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Hi, VoA,

As you will see, I left a query about this on your talk page, as a courtesy, but never got a reply. Its possible you were away a bit or didn't see it. But either way, my concerns (as regards mediation) are these:

1. I have sought reconciliation with Headley. I have put effort into it despite insults and accusations. It doesn't seem to have worked, see his talk page and list of grounds for referral above for my reasons for feeling this.
2. The bottom line of the matter is virulent POV warring. I have tried, but I just don't see any sign of change on that, and unless it stops - totally - then ultimately mediation as I have said, is doomed to fail too.
3. I know mediation's best, when it works, and you'll see from Headley's talk page that I tried, and from this talk page that I ignored several insults and POV edits and at least a few personal attacks, to do so. Please see my reply to Alice above, why I feel mediation is likely to fail, and hence why I feel an ArbCom referral is not premature.
4. If you have reasons to believe that NPOV will be reached on this article, then can you let me know your basis for that feeling? Because to be honest, I just don't see it, and I've mediated informally a fair few wikipedia disputes. The gap seems too wide.

If you can reassure me, I'll listen. The difficulty is that I don't see that kind of progress being at all likely. I had offered Headley mediation, and told him quite clearly in 2 or 3 places that if declined by his actions Arbitration would be the next resort. His reply has been a continuation of personal remarks, attacks, and POV warring, and complete denial of even a "this is a basis for discussion". So I now feel referral to ArbCom has become clearly appropriate. This isn't just sarcasm. This is fairly heavily slanted POV article warring. The sad truth is, that apart from picking selectively every negative sounding quote they can find and citing it, I have not really seen Headley or Logan contribute anything much about NLP, in a wikipedia fashion, to this article. Headley today asserts that "This article gives the sum human knowledge of NLP as it stands."

Even despite this, most of their major citations when actually examined in context are not only slanted, but routinely unrepresentative or factually misrepresented, sometimes grossly so. Morgan was. Heap was. British Physchological Society was. NLP description is. And so on. Other contributions of theirs are invented or unsourced and flagrantly inaccurate. many other editors have complained too, recently, and I get the impression that they don't seem to feel mediation is helping enough.

If you feel I am mistaken, can we discuss it by email? I can be reached on my public email, "contactbox" AT "softhome" DOT "net". Thanks - and sorry for the lack of optimism.

FT2 21:20, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Uncle Ed and VoiceOfAll. Your wish is my command. Or something like that:) Thanks for the input. I will do my best to remove my temper. And clearer attribution has been requested, and so it will be followed. Best regards HeadleyDown 01:19, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Headley. But actually your temper does not need controling. As I said before, simply stop engaging people who repeatedly badger after you have answered already. Its just a trolling tactic they use, and as above, they will re-post your response to leverage their POV. Just keep providing the good research you have and constructively answering valid questions as you have. I'm not telling you what to do, this is just a friendly reminder. As usual you are correct about no need for mediation, and your responses generally follow Voiceofall's requests extremely well. Cheers JPLogan 01:57, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem JPL is, that most of the "answers" given have not actually been answers. Typical answers have included "All therapists know it". Or where specific points are raised but not discussed, brushed aside in a non-scientific manner. That is why people keep asking again. because you sometimes actually have to answer the question properly, not just keep saying say why you don't think it merits closer examination or why you think you have answered it. FT2 14:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Following the latest revert by HeadleyDown, in which he reverted a sourced, neutral, title-description of NLP by its founders, saying it was "promotional", I'm afraid I feel this is the last sign that mediation could, or will, work. The text added to the introduction, the formal description of NLP according to its creators. This was fully described on the talk page, and sourced. My above feelings seem to be confirmed. I am sorry, VoiceOfAll, I shall be asking ArbCom to handle this. It seems from the straw poll above that this is not a solo decision. If they reject it, then I will understand and try to work with this more, but the POV warring here is persistent, learning is not happening or intended to happen, and (insofar as Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia not a game, with policies), this is not okay.

FT2 15:12, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello FT2. I am simply being cooperative. If you wish to move antagonistically against mediation and compromise, then that is your choice. I feel you will find yourself in the minority. If you notice the numerous compromises made towards the promoters then you would not make such a decision. Believe me. You are welcome here, but your extreme moves in the light of the summer of extreme moves is simply a repeat of what went on before and failed. I do not wish to distract you from your own decisions, but I have been here for quite a while, and arbitration seems to be quite a few horizons away. I personally am open to many options. I and others here have made many compromises and will probably be open to others who are willing to shed real light on this subject. Otherwise, your efforts are directed to whichever cliff you wish to climb. Regards HeadleyDown 15:53, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposed merger of promotional NLP site

Hello all. The proposal to merge a speculative and promotional NLP site with wikipedia is completely unacceptable. The information is conflicting, mixed up, unverifiable, unfairly presented, unfactual and so on. It is not up to wikipedia to rescue failing websites and wikispam is also completely unacceptable. Lets just get on with resolving those 2 remaining issues. HeadleyDown 06:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Science solution

As mentioned in many places above it seems to me that science may be the solution to a lot of problems here. For example, I noticed that the engram is actually an incredibly persistent issue in psychology and neurology, and that is probably why it is used by NLP theorists. I had a look at the engram page, and it seems to be totally wrong. Not only is it vague, but it is also wrongly attributed to dianetics.

As the engram really is a strong ongoing research stream in neuroscience and psychology amongst other sciences, I suggest that the NLP promoters start accepting it as a concept. We have tried to represent it scientifically here, but promoters/practitioners keep trying to remove that explanation.

One way to do this would be to represent the engram properly as a scientific subject on the engram page. The engram is the memory trace that represents learning and has a very good science history. It is generally construed on the holistic level, just like NLP uses it, and its diagramatic representations match those of the NLP diagrams. It is different from the way dianetics uses the engram concept. There are papers on critiquing the dianetics engram as it is very flawed scientifically. Have a go at the engram page and that will probably help your case enormously. Regards JPLogan 02:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Now there's a good compromise. I can clarify on the article also! DaveRight 03:15, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd go with that. If the problem is that engrams are badly described, then lets solve that one. Personally I think JPL is on the ball here, what may have happened is that although not used in original formulations of NLP, *if* the concept was in science *and* was sensible and credible, then NLP theoreticians may have started to refer to it. the problem then might be that the engrams article is misleading. Trouble is, that article, at present, does not say what NLP says, nor was it used in original formulations... which may be why some people are removing it. Clean it up, and lets see if it then says what NLP is saying. FT2 11:29, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes I also think this is a good idea. It will clarify things a lot. HeadleyDown 11:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure where that's going but it's interesting. So NLP primary texts don't refer to engrams themselves, but to concepts which sound the same as engrams (to someone who knows engrams). However psychology and scientology define engrams differently, and the current Misplaced Pages page on engrams does not remotely sound similar to the concepts written about in NLP primary texts. Therefore, we should rewrite the wikipedia article on engrams to match the understanding of engrams that correspond with the NLP concepts, so that we can simplify the concepts of NLP by simply saying "see 'engrams'". ...interesting.... GregA

Not quite. Its a suggestion that if there is anything useful in "engrams", or it has multiple uses and definitions, maybe if that article was more complete and covered and cited scientific views or NLP views or scientology views or whatever too, then we'd maybe end up able to say "some modern NLP writers compare NLP's understaning of X to modern scientific views on Engrams", and it would then be accurate. Thats a new field to me too. If, as JPL suggests, NLP texts refer to concepts which are similar to "engrams", then thats worth knowing. The trouble is, the article on Engrams doesn't have any way to check that with at all, because its not itself describing the term fully and sounds like mumbo jumbo anyhow. Thats my understanding of what JPL is saying, anyhow. FT2 13:49, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Hallo. The NLP trainers I know in Europe and Russia use the term engrams in different ways to each other. But I think the suggestion is good. Certainly it should be stated that Hubbard's engrams are different from science and NLP's engrams. That is what encyclopedias are good for. The engram page said dianetics uses engrams (just after a scientific description) last time I looked. Just find a book that says the dianetics engram koncept is wrong, and Bob is your uncle:) From my understanding, Hubbard engrams are about pain. Science does not give them such a negative view, they are just representations of learning in the neurons. Also Hubbard talks about demons as part of them:) Read Dianetic, the science and technik of achievement. It is very funny:) Hubbard went from science fiction to fiction science:) But engrams were taught as a holist theoretical koncept in my undergraduate psychology. There is nothing wrong with it and the research is still following it even for finding where the engram is in the parts of the brain. When I read Bandler and amigos I do not see demon engrams, but I do see mental pathways and circuits of scientific proposed engrams. HansAntel 03:16, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Most NLP theorizing is bunk, but...

Much of the pure scientific aspects of the discussion here are things which I am not well versed in, however, the "success seminar" angle is something I am familiar with, though not the Tony Robbins "I can cure you" kind. Suffice it to say, the usable application to be found here is in helping people steer their minds to a more effective premise in critical areas.

For example, there is a "success saying" which goes like this: "Your mind is not like a rubber band, once it stretches, it does not go back to it's original position".

I have found from experience that if you can get someone with low self-esteem and/or high self-doubt to truly believe that, they will then start regularly thinking that things can and will get better for them.

Recent case in point: A close friend of my family is in her 40's, overwieght, smokes, is out of work and 3 months past due on her mortgage. As a condition of helping her with enough $$ to get current on the mortgage (between me and her father, we bridged the gap), she was oblidged to come see me face to face for an hour, to get the check. At this meeting, I first made sure of the tally of the required $$, then I reminded her that I'd known her for 8 years and never once butted into her pesonal life. "Thats' true", she confirmed. So then, here is what I explained to her: I said "look, you are about to lose your house and you are spending over $150 a month on cigarettes, what the hell are you doing?" There was no argument on this point and then I explained an NLP "success saying". I said "look Susie (pen name for this), I am giving you this $$ because we care about you, but let me tell you something, the secret I am about to tell you is worth over 100 times more and here it is: Your mind is not like a rubber band, once it stretches, it does not go back to it's original position".

"It's that simple, all you have to do is stop telling yourself you can't and start telling yourself you can. After a certain point, you really will understand that your mind has stretched and you will know that it's not going back to where it was. You will be a different, better person than you are now".

I also gave here an easy translation Bible and set her to reading Proverbs, explaining that she needed some new grist for the mill (of her mind), such as "Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid".

Anyway, the long and the short of it was this all happened about 8 weeks ago. Since then, she has quit smoking, got a job and started a diet/excercize program. When she called me 2 weeks ago to give an update, it was clear that she was convinced that her mind both can stretch and was in the process of stretching. She was really much happier, etc.

Now, will she stay that way? I say yes, if she actually does believe that her mind can stretch and if she works at stretching it. So to wrap this up, this NLP stuff, so far as I can see, really only works when you have a subject who is ready, willing and able to focus their mind effectively. The results come not as a consequence of he suggestion (the "programming"), but rather, as a consenquence of the subject actually focusing intensly on the target - it's the power of sustained postive expectations, nothing more. Those who claim to have developed a structured system of tapping into how people think and steering it via NLP are just putting a fancy name on helping people believe "Yes!, I can". A good football coach already does this; think "the Tuna", Bill Parcells.

In my view, helping people focus and moving them forward in life is the only worthwile application for this technology and frankly, the rest of it (I feel) is a bunch of crap dreamed up by people who are interested in considering themselves superior "Hah! see how I led that person around by the nose"...

Also, it really only works if the suggestion being made is an actual macro-truth - as in always true for everyone. In my mind, I always have available this: "Your mind is not like a rubber band, once it stretches, it does not go back to it's original position" as an absolute certainty and am always ready to share anecdotal proof that it's true with anyone who asks or othrwise displays interest. Personally, I am fully convinced that the reason why this particular suggestion works (if genuinely apprehended by the subject) is because it's true about all people, all the time.

Rex071404 08:30, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Welcome Rex. Thanks for your input. Yes, you have some clear perceptions about the subject. NLP is generally promoted as a science or scientifically sounding for the sake of sales with no serious effort to test and verify. Regards HeadleyDown 11:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi rex.

I think the problem comes down to this: the founders of NLP chose the word "programming" for its cybernetics connotations (in the 1960's) -- and they chose really badly, because the word is ubiquitous in cults and suggestion, where it means something like instilling, often by suggestion, another person's or a cult's ideas, into a more suggestible person.

NLP is very badly named, no question of it. A better term would be neuro-linguistic patterning. It's not about instilling via self-belief. Its closer to instilling by pattern-modification. If you tie an unfamiliar knot 100 times, your muscles learn the new pattern; belief has nothing to do with it.

NLP says, that everything a person does, can potentially be viewed at that level, if we knew how. It says you can in principle (and with varying degrees of difficulty and skill), rewire dysfunctional patterns of thinking and behavior to make them more productive, and you can study how others who are highly capable structure their internal habitual ways of being, and adopt ones similar, and that these may help you learn to become more capable too. It says that if you could establish a less reflexive connection between seeing and strong feeling, then just maybe a phobic won't have to have such a strong negative sensation when they see whatever stimulus is involved, and that this doesn't require understanding of the past, its almost an engineering process mentally speaking - disconnecting or weakening a connection.

Trance, or hypnosis, is seen as useful since it bypasses the conscious mind (which isn't really that relevant when working with unconscious internalized habits anyway), and more importantly bypasses conscious dissection and analysis which tend to favor and rationalize the status quo and can thus block alternative learnings.

Here is an example of NLP from my own recent experience:

I had a long distance friend, who was agoraphobic. He panicked on planes, could barely handle buses, couldn't visit malls. The real clinical thing. He didn't understand why, in fact he'd only just discovered there was a medical term for all these vague different situations he felt panic in. Really bad, really screwing up his life. To cut a long story short, we discovered something fascinating. What was going on was, that somewhere in his visual processing, far away things were being subtlely distorted in his perception. Not enough to notice, but enough to have a vague "something feels wrong" sense when he looked at far away things. The closer something was, the more clear, "normal" and bright it looked. The further away, the more it was subtlely, weirdly, ever so slightly fuzzy and somehow distorted. It was so subtle, he wasn't consciously aware of it at all, until we explored how exactly he "saw". Naturally it then makes perfect sense to me that he had agoraphobia. Every time he looked at closer things, he felt okay, every time he looked at far away things he got this unconscious subtle feeling of unease. And where do you see far away things...? Outdoors, in malls, on transport. So every time he's in big spaces he's feeling unease... small spaces he's not... classic conditioning. So the remedy we used was, first, to check how far away he could see something and not feel it was distorted, and then practice seeing things undistorted further away. We also worked on being curious about things, textures, perspectives, rather than just ignoring them, to give him a different way to look at big scenes and see detail within them. Very practical, very commonsense, and very pragmatic. And about as far from "wholism" or "unable to describe" as it gets.

That is what NLP means, when it talks about pattern and program, and "subjective reality". Not idiocy like instilling belief, or cults, or wish-wash. Pure observation and exploration of how people do this thing we call "behavior" and "awareness", and the skill to nail down through the haze, exactly at what point it's gotten dysfunctional. Yes, some trainers do use personal charisma of suggestibility to instill belief... but that's charisma based stuff utilizing NLP, it's not actually NLP.

Hope that helps, rex. FT2 11:59, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I think Rex is being more insightful than you realise, FT2. Notice the healthy lack of doctrine in his words. Looks like an open mind. You see the problem with the "subjective reality" part is that NLP proposes that they know the structure of it.

The reality is, they have no clue about the structure. Or more accurately, they have chosen clues which are not accurate. Well, I don't claim to have the answers on that one, but if I did claim it, I may make some money. It is a wild claim in itself. It presupposes that you can learn to do what Einstein did without the immense energy and talent he threw into all his years of obsessive explorations and so on.

Plus the theorizing that goes on within NLP is wild and unconnected. Going from Chomsky's theoretical and untested grammar to a method that is supposed to make you a wizard is a huge leap indeed. And one that makes practitioners fall flat every time from the look of things.

So far promoters don't seem to have persuaded anybody about the science/technology/amazing magic of NLP apart from themselves. That seems to verify the research done on NLP. I do not wish to antagonize here though. Merely to act as a mirror. Science and common sense are the best way to go meta. Regards HeadleyDown 12:33, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I think thats part of the problem. Subjective reality is nothing more or less than "you don't see everything the same way I do; I don't experience as you do". Every good book on therapy or communication or parenting will emphasize somewhere, "Don't assume they think and feel as you do, because they don't". So I don't think the "subjective reality" part is that controversial. It says, that if you make a blanket assumption that what life's like for them is (in every way) not going to be how you assume it is for you -- you'll be more right than wrong.

We don't know the structure of human experience and reality. Like science, NLP tries to say, "these are ueful concepts and structures". The Bohr atom was wrong, so technically was Newton, and so in time probably will be Einstien's models too. But the concepts they introduced are valued because they give us ways to think about and model reality that are more accurate than we had before them. NLP suggests a way to think about how people's inner world is structured, that is capable of being more precise in some ways than what's gone before, and less precise than what will follow.

It says one can break down what a person does and believes, and what they think of as possible, then puts it back together in a more effective way, analogous to sports coaching. You can't "be" Einstein. But when Einstein tried to explain where he got his ideas, he described sitting on the end of a light beam. That, for Einstein, appeared to be a crucial step in how he innovated relativity -- he placed himself in unusual positions. What would happen to my perception, if I was on the event horizon, or travelling with light? That's NLP in action, modelling. We might not be able to be geniuses like Einstien, but we can have a better idea what he perceived to be important aspects of how he did what he did.

Don't know if that helps at all. But it seems sensible. Some comment on the example I gave above would be useful, too. FT2 13:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I can't speak for Rex, but I think you have gone a few planets off target FT2. You speak of good books, and you have NLP books in mind. When I think of good books I think of how to retain and maintain normality in a crazy world. Psychotherapy is designed to do such a thing. It doesn't always succeed but it does a lot better than NLP. I am not talking about Freudian analysis, but about the empirically measured and objectively assessed methods that really do help according to reality (in contrast with speculative hype). Those methods of science that I speak of are self correcting, and even so common sense that they seem obvious. But in that way they help to keep people on the straight and narrow more or less. Whereas NLP promises genius, amazing abilities, and getting over your problems in a blink of an eye. It is purely a mass marketed psychobabble market. The world view is that it is just psychocrap. You can dress any salesman in a suit and sell the stuff with no satisfaction. But there are some things that are verifiable. They are tested and found to be valid. Perceptions of normal people are elicited, and their perceptions are generally ...Yes that seems about right. Whereas NLP is psychobabble from start to finish with nothing more than a bunch of lame promises and insecurity building presuppositions that is guaranteed to set up and complete insecure people's disappointment. Any relatively healthy person will just shrug off NLP like a 24 hr virus. At least, that is the Eurasian perspective according to my studies :) Spend you Euros and have a glass of wine:) Regards HeadleyDown 14:45, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

References

I'm going to keep cleaning up the references and add links and notes where appropriate. I want to get he article to the stage where anyone can come in and easily check the sources. I'm going to stay out of any content disputes for a while until it cools down :) --Comaze 14:16, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello Comaze. If cleaning means removing core references that you alone deem disposable, then forget it. If I see you altering the references, I will simply revert, and I will expect any neutral editor to do the same when considering your past and recent history. HeadleyDown 14:34, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Recent Opening NLP Obscurantisms

Hello FT2. Further to your requests to discuss. I understand your urge to promote using obscurantisms on the opening of the article, but as discussed 3 weeks ago during mediation, hype and confusion is not appropriate for an encyclpopedia. A clear and instructive opening is requred that tells the reader straight away about their own perceptions (ie, not a programming language, but a way to program the mind). Not a study (sitting in libraries reading books or doing degrees, or publishing peer reviewed papers), but a self help technique. The study of subjective experience has already been criticised by scientists as hype and exageration. Presently the subject is classified as pseudoscientific by more scientists and scientific bodies than you realise. It is fine to explain straight away what NLP is in reality according to the sum of human knowledge on NLP. It is unacceptable to promote the subject using terms that are deliberately obscure and arguable. NLP is a method for programming the mind. Many NLP promoters use that explanation and it is helpful. That has been mediated already. Please learn to cooperate. I understand you have not been around here long. I will remain tolerant to your uncooperative actions. Regards HeadleyDown 17:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Now lets have some respect and cooperation with VoiceOfAll. In the interest of cooperation, lets work through the issues that have not been tackled and stop going over issues that have already been deemed acceptable by the mediator and the majority. Best regards HeadleyDown 17:16, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

"deemed acceptable by the mediator" is overstating a mediator's role. A mediator only works to resolve the differences between editors. If editors still dispute something that a mediator deems acceptable, then it is not yet resolved and the mediator will need to mediate the dispute between editors, not the article. FuelWagon 05:35, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Headley... you are mistaken. Put simply.

• It is not "hype" to describe a subject in its own words. Its about as neutral as it gets in fact.
• It is certainly more neutral than the present wording. For example, sales, or communication clarity, or gaining an insight into how others think (or claiming to) may be many things, but they are certainly not "self help". So the present description is highly inaccurate - not surprisingly since the description I have added is the one cited on NLP websites, every source reference book, identically dewscribed by each of the founders, and cited by a large number of papers, whereas the one you revert to is a third party opinion or description, based upon one type of use of it.
• If scientists consider the name, or description, "hype", thats a separate point. On Misplaced Pages, one describes what the field considers itself as (as User:FuelWagon said) and then critique it if needed. That's Misplaced Pages NPOV policy even for your own preferred examples and pseudoscience.
• A study of... does not mean sitting in a library to most people. That is "studying" not "a study".
• The term "programming", is described as I have detailed. You're thinking of another use for the term, and that might be how a variety of scientists see it even - but that unfortunately is not the meaning used in the NLP field.
• I note, and reject, the straw man in your words: "I understand your urge to promote using obscurantisms". This is neutrality, and policy. But you know thats a line we differ on. Which is why I feel this matter will end up in ArbCom's lap, either now, or at some time.
• I note your appreciation that I "have not been around here long", but it's unwarranted. I've been an editor on this article since July 2004, whereas you've been POV warring here for 3 months. I've been active on Misplaced Pages for almost 18 months and have worked in-depth on a very wide range of articles, with a good reputation; you have been active since August 2005 and (from what I can tell from your contributions list) your sole contribution, if one can call it that, has been to slant this article.

One more fact stated without checking... and one more condescending comment, Headley. Inappropriate. But telling.

FT2 19:02, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry FT2. You have not covered the issue that your addition is unclear and gives readers a hard time with the opening. Now instead of insisting on such uncooperative sidetracking, you could get on with the issues presented below. HeadleyDown 20:50, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

That's what NLP describes itself as, and therefore in principle that's what needs describing. If the description is accurate but you, personally, feel it is going to be hard for readers to understand, then you need to figure a way to make the accurate description readable, rather than take the easy way out by substituting an inaccurate one. It seems reasonable to me, comparing other specialized subject introductions.

Whatever else, the giveaway that the above is a rationalization, and basically you have a determination and desire to slant the article, is that your responses were not "thats too complicated". They were "thats promotion". It is not a cause for personal attacks, that someone else expects accuracy in the text.

FT2 22:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

FT2. The lines you proposed for the opening were unclear and did not satisfy the requirements of the mediated version, plus the study of structure etc really is a promotional obscurantism. I merely wish to state we have some things to sort out here. Please focus on completing these following tasks. Regards HeadleyDown 01:42, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello. This is funny. I was taught that I should not use the "study of structure of..." to explain to businesslike people what I was doing. My trainer said that if you tell them that, they just go "Huh?". HansAntel 03:01, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Note: to Headley et al, just because I am mediating here does not mean that I have the final say. I am just trying to make comprimises and keep everyone here together.Voice of All 03:59, 5 November 2005 (UTC)