Review: Christopher Howard NLP Practitioner Audio Course

By chance, I listened to this series by Chris Howard right after I had watched Tad James Practitioner Course DVDs, and the similarities are enormous, right down to almost the same words in the same stories in many cases. I did a quick Google search and it looks like Christopher Howard trained with Tad James. However Christopher Howard has modelled Tad James so closely that the courses seem indistinguishable at many points. This is not necessecarily a criticism as Tad James’ courses are very well presented and chunked for easy learning, and Howard’s courses follow the same easily-digested format. It is rather amusing, however, to hear the stories about Howard’s clients which follow precisely the same words as Tad James’ clients, and perhaps ironic for a product that Chris Howard calls Creation Technologies. However, despite any ironies, this is a quality product that will be very useful for many people.
Although Tad James’s courses are called ‘accelerated’, they are tortoises compared to the speeding hare that is Howard. The speed of delivery is very fast and I found this quite effective, but it might be difficult for beginners, or for people who want to take more time to carry out processes. However, doing the processes quickly does have the benefit that things are often moving faster than the conscious mind can keep up, and it is the unconscious mind that can make the changes. Another advantage of the high speed pace is that the total length of the course (78 tracks on 22 CDs) is only about 9 hour, thus allowing it to be listened to in its entirety several times in the time that it would take to listen to some other courses only once. Of course, this speed is a matter of personal preference, and some people will clearly find it too quick.
The course covers all the essential bases of NLP practitioner well including well-formed outcomes, anchoring, rapport, strategies, meta model, Milton model, and much more. I would highly recommend it for people who want to get a fast refresher on all the basics of NLP.
 
In CD13, Howard takes a sudden jump into talk about energy work and Huna. This is again presumably drawn at least partly from Tad James’ work, but Tad James makes the demarkation between NLP and Huna much clearer than Howard, and the sudden leap into energy work in the middle of the program right between Anchoring and Parts Integration is slightly disorientating!
Unlike many NLP audio courses which are recorded in a live setting, the audio is very well recorded and clear, and I particularly enjoyed Howard’s use of music throughout the program. It is very professionally produced and presented with great instrumentals linking the lessons and even providing background for doing the exercises. Howard’s voice also worked well for me in the inductions which were well designed and had nice timing, obviously a little slower than the high speed of the regular lessons!