Customer Reviews

Neuro-linguistic Programming for Dummies

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Have you ever run into the sort of person who talks about things they know nothing about, but talks on and on and on, apparently in the hope that if they keep talking for long enough then the law of averages means they must get at least some of it right?

That's what I felt I was up against when I was reading this book.

Firstly, it is badly laid out, by which I mean that it has no obvious flow other than (I guess) the order in which things popped into the authors' heads.
Secondly, a significant amount of the material has little or nothing to do with NLP - like the "Wheel of Life" and the stuff on PTSD - and quite a lot the material, whether about NLP or not, is at best ambiguous and at worst plain inaccurate.
Thirdly, the frequent, pointless repetition of quite basic material, and the inclusion of the irrelevant material, means that a whole lot of genuine NLP material gets left out.

In the case of the meta programs, for example, only six meta programs are included, and even those aren't explained particularly well. Indeed, at one point in the book the authors claim that all meta programs ("metaprograms", as they call them) work along a sliding scale. Which clearly is NOT true of meta programs such as the "Work Preference Filter", the "Primary Interest Filter", and especially not in the case of the "In Time/Through Time" or "Time Storage Filter" meta program, which the authors confuse with "Time Lines" as in Time Line Therapy.

Worst of all, there doesn't seem to have been any attempt to edit the book once it was complete. Thus, for example, there are several places where a topic flagged up as being covered "later in this chapter" actually turns up on the very next page. Likewise the text itself is inconsistent, as in:

"We get very good at one style of thinking and processing information and let the rest of our senses lie dormant in a rusty heap."

Not only is this not true, psychologically speaking, but the authors flatly contradict themselves less than three pages later:

"As human beings we naturally blend a rich and heady mix of these three main dimensions, yet we tend to have a preference for one mode over the others."

So, "rusty heap" or "rich and heady mix"?
If you know enough to recognise which description is more accurate then you already know far more about NLP than this book will tell you. And if you don't know enough to weed out the nonsense, I'm afraid you're likely to end up with a pretty confused view of the subject if you read this book.

Definitely one of the worst books on NLP I've read.

Of all the NLP books I've read (several dozen) this is the clearest and most accessible entry-level guide to NLP.

While I am not going to comment on any other review, I hope I can say that once you've read this book, you'll be able to tell quite a lot about all the reviewers from they way they write, and from what they've written! They really do expose their own metaprograms rather elegantly (read the book to find out how!)

The Dummies style does not suit everyone - it's exciting, captures the attention, it's upfront and full of interesting anecdotes and asides - and as a result, I actually read all of my copy, and dip into it on a regular basis!

The material may extend beyond the boundaries of what may be regarded as "core" NLP - in my book, that's a bonus. The people who are buying this book are not, in my opinion, looking for an academic treatise (there are plenty of those!) rather a practical introduction to a subject that is not within the mainstream of psychology (yet).

Bottom line - if you're looking to expand beyond basic NLP Practitioner knowledge and practice, then you'll find this book fun even if you don't learn anything new. Otherwise, this is the perfect introduction which will lead you on to discover fascinating new worlds of possibility, achievement and fulfilment.

I heard that 50% of all books are put aside after Chapter 1 - this isn't one of them.

I purchased this book, and within reading the first 130 pages, I returned it. This is a general mishmash of some key NLP information, combined with pointless "inspirational" anecdotes that don't show how to apply the techniques (which even the authors recommend that a reader could skip and not miss a beat).

Now, I am no "expert" on NLP (not yet at least!) but I understood enough to have instinctively felt that something was wrong and that I was wasting my time. So I went to the Honest Abe Website quoted above and learned my instincts were correct. [...]This excerpt was purposefully taken out of context, because in the following lines, indeed the entire review, this book gets intensely criticized for its poor research and actual errors. I want to thank Mr. Bradbury for a well researched and precise review which saved my time, effort, and brain from a poor book.

Good basic overview - kinda bland. Too expensive for the material within.

This book was pretty well a waste of time. There is some information that's useful, but not enough to justify reading it. As stated in a previous review, the book is horribly laid out, and covers a number of things that aren't really NLP related.

What an interesting thought the previous reviewer raises. If a book is only an introduction to a subject, and not a peer reviewed article, then it's OK to put in lots of mistakes. Because this book really does have more basic mistakes in it than any other book on NLP that I've read so far.
And if someone who owns a website makes a critical comment on Amazon, AFTER their review has been mentioned by another reviewer and partly quoted by Amazon, then they apparently must be doing it for some hidden motive.
In NLP language that's both mind reading (I know what is going on in someone else's head) AND an an example of a complex equivalence (if he does this it MUST MEAN that). Both of which are heartily discouraged in NLP.
Well, I've read the book, and I've read Andy Bradbury's review, and I think he's right because this book seems to me to be very poor value for money. And for someone to make that criticism after reading the book seems to me to show just how inadequate it is as a guide to the ideas presented in NLP.
I understand that a For Dummies book isn't going to be a model of academic exposition, but I DO expect it to be accurate in what it claims to be explaining. Otherwise what's the point of buying the book? If I want nice people stories I can buy a book by Jack Canfield. At least it wouldn't leave me with a very confused and inaccurate idea of what NLP is about and how to use it.
In my opinion there are plenty of useful, accurate introductions to NLP around, such as Joseph O'Connor's NLP Workbook and the NLP The Technology of Achievement, by the people at NLP Comprehensive which make Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies just plain irrelevent.

It's not the concepts, but the way they are presented that discouraged me from enjoying this book. I don't know if it's British colloquialisms, or my lack of understanding. I read and re-read the same paragraph(s) several times! Soft, fluffy, dull, meandering; are just a few words I can use to describe this writing style.

As a trainer of NLP I have read a whole number of books around this subject. There are few I would recommend. The key difference in NLP for Dummies is the fact that it is both readable and entertaining. This is one of the few NLP intros I would recommend to people.

I really enjoyed this book. A few friends recommended it and I have studied other NLP related material in the past. This book spells out a lot of the powerful concepts of NLP, and gives you real lessons that you can use to apply NLP and change your life.

And if you don't know what Neuro Linguistic Programming is, this is a great way to find out.

Also, If your friends have been bugging you to read "The Secret", but you're turned off by all the spiritual mumbo jumbo. check this book out. Its basically a scientific approach to the reality behind The Secret.

Some of these reviewers fail to understand that the "Dummies" series of books presents general information on topics that usually serve as introductions to a subject. They are not peer reviewed research articles. Why does someone with their own website on NLP feel the need to downgrade a book unless it is to build themselves up? The anecdotes about real people made the book even more interesting. The book is entertaining, practical, and included easy to understand principles.