Warning: The following is written by someone who is blatantly biased. He believes in the Richard Bandler ‘approach’ to NLP.
I’ve been studying NLP for about 15 years at this stage. I would regard myself as pretty familiar with the politics. I have come across plenty of rants and soap box lectures on NLP.
The way I see it, we have 4 types of NLP annoying heads. (By that I mean no disrespect to them). First are the guru lovers. They worship gurus and talk about their guru as if he or she is perfect. A word against their guru will be responded to by extra defensive attack.
Next are the Egotistical Wannabes. They are the mini versions of the gurus. They have an exceptionally smug look when they are working and constantly demonstrate their own delight with how great they are. Usually they aren’t the smartest cookies. They are poor copies.
We also have the Happy Clappers. These are the people who are extra extra positive and who believe not being ecstatic even for a moment is a crime and disease. They feel the need to answer every how are you with giant superlatives. They go into patches of sadness because they feel bad about feeling bad because they feel the need to be super human. Everything has to be positive and so they try and compete by being the most optimist person on the planet.
Finally there are the cynical elitists. These are the ‘smart’ people. Like the Richard Dawkins of NLP, they continuously attack other approaches in the field of NLP and certain figures. They get their enjoyment out of pointing out the stupidity of the other three groups while demonstrating through their commentary how much smarter they are. They are arrogant and perceive themselves to be better than everyone else. They have a big need to be seen as smart.
There is one other category which includes pragmatists. They are the type that doesn’t care about the politics. They just use the skills and attitudes of NLP to improve their life. I’ve known a few people to fit into this category. When me and Brian teach people in the Irish Institute of NLP, we try and put this idea across to our practitioners. I am happy to say I believe most of them get it. We turn out the most down to earth and coolest graduates. Yes. I know I’m biased. I’m allowed.
So, I hear you ask… if these are the categories… where do I fit in? Well, it would be ridiculous for me to say I don’t fit in to these categories. I think it’s obvious that I do have a massive amount of respect for RB and co… so one could call me a guru appreciator despite the fact that Richard isn’t a guru. I definitely went through a stage years and years ago where I was a egotistical wannabe. Nowadays, my ego doesn’t really surface as much…. because i’m so great! (obviously joking there)
I’m not really a happy clapper although I probably should be a little more like that for fear of turning into a Cynical Elitist. Sadly, this very article is something a cynical elitist would write.
