Interesting I wonder what wiki would have to say about the SMILE trial. Not that wiki is a reliable source but it would be interesting to start up a wiki page on SMILE and see what happens and if it gets edited and contradicts the wiki stance on NLP above.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lightning_Process
Research
A registered clinical trial (UK SMILE pilot study) was conducted in England at Bristol University, with results published in 2017.
[26] While the results are promising its use is not recommended as of 2017 by the
National Health Services in the United Kingdom.
[2]
A
qualitative study on experiences of the course among a group of young people with chronic fatigue syndrome was published in 2003.
[27]
Public reaction to research
Esther Crawley said that "I never expected it would work" and that "This is an important study as it provides another treatment approach that some may find helpful. However, while these results are promising, further research is needed to establish which aspects of the process are helpful, whether it is an effective treatment on its own, and whether it could be used to help more severely affected patients."
[19]
Research into chronic fatigue syndrome is often a target of criticism.
[4] The SMILE study received some public criticism for recruiting children when adult subjects are available.
[28][29][30] The study was approved by the
National Research Ethics Service.
[4][31] The paediatrician supervising the study, Esther Crawley, has commented "If the Lightning Process is dangerous, as they say, we need to find out. They should want to find it out, not prevent research."
[4]
Results of the study by Crawley were publicized at the
Science Media Centre in September 2017; an editorial on its own presentation of the results of the SMILE study stated: "If you had only read the headlines for the CFS/ME story you may conclude that the treatment tested at Bristol might be worth a try if you are blighted by the illness, when in truth the author said repeatedly that the findings would first have to be replicated in a bigger trial."
[32] Reactions to their briefing were stronger than expected: "it was the criticism from within the scientific community that we had not anticipated."
[32] The briefing
[33] invited four psychologists to make comments on the study,
[34] who were mild in their reactions, while the commentary on the September 28, 2017 article evoked detailed, well-referenced but anonymous criticisms of the SMILE study and the Lightning Process in the comments section.
[32]
Dorothy Bishop from Oxford University commented that "The gains for patients in this study seem solid. However, while the patient allocation and statistical analysis of the trial appear to be done to a high standard, the intervention that was assessed is commercial and associated with a number of warning signs. The Lightning Process appears based on neurolinguistic programming, which has long been recognised as pseudoscience.”
[19]
