Innovations in Education and Teaching International

Vol. 47, No. 3, August 2010, 317326

Neuro-linguistic programming as an innovation in education and

teaching
Paul Tosey* and Jane Mathison
Centre for Management Learning and Development, School of Management, University of
Surrey, Guildford, UK
Innovations
10.1080/14703297.2010.498183
RIIE_A_498183.sgm
1470-3297
Original
Taylor
302010
47
[email protected]
PaulTosey
00000August
&
and
Article
Francis
(print)/1470-3300
Francis
in Education
2010
and Teaching
(online) International

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) an emergent, contested approach to

communication and personal development created in the 1970s has become
increasingly familiar in education and teaching. There is little academic work on
NLP to date. This article offers an informed introduction to, and appraisal of, the
field for educators. We review the origins of NLP, and summarise its nature as a
method of, and conceptual framework for, education and teaching, with brief
examples of applications. We argue that NLP offers an innovative praxis,
underpinned in principle by Batesons epistemological thinking, which informs a
distinctive methodology known as modelling. The credibility of the field relies,
in our view, on its ability to address seven critical issues. These form a possible
research agenda and a focus for dialogue between NLP practitioner and academic
communities.
Keywords: learning; epistemology; modelling; language

Introduction
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) has achieved considerable popularity as an
approach to communication, learning and personal development. It appears to be used
widely in education, yet is a subject about which the academic world is almost silent.
It can, therefore, be difficult to gain an informed view of NLP amidst claims made by
those with commercial interests in its promulgation.
Our intellectual project is concerned not with attempting to validate NLP, but with
articulating and critically appraising its relevance to issues of learning, and promoting
dialogue between practitioner and academic communities. We have extensive experience of using NLP in UK higher education for teaching and research (Tosey, Mathison,
& Michelli, 2005), and we aim to acknowledge both the creativity to be found in NLP,
and a range of critical concerns.
There are few precise data about the usage of NLP in education, training and
teaching. NLP training providers exist around the globe, and we estimate that tens of
thousands of participants have attended courses in the UK alone. As evidenced by
literature from NLP associations, websites, magazines and conferences, it is used by
professional practitioners of many kinds, including educators. Its practical, goaloriented approach has made it attractive in business (Knight, 2002), where it is used
for training, coaching and leadership development; it is also a recognised mode of
psychotherapy in the UK.1 In UK higher education, the University of Portsmouth
launched a Masters programme in 2004,2 and NLP has been taught within postgradu*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1470-3297 print/ISSN 1470-3300 online
2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14703297.2010.498183
http://www.informaworld.com

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P. Tosey and J. Mathison

ate modules at the University of Surrey since 1992.3 NLP is also offered as professional development for educators, as in the UK fast track teaching programme
provided by the CfBT Education Trust.4
There is little academic research into NLP. Besides our project, we know of recent
activity in Germany,5 the USA6 and Belgium (Esser, 2004), as well as elsewhere in
the UK. Academic literature on NLP is sporadic and scattered across disciplines. In
education and development this includes Brown (2003), Craft (2001), Stanton (1994),
Thompson, Courtney, and Dickson (2002), and Tosey and Mathison (2003). Even this
literature has little theoretically informed, critical discussion of NLP. The sole attempt
at an NLP journal in a scholarly style, NLP World,7 appeared from 1994 until 2001;
most of its articles being authored by NLP practitioners.
Here we identify seven critical issues that may have contributed to a lack of
dialogue between practitioner and academic communities. These represent a synthesis
of what we perceive to be important themes, informed by extensive acquaintance with
literature and the field of practice. Those issues are:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)

NLPs pragmatic, anti-theoretical stance;

its eclecticism and lack of theoretical coherence;
weak linkage to contemporary academic work in relevant fields;
the belief that there is research evidence refuting NLP;
an unclear evidence base for NLP, and a lack of evaluation of its practices;
ethical concerns about the way NLP is used in practice; and
a lack of reflexive critique of NLPs discourse and social practices.

Next we describe the origins and identity of NLP, including brief examples of
applications in education.
Origins and definition
NLP was developed in the 1970s by Richard Bandler, then a student, and John
Grinder, an associate professor of linguistics, at the University of California, Santa
Cruz (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder, 2001). The title NLP reflects the principle that a
person is a whole mindbody system, with consistent, patterned connections between
neurological processes (neuro), language (linguistic) and learned behavioural strategies (programming) (Dilts, Grinder, Bandler, & DeLozier, 1980, p. 2).
NLP emphasises the potential for self-determination (Bandler & Andreas, 1985)
through overcoming learnt self-limitation. Its motives were described, on the book
jacket of Bandler and Grinder (1975a), as sharing the resources of all those who are
involved in finding ways to help people have better, fuller and richer lives. Early
publications have a psychotherapeutic emphasis because its initial studies were of Fritz
Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy, Virginia Satir, the family therapist, and Milton
Erickson, the hypnotherapist. In common with forms of brief therapy (McDermott &
Jago, 2001), NLP challenges the assumption that personal change necessarily involves
long-term therapy and is only possible with insight into the past (Bandler & Grinder,
1979, pp. 67). It embodies a discourse of self-improvement and, like the emergent
field of positive psychology (Linley, Joseph, Harrington, & Wood, 2006), emphasises
well-being. NLP might also be said to reflect a postmodern relativism through its interest in individually defined and constructed reality; it draws explicitly on Vaihingers
(1924) principle that such constructions are tentative hypotheses according to which
people act as-if they were true.

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Nevertheless, NLP has proved difficult to define succinctly. In promotional literature it has been described as an attitude and a methodology leading to a trail of techniques that ultimately help you to succeed in whatever endeavour you are looking
at,8 which captures a technological emphasis. Dilts et al. (1980) describe it as the
study of the structure of subjective experience, which foregrounds a methodological
identity. Indeed, originally NLP was described as a methodology (Bandler & Grinder,
1975a, p. 6), the purpose of which was to investigate exemplary communication, not
to create a body of practice. Dilts and DeLozier (2000, p. 849) add a third identity,
arguing that NLP has epistemological, methodological and technological dimensions,
which we now discuss.
NLP as epistemology
While writers on NLP have generally declined to articulate it as theory an issue
to which we return later we consider that it has a discernible theoretical thrust.
Specifically, we regard Gregory Batesons ideas (Bateson, 1973) as a central influence
on NLP. Bateson worked across disciplines, including anthropology and family therapy, and was a prominent member of the Macy conferences that developed the field
of cybernetics. He wrote much about epistemological errors in theories of human
interaction. Epistemology, according to Bateson (1973), concerns; the problems of
how we know anything, or more specifically, how we know what sort of world it is
and what sort of creatures we are that can know (p. 284).
Bateson lived in California in the 1970s (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder, 2001,
pp. 117118; Lipset, 1980, p. 279) and took an interest in Bandler and Grinder, who
by chance were his neighbours and, like him, were exploring communication and the
mechanisms of perception. Bateson also enabled Bandler and Grinder to meet Milton
Erickson (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder, 2001, pp. 175178). The link between Batesons
work and NLP is also evidenced by Batesons foreword to Bandler and Grinders first
publication (1975a, pp. ixxi), a connection ignored in reviews of Batesons work
(Harries-Jones, 1995; Lipset, 1980).
Bateson is probably best known in education for his levels of learning (Bateson,
1973). His epistemological position implies a profound shift in understandings of
learning and teaching, and appears related to contemporary theories of learning
informed by complexity (Davis & Sumara, 2006).
We, like others in the field, perceive a strong Batesonian influence on the principles
of NLP, commonly articulated for practitioners as a set of presuppositions (Dilts, 1998b),
which in our view are essentially systemic. NLP is committed to a cybernetic view of
how processes of perception and conceptualisation are structured, and how they operate.
This perspective would emphasise, among other things, the potential influence of the
teachers language patterns on the ways in which learners process information
(Mathison, 2004). We emphasise that, from an NLP perspective, all teachers exercise this
epistemological influence, regardless of whether they have trained in NLP; what NLP
provides is a structured basis for understanding and utilising the nature of that influence.
NLP as methodology
As noted previously, NLP was developed originally as a methodology called modelling9 (Dilts, 1998a; Gordon & Dawes, 2005), which is intended to make human
capabilities available for others to learn:

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The objective of the NLP modelling process is not to end up with the one right or true
description of a particular persons thinking process, but rather to make an instrumental
map that allows us to apply the strategies that we have modelled in some useful way.
(Dilts, 1998a, p. 30)

Although the founders have gone their separate ways (McLendon, 1989, p. 117),
Bandler and Grinder both still emphasise modelling as the core process that generates
NLP applications through investigating the language patterns, behaviours, sequences
of thought, and internal imagery of exponents of a chosen capability.
The nature of modelling is also contested. Dilts (1998a) emphasises a more
conscious, analytical approach that employs conceptual frameworks, while Grinder
(Bostic St. Clair & Grinder, 2001) argues that modelling is essentially an unconscious
assimilation of the exemplars capability. In practice these two modes are often used
in combination.
Modelling has been used to identify cognitive strategies that lie behind capabilities
such as motivating oneself, negotiating, spelling (Dilts et al., 1980), and so on. Dilts
(1994) has modelled a number of strategies of genius, including, for example, a
creative process that appears to have been used by Walt Disney.
As an example in higher education, the first author has modelled essay-writing,
based on interviews with high-performing postgraduates. The result describes the
beliefs and values of the exemplars, the process of conceiving and writing an essay,
and the skills employed at each stage. It also highlights emotional and imaginative
dimensions of the process, which seem underplayed in accounts of essay-writing in
the literature. It has enabled other students to identify options for improvement; or to
realise that their own values about grades are different from those of the exemplars,
thus clarifying and affirming their choices about attainment.
This example also indicates the potential for NLP modelling to support metalearning (Jackson, 2004). The methods used, while not unprecedented, may offer innovations in phenomenological research methods. For example, while phenomenography
(Prosser & Trigwell, 1999) shares a desire to illuminate learners perceptual worlds,
NLP enables a detailed appreciation of the structure of such experience through its
especial emphasis on internal representations and imagery. Its framework of submodalities (Bandler & MacDonald, 1988) makes fine distinctions in the qualities of such
representations.

NLP as technology
NLP offers a wide range of techniques and practical frameworks, described exhaustively in popular publications, including some aimed specifically at teachers and
learners (Beaver, 2002; Freeth, 2003; OConnor & Seymour, 2000). These tools can
be applied to virtually any aspect of learning and teaching; self-management, presentation skills, study skills, classroom management, teaching design, and so on. Here we
give three brief examples.
First, the core language model of NLP, known as the meta-model (Bandler &
Grinder, 1975a), comprises a set of verbal patterns with corresponding forms of question that stimulate exploration of learners constructs. From our experience, many
teachers in higher education rely on broad distinctions between open and closed
questions. The meta-model offers an accessible and relatively sophisticated framework that enables the teacher to guide such enquiry more effectively.

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Second, NLP pays particular attention to non-verbal communication, assuming

that there are consistent but individually unique relationships between outer
behaviour and internal processing. Teachers can enhance their observations to develop
a finer appreciation of their learners experiences and responses. NLPs position on
non-verbal behaviour is derived from Bandler and Grinders modelling of Milton
Erickson, who could make such fine observational discriminations that these appeared
to be intuitive not sensory.
Third, a range of techniques based on the principle of anchoring (Bandler &
Grinder, 1979), utilise linkage between an experience and words, visual images,
touch, and/or physical locations with which that experience is, or can be, associated.
One application is for a teacher to re-access, physiologically as well as mentally, a
selection of personal experiences that (for them) are strongly positive memories of
themselves at their best, in other words. These can be linked together and associated
(through a chosen anchor) with a context in which the teacher wants to have those
resources available (e.g. a challenging session). This can enhance confidence and
capability in a chosen setting.
Critical challenges for NLP
We now identify seven critical challenges, which seem to us to be significant for NLP.
NLPs pragmatic, anti-theoretical stance
NLP was created in order to be used. The founders took an explicitly anti-theoretical,
pragmatic stance that mismatches the values of most academics: We have no idea
about the real nature of things, and were not particularly interested in whats true.
The function of modeling is to arrive at descriptions which are useful (Bandler &
Grinder, 1979, p. 7, emphasis in original).
This mismatch was probably compounded by the appearance of the term magic
in the titles of NLPs early publications. It is sometimes missed that Bandler and
Grinder (1975a) were not claiming to be magicians; their explicit project (p. 6) was to
show that the abilities of charismatic practitioners, which many perceived to be magical, in fact had structure and could be learnt by others.
In effect, Bandler and Grinder were interested in theory-in-use, not espoused
theory. The claims noted earlier might be regarded as disingenuous and provocative,
challenging the notion that cognitive understanding is essential to effective practice.
It is interesting that Bostic St. Clair and Grinder (2001) have recently acknowledged
the theoretical antecedents to NLP in more detail.
Eclecticism and lack of theoretical coherence
Although its founders originally identified NLP broadly with psychology (Bandler &
Grinder, 1975a, p. 1), NLPs contents and practices show influences from diverse
fields such as behavioural psychology, cybernetics (Ashby, 1965), cognitive psychology (Miller, Galanter, & Pribram, 1960), the Palo Alto school of brief therapy
(Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967), and Chomskys transformational linguistics.
Craft (2001, p. 125) suggests that NLP is a set of strategies rather than a theory,
though argues that principally NLP draws on the fundamental assumptions of the
theoretical framework of social constructivism (p. 131). In fact NLP appears to draw

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on all three groups of learning theory identified by Craft learning as growth (e.g.
its belief in human potential, influenced by Perls and Satir), and learning as association (e.g. the techniques of anchoring), as well as constructivism.
The idea that all knowledge systems must have a unifying theoretical framework
is not borne out by the history of ideas. Even so, it seems reasonable to regard NLP
primarily not as a theory, but as a praxis that innovates by questioning disciplinary
orthodoxy and working across theoretical boundaries. In that sense it is transdisciplinary, yet a theoretical coherence can be inferred at the epistemological level, as
suggested above. The unifying features of NLP that merit theoretical explication probably lie in the principles of modelling, not in the diverse techniques.
Weak linkage to contemporary academic work in relevant fields
While Dilts and DeLozier (2000) identify many intellectual sources, there is scope for
more explicit linkage to contemporary developments in relevant academic disciplines.
For example, Robbie (2000) argues that the NLP meta-model needs to be updated in
light of developments in Chomskys thinking. Cognitive linguistics is a field that
appears highly relevant because of NLPs emphasis on the relationship between
language and thought. Andreas (2006) makes explicit reference to the work of Lakoff
(1987), and it appears that the work of authors such as Chafe (1994), Lakoff and
Johnson (1999), and Fauconnier and Turner (2002) may helpfully inform NLP.
The belief that there is research evidence refuting NLP
Academic research into NLP is thin, with virtually no published investigation into
how it is used in practice. Empirical research consists largely of laboratory-based studies from the 1980s and early 1990s (Baddeley & Predebon, 1991; Dorn, Brunson, &
Atwater, 1983; Poffel & Cross, 1985). These investigated two particular features of
NLP, the eye movement model (Bandler & Grinder, 1979), and the notion of the
primary representational system, according to which individuals have a preferred
sensory mode of internal imagery indicated by their linguistic predicates (Grinder &
Bandler, 1976). Both models hypothesise correspondences between external behaviour and internal processing.
Heap (1988) and Sharpley (1987) argue that these particular claims of NLP cannot
be accepted based on the evidence. Heap (1988) conducted a meta-analysis of such
studies and appears justified in criticising the way claims are made in unequivocal
terms in NLP literature. However, Heap (1988) appears only to summarise the
reported outcomes of those studies, and makes no attempt to appraise their validity.
Beck and Beck (1984) have argued that some studies reviewed by Heap have problems affecting their reliability. Heap (1988, p. 276) does acknowledge Einspruch and
Formans (1985) view that the effectiveness of NLP therapy undertaken in authentic
clinical contexts of trained practitioners has not yet been properly investigated.
Given these concerns, and the methodological narrowness of the work concerned,
we suggest that the existing body of empirical research cannot support definitive
conclusions about NLP.
An unclear evidence base for NLP, and a lack of evaluation of its practices
Where is the research evidence? is a familiar cry, although NLP is not alone as a model
that is used in education despite lacking empirical support (Coffield, Moseley, Hall,

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& Ecclestone, 2004). The specific nature of the studies that led to the core meta-model
(Bandler & Grinder, 1975a), including the form the data took and the analysis procedures used, is not set out in detail in published sources. Satir (Bandler & Grinder, 1975a,
p. vii) refers to the authors studying hours of video and audio material; McLendon
(1989, p. 57) suggests that the data about Perls (who died in 1970) were from transcripts and manuscripts that Bandler edited. The authors did, however, include more
data in their studies of Erickson (Bandler & Grinder, 1975b; Grinder, DeLozier, &
Bandler, 1977). Bostic St. Clair and Grinder (2001) now provide a retrospective
account of how the meta-model emerged through both empirical work and the application of theory from transformational grammar (Grinders field of expertise).
The need for critical evaluation and research is increasingly acknowledged by
NLP practitioners (Hancox & Bass, 1995; Miller, 2005) as well as by critics such as
Eisner (2000), in the field of psychotherapy. NLPs claims clearly warrant formal
research, preferably (in our view) through diverse methodological approaches. It
appears particularly important to represent the experiences of users and clients.10
Ethical concerns about the way NLP is used in practice
There is little doubt that NLP has a reputation to live down. We frequently hear the
claim that NLP can be manipulative, a charge noted in the early days of NLP (Bandler
& Grinder, 1979, p. 7). Using NLP instrumentally for the practitioners gain is at odds
not only with NLPs epistemology, but also with its codes of ethics,11 so concern is
entirely appropriate. Yet, we have also witnessed outstanding exemplars of ethical
practice amongst NLP practitioners, and the suggestion (Megginson & Clutterbuck,
2005) that NLP as a body of ideas is inherently more amenable to unethical use than
other modes of working seems far too simplistic. The prime issue seems to be how
ethics are addressed within a field in which it is possible for a layperson to acquire
techniques and to practise after relatively brief training (e.g., in the region of 12 days
to become a certificated practitioner). This is not to suggest that the solution necessarily lies in professionalisation, which is itself contentious and is in tension with NLPs
emphasis on self-determination.
A lack of reflexive critique of NLPs discourse and social practices
Finally, there is a need for analysis of NLP as a social and historical phenomenon.
Earlier we commented that NLP displays a discourse of self-improvement, with a
strong emphasis on the individual, in which the notion of excellence is prominent.
Critical projects might include analysis of the social dimension of training courses,
which (in our experience) is largely ignored. For example, trainers often espouse an
evidence-based, sceptical approach, exhorting participants to test NLPs claims for
themselves; but we have seen little evidence of awareness of likely constraints on such
testing, such as the role of peer pressure, the propensity to believe in something for
which one has paid substantial amounts of money, and the risks (whether perceived or
actual) for participants of expressing dissent.
The NLP community seems characterised by an extraordinary, creative, if somewhat competitive, emphasis on innovation. Its discourse reflects issues of power and
control we have been aware of debates about, for example, who possesses the
authority to define NLP; who has greater access to the inside story of NLPs history
and development; which camp in the field practices true NLP; and who has legal or
moral ownership of NLP and its contents. We assume that such issues arise in any

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field of practice (psychoanalysis springs to mind as a possible comparison). The challenge for the NLP community, perhaps, is to develop greater reflexive awareness of
this dimension of its discourse which, in a field so deeply interested in the subtleties
of language and meta-communication (Bateson, 1973), should be possible.
Conclusion
This article has offered an informed introduction to, and appraisal of, NLP. It has
argued that NLP is a praxis that appears to be used widely by individual educators,
and that NLP can be understood theoretically through Batesons systemic epistemology. Its identity and distinctive contribution is principally as a methodology,
even though the field is typically perceived to be a set of techniques. There appears
to be much within NLP from which education, training and teaching can benefit;
we have also identified seven critical challenges to be addressed. NLP surely merits
further research attention, and we advocate academic interest led by a genuine
scepticism complemented by greater dialogue between practitioner and academic
communities.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the University of Surrey Scholarship Fund, which
has made this project possible, and colleagues in the Centre for Management Learning and
Development who critiqued earlier versions of this manuscript.

Notes
1. UK
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

Council for Psychotherapy (http://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/iqs/dbitemid.84/

sfa.view/cs1.html; accessed July 6, 2010)
MSc in Organisation Development and Neuro-linguistic Technologies
MSc in Change Agent Skills and Strategies
Personal communication, Richard Churches (Lead Consultant, Leadership Development,
CfBT Education Trust).
The University of Bielefeld: http://www.nlp.de/cgi-bin/research/nlp-rdb.cgi (retrieved
March 9, 2007).
Personal communication, Dr Michael Ben-Avie, associate of the Yale University Child
Study Center.
Journal contents are listed at: http://theletterworthpress.com/nlpworld/ (retrieved March 9,
2007).
See: http://www.thenlpcompany.com/techniques/what-is-nlp?/ (retrieved July 28, 2010).
We adopt the UK spelling, modelling, unless quoting from sources that use the US spelling,
modeling.
The Institute for the Advanced Studies of Health NLP Research and Recognition
Project was established in 2006 to assemble evidence of NLPs efficacy (http://
www.nlprandr.org/; retrieved July 6, 2010).
For example, the Association for Neuro-Linguistic Programming (ANLP) general code of
ethics (http://www.anlp.org/; retrieved March 9, 2007); the Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy
& Counselling Association (NLPtCA) code of ethics for psychotherapists (http://
www.nlptca.com/ethics.php; retrieved March 9, 2007).

Notes on contributors
Paul Tosey is a senior lecturer at the University of Surrey, where he is assistant director of the
Centre for Management Learning & Development and programme leader for the MSc Change
Agent Skills and Strategies.

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Jane Mathison is a research officer at the University of Surrey. A licensed trainer with the
Society for NLP, she obtained her PhD in 2004 and has applied NLP in higher education and
corporate training.

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