Frank Farrelly created Provocative Therapy in 1963, a decade before the emergence of NLP n both co creators mentioned him as an infuence.

Provocative Therapy is still relatively new to most talk therapists and many NLP practitioners and trainers are unaware that “provocative” does not mean “aggressive” when interacting with clients. Provocative comes from the Latin “pro vocare” which means “to call forth” or stimulate change in client behaviour. This approach requires a great deal of skill, training and awareness on behalf of the therapist. There are no certifications in Provocative Therapy and training requires real application and skill. Throwing items at a client or aggravating a client to the extent that they want to punch the therapist is a very far cry from the sophistication of Farrelly’s work that has been admired by many other therapists and thinkers including Spurgeon English and Carl Whittaker. Anyone claiming “to be inspired” by Farrelly’s work and behaving in this manner’ in my view totally misses the true heart of the provocative approach which is a real shame for both themselves and their clients. Frank also has very little time for such types who choose to bluntly respond in this attention seeking manner rather than communicating “with a twinkle in the eye and as if talking to an old and valued friend” which of course is quite different to one NLPers commenting in delighting to "piss the client off" I have mostly given up in engaging with such bonehead nonsense as in most instances such individuals don't see real clients and instead spend hours posting on online nlp forums!

Since 2004 I have been fortunate enough to have spent hundreds of hours in person with him as well as co presenting his work in the UK and creating the official archive for his work. I have the original hand written transcript for his original book of the same name and I remain amazed at how he has refined and developed his work over many decades. I have made sure that there is also for the first time DVD footage of Frank working in recent times. This material has been released for serious therapists interested in provocative style work and these DVDs show what cannot be grasped purely from written text.

At the point of writing I have just completed four workshops and a television appearance in India with Andrew T Austin. One of the main subjects discussed during our visit to psychotherapy clinics for these presentations was this issue of proper professional duty of care towards clients and the unfortunate emergence of what I call “Frankenstein type approaches” in recent times. Dr Frankenstein of course created a monster from a combination of different human parts with disastrous results.

These Frankenstein approaches are created when a therapist takes a few established well known therapeutic approaches and provides his “instant mix solution” which is now proclaimed as groundbreaking new work. The Frankenstein approach is not the same as those therapists who seek to create new models for therapy rather than a loose collection of ideas like so many poorly written self published e books that are available online these days. The many pitfalls of such thinking are obvious to those who read such material.

With such I set up The Association for Provocative Therapy (AFPT) a number of years ago with Frank Farrelly’s endorsement to ensure that Provocative Therapy continues to be represented in an ethical and professional manner where the therapist behaves responsibility with clients. Only a fool would mistake aggression as a tool for producing useful therapeutic change.  Frank Farrelly is eighty years old this year and still teaching across the globe. Both I and many professional therapists are keen that his work is not confused with Frankenstein camp followers.  It’s crucial to us that genuine warmth and spirit of professional Provocative work preserved for those who value true study and professional standards in therapeutic change.

Copyright Nick Kemp Feb 2011

www.nickkemp.com

I first heard about Dave Dobson through Doug O Brien from New York who had attended many of Dave’s Funshops over a number of years and studied his work in depth. I was amazed that someone with such skills was so relatively unknown in the world of NLP and Hypnosis. It reminded me a great deal about when I met Frank Farrelly and similarly he had poor marketing but at least he had his own website for his therapeutic approach! Dobson had a longstanding history of seeing private clients which in my view helps to account for his excellent insights into producing a highly effective approach that is quite different to NLP and standard hypnosis. Apart from a few CDs sets and one DVD set, there is very little information on Dobson online which is a real shame.

Dave ran a private practice in Clinical Hypnotherapy, and psychotherapy for over 45 years in Los Angeles and the west coast. He also had a background in business that includes being owner and manager of a executive search firm, a division manager and director of sales for an international plastics company. He developed what he calls "Other Than Conscious Communication™ which is an outgrowth of his model of psychology that he calls "No Fault Psychology™." He moved to the San Juan Islands in 1977, and is well known for running what he called “Funshops” many of which were recorded and released on CD sets. The first of a numbers of sets I purchased many years ago was the Funshop 2003 training which was a fascinating and extensive series of CDs of this live training course. Dave’s style is very laid back and deeply hypnotic, so I couldn’t listen while driving! There were rumours that Dave had written a book and I know at least one person who had seen the cover for it, but as far as I know it’s never been published. He died a few years back and his passing is a great loss to all those interested in his work.

 2011 in the UK started with icy cold weather when daytime temperatures plummeted to minus 9.5 degrees. My 320 BMW transformed from being a great vehicle to a pile of useless metal throughout January. Mid month I escaped the freezing landscapes of Leeds and headed to Southern India to run a series of workshops with Andrew T Austin. I arrived at 3am after a 10 hour flight to a welcome 30 degrees. This was a wonderful trip and special thanks to Dr Abraham, Maya and all who came to the public and private events at the psychology departments. This was also the start of a larger project - see http://www.nlptrainingindia.com/. The mighty Austin was like Indiana Jones from Raiders of The Lost Ark involving us in all manner of adventures including appearing on Indian TV, fascinating day trips and crucially sampling the best Indian food I have ever tasted.

In April I focused on my UK clinics and started to plan for the annual May event with Frank Farrelly in Leeds. It’s also become noticeable that the UK economy is in serious trouble and notice from speaking to other well known trainers that bookings for all training events are understandably in decline. Interestingly, over 50% of all attendees for this UK Provocative Therapy workshop were from overseas, including France, Hungary, USA and India among other countries. This was one of the best Provocative Therapy trainings to date with a strong theme of “relationships” There were some memorable client sessions including Joseph Kao and a visitor from India who remains “provoked” many months on… We filmed the whole two days and may well release this footage on DVD in the future. Frank Farrelly came to stay at my house as usual and we managed over the course of three days to see the entire HBO series “Deadwood” with the unique achievement of watching a whole 15 hours on one single day! Frank remains a dear friend and colleague who has radically changed my thoughts on human communication. Discover XO marmite which makes this an even better month.

 I also first came across the rather daft ‘Nightingale Collaboration” a group of self proclaimed skeptics who delight in encouraging the public to endlessly complain to the ASA about what they deem to be “non scientific medicine” Their leader enthused about personally making hundreds of complaints against therapists he disapproved of.  I’m in favour of discrimination and common sense but this evangelistic style “scientific” thinking seems to be on the increase. There also seems to be a curious new outbreak of daft unsolicited e-mails including one I received promoting a wonderfully titled “Damsels in Distress” women only workshop to all my e-mail addresses. One of the largest training companies also formally went into liquidation owing significant sums of money to suppliers. The company was then phoenixed as a new concern with virtually the exact same name and the exact same website. Amazingly this “new company” continues to promote “business success” trainings not even taking the time to e amend its online terms and conditions which listed the liquidated company! This same company now charges “an admin fee” of £300 to transfer from one course to another which makes me wonder how much admin staff are paid! UK law seems to have little concern for such behaviours, which is no surprise to me as I saw this exact same nonsense unchallenged in my recruitment days.

 Throughout 2011 I continued to have wonderfully inspirational guitar lessons with Martin Simpson and finally getting to grips with many altered tunings for acoustic guitar. I purchased a private stock PRS Angelus Private Stock acoustic which woods chosen by Simpson himself. This was the first of two major guitar purchases in 2011 and with the economy going into freefall these purchases are increasingly looking like great investments as well as wonderful playing instruments. I also discovered my guitar teacher from 1990s John Dixon had passed away. He was occasionally brilliant and sometimes rather “unpredictable” Later that month I was contacted by Pete Windridge – France who wanted some coaching to swim the channel. I thought “What a great project!” and we began working together, with his channel swim planned for September.

 In June I spent 5 brilliant days back in New York, no work this time just pure holiday. Saw Glen Hansard and Eddie Vedder at The Beacon Theatre, both of whom were just fantastic. I also bought a new Asus eepad which is amazing and discovered the delight of “Angry Birds” truly daft, but great fun. I love NY and continue to spend time there each year whenever I can. J and R records, John Fluevog and B and H Photo stores continue to receive disposable income from me and Amy’s Bread is still the best breakfast in the Big Apple. The highlight in July for me was Steve Coogan on Newsnight attacking the News of The World policy of phone hacking, just brilliant - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkeSJLgzG8k Little did we know at this point that NOTW was to disappear within months!

 In August I was delighted to once again be hosted by Steve and Connirae Andreas in Boulder to teach a 3 day PCW course before co training at the 4 day Advanced Mastery Training with Richard Bolstad and Steve Andreas. It was great to finally meet Richard, one of the good guys doing great work. Boulder is a wonderful place and Steve, Connirae and Mark are wonderful hosts. Some of this material was released on Provocative Change Works in the USA Part 2, available in PAL and NTSC formats - http://www.nickkemp.com/spartcart/product/provocative-change-works-live-in-the-usa-part-2.htm . Mark Andreas’s new book “Sweet Fruit from the Bitter Tree” is almost ready for publication (it’s out now) which is a wonderful selection of inspirational and thought provoking stories, BRAVO! While in Boulder I also met up with my wonderful Japanese organizer Kimiko to discuss the PCW workshops for Japan in 2012 as well as Katie Raver to talk about doing an event in Austin March 2013! I have always wanted to visit Austin, home of many of my favorite musicians.

Earlier in 2011 I was approached by Shelle Rose Charvet and Michael Hall to write a chapter on PCW for “Innovations in NLP”. I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to complete a 4000 word chapter ahead of the deadline; this being the first published printed material for Provocative Change Works. I have been known to be quite critical of many NLP behaviours (and make no apologies for this) but this book is actually a great example of a genuine collaboration. All proceeds go to the excellent NLP R and R project. On a personal level it’s also good to get something in print for PCW. If there were such things as gold stars in NLP, Shelle and Michael would be worthy recipients.

 I returned from the USA to riot strewn UK and I suspect with the current government more trouble awaits in the future. I still can’t see George Osborne without thinking about Lord Percy from Blackadder.  A few months later I noticed the following news item mentioning George

 STOP PRESS - One Direction star Harry Styles fails to light up Knutsford
“Fans of the boy band broke down in tears when they realised Chancellor George Osborne was switching on their Christmas lights instead of heartthrob Harry!”
I have no idea who Harry Styles is but the fans do have my full sympathy...

 On Sept 24^th Pete Windridge – France swam the channel in 17 hours 55 minutes, an amazing task from an amazing guy, BRAVO! I watched the whole thing on my laptop and was euphoric about his achievement. Mark Zaretti and I created a documentary about this amazing project that can be seen here - http://www.nickkemp.com/sports-performance-coaching.php Pete’s journey will be included in my book without doubt.

 October Frank Farrelly unwell and goes into hospital and cancels rest of 2011 courses and events for 2012, not good news…

 In November I collected my New World African Blackwood Sobell acoustic. I have been waiting two and a half years for this and the only other two in existence were made for Jackson Brown and Martin Simpson. Stefan Sobell is simply the best acoustic guitar builder on the planet, a pure genius and I rarely use that term! See http://www.sobellinstruments.com/en-gb/news.aspx I’m wholly convinced that these will be even more sought after in the future than at present where there is a long wait for each instrument which is handmade with the highest quality woods and precision. You can always tell when you come across a great guitar, because you just don’t want to put it down and this new acquisition is one such great example. November also took me back to Warsaw as well as the London NLP Conference. Both went really well and Warsaw was the best Polish event yet.

During this month I found myself engaged in an online discussion where a trainer kept asking me “What do you do when it’s not working for the client” Despite numerous requests some months on I am still awaiting a reply to what he means by “not working” Having given this some though I think it’s a bit of a poorly framed question and as such there’s no sensible reply that could be given! I decided to stop running any UK courses from Nov – March myself (I’m instead having others host me) and instead focus on editing the PCW book which currently stands at 900,000 words! Special thanks to the rather cheeky Alison Power for excellent transcribing on this project! I think X Mas chocolates may be forthcoming…In December UK temperatures dropped massively after a quite extraordinary Oct 1^st day which was like an Indian summer and as luck would have it, two dear friends from NY came to visit on that exact day. Cats now bored and decide to stay indoors day and night demanding that only Sheba cat food is good enough. Online internet behaviours continue to amuse me especially those folks who insist that everyone who posts on social media EXPLAIN THEMSELVES, perhaps forgetting that some of us have jobs and more important considerations to pay attention to!  In contrast a chance phone call with David Key from Auspicium results in what Baldrick may call “a cunning plan” to run a PCW event as part of his NLP Master Prac in Jan 2012. Demand for this has been excellent and this will be my  first PCW event in 2012 one of the few in the UK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvFltxrybXs I remain impressed that there are some NLP trainings in the UK that focus on skills development and this gives me some hope for the field. Also saw Moneyball at the cinema, screenplay by Aaron Sorkin and with Brad Pitt as main role, really excellent!

 Leeds weather continues to be like something from Blade Runner, time to stay indoors and keep warm. 2012 looks even busier with trips to Japan, India, USA, Hungary, Spain, France and Poland already in the diary. I also have some more video projects I am working on. It’s been an amazing year and special thanks to all friends, colleagues and anyone who has come to my events or bought products. 2012 is just round the corner and promises to be full of quite amazing adventures with Wishing all who are reading this a great holiday break and a healthy, happy and highly successful 2012.

I have been involved in personal development since 1980 and during this time I have mostly been involved in writing articles and producing CDs and DVDs. In the last two years a number of professional colleagues have encouraged me to formally write a book. This main book on Provocative Change Works is a major undertaking currently standing at 90,000 words. The chapters include first meeting Frank Farrelly, the evolution of the PCW approach, practical considerations when working with clients, bespoke exercises for dealing with specific client issues, transcripts of client sessions, explaining The Provocative Icon System among other topics. In the meantime In the meantime I am pleased that a chapter on PCW has already been published by Crown House Publishing as part of “Innovations in NLP”. This chapter is an overview of the approach and the main challenge was to explain in 4000 words the core elements of PCW. Frank Farrelly’s Provocative Therapy is the primary influence on the first stage of PCW, but there’s also a lot more to explain in the following two stages.
 
I have been both surprised and delighted at what I am learning from the writing process. I have also realised the invaluable benefits of having a great editor. At a time when self publishing is an easy option and where often people don’t have formal editors for their books, I am keen that any final publication is of the highest quality. Writing a book or a chapter for a book is a different process to writing an article. An article is essentially one specific topic, usually around 1500 to 2000 words. A book is a much larger undertaking. Over the years I have reviewed many booking including books for Crown House Publishing and when I read such articles  I really want to be engaged and am mindful about the importance of how the book “flows” as a reading experience. I’m amazed at how some books don’t pay sufficient attention to basic grammar and spelling. Part of the reason for this is that would be authors are keen publish their ideas and are not prepared to invest the time and energy in refining their ideas. I have some sympathy for such individuals as author’s often consider their work as “their baby” and find it difficult to take on constructive criticism! That aside I have deep respect for anyone who engages in this process and especially those who are producing new and creative ideas which can spark the imagination of prospective readers.

Writing really focuses the mind and one of the side effects of these projects is that they have really made me reexamine my own thinking. As an author you also have to write in a manner that maintains the reader’s attention and makes sense! Sometimes I’ll review a chapter and think “Oh my god this is dreadful, what was I thinking?” and on other occasions I’ll think “This is pretty good” A good friend of mine once made the comment “great films are never finished they just escape” and Tom Waits once commented that songs try not to be “captured.” My own experience is that good writing requires a great deal of revision and refinement and any prospective author needs to have a great deal of patience and focus. When I was staying with the Andreas’s in Boulder this year it was fascinating to speak to three published authors, all of which demonstrated a real precision in their work. My intention is to release the major book in 2012 so it finally escapes into the public domain. I’m already thinking about the follow up and continue to be frustrated, delighted and genuinely surprised by the whole writing process

I just finished watching the first BBC programme on “Who wants to be a millionaire” It’s fascinating stuff and shows a mixture of quite reasonable ideas as well as a great deal of delusion. On the positive front many suggestions contained in wealth creation seminars and books are actually good common sense approaches to thinking about money differently. The bad news is that many such courses are priced at a very high level that they create a “seminar junkie” type mentality. I recognised this mindset on many large courses in the UK, where some course attendees have cranked up their visas in order to pay for trainings. I remember one person who asked about spending three thousand on a “trainer training” course with an additional five hundred pounds for accommodation in London. I tried to dissuade him but he was adamant that once he was “certified” as a trainer he would then be able to run courses full time and this would be his new source of income. He never ran a course despite setting up his website with the traditional quote about being one of the few “licensed trainers…” His wife left him and his life fell apart. This is just one example of what can be politely described as a naïve attitude and less politely described as a greedy lazy attitude. This is not the fault of the training, but how these trainings are over hyped and how solutions offered are over simplistic. Pay person X and get the life you want is a fine sentiment, but my observations are that in many instances people adopt an “X Factor” fast track to fame attitude.

In the BBC programme there were endless references to being confident and doing daily affirmations, BUT what is forgotten is the development and application of skills. The emphasis on “feeling good” and “being confident” alone is not enough and many “wealth gurus” are essentially running pyramid schemes where their lifestyle is funded by would be students paying for advice that doesn’t often translate into personal wealth for the students! Many trainers offer cut price or free courses then using the opportunity of a captive audience to up sell more expensive courses often paid for by seminar attendees on credit. Yes having a positive attitude is useful, but when many seminar attendees see certain celebrity trainers they forget or don’t do proper research as to how they achieved their statues. Some well known trainers were simply in the right place at the right time, others worked for years to achieve their positions. The problem with much of the “wealth syndrome” is that there is often a belief that wealth can be instant and positivity is all you need. On the programme one woman confessed to spending fifty thousand pounds on courses and then cranked up her credit cards to the point of being almost bankrupt. She claims to “have the knowledge to make money” and wants to make seven million pounds in 5 – 7 years! Another couple who owed large amounts when question about why then appeared not to be generating wealth in any measurable capacity hilariously commented “It’s not just about the money, it’s the mind set”. 

It will be interesting to see the remaining two BBC programs and my hope is that people will realise that yes it’s good to think about financial strategy buy it’s also important to use discrimination when making choices.  Attending a weekend seminar, having a new FB business page and feeling great with daily aphorisms have never in my view been enough to create a financially secure future. The good news is that this will at least provoke some debate and discussion about these issues.