Neuro-linguistic Programming and Science - Associations, Certification, and Practitioner Standards

Associations, Certification, and Practitioner Standards

Since its beginnings in the 1970s, NLP has been taught in a variety of formats that involve the promotion of associations and the attainment of course certificates. Course lengths and style vary from institute to institute. In the 1990s, following attempts to put NLP on a regulated footing in the UK, other governments began certifying NLP courses and providers; for example, in Australia a Graduate Certificate in Neuro-linguistic programming is accredited under the Australian Qualifications Framework. In 2001, neuro-linguistic psychotherapy, a form of psychiatry utilizing some techniques from NLP, was recognized by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy as an experimental constructivist form of Freudian psychotherapy.

By the 2000s, there were numerous competing organizations offering varying forms of NLP training and certification in what could be a very lucrative seminar business. The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom reported that in 2006 a seven-day course by Paul McKenna's company for 600 delegates produced £1m in revenue. Many variants of NLP are found in seminars, workshops, books and audio programs in the form of exercises and principles intended to influence behavioral and emotional changes.

There is great variation in the depth and breadth of training and standards of practitioners, and some disagreement between those in the field about which patterns are, or are not, actual NLP. However, NLP continues to be an open field of training with no "official" best practice. With different authors, individual trainers and practitioners having developed their own methods, concepts and labels, often branding them as NLP, the training standards and quality differ greatly. In 2009, a British television presenter was able to register his pet cat as a member of the British Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming (BBNLP), which subsequently claimed that it existed only to provide benefits to its members and not to certify credentials.

According to Peter Schütz, the length of training in Europe varies from two to three days for the hobbyist and 35 to 40 days over at least nine months to achieve a professional level of competence. He says that the multiplicity and general lack of controls has led to difficulty discerning the comparative level of competence, skill and attitude in different NLP trainings and has resulted in NLP becoming associated with alleged cults such as Scientology and labeled in unfavorable political ways ("nazilinguistic programming"). Sociologists such as Hunt and Barrett, describe NLP as an example of a development within the sociology of religion. Hunt (2003) says that NLP is an alternative to Scientology and also similar to some eastern religions which follow a lineage of gurus. Barrett (1998) also describes NLP as a human potential development within the categories of cults, sects and new alternative religions.