South

Tel: 0191 456 3930 Mob: 0777 228 1035

Berks - Reading

Tel: 01794 390 651

North Yorkshire

Tel: 01189 831659/ 01189 835 202 Mob: 07778 150641

Hertfordshire

Philip Brown

Lisa & Mark Wake

Tel: 01642 714702

Email: Awakenconsulting@aol.com www.awakenconsulting.co.uk

North Cumbria - Carlisle

Anne Munro-Kua & Adrian Banger Tel: 01228 517 716

Dawn Haworth

Email: anne@annemunro-kua.com www.annemunro-kua.com

Email: admin@nlpand.co.uk www.nlpand.co.uk

North West & North Wales (Chester)

Leeds - West Yorkshire

Tel: 08707 570 292

Tel: 01254 824 504

Gary Plunkett

Liz Tolchard

Email: enrol@high-achievers.co.uk nlp4fun@aol.com

Email: liztolchard@hotmail.com

York

Manchester Business NLP and Emotional Intelligence Group

Tel: 01904 636 216 Email: info@bronze-dragon.com www.bronze-dragon.com/nlp_group. shtml

Tel: 01943 873 895 Mob: 07909 911 769

Andy Smith

Tel: 0845 83 855 83

Email: andy@practicaleq.com www.manchesternlp.co.uk

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Summer 2007 - rapport

Michael Carroll

Susanna Bellini & Philip Callaghan

Tel: 01767 640956

Anne-Marie Halliwell

Email: amh@cmcgconsultancy.com www.cmcg-nlp.com

Bucks - Milton Keynes Michael Beale

Tel: 01908 506563 Mob: 07944 388621

Email: michaelbeale@ppimk.com www.ppimk.com

Bucks NLP & Coaching Alison Matthews

Nigel Heath

Email: heatherapy@aol.com www.nlp-south.org.uk

Gary Sellors

Tel: 07758 303 039

Email: nlpgary@talktalk.net

Hertfordshire

Your Life Matters NLP & Hypnosis practice group Mick McEvoy Tel: 0208 387 0277 Mob: 07973 386 639

Email: mick.mcevoy1@ntlworld.com

Tel: 07976 246151

London - Hampstead

Chiswick

Tel: 020 8926 1297 mob: 07950477318

Email: alisonbmatthews@yahoo.co.uk

Jonathan Bowder

Tel: 0208 992 9523

Email: Jonathan@performancepartners hip.com www.performancepartnership.com The Performance Partnership NLP group run by Jonathan Bowder

Najma Zaman

Email: ﬁrstpath@btinternet.com

London - Central Adrian Hope-Lewis

Tel: 07970 639552 Mob: 07970 639552

www.nlpgroup.freeserve.co.uk

REGIONAL GROUPS

London - Central

Sussex - Brighton

Bath NLP Skills Builder

Tel:01903 821 172 Mob: 07903 564 760 Email: katie@sussex.co.uk www.sussex.co.uk/nlp

Tel: 01823 334 080

Tel: 020 7249 7472

(Business) Mark Underwood

London East - Stratford, E15 Sharon Eden

Tel: 020 8597 9200

Katie Bickerdike

Sussex - Chichester

Email: sharon.eden@womenofcourage. co.uk

Roger and Emily Terry

London NLP & Hypnosis Practice Group

Email: info@evolutiontraining.co.uk www.evolutiontraining.co.uk

Phillip Holt

Tel: 08451 306213 Mob: 07061 003 003

Tel: 01243 792 122 Mob: 07810 876 210

Sussex - Worthing

Email: jim@espconsultancy.co.uk

Email: enquiries@nlp-london.com www.nlp-london.com

West Sussex - Chichester

London - Central/North

Email: andrew@23nlpeople.com www.nlpstudygroup.com

Practitioners and above only Jeremy Lazarus Tel: 020 8349 2929

Email: Jeremy@thelazarus.com www.thelazarus.com

London West - Richmond NLP Group Henrietta Laitt

Tel: 0208 874 8203 Mob: 07880 614 040

Email: henrietta@resultsfor success.com www.resultsforsuccess.com

North London NLP Tom MacKay

Tel: 07815 879 055

Email: tom@mackaysolutions.co.uk www.northlondonnlp.co.uk

Oxford

Jan Freeston

Tel: 01865 516 136

Janinefreeston@aol.com

Andrew T. Austin

Ben Reeve

West Midlands Worcestershire

Email: benjamino_32@hotmail.com www.idevelop.co.uk

Tel:01905 352 882

Bristol

David Grifﬁths

Tel: 01179 423 310

Email: david@metamorphosis.me.uk

Cornwall Practice Group Elizabeth Pritchard

Tel: 01326 212 959

elizabeth@zeteticmind.com www.zeteticmind.com

Devon - South-West (totnes) NLP Support Group

Alice Llewellyn & Anna Scott-Heyward Tel: 01803 866706/01803 323885

England - East

Devon - Torquay

Cambridgeshire

Tel: 0781 354 9073

Phil Jones

Tel: 07711 711 123

Email: phil@excitant.co.uk www.cambsnlp.co.uk

Colchester NLP Group Julian Campbell

Tel: 01473 326980 Mob: 07710 781782

Email: nlp@lifechangingtherapies.co.uk www.lifechangingtherapies.co.uk/ colnlp.html

Essex - Southend Pauline Oliver

Tel: 01702 203465

Ipswich

Steve Marsden

Tel: 07889 751578

Chris Williams

Devon & Cornwall NLP Practice Group

John Chisholm or Brian Morton

Tel: 01202 42 42 50

Email: john@creative-leadership.co.uk bmhrd@btinternet.com www.nlpdorset.co.uk

England - Midlands East Midlands NLP Group

Midlands - Birmingham

Tel: 0800 074 6425

Email: enquiries@nlpworld.co.uk www.nlpworld.co.uk www.nlp-brighton-assoc.org

England - West

William Wood

Mandy Ward

Tel: 0121 625 7193 Mob: 07740 075669

Email: mandy.ward3@virgin.net

Northants - Northampton

BATH NLP North East Somerset

Ron Shefﬁeld

Tel: 01225 404 050

Email: ronald.shefﬁeld@virgin.net www.nlpgroups.org

Philippe Roy

Email: pr@in-focus.org www.bathnlp.co.uk

Email: nlphighland@onyxnet.co.uk www.nlphighland.co.uk

Edinburgh Centre of Excellence Practice Group Michael Spence

Tel: 0131 664 7854

msnlp@btconnect.com

Edinburgh NLP Practice Group

Patrick Wheatley & Sheena Wheatley Tel: 07765244030/ 0131 664 4344

Tel: 01236 610 949 Mob: 07916 275 605

Tel: 020 8098 0820

Association of NLP Practitioners Terry Elston

Tel: 01309 676 004

Dorset

Redbridge - Ilford

Sussex - Brighton

Christine Burgess

Glasgow

Tel: 07930 275 223

Email: glenda.yearwood@redbridge. gov.uk www.redbridge.gov.uk

Aberdeen

Email: nick@nlp-southwest.co.uk www.nlp-southwest.co.uk

Tel: 01752 245 570 Mob: 07832 357 208

Tel: 01332 347141 x2556/ 01332 669364

Sharon Ellis

Scotland

Email: wheatley.co@btconnect.com sheena@changingperceptions.org.uk www.changingperceptions.org.uk

Email: steve_marsden@btopenworld. com

Email: londonpractice@psithinking. co.uk www.psithinking.co.uk/londonnlp practicegroup.htm www.ultimatecalm.com

Email: sharon@SCRassociates.com info@centralnlp.co.uk www.SCRassociates.com

Nick Evans

South East London & City Simon Hedley

Sharon Rooke & David Smallwood

Tel: 01604 812800

Nottingham

Mina McGuigan

Email: mina@nlpacademyscotland.co.uk www.nlpacademyscotland.co.uk

Glasgow Centre of Excellence Practice Group Michael Spence

Tel: 01316 647 854 Mob: 07710 332 841

Email: msnlp@btconnect.com

Glasgow - NLP in Education Jeff Goodwin

Tel: 0870 060 1549/0141 248 6484 Email: jeff@nlpscotland.com www.nlpscotland.com

Inverness (Highlands of Scotland) Rosie O’Hara

Tel: 01309 676 004

Email: nlphighland@onyxnet.co.uk www.nlphighland.co.uk

Wales Shropshire & Mid Wales Practice Group Nick Greer

Timothy Morrell

Tel: 01743 361133

Email: tim@focushigher.co.uk www.focushigher.co.uk

www.nickgreer.com

Tel: 07810 484 215

Email: nlpgroup@nickgreer.com

Practice Groups meet regularly and give you the chance to share experiences with like minded individuals and fellow professionals. They also offer you the opportunity to further your knowledge and add to your Continual Professional Development (CPD) through informed lectures and workshops. For further information on the Practice Groups listed, please log on to our website, www.anlp.org If you would like to add your Practice Group to this list or change existing details, please contact Lala on 020 8275 1175 or email members@anlp.org.

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| 49

ENDNOTE

Buy now! Ebay certiﬁed NLP Master Practitioner Programme Does NLP need regulating?

f, like me, you are shocked at the headline, then I am relieved. If you think ‘Great, how much and when do I place my bid’, I am worried. It is now possible to buy your NLP certification as a Master Practitioner on line, with no client contact at all. Is this really what we want to have happen in the NLP field? Many of us have been around for a long time and have had debates long into the night discussing the merits and downsides of accelerated versus 20 day programmes. We will never agree on this and the public will find the programmes that will meet their needs and learning styles. We now have presented to us an opportunity and a threat with the Government’s recent White Paper on the statutory regulation of psychology, psychotherapy and counselling. In this article I aim to give a brief summary of the background to this White Paper, and consider the implications for NLP as an applied psychology. I also aim to raise questions for all who work in the field, irrespective of their operational context and hope that as individuals interested in NLP, we can debate more pressing issues than those we have hitherto taxed ourselves with. Statutory Regulation History of Psychology, Psychotherapy and Counselling In 1971 The Foster Report recommended psychotherapy should be regulated by the state. Over the next 30 years further reports followed including the

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Summer 2007 - rapport

Sieghart Report, the Alderdice Bill and the Shipman Enquiry. More recently, there has been even greater focus: 2005 – Bichard Report (following the Soham murders) set up an Independent Barring Board with the aim of moving through Parliament the Vulnerable Groups Bill. 2005 – Hampton Report – called for tighter regulation of the various professions involved in healthcare 2005 – Dept of Health (DH) commissioned report by UKCP and BACP that mapped the professions of psychotherapy and counselling 2005 – DH states that HPC (Health Professions Council) is preferred regulator for all nonmedical health professions 2005 – DH commissioned UKCP report on a regulatory framework for psychotherapy 2006 – Consultation on regulation of psychology 2006 – DH report on the Regulation of Non-Medical Health professions. 2007 – Government White Paper – Trust, Assurance and Safety, The Regulation of Health Professions in the 21st Century. Sets the process for the regulation of Applied Psychology, Psychotherapy and Counselling over the next 2 years. What does this mean for NLP? It is clear that the government is moving closer towards regulating any profession that is deemed to have a level of risk for clients, and as we see in the recent proposals

by Lord Layard for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), lifestyle coaches, CBT interventions and e-based CBT are being increasingly recommended as a way of managing the current burden on the state caused by those individuals experiencing difﬁculties. So, where does this leave NLPers? Some within the ﬁeld are already working as psychotherapists or counsellors and subject themselves to voluntary regulation by UKCP. Others choose to be regulated by one of the very effective voluntary coaching regulatory bodies. ANLP is working hard to develop and implement coherent and credible standards and codes of ethics and conduct. Yet currently, there are only three organisations that open themselves up to scrutiny, assessment, validation and feedback from a state acknowledged regulatory body, UKCP. NLP can embrace the opportunities that are offered through statutory regulation and join the increasing numbers of professionals who are urging the government to shape its regulatory structures such that they are responsive to the professions that currently work with the emotional and psychological wellbeing of others. Alternatively, NLP can turn its back on this opportunity and continue to function as a body of individuals who consider that their work is beyond that of accountability, scrutiny and the need for public protection. In my own practice and in

my role as advisor to ANLP, and formerly as Chair of UKCP, I am regularly made aware of individuals who claim to practice NLP, yet appear not to demonstrate the fundamental presupposition of respecting the client’s model of the world. There are cases where individuals are conducting interventions and are not checking the psychological state of the individual either before or after the intervention. In some instances, if the individuals abreact, they are told to ‘get to cause’. Are we really saying that this is what NLP is about? We now have the potential to professionalise NLP, to challenge those who operate unethically or are unecological and to bring a level of accountability and respect to this applied psychology that offers powerful potential for change, and at the same time ensure that NLP is taken to and accepted by a wider public in an appropriate format. ANLP would value support to develop this area of work and are asked to contact the office in the first instance. Accredited by UKCP as a neurolinguistic psychotherapist and certified by AND & INLPTA as a trainer of NLP, Lisa Wake is Director of Awaken Consulting and Awaken School. Lisa’s work on neurolinguistic psychotherapy is soon to be published by Routledge – Neurolinguistic Psychotherapy – A Post-modern Approach. Lisa can be contacted on awakenconsulting@aol. com or 07802 985282. www. awakenconsulting.co.uk.

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