So some of the books that I've found amazingly useful recently (Core Transformation, Transforming Your Self) have been written by people whose background is in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. I previously had a preconception of NLP as debunked pseudoscience, so this was a little surprising; but there was very little stuff in the books that would directly contradict any existing science that I'd know of, some of their theory was drawing on work that's respectable within standard cognitive science (Transforming Your Self references George Lakoff's work, and its sequel, Six Blind Elephants, draws even more strongly on Lakoff), and some of the concepts have clear resemblances to things in more mainstream theories (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, mental contrasting). So it was interesting to read this post by the author of the books that I've been mentioning:

> Most of the research directly on NLP concepts was done in the 1980s and 1990s; little or no research has been done directly on NLP in the last decade or so. The vast majority of studies that were done earlier addressed [...] a teaching tool [...] that [...] was a deliberate and gross oversimplification, only somewhat true in a particular problem context. Despite this, the bulk of research, supposedly “on NLP” at that time was done in an attempt to verify or disconfirm this concept. [...]

> It’s also worth noting that the studies themselves were often full of research errors. [...] To summarize, the research that has been done was on the wrong questions, by people who did not understand what they were trying to measure, ignoring linguistic and behavioral confounding variables, so of course the results were negative or inconclusive. [...]

> Although little or no research is currently being done directly on NLP processes, there is quite a lot of academic research that supports NLP indirectly. NLP methods and principles are being “rediscovered” in bits and pieces in a wide variety of research studies. Following are a few examples. [...]

> Treating PTSD and trauma using dissociation [...] Timelines [...] Motivation, specific outcomes and behavioral change [...] Nonverbal rapport and empathy [...] Negative reframing [...] Synesthesias [...] Self-control and submodalities [...]

> This is only a very small sampling of current research studies that support various aspects of NLP practice and methodology, and more appear each week. There is a lot of research that supports NLP principles, but it is not identified as such. If all these studies were collected into a review article, it would provide quite impressive support.