I have different friends and colleagues who are intoNeuro-Linguistic Programming, NLP. Long time ago I studied the concept and I than was very critical. Recently I mentioned one of the principles being debunked. This news article on the BBC-website warns the possible dangerous consequences of a certain NLP-therapy. Healing the Wounds in Porthcawl has been asked to stop using Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), which tries to change people’s patterns of mental and emotional behaviour. It is not regulated or approved and can make patients worse.

From the article:

But on the programme some describe feeling even worse after a three-day residential course during which veterans are sent to a hotel overnight.

One veteran, who did not want to be identified, said the course of therapy left him feeling suicidal.

“I did two full days and on the third I left and my wife came to collect me,” he said. “When she came through the doors it was such a relief, I was left feeling worse than when I first went into Healing The Wounds.”

The undercover veteran, who does not have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but described suffering some of the symptoms, was told by Carol Richards during therapy that it had taken her just 20 minutes to help one soldier who had seen many of his colleagues killed.

No attempt was made to contact the undercover veteran’s GP to check his physical or mental health before therapy began.

Prof Neil Greenberg, co-director of the Academic Centre for Defence Mental Health at Kings College London, said: “If this group who are not medically qualified and don’t know a person’s whole treatment history, because they haven’t got that, that could cause some real problems, it could be quite dangerous.”

There are two distinct elements in this story: the non-existing regulation so anybody can call him- or herself NLP-therapist, but also the non-existence of proof that the treatment actually helps in this case.