Steve Andreas > Articles > NLP Practitioners Doing Therapy

Effectiveness

Certainly it would be better if Certification trainings were much longer and more thorough, so that Practitioners offering themselves as psychotherapists were better trained. However, practically speaking, getting people to come to a 24–day Practitioner training is hard enough (which is one reason why so many “Practitioner” trainings are considerably shorter). How many would come to a 240–day training? Yet even a 240–day training would be less time than a college student spends in their freshman year! Most licensed professional psychotherapists have spent a minimum of five years in college for an M.A., and eight or more for a Ph.D. So it is certainly understandable that most people assume that a licensed professional, with a training lasting over 50 times longer than a NLP Practitioner, would do a far better job helping people make personal changes.

So how do the skills of an NLP Practitioner actually compare with those of licensed professionals? I have been observing the skills of Practitioners in Certification trainings for over 20 years now, so that gives me a pretty good baseline of understanding of their capabilities and weak areas, as well as the considerable range of skill/ability at certification.

Recently I have been viewing a number of videotapes of live client sessions with psychotherapists described as “leaders in the field” of brief therapy—all of whom have advanced degrees and many years of experience. All these therapists are licensed, and all of them have written prominent and widely well–regarded books about therapy. Their names appear regularly in both workshop brochures and on the roster of presenters at professional conferences.

What I have seen in these videotaped sessions has mostly ranged from irrelevant/incompetent to mildly harmful (with a few fine exceptions like Bill O’Hanlon, Michael Yapko, and Scott Miller). All three of these therapists have had extensive training in Solution–focused brief therapy, and Ericksonian Hypnosis, both of which teach many of the same skills that NLP does. Bill O'Hanlon has also had extensive training in NLP. And remember, the therapists on these videos are experienced “leaders in the field,” not newly–minted Ph.D.s, and they also do not include people trained in the longer—term therapies, which are typically less effective, and certainly less efficient.

I would be willing to bet serious money that Practitioners who have gone through a thorough NLP Practitioner training do far more for their clients and for a LOT less time and money, than any similar unselected group of recent graduates of any 5-8 year professional psychotherapist preparation program. The reason is simple; NLP Practitioners have a far better and more practical “toolbox” of methods for helping people change.