NLP Training Review: Master Practitioner with McKenna Breen

Chris Harrison - June 2006
©2007 PlanetNLP Ltd

I am referring to McKenna Breens Master NLP Practitioner training run in September 1997 and September 2004 in London UK.

Firstly most of the information in my practitioner review is relevant here, so I won't repeat it.

The main difference between the NLP practitioner course and the NLP master practitioner training is - in Richards words -the attitude.

Whereas an NLP practitioner is listening to a client trying to find out which cookie cutter technique to use, the master practitioner is constantly working with whatever the client supplies, building techniques on the fly.

As to course contents, the NLP Master Practitioner course contained much more modeling, many new hypnotic techniques, and explained the underlying structure of techniques such as the swish pattern and the phobia cure.

There are also several very powerful hypnotic techniques such as the kinesthetic lead and deep trance identification.

Though I technically took the same course twice, seven years apart (Richard never teaches exactly the same course twice, and the content changes over time), I found the second time far less rewarding than the first for a couple of reasons.

In 1997 almost everyone I met had already done the practitioner course.

In 2004, this wasn't true and meant that after 3 or 4 days the course suddenly seemed to get watered down to suit those people who hadn't done any NLP before.

Personally I found this unfair as I had paid for a Master Practitioner course, not a practitioner refresher.

Unfortunately few companies seem to have minimum requisites on their NLP courses these days, and I don't think this issues only affects McKenna Breen, or now McKenna Training, courses.

The second reason was the business or corporate course members.

In 1997 everyone I met on this course was mad about NLP. They were there of their own accord, and paid for themselves.

This meant that they had personally invested their time and money.

In 2004 more people were getting sent on courses by their companies and were not as motivated or interested.

The idea of returning late from lunch when Richard is due on at 2.00pm is something I would never contemplate, but on my second master practitioner more and more sessions were delayed due to late shows.

When I have paid for a course, and want to squeeze every last drop of experience and knowledge from it as possible, this is somewhat annoying.

Also working on an exercise with someone who is thinking about getting to the pub as soon as possible is not the best way to get the most out of the course.

Anyway, rant over, and please do not let it overly affect your view of this course.

My 2004 master practitioner course with McKenna Breen was one of my standout experiences. 12 solid days of being tranced out, and trancing others out had a huge effect on my life and truly cemented the work done on the practitioner course.

You do not need to do a practitioner course first, but I would recommend it.

I just wish that when I did my practitioner the first time I could have done it with the master practitioner back to back!