[In Response to a post suggesting that some people don't change themselves at an NLP training, and that when they confront the NLP™ Trainer about this, sometimes a trainer will say 'you've changed UNconsciously.' And that people sometimes go along with the trainer's answer]

    This is an important point you have raised, and while I could nest one possible answer several stories deep, I'd rather just answer consciously on this one.

    One of the goals of some trainers, and I think this is true of {Trainer's name omitted}, is to fractionate the hell out of the attendees! By fractionate, for those who aren't yet sure of what that means, I mean, gently shift, or shock people out of their present frames of reference. Shift or shock, whatever it takes -- within reason, of course (whose reason, specifically?)...

    One of the ways some NLP Trainers do that is by telling lots of different stories. Using lots of metaphor. Moving people through rapid changes in emotional states. Putting people in & out of trance, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes light trance, sometimes deep trance. Activating the mind, in odd ways... getting parts of the brain active in ways they haven't been activated recently.

    When people's minds have fractionated to the point of having lots of areas of their brain activated in unusual ways, amazing things can happen: moods change, shifts occur, and all kinds of suggestions can begin to percolate in the mind... and some people begin to miraculously make changes on their own (hopefully guided smoothly by the Trainer). The gift of a trainer who can help everyone in the room get some of this over the course of a weekend training is a gift indeed. It is something {Trainer's name omitted} does -- I've seen it. It is something other trainers I have seen do. It is something I aspire to do more effectively all the time.

    Whether {Trainer's name omitted} is 90%, or 100% or 110% effective by their own standards (what standards are you talking about? ;) or whether they just make SOME progress towards all of these goals, I mind-read that they don't take responsibility for the change -- rather that they seem to take responsibility for helping people get to a place where their minds are ripe for making the change themselves. And THAT, in my opinion, is what people who attend an NLP Personal Change weekend, should be paying for!

    People ought to take responsibility for their own change, and pay for the carefully constructed space/time/environment -- in which to grow.

    Now. I've nested no stories, and I've given my opinion consciously. At how many levels did you understand what I was saying?

[an unrelated portion of the original email has been omitted ]

Jonathan Altfeld
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