naked capitalism

etc says:

I believe the technique doesn’t work if the victim believes the user is trying to bamboozle, befuddle, or bemuse them.

Anonymous says:

The touch anchors whatever word the person is saying. You’ll notice every time he touches him he emphasizes a certain word (says it louder than anything else in the convo). It’s usually “bike” or “bmx” but he couches them into ordinary conversation. You might think you heard him say “by” but he was saying “bike”. Or “BMW followed by “X-box.

I believe the theory behind it is your subconcious can pick up these subleties while your concious mind can’t unless it’s looking out for it. Your subconcious relates the touch to the emphasized word.

I’m sure there’s a few other things but that’s the gist. WHy the guy thought he wrote down bike when he didn’t is something I don’t get.

Matt Dubuque says:

In terms of the role of the touch (and the presenter has determined that a touch is appropriate for this person instead of tonal or tempo shfts, etc. due to the representational system of the subject) it is NOT ONLY an anchor but also precedes embedded commands working completely outside the conscious awareness of the subject.

John and Rich’s work on Milton Erickson (Uncle Miltie) in The Patterns of Magic: The Magic of Patterns Volumes one and two provides the most comprehensive and competent treatment of anchoring and embedded commands. The Structure of Magic, Volume 2 explores the revolutionary discovery of representational systems, a cornerstone of NLP.

This person is a reasonably competent practitioner of NLP. His shortcomings would be obvious to John and Rich, as well as Erickson, Cameron-Bandler, Gilligan and Eicher.

Apparently very little pacing and leading for example, a key omission.

That failure would have been a major hurdle to overcome with a more combative and resistant person.

A lot more to this video than meets the eye of the average layperson.

Matt Dubuque

chris says:

Dean
Most of our discourses assume the existence of rationality on the part of discussants when it comes to argument, explanation, proof and persuasion. Certainly supply and demand and pricing equilibrium theories assume a certain kind of rationality in choices and actions.

But what about the marketing of addictive and harmful stuff (like tobacco)or of sugary things which produce diabetic type conditions? Is it rational for people to keep smoking knowing what they know about the hazards? Or to keep sucking at fizzy sugar waters? Even when they probably know that companies worked to intensify the nicotine dosing? And will reaction of nicotine addicts, or anyone else for that matter, to news about the 40 year history of knowledge of the presence of polonium 210 in tobacco be rational, or something else. (See
Monique Muggli, from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in the September edition of American Journal of Public Health.)

These questions seem to affect choices and action, marketing, public health and may well have consequences for professions which depend on assumptions of rationality, like economics does. Isn’t that serious enough?

etc says:

Matt Dubue says: “In terms of “the technique not working on resistant people”, there is an enormous emphasis in their books on overcoming this and communicating through unconscious channels. Those submodal techniques are the subject of John and Rich’s later work. Not even an issue.”

If someone is convinced they are dealing with a grifter out to rob them, they will be resistant to anything that person says. I can’t imagine a known grifter could use these techniques to persuade a sophisticated investor to buy investments from the grifter.

The charismatic Mr. Ponzi could always raise money from some sucker, but everyone wasn’t a sucker susceptible to his tricks.

Anonymous says:

If you read Derren Brown’s book you’ll see it’s relatively cynical about NLP (He uses many kinds of tricks to perform his show not just NLP). From the little about it I’ve read it’s certainly doesn’t seem to be backed up by enough hard evidence. In his book he compares the leading gurus of NLP to evangelist preachers (something he has good knowledge of from his childhood).

mdubuque says:

etc., as I said, NLP clearly has its limitations.

But being there from the beginning under the tutelage of Bateson, Grinder and Bandler did systematically teach me how to learn how to learn.

And that meta-skill has helped me obtain numerous graduate degrees and certifications in diverse areas, such as passing the Bar Exam, obtaining a Series 7 license and being a successful market maker in derivatives, etc.

For that I am grateful.

Learning how to learn is a meta-skill that is easily to trivialize from afar, but not necessarily harmful in its disciplined acquisition.

There’s an enormous amount of gibberish written on NLP. I recommend consulting the original sources cited.

Matt Dubuque

Juan says:

Matt,

So how does NLP relate to public relations as developed by/from Bernays et al (the former seems much more individualistic)?

Anonymous says:

Three things:

1. Judge things by their results not by their intentions.

2. A person with ethics will make a person the end of his means, not the means of his ends (sorry for the cliche).

3. Going forward: Fool me once, shame on me. Food me twice shame on you.

Dean says:

Anonymous:

No need to correct; others had the same problem with the quote as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WbOUwbwr2w

Richard Kline says:

Ahh yes, Uncle Miltie. Many of 'my people' where therapists of stripes diverse contemporary with Bandler and Grinder, whome they met and whose work they critiqued extensively. One of them trained with Milton Erickson, and his techniques were much discussed as well. Others of that circle were as good as Erickson in their own techniques, developed on their own. This stuff is truly remarkable when put to use by a _skilled_ practitioner; believe me I've seen it done.

Embedded commands, pacing and leading, and all the rest I tend to see as deriving principally from Erickson's work, frankly, and I recommend that anyone interested read the published literature about him; one of the most remarkable men most folks have never heard of. But as you say, Matt, G & B's work with representational systems was specifically their contribution. Also as you say, much (most?) of what's been written on NLP is worse than useless. Go to the sources, and get some real training.

Regarding working with resistant subjects, there is a misunderstanding here, unsurprisingly. To put it simplistically, one's mind has multiple strata of perception and motivation. Most of these can be affected discretely, EVEN IF THEY HAVE CONFLICTING VALUES AND INFORMATION. This is all the more possible as it is done subtly and out of the direct awareness of the subject. We can, and do, believe entirely different things at different levels of our emotional and intellectual response, especially when some or many of those beliefes or responses are not fully articulated or even wholly out of awareness. You would be amazed at the junk, bunk, and misinformation we cart around in our heads _and act upon_ without really thinking about it. From that perspective, someone may be highly resistant at one level, and at the same time effectively influenced at another one, if not necessarily to the same goal at the same moment. This isn't simply a matter of content, but of pacing, framing, invoking moods and concepts indirectly whose reactions in the subject can then be shifted around to other parts of their awareness and motivation where they were not sourced, etc, etc. Operant conditioning, but at and outside of awareness, often in responses different from the focus of the overt interaction, especially so if done with skill.

With a resistant subject for a MBS buy, just to kick around an hypothesis, the goal would be more on the order of programming them to believe that they needed to buy _something_, and then parallelling them into asset classes. Like for example auction rate munis or covered bonds, not even necessarily bought from the instigator. Once their feet are moving backward, then move on to upselling them into securitized LBO debt, and then a few years after the start teasing them with higher points on the stuff they once disdained but now are all but skin to skin with. Good salesmen understand how to do this stuff implicitly: and they were the real market for pseudo-NLP if memory serves.

The only way to resist such conditioning is to know the inside or your head very well, to constantly reassess your motivation, and to have highly defined objectives of your own which you regularly assess. Americans all want to get rich, and believe that they can, so they are dead suckers for a pitch. But we are hardly unique in all that . . . .

Anonymous says:

Thank you Matt for your insights. Much appreciated.

I must say I find it amusing to read some of the the all-knowing types with zero personal experience or theoretical background in clinical hypnosis declaring ‘this is bullshit’, ‘hoax’ and ‘NLP only working on dimwits’.

Fine by me. All the more for me and the less for you. My gain, your loss.

Just hope you never run into a really proficient NLP practitioner who wants you to think something you are not thinking or do not necessarily want to think in those terms.

Because when that happens, your current intentions will more than likely fail you.

Without you even noticing it.

On a related note, those interested in more mainstream situational psychology, I recommend the book The Lucifer effect by Phil Zimbardo about the banality of evil. 90% of people’s personality factors can be over-driven with situational factors – and the person be made to do things she would never otherwise do. They can swear on their mothers grave, be bible-school going devote do-gooders and it all falls apart, when situational pressure is applied.

All this without resorting to physical threats, violence, etc. Just pure sociological/psychological pressure.

An astute mind would observer something analogous happening in the current financial markets…

Also the tip on Bernays is excellent. I recommend the book ‘Propaganda’, which was always the favorite term for Bernays, instead of the later propagandist term, Public Relations.

La says:

An excellent book – “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini (as recommended by Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s partner). Not as subtle as NLP – but you’ll notice them in many day-to-day situations. And the “Century of Self” documentary mentioned previously is excellent.