What's in a name? Absurdity of some titles...

In recent years I have noticed more and more a tendancy for some individuals who work in changework and therapy to present themselves with ever grander titles, in order to try to promote themselves. I have no problem with the use of titles, but it seems to me at least to have got totally out of hand, especially on the internut.


Most of these titles are totally meaningless and really are little more than a means for mutual self congradulation. Many individals proudly proclaim having "qualified" in NLP, Hypnosis or other approaches, when what they are really saying is that they have received a certificate of attendance for what is often a few days training in a large group situation with no actual testing of skills. Hypnotherapists suddenly call themselves "Master Hypnotherapists" and the term "Master" appears IMO all too frequently in adverts and bio wording.

These days a person could feasibly take a few weeks off work to become a Reki Master, NLP Master Practitioner, Hypnotherapy Master and goodness knows what else! Those who do give up the day jobs, often regret doing so, not realising that the public at large are mostly unimpressed by such titles!
Around a year ago a newsgroup owner went so far as to actually fabricate a number of "qualifications" having blatantly never even started never mind completed the 3 year Hypnosis training programme. He was politely asked to remove all logos on his site...

Another familiar pastime is to issue diplomas for NLP and Hypnosis. These are of course not recognised by anyone except the person issuing the piece of paper. Ultimately of course there is no substitute for real experience and research. I agreed to join the ANLP advisory board, because they at least have a code of ethics which sets some form of standard. One of the joys of working with and learning from Frank Farrelly is that he doesn't believe in certifications and we often joke about them. I have however asked if he would make me "a cardinal of Provocative Therapy" and as long as I can obtain the appropriate hat by Nov, I am hopeful that this will happen...

LOL

Nick Kemp
http://www.nickkemp.com/