Is NLP Manipulative?

By clever use of setting, there is no reason why a hypnotist can't hypnotize someone to misread bank notes for instance.

This could be seen as being fairly innocuous until he triggers this state unconsciously in the bank.

Maybe you can't turn someone into a murderer against their will, but with subtlety and clever use of context, maybe…

So where do we as practitioners, draw the line with NLP? Manipulative behavior is not always wrong, is it?

If someone is endangering themselves and we change their state to get them into a safer situation, then that is manipulation, and it certainly doesn't seem wrong.

I suppose it really depends upon what the clients' reaction would be if you told them what you had done.

On the Net, speed seduction is considered the dark version of NLP, but what is it really?

Speed Seduction techniques tend to focus on two areas: Improving self confidence, and getting other people into positive states - which just happen to usually involve some kind of sexual thought. Some people do this kind of thing automatically, so is it manipulative?

Many people seem to draw a line to suggest that manipulation is OK as long as it is not conscious.

So if I make someone want to spend time with me because I happen to match my predicates and rate of speech automatically, that's OK.

On the other hand if I take the time to really listen to them and adjust myself, which is a form of respect in my book, then it's not OK.

This also happens to be the working practice that many non-NLP therapists use, often without actually learning any skills. The idea is that it is ok to help someone if you don't know how you did it. These people usually only ever help anyone by accident - and that seems to be their plan.

Really, whether in life or in NLP manipulative people will attempt to manipulate others no matter what the context.

So perhaps the question should be 'Are people manipulative?' rather than 'Is NLP manipulative?'