NLP and Science

For the past 40 years, I have been a psychologist and have enjoyed the rigor that comes with the necessity of maintaining a scientific attitude when doing our NLP-inspired work. In 2017, I wrote an article for *Acuity* titled “Why NLP Must Gain Academic Credibility” (Grimley, 2017), and almost 8 years later, I still believe the same. This article discusses why I continue to believe that NLP must gain academic seriousness if it is ever to become widely recognized, so that ongoing research can be funded through institutional grants and the discovered patterns can be considered a gold standard in evidence.

What is Science?

That’s a good question, and philosophers do not have a definitive answer. But just because philosophers cannot answer it doesn’t mean the label “science” is meaningless or should be ignored. In 2024, I co-authored with Dormandy: “The label ‘scientific’ is a stamp of epistemic quality or even authority… Gatekeepers must exclude bad science, scientific fraud, and pseudoscience, while including the dissenting views that are the essence of science” (Dormandy and Grimley, 2024).

So don’t we want NLP’s work to earn that stamp so the world can recognize its quality? Don’t we want NLP to have the status of knowledge and not mere opinion? Karl Popper or Thomas Kuhn are often regarded as the fathers of modern scientific thinking. But Karl Popper claimed that the social sciences are not sciences, since they are open systems shaped by consciousness and free will. Likewise, Thomas Kuhn insisted that his model applied only to the natural sciences and not to the complex world of the social sciences (McIntyre, 2019, p. 4).

Science is difficult to define when we insist on the standards of deductive logic, and that’s exactly what Karl Popper tried to do.

The Problem of Induction

If you live in a part of the world populated only by black swans, after 20 years of seeing only black swans, it would be reasonable to believe that all swans are black. A short plane trip to another part of the world, however, would show us something different—we would see white swans, and our theory would have to be revised. This is the problem of induction: we can never prove anything through experience, because there is always the possibility that a future experience will contradict what we have come to believe.

Because “scientific” statements like “All swans are black” cannot necessarily be proven true, Popper tried to find a different approach than verification by experience: the falsifiability of scientific theories. A theory must be falsifiable by a possible experience. His stroke of genius was applying deductive logic, i.e., a logical rule in the form of a syllogism.

“Modus ponens” says: If A, then B. And A. Therefore B.

McIntyre (2019, p. 12) illustrates this with a real-life example: “If someone was born between 1945 and 1991, they have Strontium-90 in their bones. Adam was born in 1963, therefore Adam has Strontium-90 in his bones.”

So this is deductively valid. The problem with “scientific” statements, however, is that they often don’t follow this form. Hundreds of years before Popper, such statements were considered inductive, meaning the reasoning went more like: “If A, then B. And B. Therefore A.” For example: “If someone was born between 1945 and 1991, they have Strontium-90 in their bones. Eva has Strontium-90 in her bones. Therefore, Eva was born between 1945 and 1991.” Obviously, this type of reasoning is not deductively valid. The fact that Eva has Strontium-90 in her bones is no guarantee that she was born between 1945 and 1991. It could be, for example, that Eva in the...

Bruce Grimley Fugia amustiuntin nusam fuga. Nam quasper umenimi ncidus as de videbit aquodipsam ut latet fugia eiur, nem volorepudit quam audictem vent. Ignam qui volenis deliquatia est a sit aut provid magnihil iunt autem quam eum la dolut officiisint qui autem et re santem aut am fugitia tureiur? Us as deni si sitatus aeprentota cor sit anis moluptatquia dest, nonsedis ut eiustium voloratiis quiaestem. Naturibus. Conseque event fugit volorro qui nis re voles parum hit, unt, abore pore dionsequia sed

…grew up near a nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania in the late 1990s, where it was shown that Strontium-90 was present due to environmental contamination. We could say something similar about NLP: "If someone uses a VK/D pattern, they will be cured of PTSD. Eva is cured of PTSD, so she must have used the VK/D pattern." Of course, there could be many other reasons why Eva was cured. Maybe she never had PTSD to begin with. Maybe she was especially resilient. Maybe just having someone to talk to was enough. Women may recover better from PTSD than men. Maybe she already had therapy beforehand, and so on.

One might ask: If we conduct good research and try to control for variables like those affecting Eva by using a large sample size, could that justify our beliefs and increase the likelihood that our general statements are true—even if these statements are not deductively valid?

This is exactly how psychologists try to rule out alternative explanations for their results. This is known as internal validity. However, psychologists do not present their results in terms of deductive certainty, but in terms of probabilities, using statistics. Popper, on the other hand, was not satisfied with the fact that inductive conclusions are not deductively valid.

McIntyre explains: “Admitting that ‘we could be wrong’ doesn’t sound like much of a difference between science and non-science. Popper was looking for something stronger. He wanted a logical foundation for the uniqueness of science.” Popper didn’t have to look far. The inductive argument we used above has a name—“affirming the consequent”—and it is a well-known fallacy in deductive logic. But there are other, better forms of reasoning, and one of the most powerful—modus tollens—is deductively valid.

It works like this: “If A, then B. Not B. Therefore, not A.” If someone was born between 1945 and 1991, then they have Strontium-90 in their bones. Gabriel does not have Strontium-90 in his bones. Therefore, Gabriel was not born between 1945 and 1991. That was Popper’s insight and the logical basis for scientific conclusions. Just because science tries to learn from empirical facts about the world doesn’t mean it is trapped by the problem of induction. Looking at the argument above, we can see that it’s possible to gather empirical evidence and learn from it in a negative way. If our test fails, we must revise our general claim. Like the logical positivists, Popper still relied on empirical evidence—but rather than verification as proof of a useful pattern, he relied on falsification.” (McIntyre pp. 14–15)

What Does This Have to Do with NLP?

In NLP, a similar approach could follow the structure of modus tollens, and we can see how, in science, the idea of falsification has become more important than verification: “If someone uses a V/K-D pattern, then they will be cured of PTSD. Harry is not cured of PTSD. Therefore, someone using the V/K-D pattern is not necessarily cured of PTSD.” With modus tollens, you only need a single counterexample to show that a sweeping generalization is false.

NLP has been called a cargo cult science (Roderique-Davies, 2009). This term comes from Nobel Prize–winning physicist Richard Feynman. Let’s take a look at what Feynman had to say about science. We’ll see that he follows Popper in stating that science is about falsification, not verification, as is often used in empirical science, especially in psychology.

“It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thinking, corresponding to a kind of utter honesty— a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid— not only what you think is right… If you develop a theory, you must also include all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it.” (Feynman, 1974, no page reference)

Although we’ve only touched a small part of what McIntyre calls the “scientific attitude,” the above should be enough to convince any NLP practitioner that we are not doing science when we make claims about NLP. An example of what Dormandy and Grimley (2024) refer to as “NLP bullshit” comes from one of NLP’s co-founders himself: “We can reliably cure a phobia in 10 minutes every time” (*emphasis mine*, Bandler, 2008). As shown by the modus tollens above, we need only one counterexample to prove this statement false… and therefore, it certainly should not be used for marketing purposes.

Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories

When the “NLP Research and Recognition Project” asked the global NLP community for financial support to conduct research on the VK dissociation pattern—a pattern we consider especially useful in assisting with anxiety disorders as well as clinical conditions such as phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder—the necessary funding could not be raised. As a result, the name “NLP” had to be dropped to secure funding from other sources, and the organization is now simply called the “Research and Recognition Project.” The NLP label was changed from VK dissociation to RTM (Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories, a concept described by scientists 50 years ago), so the protocol is now associated more with the last decade of memory reconsolidation research than with NLP (Nadir, 2015; Gray et al., 2017). When it comes to “what the protocol is,” NLP is not mentioned once; instead, it is described as cognitive therapy, and NLP is not referenced at all in the cited research or on the website (RTMtm 2024).

Lightning Process

When Phil Parker, the founder of the Lightning Process™ (which is based on NLP), tried to challenge NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence), it proved too difficult a task due to the evident bias against NLP. In a draft guideline published in December 2020, NICE explicitly recommended against using NLP for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). Specifically, it stated: “Do not offer people with ME/CFS therapies derived from osteopathy, life coaching, or neuro-linguistic programming (for example, the Lightning Process).” To counter this prejudice, Parker followed the same route as the Research and Recognition Project, and NLP is neither mentioned nor listed on his website. Instead, the Lightning Process™ is described as being based on the science of mind-body connections and on research commissioned by him.

Some Final Examples

I wanted to write a chapter on NLP coaching for a book published by Open University Press—an established and highly reputable academic publisher. One reviewer argued that NLP is a method for which “many psychologists see little concrete evidence of effectiveness,” which is a fair criticism. However, when I removed NLP and retitled the chapter “pluralistic coaching,” with only minor additional changes, it was accepted (Grimley, 2022). I see this as an example that the assumptions and core premises of NLP are indeed sound, but when presented through an NLP lens, they are implicitly rejected because we within NLP do not adopt a scientific attitude. A final example is the criticism of a small randomized controlled study by Arroll and Hendwood (2017). They submitted an RCT study on the effectiveness of phobia treatment to the *International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine*; it was rejected with the comment: “There is no basis for why ‘NLP,’ after 40 years of failing to provide evidence, deserves our attention... I would remove any reference to ‘NLP’ and simply focus on calling the intervention what it actually is—a visualization technique.” (Arroll and Henwood 2017b, p. 25)

Conclusion

Although the quality of NLP evidence in the psychological literature is very low by Popperian standards, it remains a game that NLP practitioners must play if they want to earn a seat at the “table” of research funding and make a large-scale impact. A good example is Francine Shapiro, who was impressed by what NLP could do and went on to develop her own program called EMDR (Rosen, 2023). Even though there are claims that EMDR has only limited experimental evidence of effectiveness (Rosen, 1999), and although EMDR has connections to NLP (which she denies), Shapiro managed to make EMDR a widely recognized term within the framework of “evidence-based” medicine by aligning with the structure and standards of psychological research. If we are looking for a role model for conducting scientific research from an NLP perspective, we could do no better than to follow in Shapiro’s footsteps. Currently, NLP as an internationally recognized paradigm is as far away from that point as it could be.

I close with a contradictory and paradoxical note and leave the question of whether NLP— as I believe it should—ought to adopt a more scientific attitude to the younger generation of NLP practitioners. As an NLP Master Trainer turning 70 in February 2025, I will not be taking on this task myself in the near future. I teach people the fundamentals of NLP because I find it highly useful and compelling, not because it is scientifically proven. All three co-founders of NLP are still alive, and none of them are engaged in scientific research. In the article I wrote with Katherine Dormandy (2024), we refer to a group of people we call “a-scientific” NLP practitioners. They make no scientific claims about their work; instead, they simply state that NLP works for them and their clients and proceed accordingly. Perhaps it is time for NLP to stop trying to be a science and simply accept itself as it is—just as the founders do: very useful in our personal experience and professional practice. If we begin engaging in scientific work, might we then be doing something different than NLP?

Sources:

• Arroll, B., S. Henwood, F. I. Sundram, D. W. Kingsford, V. Mount, S. P. Humm, and H. B. Wallace. 2017a. "A Brief Treatment for Fear of Heights: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Novel Imaginal Intervention." The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine 52 (1): 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091217417703285

• Bandler, R. (1980). What is NLP? In Grimley (2020, p. 53), *The 7Cs of Coaching: A Personal Journey Through the World of NLP and Coaching Psychology.* London: Routledge.

• Dormandy, K. and Grimley, B. (2024). "Gatekeeping in Science: Lessons from the Case of Psychology and Neuro-Linguistic Programming." *Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy,* 38(3).

• Gray, R., D. Budden-Potts, and F. Bourke. 2017. "Reconsideration of Traumatic Memories for PTSD: A Randomized Controlled Trial of 74 Male Veterans." *Psychotherapy Research* 14 (5): 621–639. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2017.1408973

• Feynman, R. P. (1974). *Cargo Cult Science: Some Remarks on Science, Pseudoscience, and Learning How to Not Fool Yourself.* Caltech commencement address.

• Grimley, B. (2022). Pluralist Coaching. In Shams, M. (Ed.), *Psychology in Coaching Practice: A Guide for Professionals.* Maidenhead: Open University Press.
• Nadir, K. (2015). "Reconsideration and the Dynamic Nature of Memory in Cold Spring Harbor." *Perspectives in Biology.*
• Research and Recognition Project (2024). Retrieved on 31st October 2024 from: https://randrproject.org/training.html

• Roderique-Davies, G. (2009). "Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Cargo Cult Psychology?" *Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education,* 1(2), 57–63.

• Rosen, G. M. (1999). *Treatment Fidelity and Research on Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).* *Journal of Anxiety Disorders,* 13(1–2), pp. 173–184, Elsevier Science Ltd.

• Rosen, G. M. (2023). "Revisiting the Origins of EMDR." *Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy*, Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-023-09582-x