In article <ken.boff-131293104309@lyman-193.gatech.edu> ken.boff@business.gatech.edu (Ken Boff) writes:
>I've recently been reading ``Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Vol 1.'' by
>Dilts, Grinder, Bandler, et al. The authors make many claims about
>interpreting internal thought processess based on eye movements,
>breathing patters, etc.
>
>I was wondering if the NLP model is taken seriously by psychologists,
>or if it's just another one of many passing pop psychology fads.
>The authors claim that their model can reduce human behavior to a
>finite number of structural elements and a syntax. By
>understanding the elements and syntax, they claim, one can re-
>sequence human behavior to produce desireable outcomes.

It's interesting that your introduction to NLP comes via NLP, vol. I. It's not the usual starting point and it means that you're seeing a different side of NLP than what is popularly known. People tend to think of NLP as a form of therapy based on what Bandler & Grinder learned from studying Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, and Milton Erickson. However NLP vol. I mostly deals not with therapy but with what NLPers call ``modeling'' --- i.e. the process of learning a person's skills and figuring out how to teach these skills to other people. Furthermore, the dominant ideas come not from psychotherapists but from systems theorists and probably especially from George A. Miller, the author of the TOTE concept and who John Grinder knew while he was at Rockefeller University.

This means that the answer to your question is somewhat different than if you had asked about NLP as therapy. I remember during my original NLP training in 1983 that Leslie Cameron Bandler said something like ``At the time when we wrote NLP, vol. I, we thought that we had discovered the key to understanding all human skills. All you had to do was find someone who had a particular skill, elicit his strategy, and you could do what he could and teach anyone else to do it. Unfortunately, it turned out that things were much more complicated than we had thought.''

First of all, it has to be said that this represents one opinion. And it certainly doesn't mean that NLP has given up on modeling. In fact, a lot of what Leslie herself taught during my master practitioner training was about modeling and almost all the trainers I've had since then have maintained that modeling is what NLP is really about and that therapy is merely an application of NLP.

However most people know of NLP as therapy and most NLP trainings are primarily oriented towards therapy (or, more precisely, ``changework"; therapy implies fixing something that's broken whereas changework means facilitating any change that a client wants to make in himself.)

Last summer I took a course from Robert Dilts, Todd Epstein, and Judith DeLozier called The Epistemology of Systemic NLP. Dilts was the main author of NLP, vol. I, or more precisely, he was the one who assembled the contributions from the various authors and made them into a book. (He explained to us that at the time he became involved in NLP, a requirement for becoming an NLP trainer was that one make a new contribution to the field, and NLP vol.I was his contribution.)

In previous NLP courses I had taken, the TOTE concept and the concept of strategies had played a quite secondary role. (``Strategy'' is a technical term in NLP referring to the particular sequence of images, words, sounds, and body feelings that a person uses in performing some basic skill.) But Dilts, Epstein, and DeLozier have made the TOTE concept central to their teaching.

Since I hadn't been through their practitioner and master practitioner training, at first I had a hard time understanding the way they used the term TOTE --- and they used it a lot! George Miller's original definition --- Test, Operate, Test, Exit --- given in NLP vol. I, didn't help me a lot. Eventually, I understood it in the following way:

A TOTE is the basic small chunk of which a purposeful behavior is made up. I am strongly tempted to call it the fundamental atom of purposeful behavior, except that unlike an atom, a TOTE may actually be made up of sub-TOTES. Essentially, the components of a TOTE are a desired outcome, an operation which is intended to achieve the desired goal, and some sort of test/evidence procedure to see whether the operation was successful.

The focus of the course I took, and the main interest of Dilts and Epstein, was modeling. I don't think that they really have much interest in therapy at all or do much of it, although certainly the basic NLP interventions are taught in their practitioner and master practitioner trainings. (It seemed that Judith DeLozier is now primarily interested in anthropology rather than NLP. Todd Epstein has done quite a bit of work with substance abuse and for a year was in charge of the substance abuse programs for the nation of Denmark.) They talked about a number of different things they (especially Dilts) have modeled.

Dilts has written short monographs on the basic strategies of such notable persons as Walt Disney, Mozart, Einstein, and Jesus Christ (as well as such fictional characters as Sherlock Holmes). Dilts and Epstein do a lot of business consulting work, where they go to a corporation and model people within that corporation who are especially successful in some respect, so the same process can be taught to other employees. Recently, for instance, they spent quite a bit of time (about a year, I believe) doing a study of leadership for the Fiat Corporation in Italy. A very high priced Italian business consultant, Gino Bonissone, was present at the course I took, partly as a participant and partly as a teacher.

Dilts and Epstein have written a number of books on such topics as creativity and leadership. Two titles are Tools for Dreamers and Skills for the Future (Meta Press). Unfortunately, in my opinion Dilts has not applied his skills to the task of mastering effective written communication. His books are written in a rather strange manner which clearly he believes is very good, but I myself find it difficult to get as much out of them as I got out of personal contact with him, Epstein, and DeLozier in the course I took.

The organization Dilts and Epstein run is called the Dynamic Learning Center, PO Box 1112, Ben Lomond, CA 95005. If you want to get some idea about whether NLP should be considered pop psychology and only a passing fad, I suggest that you also request a catalog from NLP Comprehensive, 12567 W. Cedar Dr #102, Lakewood, CO 80228 (800) 233-1657 You can get a much better idea of what NLP is by looking through this catalog than you can be reading articles in sci.psychology.