Three days. That’s all it takes to become a “Certified NLP Practitioner” (and why that should worry you)
Three days. That’s all it takes to become a “certified neurolinguistic programming (NLP) practitioner”.
And the term itself is the problem.
Neurolinguistic programming sounds like science. It sounds like something you’d need 8–12 years of rigorous training to touch. It sounds clinical. Medical, even.
But it isn’t.
This is not a post about being anti-framework. Frameworks can be useful.
This is a post about false authority: when credibility comes from branding rather than rigour, when training is minimal, and when the person delivering “change work” does not have the psychological depth to recognise their limits.
Why “neurolinguistic programming” sounds more credible than it is
NLP was founded in the 1970s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. The name was deliberate branding: it borrows the language of neuroscience and linguistics to create an impression of scientific legitimacy.
That branding worked.
But it also created NLP’s biggest ongoing issue: people assume it is evidence-based because it sounds evidence-based.
And that assumption can become dangerous when someone in distress mistakes a shiny label for real competence.
What does the research say about NLP?
If you strip away the marketing and look for robust evidence, you repeatedly land in the same place: NLP is not supported by high-quality research.
Here are a few key examples that often come up in the literature:
2012 NHS systematic review (Sturt et al.): concluded there was insufficient evidence to recommend NLP for any health condition outside of research settings.
2024 Indian Journal of Psychiatry (Kattimani & Abhijita): argued NLP lacks scientific substantiation and is not reflected in mainstream psychology education. They also highlight how a core NLP claim (inferring “representational systems” via eye movements) was challenged in earlier work.
2019 critical review (Passmore & Rowson): found NLP practices are poorly supported by research evidence.
Put bluntly: the consensus in psychology is that NLP is pseudoscience. It’s built on outdated theory, and many of its methods are inconsistent with established psychological science.
The real issue: a 3-day certificate and a vulnerable person
Here’s the part that should make you pause.
Someone with:
no psychology degree
no supervised clinical experience
no training in risk
no training in trauma
no training in safeguarding
…can complete a short course and call themselves a “certified practitioner”.
That title can sound reassuring to the public. Especially to someone who is anxious, burnt out, grieving, traumatised, or desperate for relief.
But “certified” does not automatically mean:
competent
evidence-based
safe
accountable
And when the work involves human behaviour, identity, attachment, and threat responses, getting it wrong isn’t just unhelpful. It can be harmful.
Why I care about this (my lived experience)
I’m not writing this from a distance.
I know what it’s like to be a human being in survival mode, trying to make sense of your own mind.
My early life was shaped by trauma. My father was murdered when I was two. My biological mother attempted to kill me by setting a hotel room on fire with me inside. I was later adopted into a loving family, but early trauma still leaves fingerprints: hypervigilance, mistrust, threat-seeking patterns, and a nervous system that learns to anticipate danger.
For years, I built a protective persona to survive. It worked… until it didn’t. In my teens and twenties I cycled through violence, self-sabotage, and destructive coping.
At 25, I had no GCSEs and no clear path forward.
The turning point wasn’t a slogan. It wasn’t a “hack”. It wasn’t a three-day certificate.
It was doing the slow, rigorous work of understanding the mechanisms driving my behaviour, then rebuilding them with evidence-based psychology.
I went on to complete my GCSEs, A-levels, a BSc in Psychology, an MSc in Forensic Psychology, and I’m now a PhD researcher in Evolutionary & Developmental Psychology. I’ve also spent 5+ years in NHS crisis intervention, working with people when the stakes are real and the consequences of bad practice are immediate.
That’s why I’m allergic to false authority.
Because I’ve lived what happens when people need real help. And I’ve seen what happens when they receive confident nonsense instead.
“But NLP helped me” (a fair point)
You might be thinking: I tried NLP and it worked for me.
Two things can be true at once:
Some NLP techniques overlap with legitimate psychological principles (rapport, attention, language patterns, behavioural rehearsal).
The NLP “system” as a whole is not scientifically grounded in the way it is marketed.
A NPL Practitioner will integrate positive psychology techniques which may work, short term.
Placebo effect is evident in scientific case studies.
If someone felt better after NLP, I’m not here to take that away.
I’m here to challenge the leap from “I found this helpful” to “this is a credible, scientific, practitioner-led intervention”.
Because that leap is where people get misled.
A simple checklist before you trust a “practitioner”
If you’re considering any form of coaching or psychological support, ask:
What is their actual training? (Degree? Postgraduate? Supervised practice?)
What evidence base are they using? (And can they explain it without buzzwords?)
Do they understand risk and referral? (When do they say “this is beyond me”?)
Are they accountable to a professional body?
Do they measure outcomes? (Not vibes. Metrics.)
If the answers are vague, defensive, or overly salesy, take that as information.
Bottom line
NLP’s biggest strength is its branding. And that’s exactly why it’s a problem.
When credibility comes from clever naming rather than rigour, the public gets confused. And when the public gets confused, vulnerable people pay the price.
Be mindful who you let into your mind.
If you want evidence-based psychological coaching focused on measurable behaviour change (not therapy-lite, not motivational fluff), that’s what I do at E.P.I.C. Psychology.
