Concept
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a pseudoscientific approach to communication, personal development and psychotherapy, that first appeared in Richard Bandler and John Grinder's 1975 book The Structure of Magic I. NLP asserts that there is a connection between neurological processes (neuro-), language (linguistic) and acquired behavioral patterns (programming), and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life. According to Bandler and Grinder, NLP can treat problems such as phobias, depression, tic disorders, psychosomatic illnesses, near-sightedness, allergy, the common cold, and learning disorders, often in a single session. They also claim that NLP can "model" the skills of exceptional people, allowing anyone to acquire them. NLP has been adopted by some hypnotherapists, as well as by companies that run seminars marketed as "leadership training" to businesses and government agencies. There is no scientific evidence supporting the claims made by NLP advocates, and it has been called a pseudoscience. Scientific reviews have shown that NLP is based on outdated metaphors of the brain's inner workings that are inconsistent with current neurological theory, and contain numerous factual errors. Reviews also found that research that favored NLP contained significant methodological flaws, and that there were three times as many studies of a much higher quality that failed to reproduce the "extraordinary claims" made by Bandler, Grinder, and other NLP practitioners. According to Bandler and Grinder, NLP consists of a methodology termed modeling, plus a set of techniques that they derived from its initial applications. They derived many of the fundamental techniques from the work of Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson and Fritz Perls. Bandler and Grinder also drew upon the theories of Gregory Bateson, Alfred Korzybski and Noam Chomsky (particularly transformational grammar), as well as ideas and techniques from Carlos Castaneda.