Empowered or Belabored?: Neuro-Linguistic Programming in Japan

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a set of psychotherapeutic techniques, is now popular in Japan, although its popularity in the United States has waned.  NLP is one of the commodities in the spiritual market as well as a self-help genre which deals with business negotiation and intimate relationships.   NLP, sometimes called “a quasi-religion”, is explored in this study through field research.  The study discusses how NLP promises self-transformation in individualistic society, and has some affinity with late modernity.   However, NLP has had some difficulty in gaining broad popularity because of its lack of scientific evidence of its efficacy.