NLP Word Weaving a Waste of Breath?

NLP Word Weaving is something NLP people are very proud of. I was talking to some newly made hypnotists who had just finished a course in NLP and hypnosis. They were all excited about their new skills. They were looking forward to a sparkling career as an international hypnosis superstar.

I didn't have the heart to disillusion them so I let them rave on. The reality is that most full time hypnotists see fewer than six clients a week. 90% of graduates from NLP and Hypnotherapy schools never actually use what they paid so much money to acquire.

NLP Word Weaving in practice

However they were asking me about one aspect that was worrying them both. They didn't feel confident about applying the 'NLP word weaving' part of NLP. They had spent a long time admiring how others had crafted indirect suggestions and language patterns. It seemed to them that there were people who could produce endless streams of it on any subject. They were told this was the way to influence the client's subconscious with effortless mastery.

I had had to tell them that as far as I was concerned, all that effort on NLP Word Weaving was a waste of time and breath. There certainly are endless elegant ways of talking around a subject. There are many ways of structuring suggestions so that that the client doesn't notice. But there is absolutely no evidence that it actually works any better than a straight forward suggestion.

In fact there is evidence  to the opposite. It is so subtle that many clients miss the point. So I had to tell them that they had nothing to worry about. I am not sure if they were more relieved or disappointed.