Nick Kemp Blog

When I first came across NLP in the 1990s I was (and still am) impressed by what could be done with these tools. I was however not impressed by the constant references to all the infighting between different factions of NLP, which reminded me of the behaviour exhibited by rival football clubs. I live in Leeds and for as long as I can remember Leeds United football fans always referred to Manchester United fans as “scum”.  Eric Cantona was the darling of the Leeds team before he defected to “the scum” and I remember his first match at Leeds playing for the opposition,when those who had previously cheered him, then hurled abuse at him…The tendency to “disparage the competition”(rather than work together for a common goal and achieve professional recognition) which seems to be a feature of some newsgroups, is a tremendous waste of time and achieves little that is productive.

I originally trained with The Society of NLP (Richard Bandler’s SNLP) and heard regular references from some folks putting down ANLP (The Association for NLP) . This always seemed to me to be a bit odd, as ANLP promotes professional ethics and behaviour , and especially as NLP is a field that preaches the building of rapport!  I am very grateful for all the trainings I received over the years and I recommended many others to attend these events, yet this seemed rather incongruent. I was happy from 2004 – 2009 to run certificated SNLP events at practitioner and master practitioner level and to pay the obligatory monies required for each “certification” Over time I became less pleased by the license agreement all attendees had to sign and this is one of the reasons I am far happier these days to run my own trainings and focus on presenting my own work.

I was a member of SNLP for well over a decade and was a few years ago invited to be on the advisory board of ANLP. This appealed to me as ANLP has a code of ethics, professional standards, is UK based and crucially is not aligned to any commercial business as a CIC concern. I also noticed that ANLP did not have a policy of disparaging other NLP trainings and had a range of different trainers on their board from many schools of NLP. I was for a few years (and I believe the only one ever) the only SNLP approved trainer on the ANLP board, until I received an e-mail stating that these two positions were effectively incompatible! It was an easy choice especially as my work in private practice meant I would be better served by being part of a professional body that is UK based and has a set of professional standards. Although I couldn’t see any conflict of interest, apparently some in the SNLP seemed to perceive it as one. For a few years prior to this all students who were “certified” by myself and my co trainer at Practitioner and Master Practitioner level also received ANLP membership. None of us felt there was any conflict of interest and I still co train with a number of SNLP approved trainers as well as non SNLP trainers.

After many years of running certified SNLP events to my surprise I discovered that the SNLP was not owned by Richards Bandler alone, but apparently jointly owned by Christina Hall. Who on earth is Christina Hall I wondered? A bit of research revealed her to be the joint owner of SNLP and a trainer who also issued SNLP certificated trainings and created SNLP trainers and Master Trainers.  Of course NLP has a history of legal battles over who owns what and for many this makes interesting reading - http://users.telenet.be/merlevede/nlpfaq35.htm

The tragedy in all of this is that in my opinion all the politics and bickering will actually contribute to the decline of the field and result in it not being taken seriously by other professions. Many in NLP have taken delight in bashing the medical, psychotherapy and educational professions and then are wholly surprised when the exact same professions’ don’t embrace their ideas and behaviours. In fact in recent years many NLPers have attempted to cozy up to such professions with very mixed and mostly poor results. I have never been a fan of personality style cults and gangs and can appreciate skilled football players from any team or nationality. I wonder what it would be like if all the self proclaimed Master Trainers, et al actually worked together to develop the field rather than being so concerned with who owns what and who is “licensed” (as opposed to qualified) to do what?

(Graphic from the brilliant Richard Stine, see http://richardstine.com/)

STOP PRESS - Within 24 hours of this blog post appearing, once again more examples of personality bashing appear on the net, once again based on over active imaginations and having way too much diposable time. This is what happens when there are no professional standards and accountability...

This has been the busiest year to date for presenting events and producing new products. To date I have already run The Art of Good Fortune in Business with Mark Zaretti, Mindscapes in New York with Andrew T Austin and Doug O Brien and  Provocative Change Works in London. In May I am co presenting with Frank Farrelly in the UK, before heading to Warsaw to run Provocative Change Works for Business. In August I am co training with Steve Andreas and some excellent trainers for the Advanced Mastery event in Denver, then presenting at IASH in San Francisco (a full day pre conference) and during the event then back in New York for an evening on The Outside Inn, then back to Warsaw teaching Provocative Therapy before running a full “Stories from the Outside Inn” event in the UK with Doug O Brien in December. I also plan some additional events which have yet to be announced in the UK, including some surprises… There will also be new DVD products including “Provocative Change Works for Anxiety Issues” which shows some live client sessions as well as some great seminar footage. The Mindscapes New York event will appear in due course and it’s a pleasure to work alongside some excellent trainers on this event. My intention is to create some more audio products and I have a host of material and ideas which have been on the back burner due to other commitments.

Special thanks go out to the following co trainers who have been a real inspiration at getting me to raise my own game when running trainings and to work more effectively with clients – Steve Andreas, Frank Farrelly, Andrew T Austin and Doug O Brien. Also special thanks to Mark and Ash at Sparticle who are just the best guys when it comes to web support and website design. I’m 51 tomorrow and life has never been so good!

Full schedule is here http://www.nickkemptraining.com/calendar.php

Today I spent over 30 minutes talking to someone who had been sold an NLP certificated training to cure his therapy issue. This kind of irresponsible behaviour has increased over the years and I am horrified that in recent time’s companies seem to be attempting to sell events to virtually anyone with access to a credit card. In days gone by on virtually every London course I helped out on there would be delegates who were sold places on events to help with therapeutic issues. On some occasions I spent considerable time assisting very distressed individuals and it was not uncommon for some attendees at the events to have quite severe “issues”. Often the training assistants were left to clear up delegate problems created by the quite stupid salespeople who would book almost anyone on the course in order to hit their sales targets. I have also witnessed a total lack of interest in duty of care from supposed “master trainers” who run at the first sign of any problems during a live event.

The conversation I had today was with someone who was part of a group who were sold an NLP Practitioner as “a therapeutic cure”. At least five attendees found that the training had made their “problems worse” and of course the training company now does not want to address any concerns. There is a good chance this story will hit the national press and really put a 1000 watt spotlight on this issue, which in my view is a good thing. I have also come to the conclusion that events with large numbers of attendees are actually pretty irresponsible and many places sold on these events are sold by salespeople paid mostly or exclusively on commission. Similarly many NLP trainers are encouraged to send traffic to national events and receive a financial incentive for doing so.

It’s surely only a matter of time before there is a major incident at an event and people are subsequently held to task. I for one welcome some of these irresponsible individuals getting their just desserts.

Rant over (for now)

This photo was taken on the Sunday before the Mindscapes event - a rainy day in New York, such a wonderful city regardless of the weather!

I’m not a huge fan of museums, but The Museum of Natural History in New York is quite spectacular and here is one of the real dinosaur skeletons exhibited there.