Pegasus NLP: NLP or not?

Pegasus NLP Mind-Body Health Site

The practical applications of NLP in your life

Updated 17 November 2008

My own 'crossroads'

For me the crossroads occurred when I began attending body-work seminars and workshops in 1984.

I'd been using NLP for a few years, was sold on it and had experience of how it could produce results in my own life and with people who came to my stress management classes and counselling sessions.

BUT... It I did not feel completely at ease with it. There was something missing. And when I began attending the bodywork events I realised that what was missing was warmth, friendliness, fun and humour!

And as a result of this recognition I almost decided to part company with the world of NLP.

Touch for Health

I'd spent a couple of weeks at a Touch for Health Instructor training. (Touch for Health is a lay form of Applied Kinesiology). At the training I'd had a ball, learned lots, become quite skilled and learned a lot about me through my body.

Then I attended a seminar in London at which most of the participants were NLP-oriented.

Dave Dobson's seminar

The seminar featured the wise and wonderful Dave Dobson and was great. (So great, in fact, that I still use material from it. In fact, I think that I pass on more of what I learned from Dave then than from any other trainer I have encountered.)

And yet this was the point at which I was initially turned off NLP. Because I mistook the medium for the message. Dave Dobson had lots of fun, warmth, friendliness and humour. But not the majority of the other participants.

They knew lots. And said so. Some of them were also attending the current extended training - at that time the nearest UK equivalent to the NLP Practitioner Certification Programme. But I did not see or experience much rapport. Or discern much interest, on their part, in other people - apart from their continuously trying to analyse people according to representational systems, congruence versus incongruence, etc.

Bodywork

The contrast between this rather cold, analytical, intellectual and humourless bunch and the people I had made friends with at the Touch for Health course was marked. And it caused me to question whether or not to continue with NLP. The questioning and wondering went on for about a year and a half.

It was a very valuable period. I explored some fascinating routes to personal change (and made a few critical breakthrough for myself) including Applied Kinesiology, Educational Kinesiology, Clinical Kinesiology, the work of Dr. Sheldon Deal, Neo-Reichian bodywork, and Bioenergetics.

But bits of NLP kept creeping into what I was doing in these areas too. Almost as if my unconscious mind was reminding me that I couldn't just drop NLP'. And then a few things occurred to me.

The medium is not the message

The majority of people at the Dave Dobson seminar and a few others that I'd attended were just a majority - not everyone in NLP at the time was like this
They were simply reflecting what they had learned (and, perhaps, what they thought they had learned). This did not mean NLP had to be like this
Instead of jettisoning a wonderful process because of how it was being manifested in the UK I should do something about making NLP more fun, more human, and more grounded in the physical

So I have been working on the latter ever since. And have recently introduced an important missing element - physical activities - into my workshops and trainings.

Information about NLP

NLP Courses in the New Forest

What is NLP + NLP FAQ

Why learn NLP

How to learn NLP

Where to learn NLP and how to choose a training provider

The NLP Practitioner Certification Programme

The NLP Master Practitioner Certification Programme

Features of Pegasus NLP Trainings

How we integrate NLP with outdoor activities

The Pegasus NLP Principles

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