Is NLP an art or a science? To quote the late great Douglas Adams, “Does it matter, and if it does matter, does it matter that it matters?” If NLP were unambiguously regarded as a science, what difference would it make? For most practitioners probably none as the fundamental skills remain the same; but for …
NLP and Science
This month we have invited a guest, Dr Patricia Riddell, Reader in Developmental Neuroscience at Reading University, to share her thoughts regarding the NLP and Science debate. We trust that you will enjoy reading and as usual feel free to share your thoughts. In a recent blog, John Seymour posed the question “Is NLP a …
Is NLP a science or a craft?
In the early years the co-founders thought of NLP as a new discipline that was part a science and part an art. My Practitioner certificate from Grinder, DeLozier and Associates in 1984 includes the words “the art and science of Neuro-Linguistic Programming”. I was talking with Judy DeLozier about the question ‘What is NLP?’ and we both think of it primarily as a skill, or set of learned skills. This would fit well with the idea of NLP as an art, or as a craft. I prefer art to craft, because a craft implies a practical, as opposed to a psychological skill. NLP is primarily a set of psychological skills focussing on intra and inter-personal communication.
