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Exploring NLP-related topics on TV:

Written by: Jonathan Altfeld

Article Overview: Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Hypnosis has been increasingly featured both covertly and overtly in several television shows recently. This article explores two popular recent television shows and unpacks some of what can be learned about NLP, just by watching them.

Exploring NLP-related topics on TV:

Here are two television shows thoroughly worth watching, and why:

"The Mentalist" is a show based around Patrick Jane, an ex-trance-medium/psychic, -turned law enforcement 'mentalist' who consults for a California investigative unit. But many of the tricks/techniques he uses involve sensory acuity, calibration, truth detection, confusion tactics, questions for reducing a pool of suspects, and more. These scripts could easily be written by or about an NLP Master Practitioner or trainer.

"Lie to Me" is a tv show based on the work of Dr. Paul Ekman on evaluating facial expressions and microexpressions to determine emotions and detect truth from lies. Ostensibly the show is about a consulting group available for hire whose principle employees can't be fooled, and each week a handful of deception-filled situations are foiled.

Now let's explore some of these shows in more detail!

(1) "The Mentalist" I'll begin my discussion of the "Mentalist" by saying that most of the episodes have some fabulous moments that exemplify really elegant use of either NLP or Hypnosis or Cold-Reading techniques. Overall, I'm thoroughly enjoying the series; there are some moments I'm convinced I could have scripted or filmed more elegantly, but there are ALSO some moments I could only hope to be as elegant at demonstrating! So for those of you who know how high my standards are, I'm describing having viewed a few really outstanding examples here in general. But having said that, the series decided to make some very direct commentary on NLP at one point.

Season 1, Episode 18, openly dealt with NLP in both good and bad ways. Not only was NLP mentioned explicitly in the script (rather than just USED by the main character!), but NLP was portrayed for being both a useful and an easily-abused tool. The story line of that episode surrounded an NLP-trained murderer who'd used NLP to help accomplish her crimes. What's strange is that while I can use NLP to describe some of the most elegant behavioral techniques Patrick Jane uses throughout the series, I thought the explicit use/mention of NLP looked more than just a bit forced, sounded more than just a bit dry and boring, using too much jargon.

So I wasn't all that thrilled with Episode 18, not only because it painted NLP in what I think is a very poor light, but also because by contrast with moments in many of the other episodes, I can find some far better examples of NLP in action outside of episode 18! Also I think the series producers used Episode 18 to distance themselves from NLP officially (in spite of the obvious indirect links to and usage of NLP skills in the other episodes!) Those of us who know better -- can see through that tactic!

If you search for these quoted phrases on tv replay websites, you can view a few great examples of NLP in action:

• "Shoulder Tap" - In this example, the Mentalist elicits a state of focused trance from several teenagers, anchors one of the teenagers while suggesting to "do exactly as I tell you", and then fires the anchor while redirecting the teenager.
• "True Statement" - In this example, the Mentalist gets a witness who found a body to change their initial story, by changing their state from one of defensiveness to one of "avoidance of further humiliation." Any decision is possible in the right emotional state.
• "Personal Photos" - One of my favorite examples -- a visual form of truth detection / hidden information gathering. The Mentalist deducts that a subject is hiding information, and then leads that person on a nonverbal walkthrough of the space. It's an NLP-ish nonverbal form of "am I getting hotter or colder?" Beautifully shown!

I encourage you to start watching the show and see what else you can find Patrick Jane doing!

Incidentally, if you take the above example C (Personal Photos) to a further logical extension, this becomes the basis for a great deal of nonverbal leading, though I'd recommend in a less antagonistic form). And is thus is one of the basic paradigms for nonverbal leadership that I'll teach in my new workshop "Silent Exchanges" this year!

(2) "Lie to Me" For any of you who are interested in not only knowing how "Dr. Cal Lightman" and his team detect lies, but also in learning how to accomplish some of the same results in far less time than it takes most people... I thought I'd get the ball rolling on a couple of important discussion points.

"Lie to Me" as a show is based on the work by Dr. Paul Ekman, which he calls FACS. Ekman studied the detection of emotions in people as evidenced by the presence of specific facial muscle tension. He identified & numbered specific muscles, then further identified what combinations of numbered muscle tensions indicate what emotion is being triggered. Ekman and his team have found that these emotional markers -- the muscles we all use to express our emotions -- are universal -- identical across cultures.

Now, Lie Detection is ONLY ONE application of the FACS emotional recognition process. Another wonderful application of this system might be to understand family members better, in terms of their emotional responses to you. Think how much more wonderful life would be for you if you never misunderstood someone's emotions again!

Regarding the lie-detection process used along with FACS... if you combine what you're hearing from people, with what emotion you KNOW is being expressed, you can gain deep & immediately accurate insight into whether someone is telling the truth or telling lies. After all, if you watch the show closely, you'll accurately see that for the most part, there is no direct correlation between response & lies (though there are peripheral indicators which are unreliable by themselves).

The main character Cal Lightman works best when he can creatively provoke a client, provoke a lie, and then watch for the emotional response. Then he combines the emotional response with the content provided, and the holistic response tells him whether deception is involved or not. Lightman is also careful early on in his interrogations, not to presume he knows exactly what a specific lie is about -- only that there is deception on some level. He then has to point it out & question it further.

Many people who watch "Lie to Me" and can already accomplish similar results are trained in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). Some have called NLP a pop-psychology method. Some use it for communication skills, some for influence, some for therapy... and NLP certainly has its strong proponents and opinionated skeptics.

Those of us who use NLP for truth/lie detection typically do not use the same system as is used in "Lie to Me". Whereas the FACS system can tell you exactly what emotions a person was experiencing.... an NLP-trained lie-detector usually cannot, with any consistent accuracy. But often the NLP trained individual will be just as accurate at knowing when they've been lied to.

Here are some Contrasts between "Lie to Me" style Lie Detection & NLP-style Truth Detection: Training Time NLP style lie detection can be trained in about 30-60 minutes, and then it takes a few hours to get reasonably good at it. There are some trainers who will tell you it only takes 5 minutes(!) but they'd be lying for marketing purposes. As an NLP Trainer, I'm already blazingly fast at training it, and to do it right with the range of different levels of students I meet, it takes me 30-60 minutes to do justice to the skill properly. So in 2-3 hours, you can get pretty functional.

By contrast, you can train yourself on Ekman's FACS system for emotional recognition. According to "Lie to Me" you're probably in the 98% of people who aren't naturals at this, so that means, to get good at FACS emotional recognition, you'll need to spend hours in front of their CD-based (or online) training system. You'll spend many, MANY hours... and most of those hours will be of linear benefit, and useful. Don't expect to get measurable results in a couple of hours. Expect to put weeks or months in, minimum. A lot more than a few months, if you'd want to give Cal Lightman's staff a run for their money.

Real-Time Calibration Time Required, When Applying the Skill NLP style lie detection teaches us to build a baseline awareness of how each person 'does' their own version of "truthful Yes" and their own version of "truthful No." That process is called calibration. So with each subject, we have to calibrate anew to their unique versions of truthful Yes & No answers. Once we have learned to recognize their answers... we can then identify lies with a high degree of accuracy. This takes longer to DO in real-life than Cal Lightman's approach, because he doesn't need to "pre-calibrate" each person he reads.

The "Lie to Me" method does have pre-calibration involved too -- but it doesn't pre-calibrate to each person's truth. You spend months learning to calibrate to universal signs of specific emotions. Then, on the fly, in front of a deceiver, you can provoke a lie, and pair specific emotional responses with the content of someone's answers. It looks more impressive than NLP lie detection, because it's faster applied in real-life with strangers. But with NLP, you don't spend months learning universal facial expression signals. With NLP we don't really care what emotions are being expressed. We care when we get answers we recognize (truthful yes or no) vs. when we get answers that look confusing (mixed signals -- i.e. lies).

Regards,

- Jonathan Altfeld

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Article Tags: hypnosis, lie detection, lie to me, mentalism, mentalist, neuro linguistic programming, NLP, television shows



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