On a large stage in an Egyptian university, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Faqi, the most famous promoter of human development in the Arab world, stands to talk about the many benefits that can be obtained by registering in the diploma certificate for NLP, saying that it teaches you the art of unlimited communication, and gives you the ability There is no end in controlling your emotions and perceptions, as well as how you can exercise control over others by simulating them and then getting them aware.
The price of participating in this course varied - and still is - according to the nature of the place, in the delta for example or Upper Egypt. You would have to pay five hundred pounds for three lectures in one of the wedding halls or educational institutes, but in a luxury hotel in a high-end Cairo neighborhood, the number will rise to several thousand pounds - We are talking about pre-revolutionary Egypt when the currency was more valuable than now. Besides that you can pay an extra fee to get a special meeting with "Dr. Ibrahim", you can also buy his book for hundreds of pounds, and do not forget to register for his master's program in one of the famous hotels. The Master's program was more expensive and longer, but it is the first time in your life, of course, that you will face a “Master” that ends in three to four weeks.
Program your life
| Dr. Ibrahim Al-Feki (Communication Sites) |
Ibrahim al-Faqi was the one who introduced Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to the Arab world two decades ago, but the real beginning of this field was in the 1970s when (1) Americans Richard Bandler and John Grender decided to link programming Linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience can be summed up in a context that has long been repeated by Dr. Ibrahim al-Faqi and other human development trainers, which is "the science of studying human supremacy." Revolutionary for human communication and development I come. "
In a clearer sense, this is one of the main ideas from which the entire field of human development is launched, which is that we - ordinary people - can learn, and acquire, the behaviors of extraordinary people who have achieved great success in a field, and that will be able to change our lives, in this Context The word “programming” comes to express the possibility of programming our thoughts, feelings, and behavior and changing them, while “linguistic” indicates that controlling our own language - spoken and non-spoken (body language) - can help in that programming, while “nervousness” means our nervous system And the mechanism of the perception of the world through the senses, which can work to change Ha amendment or improvement.
This brings us to the central idea of NLP, it is “modeling,” and it is simply beginning to realize (2) that your map is not the world, it is the first premise of NLP that you will read in any of its own books, and it means that the mechanism by which the world perceives , Which is represented in everything, from your thoughts to your senses and the way you communicate with others which is your spoken and physical language, only represents your image of the world and not the world itself. Thus, the world we see as "subjective" is a world made by our realization, not the real world. The hypothesis then proceeds to the possibility of change, i.e. moving from our own vision of the world to a successful vision of the world whose components can be identified by studying successful people, and one of the hypotheses in NLP says that "if something is possible for one person it is possible for every other person."
NLP assumes that the world we see as "subjective" is a world made by our realization, not the real world
Do you see that? It is a good idea at first glance, in fact, if you decide to go a little further in the worlds of NLP, you will discover that what is said in those books and courses is very acceptable and very similar to a lot of the judgment or philosophies that you read. One of the hypotheses, for example, says that there is a positive intention behind every behavior A human, and another that says that people are doing as much as possible only in the context of the available, at that point you may remember something that I did in the past and then say: "How foolish I was to behave this way!", But in reality, what I did at that time was related to the available time sources, Thus the hypotheses continue passing through things like "I am responsible for n My actions are crowned. "
Long history of deception
But to understand the place from which NLP was launched, we can start from the book "Frogs to the Princes" (the famous fairy tale) written by Bandler and Grender in the seventies of the last century, the book received wide fame at the time, and you can find a clear influence by the duo of techniques Psychotherapy is common at the time, such as the School focused on solution focused therapy, which is directly directed towards the ultimate goal that the patient seeks, which is to reach psychological and social compatibility with the self and with the surrounding environment, or "re-framing" techniques that change the point of view The individual towards people or things or Positions.
By the 1980s, NLP theorists had set out to develop their claims (3) to bypass the barriers of attempts to treat anxiety and depression to epilepsy, colds, Parkinson's disease and cancer, because - as we mentioned a while ago- not only deal with our ideas, but remodeling can also It extends our senses, such as hearing, sight, smell, and motor capabilities, and thus everything else in the body. This leap was the reason for directing research interest in examining the feasibility of NLP, especially as it has shifted from a mechanism that takes root from psychotherapy to the scope of training and consulting and has entered into employee training systems - especially sellers and marketers - in companies in the United States, and then the world. We are talking here about the heavyweights of "IBM", NASA, the US military, and the American Olympic team.
At that point, NLP ended in the field of psychiatry and neurology, yes, it is, as I read, it ended, a wide range (4,5,6,7,8) of studies were issued in that period to indicate that NLP is unfortunately not Effective in the treatment of any of these physical and psychological diseases, not only that, but that its techniques were not even in the power of contemporary mechanisms of psychotherapy, which have proven true merit such as CBT, which - so far - is considered the number 1 choice with medications or Without it, in treating many diseases such as depression and anxiety in its branches. (Studies in the sources, to name a few).
For example, a Polish study (9) had examined the results of several hundreds of NLP studies published in 35 years since its inception, it can be clearly noted in that study the rates of publication of NLP that increased in the eighties and then decreased slowly, The results of that study came to say that more than 75% of research work in this domain indicates inefficiency - or at least the inability to recognize the effectiveness - of NLP.
On the other hand, the few studies that supported NLP were very specific to specific tools and not to the whole hypothesis. For example, major problems arose in the model of representative systems, which says that each of us manages its perception through a major cognitive system related to one of the senses. For example, visioners tend to The use of a visual language (see, do you see that, meditate on it), while audiologists tend to use auditory language (listen, man), and so, these models are very essential in NLP techniques, where their theorists see that the shift from one cognitive framework to another depends on it , Therefore The idea of "ability to change" itself is under threat.
Success simulation is not that easy
One of the problems of the research scope of NLP was insufficient control over the contexts and fate upon which it was built.
In fact, the most famous techniques for NLP rely on this idea, and are called in the psychology literature "the effect of chameleon" (10), which means that you imitate a person's body language and representative system, then continue a little in that simulation and then start Attracted to and controlled by your representative system, this technique - which has not been validated, even to a small degree to date - is very popular in the sales and marketing community as a "hidden" way to attract customers, according to that hypothesis because they do not realize what they are doing and are being affected subconsciously.
It can also be noted that many studies that support NLP fall into several (11) errors in the literature of this research pattern in psychology and nerves, including for example the weak interconnection between theoretical concepts so that it is as if you quoted several pages of neuroscience and another set of science Linguistics put them side by side, and then I assumed that they had a relationship. Traveling between different scientific domains is, in general, complicated and difficult.
In addition, one of the problems of the research scope of NLP was insufficient control over the contexts and the fate upon which it is based, meaning that if some lines extend their integrity in these hypotheses, things will become random, unclear, or consistent with the parent hypothesis, this indicates errors Clear logic, which makes it difficult to study a range. How, for example, can you test a treatment expectation if it is based on a theoretical model that is not consistent with itself from the ground up?
On the other hand, you can find a clear degree of unfamiliarity, and lack of specificity, of the supposed therapeutic techniques in NLP and thus difficult to assess from the ground, many problems that will emerge - for example - in the section on the relationship between impact and response of the technology so that it appears The results are gray, and NLP also faces problems related to insufficient training and lack of criteria.
NLP in the Arab world has entered almost all areas of human development and has become the basis for most of its itineraries
Thus, despite the great expressive ability of NLP - you will be attracted to it as soon as it is read - it cannot make falsely claims, and this means that a researcher expects a risky outcome to his hypothesis, for example, as the Egyptians say in the popular proverb : “They said the camel has risen from the palm tree, led the camel and led the palm tree.” Ascending the camel on the palm tree is a risky matter that can be discarded by bringing a camel and a palm tree, and let's see what can happen? In the case of NLP, besides the major problems in the research work, you cannot see clear claims from the original!
But all this - in fact - did not stop NLP from continuing, its theorists changed their scope to popular psychology and became one of the most powerful alternative medicine and personal training programs to date. In the Arab world, NLP entered almost all areas of human development and became the basis for most The itineraries in it, that reached the courses of happy marriage, quick reading, hypnosis and memorizing the short Qur’an using NLP.
False sciences
One of the secrets of this terrible expansion of NLP is that it is distinguished from the rest of the false sciences - such as energy sciences, the law of attraction, biogeometry, etc. - that it started with a more science-like methodology and received some research interest that, even if not in its favor, makes it seem scientific in the first place. . To understand this idea, let's start from the two "Banadol" discs that you take to get rid of a headache.
Your instructor in a diploma or master’s of NLP only needs one unconfirmed scientific paper to assure you that our exercise will cure the depression that you have suffered
When we try to make a new drug (12) we need a period of three to six years of scientific research and development about choosing the active substance from among thousands of others that can serve the same goal, then after that it requires determining which of these substances we will start using in Initial experiments, then we will need a period of about a year for the initial chemical tests and experimentation in animals, cautious experimentation in humans needs about seven years, and after the launch of the drug we need two years to monitor the development of human response to this drug, which means that One active ingredient, such as paracetamol found in QAR Come to a table, it takes about ten years to reach your hands.
On the other hand, your instructor in a diploma or master’s of NLP only needs one unconfirmed scientific paper to assure you that our exercise will cure the depression that you suffered from over three years, here you should stop a little to confirm that meditation - for example - A useful thing, science proves this more every day, and also if you decide to read the book "Neuro Linguistic Programming and the Art of Infinite Communication" by Ibrahim Al-Faqi, you will find things that may be useful in your life. Who among us does not want to know that "learning is life." We can only learn ", or that" there is a positive intention behind every human action "(two hypotheses f J NLP).
But the problem occurs when one of them converts rapid statistical readings that appeared in a scientific paper, or a set of subjective experiences that have worked with a person without others, or wise philosophical vision, without any real control or experimentation with patients or even legal grace, into therapeutic doses that specialize in A medical or psychological condition, to treatment or training techniques, someone tells you that they are “laws” that will get you to a “specific” result and that this is what science says. Here, all you need is the word “science” in order to think that you will live a happy life With all of those things whose titles are often associated with words like "infinite", if there is a book or course What could open the magic door for us to take full control of our lives, as we will accept hungry mice for rotten food that only cares to fill their stomachs.
Contemporary religion
But there is another side reason, and perhaps a fundamental one, in the impulsion of many behind NLP, which is that it is the closest thing to the spiritual state, in fact, many techniques in NLP tend to use some form of symbols that are supposed to have an effect on the soul, Especially since NLP has "plasebo" properties, that is, it pays to be affected without a real stimulus. They also make a kind of sanctification towards the “transcendent other,” but this other is - in that case - the ones we want to reach, which raises a degree of spirituality in our thoughts.
Indeed, some anthropologists and sociologists (13) tend to regard Neuro-Linguistic Programming as a false religion (affiliated with some contemporary spiritual movements such as "New Thought" and "New Age"), which It has already promoted NLP, the followers of these currents believe that there are hidden science or mysteries (mysteries) of which the elite of scholars and thinkers who know their knowledge of this intuition and personal revelations, not revelation.
In addition, one of the distinguishing signs of these religious movements (14) is the description of some of their therapeutic or contemplative approaches on the basis of analogies and metaphors drawn from experimental sciences, scientific theories, and technology, beginning with the reference to certain healing methods unrelated to quantum physics as "healing" Quantum, ”leading to talk about the“ hierarchical universe, ”which is a scientific hypothesis, and the use of that hypothesis - in the language of science - to talk about a God who is everywhere, or objects connected to one another, or other claims. In other words, we are faced with a case of using “scientific linguistics” to refer to religious beliefs and practices that are essentially “far from science.”
Some pseudoscience, such as NLP, imitates the scientific method in all its aspects, but unfortunately this will not produce scientific results.
The well-known physicist Richard Feynman calls this idea of imitation of science (15) "Cargo Cult Science", and the story was that the inhabitants of primitive tribes noticed - for the first time in their lives - the arrival of food-carrying aircraft landing on their land, These planes belong to the governments of the countries that were fighting in those areas and sending supplies to their soldiers, so these people imagined from the primitive tribes that these payloads were gifts from God that would be given to them if they did the same and simulated what was happening.
So, they built airport-like roads, and made rudimentary models of country flags, receivers, antennas, cars, entrances and exits of airports and the buildings inside, then sat aside and waited for landing planes loaded with good, but of course they did not land.
Some false sciences, such as NLP, try to do the same thing, they imitate the scientific method in all its aspects, their theorists write research and use a method similar to the scientific method and explain their data in a way similar to the way scientists and divide their books and research in the same scientific research method (from summary to conclusion), but Unfortunately, it will not produce scientific results. You just simulated it, but you had no ability to accurately predict or formulate consistent and coherent hypotheses.
When you open any of the NLP books, you will find interesting words that open your mind to really important and beneficial matters, but that delicious expressive ability cannot take you to believe what is inside of the techniques and supports that are similar in the way scientific books are presented. NLP is a "trade" A world worth billions of dollars, courses, books, lectures, seminars and degrees up to a full doctorate in several months and unknown universities, such as the University of "Metaphysics" from which Ibrahim Al-Faqi obtained his doctorate, and besides what we talked about, this is one last reason for its continuation, because it - Simply E- a source of income for thousands of people.
The world - especially our region - is going through a skeptical period of its history, people lose confidence in political and economic systems that do not provide effective solutions to their problems, and patients get bored of trying dozens of new treatments for cancer, depression and bipolar disorder without results, and they lose confidence in this scientific pattern that takes too much From time to come up with some results, and some of them begin to search for alternative solutions that satisfy their pain, here appears NLP, energy sciences and the law of attraction, and all other images of contemporary human development, to provide those easy solutions to unlimited capabilities with claims with All my knowledge is said to be "alternative science," but it is just another way to pull some money out of their pockets.