Do NLP and Reiki need life experience

Just shows how little psychologists know about Reiki!

Reiki doesn't need life experience: some of the best Reiki therapists are children, because their energy channels are so clear.

I can't speak for NLP.

I can speak for counselling, as I learnt the theory over the years but didn't (and still don't) have the personality for client-centred counselling so never qualified. I don't think it's so much the case that young people (who have no life experience) are "prostituting" the profession, as people are becoming counsellors who aren't really suited for it. From some conversations I've had recently, I think this is because people who are suited for other therapies and are practising them, believe that unless they have a counselling qualification they won't be able to practise in a few years time. Don't know where they got that from.

I agree with Chris regarding Reiki. This person clearly knows little about it.

As for NLP, it also sounds like he knows little of that too.

There are some basic NLP techniques that people can learn alongside other therapies and can be use very effectively straight away without actually requiring years and years of practice. There are also NLP techniques that should require more practice and experience especially if it is to be used as a standalone therapy or heavily integrated with something like Hypnotherapy.

But then NLP also fits into other areas of life, such as life coaching, business coaching etc. etc. and the techniques used can vary from one thing to another.

I would say, in essence, some NLP techniques are very pick-up-and-go, whilst others do require a little more experience. I wouldn't expect someone who has just read a book on NLP techniques to start treating someone for serious issues and trying to re-anchor negatives with positives and all that, but I would be fine if they were using their knowledge to start picking up on body language and telling if someone were lying or using various influences etc.

As with most things, it's just not clear cut. 😉

All Love and Reiki Hugs

I agree regarding Reiki too, although some immature people start setting intents and putting energy behind some of their less savoury personality siiues, with the resultant bad Karma.

However, people don't need to have Reiki to do that, and with Reiki the Karmic lessons are usually pretty quick, so perhaps its just how things are.

When I did NLP I took my 15 year old son along, and he became the youngest certified practitioner in the UK. The following year he wanted to do the Master Practitioner, and I suggested that he was too young for that, but that he should discuss it with the course trainer.

He suggested that my son work on his father's limiting beliefs!

So he did, and was successful, and became the youngest Master Practitioner in Europe at 16! (While I became a more financially stretched parent.)

(He then went on to get a first at Cambridge, so he put it to good use.)

Those who worked with him on the course said that provided the outcome was well elicited and ecologically based, he was as good as anyone else on the course, but didn't have the experience to question assumptions in the same way that the older participants did.

Or perhaps that's another of his father's limiting beliefs:eek:

... IMO Life experience teaches you about yourself, and you can use these nuggets of information to learn who you really are, and this is a useful tool with any healing practice...

I can't really comment on Reiki as I haven't trained in it (I keep meaning to but never get round to it as I don't intend adding it to the therapies I offer professionally). However, I do accept Dip into Healing's comment in that life experience helps in any therapy.

With regard to NLP, I think that to treat others, it does require some level of life experience in respect of questioning techniques and being able to "read" your client. I think David100351's experience of his son about sums it up.

Those who worked with him on the course said that provided the outcome was well elicited and ecologically based, he was as good as anyone else on the course, but didn't have the experience to question assumptions in the same way that the older participants did.

However, I believe that even if you are not using it to treat others, NLP is a worthwhile skill in life in general and very worthwhile as an addition to any therapy in order to understand your client and his/her belief patterns. It is also extremely useful within career and study.

I first learned NLP from a career point of view and found it's effects in this field amazing. The school I trained at as a hypnotherapist (and now teach there) combines all the essential therapeutic techniques of NLP practice into the course so I then learned it from a therapist point of view too. Although I rarely practice it as a stand alone therapy, it comes into my hypnotherapy and life coaching practices daily.

Hi

I don't see how you could lump NLP into the same 'group' of therapies as Reiki, the two are completely different! Also, what do we mean by 'life experience'? It's all very subjective really, I know some young people with arguably more 'life experience' than some 40 and 50 year olds I have met who have led very sheltered lives! Even when we talk about experience of using a therapy in practice, we all have to start somewhere! So all therapists, psychologists etc would at some point have had relatively little experience of what they practice.

Also I think it's important to recognise that there is a big difference between expanding your skills - learning new therapies and techniques that you consider helpful to your current practice and to your clients - and becoming a 'jack of all trades' who signs up for every course and therapy going without really thinking it through, or just because they think it would look good on their profile. I suspect this is what the psychologist in question objects to.

I believe you can be trained in these things and go on to be proficient and effective once qualified... but it really depends on the quality of the training received, the quality of the student and how they then choose to progress with it afterwards... to be truly great at anything, you have to be willing to work hard and to continue learning and deepening your understanding and knowledge constantly.

even if you are not using it to treat others, NLP is a worthwhile skill in life in general and very worthwhile as an addition to any therapy in order to understand your client and his/her belief patterns. It is also extremely useful within career and study.

Absolutely.

As far as Reiki goes, it increased my sensitivity to the energy in the room, and occasionally my ability to manipulate it lol, so I wouldn't rule it out as being useful.

Several times in groups I used the transmission of symbols to "help" an issue come out, in other participants.

In a way I go along with the psychologist. People can easily take a course that lasts a few days and then be called a Reiki 'master' but such a short period of learning cannot possibly confer true mastery. I really cannot imagine that Reiki was intended to be learnt so quickly. Even if one is an excellent channel, there is more to being a great healer than just channelling the energy. At best, such a course is the beginning of a journey to mastery...

I love Reiki, but mastery as a healer (whether using Reiki or other ways of working with subtle energies), is achieved over a very, very long time. A collection of symbols and an initiation do not the true Reiki master make!

The same goes for NLP. Many people are quickly learning a pile of NLP techniques and then being given a certificate saying 'practitioner' but the really great NLP practitioners are those who develop their own techniques, who perhaps combine and modify different tools in a way that suits a particular client. That takes talent and experience.

Healing is surely as much about the therapist as the therapy. I know that it's perhaps only relatively recently that I've really began to understand people who are 'wired' very differently from me. It's certainly taken life experience to get me to this place...

Healing is surely as much about the therapist as the therapy.

More, IMHO, if you are talking about counselling and NLP.

John Rowan in the current edition of "Therapy Today" takes NICE to task for relying on randomised controlled trials for evaluating the results of therapy, because RCTs assume that techniques cause outcomes, whereas it has been accepted for years, and research backs up, that techniques are not the major predictor of outcomes in counselling and psychotherapy.

As much as 40% of the outcome is down to what the client is bringing to the room: are they ready to work, are they ready to have a go. Second in importance is the quality of the relationship that the client and therapist are able to sustain. Third in importance are the techniques/methods used, and lastly are what Rowan terms " expectancy, hope and placebo factors."

So as far as counselling and NLP goes, outcomes are dependant on
a. the client's attitude
b. the client/therapist relationship
c. the therapist (techniques etc)
d. other factors.

So, if I may reply to the quote directly. Therapy is more about the client, and then the therapist than about the techniques of therapy.

Of course I think its not quite so simple, the factors must interelate as well, but that's at least one order of complication higher than NICE or the politicians can be expected to deal with, apparently.