I couldn't really believe there wasn't a thread on this already but i'm sure it will have been previously discussed. Just a quick wiki search reveals that NLP as a technique, has little academic support or backing but it is widely used by PUAs. Obviously i'm not saying PUA methods have to have academic empirical support, most are borne out of experiences of social interactions. Nevertheless NLP is sitting on shakey ground.

With that in mind, mystery method/ love systems is loosely routed in evolutionary psychology which has very strong evidence behind it, especially on the topic of mating habits.

So I ask are NLP techniques effective? They may be successful under the cloak of NLP, but it may be that other factors actually make them successful.

NLP has a lack of academic support because there is very little to the definition of NLP. NLP is hypnosis. NLP is psychotherapy. NLP is conversational hypnosis. NLP is sales. NLP is meditation. NLP is the study of human achievement. Most things about NLP are taken from other successful ideas. The things not agreed on, and the things not used by PUA's, is the eye modality. This is where academics differentiate on the effectiveness of NLP because you can't get certified in NLP without learning the modalities, however, it is a commonly misunderstood statement, even by those that teach it. The eye modalities suggest that you look in a certain direction when your thinking of something visual, a different direction when you're thinking of something auditory, a different direction when you're feeling something. This is true some of the times, and for the most part, it's good for a parlour trick. Women do it all the time... ever have a woman say, what you thinking, as you look off to something.

Conversational Hypnosis existed with Milton Erickson, psychological triggers existed long before NLP, persuasion and influence are just two things that have been brought into the NLP sphere. There in lies the issues. NLP is absolutely nothing.

The information PUA's use, hopefully, and most of the time, come from body language, psychological triggers, conversational hypnosis, and visualization techniques for confidence. All of these things existed before NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder simply created an SPAM where people could perfect them under a singular group of materials.