|
Let's start with the observation that in order to ask this question you have to pre-suppose that NLP has some kind of limitations which may limit its effectiveness or make it less than useful in the greater scheme of things.
All things human made have limitations and NLP is no exception; but some things are a whole lot more limited than others, and compared with those, NLP is actually pretty limitless.
The reason I am saying this is that the "trail of NLP techniques," things like the fast phobia cure, hypnosis methods, strategy elicitations and all the various other bits and bobs are SYMPTOMS of NLP, not the original structure and method of looking at the world "through NLP eyes" (yes, and for the hardcore amongst us, hearing with NLP ears, feeling with NLP feelers, sniffing with an NLP nose, tasting with NLP buds, information processing with an NLP information processor ...) ;->
NLP starts with the observation that there is an absolute reality, and an intrapersonal reality, and that each person makes an intrapersonal map of this absolute reality which is then further abstracted with metaphor, symbol and eventually, linear language.
If NLP taught ONLY that one thing, and absolutely nothing else, and didn't even try to teach anything else but that, it would make NLP completely without any limitations whatsoever, because in simple observation that there may be a divergence between absolute reality and intrapersonal reality lies the master key to the master door of just about all human insanity, disturbances and failures to thrive.
From this one observation springs hypnosis for example - how connected is the person to absolute reality as opposed to intrapersonal reality at any given point in time?
What happens when you collapse absolute reality to just the words of the hypnotist?
How does a person transition between the various states of paying attention to either reality? How can we use that?
You can investigate just this one aspect of one basic NLP core teaching literally forever.
But there is so much more to this, for example what internal representation a person makes, and how they code those in their language, how this affects their mind/body totality states, and how we can throw a spanner in the works and make things different.
This gives you a whole new take on symbol making, on language genesis, occurrence, the use of language intrapersonally and interpersonally, and you can spend the next 500 years with 5,000 research helpers delving into that and you'll never be done with it.
I could go on and on with these examples how some of the very basic things one learns when one begins to study NLP show you a world without limitations of research, discovery and to find leverage points to start experimenting with change, completely uncharted territory that is just sitting there, like the famous eye accessing cues, waiting for someone to come along and take finally take notice, see what's really there.
A further note is that there are no limits to the application of NLP in ANY human endeavour, be it art, science, therapy, discovery, business, learning, teaching, inventing, playing, fighting, making love and all and everything that humans do.
So if I'm asked seriously what the limitations of NLP are I would have to say they can only be the limitations any one person brings to the field in what they may decide they DON'T want to investigate, DON'T want to try NLP questions and approaches to find out more about our relationship with reality itself.
SFX
[NLP Anectdote On]
PS That reminds me of a fun occurrence from many years ago.
There was some well known guy who had written many books and he was talking errant nonsense of the kind an NLPer would NEVER allow themselves to do, having learned something about avoiding bad logic and bad science along the way.
Rather than to say to him, "For God's sake, man! You are talking nonsense! That X you are talking about does NOT follow on from Y AT ALL, and you're building a whole house of cards of bad logic based on that faulty presupposition! What IS the matter with you!"
... I said to him, quite conversationally, "Have you ever studied any NLP at all?"
"Oh no!" he cried, "Oh no! I looked into it ten years ago and I didn't like the morals!"
I shook my head to hide my attempts at not laughing out aloud and eventually said, "Oh! Didn't you know? NLP is like a bring-a-bottle party - you have to bring your own morals, they are not provided ..."
Then I couldn't take it anymore and I walked away ...
[NLP Anecdote off]
|
