Question:

I don’t know a whole lot about NLP, but I remember seeing it in relation to hypnosis A LOT but apparently now it’s been “debunked”? At least in terms of it being used with hypnosis. I’m just curious what that’s about, why/how it’s been disproven and stuff.

Answer:

NLP isn’t a single entity. It’s more of a collection of models, techniques, and assumptions bundled together under the NLP banner. So talking about ‘disproving’ NLP as a whole is somewhat of a misnomer. It’s not a monolith you can test in one go for a simple yes/no answer.

Some elements under the NLP umbrella definitely do work, particularly those that draw from established psychological principles or mirror techniques used in hypnotherapy and coaching. Others, especially the more rigid or formulaic claims (like eye movement patterns supposedly revealing internal processing), are far more questionable and haven’t held up to scientific scrutiny.

A lot of NLP is taken directly from the methods of Milton Erickson, who is often referred to as the father of modern hypnotherapy. Although there are some who dislike him and his methods. But that’s not to say the methods don’t work, they do, and work very well. Even the people who dislike him will still use many of his techniques, sometimes unknowingly, purely because they’re so effective.

Returning to eye movement: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), to give it its full title, remains highly controversial. There may well be some truth to it, but exactly how much remains to be discovered.

The real issue is specificity. Unless you’re clear about which aspect of NLP you’re asking about, the language patterns, the submodalities, the anchoring, the meta-model questioning, etc, etc, it’s just not a simple yes or no binary question. It’s more accurate to say that some parts of NLP are highly useful, some are outdated or overhyped, and much of it lacks solid empirical backing.

Prefer to visualise the main key points? Here’s a quick infographic recap:

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