How To Choose An NLP Practitioner Training

Some things to look out for and questions to ask

1. What is the emphasis of the course?

Some NLP courses are therapy-oriented, leading (eventually, after more training and a lot of supervision and client hours) to UKCP accreditation, others are business-oriented. Most NLP practitioner courses are 'generalist' – you learn NLP skills which you can then apply to 'turbo-charge' what you already know.

2. How big is the course?

Some courses have over 100 students in the class, others are small-group courses with a group size as small as 12. You may already have a feeling for what size of group you would prefer; if not, it's worth taking a moment to check within yourself.

3. 'Intensive' or 'Extensive'?

NLP courses can be either 'intensive' (7 or 10 day courses, sometimes but not always supported by many hours worth of audio home study) or 'extensive' (18-20 days with 120 'contact hours' of training).

Audio home study products typically use a lot of hypnotic language to get the information across at the unconscious level as effectively as possible. The upside of this is that you can absorb a lot of information in a short time, and you have the audio to refer back to whenever you need it.

A possible downside is that you can also find yourself unconsciously absorbing a lot of the beliefs and even mannerisms of the trainer (this is one reason why you may hear graduates of some UK NLP courses coming out with American expressions or sounding a bit 'transatlantic').

You may be fine with this if your belief system is already in line with the trainer's; otherwise it may cause a bit of 'cognitive dissonance' or confusion until your conscious and unconscious minds have sorted out between them what you actually want to believe, which can take a while.

4. How is the course structured?

Some 'intensive' courses run for ten days straight, others for one weekend a month over ten months. Generally when people decide to do an NLP Practitioner training, they want to get the qualification sooner rather than later. Some trainers will say that two days a month is really too short a time to get into the "NLP mindset", although spacing the training out over monthly intervals does give you the opportunity to try out and integrate what you have learned from each module in the real world.

5. How much access do you get to the trainer?

As you might expect, the rule of thumb is that the smaller the course group, the more opportunity you will have to ask questions of the trainer. Larger courses tend to use 'assistants' (previously qualified NLP practitioners or master practitioners) as "coaches" to help the students and provide one-to-one answers – this can work extremely well if you get a good assistant. Some larger courses even use assistants as a 'barrier' between the trainer and the students, presumably to stop the trainer being 'bothered' by pesky questions.

6. How much are NLP Practitioner courses?

There is quite a wide range of pricing, from subsidised courses under £1,000 to £3,000 or more. You will often see websites and advertisements for NLP training reframing the price as an "investment", and it is! Any decent NLP Practitioner training will repay itself many times over, provided you make the most of your learning experience and actually use what you have learned.

7. How much does the personality of the trainer matter?

It's vital! NLP Practitioner trainings tend to work at a deeper level than conventional skills training courses. Trust between trainer and student is essential; if you don't feel at ease with the trainer, you won't be able to learn nearly as much.

If at all possible, meet the trainer or talk to them on the phone before you sign up for the course. After all, you will be spending a lot of days in their company! At a minimum, they should be able to put you at your ease; if they can't, what does that say about their rapport skills?

7. Does accreditation matter?

There is no overall body setting standards for NLP courses. Most training institutes will be affiliated to the body that trained their trainers (e.g. the INLPTA, Society of NLP, and the American Board of NLP). The closest thing to an independent accrediting body in the UK is ANLP International, although it has a long way to go before it speaks for the whole of NLP.

How does the Coaching Leaders NLP Practitioner Training measure up against these questions, and why choose this course in preference to everyone else's?

In practice we find that the final decision on which course to do depends on a number of factors, often including price, timing and location as well as the content of the course and what you think of the trainer(s).

Emphasis of course: Our course is designed so that, as the developers of NLP intended, you can apply NLP to any field of endeavour you choose. We can safely say that our course has more of an emphasis on NLP as a 'toolkit' for enhancing emotional intelligence than most others; that it covers trancework (and self-hypnosis) in more depth than many courses; that there is a strong emphasis on coaching skills; and that our assessment methods are comprehensive and designed to ensure you come away with an in-depth conscious recall and knowledge of the material as well as unconscious learning.

Group size: To give each participant as much attention as they need, we only run small-group courses (maximum group size of 24 on Part I, 16 on Part II)).

Length of course: We run 19-day, 125-hour courses because we believe in allowing plenty of time and space for participants to practice and ask questions, rather than absorbing information unquestioningly. We want you to make NLP your own and integrate it at both conscious and unconscious levels during the course.

Currently our courses don't rely on audio home study. Of course, to get the best of both worlds you could do an 'extensive' course like ours and back it up with home-study products like Jonathan Altfeld's excellent "NLP Skills Builder" DVDs (available via our web site at www.practicaleq.com/products/altfelddvd.html) or Richard Bolstad's very reasonably priced NLP Practitioner set from www.transformations.net.nz

Structure of the course: The course is in four four-day modules plus one three-day module over long weekends (Friday to Monday), with three or four weeks between each module. This means you can try out what you've learned in each module at your workplace or in your life generally. On each following module you can share your experience and find answers to any questions that arise from it. This structure allows you to integrate and start using NLP in your as soon as you come out of the first module. At the same time it means that you get your NLP Practitioner certification (assuming you meet the required standards) within five months of starting the course.

The first module (NLP Practitioner Training Part I) is also a stand-alone NLP Foundation Skills training. Some people don't wish to do the whole Practitioner training straight away – the Foundation Skills course gives them practical techniques around rapport, accessing resourceful states, defusing habitual responses, values clarification, and goal-setting that they can start using immediately (see for example the interview with Foundation Skills graduate Annette Pilling about how she is using her NLP skills in coaching the England Squash team in this newspaper article).

Foundation Skills graduates can come back to do the Part II training (the remaining four modules) either straight away, or rejoin a later course. This gives you some flexibility around the dates.

Access to the trainer: Because this is a small-group training, you can ask questions at any time. Our trainers are around during the breaks and often at lunchtimes if you want to ask questions one-to-one or need a bit of extra help. We also provide as much after-course support by email or phone as you need, and there is a thriving online Coaching Leaders forum only for our graduates where you can swap ideas, get support, or even pick up some work.

How much is the course: We aim to provide the best possible course experience for our students in pleasant surroundings. Many of our students come to us through word of mouth, and we don't spend huge amounts on aggressive marketing. Consequently we are able to set our prices comfortably in the mid-range.

You can also make a significant saving when you book early, because the sooner we fill each course, the sooner we can stop diverting effort into marketing it. See the NLP Practitioner information for current prices.

Personality of the trainer: You will be able to judge for yourself – we don't let anyone join the practitioner course without an initial telephone interview where both parties can judge if the course is right for you, and vice versa.

We take a degree of care in selecting our students. Not everyone is ready for NLP practitioner training; in particular, although people can sometimes make spectacular personal breakthroughs on our courses, we emphasise that the course is primarily about learning skills and should not be viewed as a substitute for psychotherapy. Our students tend to be friendly and emotionally stable people even before they come on the course.

Accreditation: Our principal trainer, Andy Smith, is an ANLP-accredited NLP trainer. We are also institute members of the Professional Guild of NLP.

A note on assessment methods: Our learning and assessment methods include:

learning logs
continuous assessment through participative exercises
an 'open book' examination which you complete in your own time (allow about two days effort in total to complete the exam)
and on the final module of the course, working with a 'guest client' to increase your confidence that what you have learned works with 'real people' as well as in the classroom environment.

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Choosing An NLP Practitioner Training

If you want to know more, call Andy Smith or Julia Blower now on 0845 83 855 83 or email us now at info@practicaleq.com. We are happy to help you select the right course for you with no obligation – so call us now!

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