Derren Brown and NLP

Many people see Derren Brown and think that many of his antics involve using NLP, which actually is not the case. Derren lives in the Bristol area and only ever did one NLP training back in late 1997, which was
the NLP Prac in London. Parts of this event were released on one of
the now deleted State of the Art videos and Derren can clearly be seen in the audience! I did my own NLP training (as did Tina) in March 1999 when Michael Breen a co trainer at that event commented (when being asked about Derren) "He's one of ours" which was a bit of an exaggeration (you mean NLP trainers exagerate? LOL) as he was simply one of hundreds of delegates on one single London event, known then as Darren V Brown...

Prior to this Derren had an avid interest in stage magic and sleight
of hand and many of this supposed NLP based demos are actually nothing of the sort and use more mentalism and misdirection. Many NLP forms are full of speculation about his NLP skills and although he has used NLP, its not his main tool kit.

The best example of one demo where NLPers often are "misdirected into believing that he is *doing NLP* is the betting demo shown on C4 TV, where he claimed a 100% success rate on betting

Here is the actual explanation (thanks to wikepedia)


The show was based around the idea that a system could be developed to predict the outcome of horse races with total accuracy. Cameras
followed an ordinary member of the public, Khadisha, as Brown
anonymously sent her correct predictions of 5 races in a row, before
encouraging her to place as much money as she could on the 6th race.

To demonstrate the system to the viewer Brown tossed a coin showing 10 heads in a row to prove it was not impossible, just highly improbable.

After Brown had placed a bet of £4,000 of Khadisha's money on a horse in the final race, he explained that The System didn't really exist.
He had started by contacting 7,776 people and split them into six
groups, giving each group a different horse. As each race had taken
place 5/6ths of the people had lost and were dropped from the system.
Far from Brown knowing which horse would win, he had a different
person backing each horse in each race, and it was simple logic that
meant that one individual, who happened to be Khadisha, won five times in a row. This was similar to the coin flipping earlier: rather than having a predictive technique, Brown had simply tossed a coin repeatedly until 10 heads had come up in a row, taking over nine hours to produce the required film. Brown expressed the opinion that the principle behind The System (essentially confirmation bias) is what is behind belief in spiritualism or homeopathic and alternative medicine.

After the selected horse in the final race lost, and Khadisha was
convinced that she had lost all her borrowed money, Brown told
Khadisha to look again at the betting slip in her hand. The ticket
showed the winning horse's name, meaning Khadisha kept her stake and
received winnings of £13,000. Brown explained that he had decided to
bet for a different horse when he got to the booth.

I had some communications with Derren's agent a few years ago when I
got a more detailed explanation of his views on NLP, some of which are in his recent "Tricks of the Mind" book where he is less than
complimentary about NLP courses!

He is more interested in mentalism than NLP and his first two books
Absolute Magic and Pure Effect show much of how he achieves his
tricks. Interestingly since his first TV appearance in 2000 on C4 both
books are now quite valuable and out of print...

See
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PURE-EFFECT-DERREN-BROWN-RARE-OUT-OF-PRINT_W0QQitemZ130269833207QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item130269833207&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1294%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318


(BTW I have both)

www.nickkemp.com

Events for 2009

The Provocative Therapy practice day in Feb is fast getting booked up and the lastest news is that I am also running a weekend course with Doug O Brien in Leeds Nov 2009.
Its going to be an amazing year with lots of new products and workshops, both in the UK, Europe and USA!

SOM Weekend

The expressions on people's faces say it all! This was a fantastic training from Doug O Brien

Learning more about NLP and other skills online

For those interested in learning more about the many different NLP trainer takes on NLP, www.nlpmp3.com is an excellent place to start. This site has a host of totally free interviews with different NLP and other trainers all presenting their own views on NLP. Recently I added an interview with Alison Hirons talking about NLP in education as a downloadable mp3.
You will also be able to download and listen to interviews with Steve Andreas, Richard Bandler, Nick Kemp, Sue Knight, Doug O Brien among many others. Non NLP trainers on the site include Frank Farrelly, making this a great resource for anyone interested in learning from great communicators

The NLP Master Practitioner in November

The NLP Master Prac is an opportunity to further practice and integrate the skills learned on the practitioner workshop.

Here is some of the material covered on this excellent event

Module One:

Basic presuppositions of NLP
Ability to change state - accessing and building resources
Sensory acuity – deep levels of rapport
Representational systems – accessing cues
Ability to identify and use modalities and sub-modalities congruently.
Anchoring – changing beliefs
Introduction to Meta Model stacking presuppositions


Meta Model – use of phonetic ambiguities & weasel phrases
Relaxation induction
Eliciting and optimising Strategies
Timelines
Hypnotic Inductions and stacking realities

Module Two:
Multi level communication
Installing Strategies
Milton Model
Temporal/Spatial predicates
Deep trance phenomena

EXCLUSIVE:
Sleight of Mouth Masterclass with Doug O'Brien

Sleight of Mouth is a persuasion skill, a vehicle for the reframing of beliefs. It is a system of 14 different patterns of response to a stated belief. A system that, once mastered, can allow you to always have a response that will effectively elucidate your position and help you to persuade rather than be persuaded. Simply put, it will help you win any argument, be verbally powerful and powerfully verbal.


Module Three:
Deep trance identification
Strategies & propulsion systems
Threshold pattern
Timelines
Meta model exercises

and much more...

plus a choice of

Applications of NLP in Therapy
or
Applications of NLP in Business

Book securely online at www.tranceformingmlp.com

The skilled NLP Developers often not mentioned...

Many people when first introduced to NLP get to know about Bandler and Grinder, but are not so aware of many equally skilled individuals who have been instrumental in developing the field! When I was in the USA running some workshops, I was fortunate enough to meet a number of longstanding NLPers who have been around since day 1 of the creation of NLP.

At www.nlpmp3.com I have deliberately ensured that the developers of NLP are represented alongside the big names that tend to attract followers! IMO many of these developers like Steve Andreas and David Gordon provide invaluable insights and truly excellent workshops. Lets remember that the co creators of NLP studied a series of different therapists and my advice to students of NLP is to study and learn from a variety of trainers rather than simply "follow" one trainer, no matter how well known!

I have often pointed out the difference between education using NLP and "entertainment" where courses are promoted almost as 18 - 30 holiday packages, rather than a real opportunity to learn with a focus on skill development...

A new Hypnosis products site comes to town

Go check www.hypnosisproducts.co.uk and see the best of the best in hypnosis products and articles