Below is a list of blacklisted students and companies who have engaged in either illegal or unethical behaviour. This blacklist was set up to protect the integrity of Frank Farrelly’s work and to warn the public against individuals and companies who misrepresent Frank’s Provocative Therapy approach.
Fortunately, such characters are rare, but we believe the wider public should have the opportunity to be alerted to such individuals and companies. It’s rare for an individual or company to be listed on this page; most people and companies have the maturity and professionalism to avoid being blacklisted here.
Many such characters are reactive, so the best advice is to screenshot everything for legal professionals before they realise the foolishness of such actions. When Frank Farrelly passed, he specifically asked me (Nick Kemp) to look after his archive of work.
Blacklisted individuals and companies
The following characters and companies are on the blacklist for a variety of reasons, mostly for engaging in unethical and/or illegal behaviour in respect to Frank Farrelly’s work.Straight in at number one are these characters below…
Fundacja Provocare
Provocare – Warsaw – Fundacja Provocare
I have resisted adding this company and have given them the benefit of the doubt. Still, they continue to add my name to their promotional material despite my request NOT to be associated, professionally in any way.. I have spent hours addressing this concern, and all my requests have fallen on deaf ears. There’s always an excuse why its unintentional, but this has occurred on a regular basis and now there are way too many red flags and examples of poor behaviour.
Provocare were caught trying to promote certifications in Provocative Therapy despite knowing Frank specifically did not want this. Below is the correspondence where they even tried to suggest by association that I was endorsing their bogus certifications
Dear Joanne
Frank Farrelly specifically requested NO CERTIFICATIONS in Provocative Therapy, yet you seem to be trying to offer such certifications
See https://provocare.org/certyfikacja/ (This page has not been removed once they were called out on this behaviour)
However, here is the original copy, which was an attempt to set themselves up as a provider of certifications in Frank’s work, 100% against his wishes.
3/ The following persons may participate in the certification in the field of Provocative Therapy:
a. Professionally active therapists of various disciplines;
b. Pedagogues (including special and social pedagogues);
c. Caregivers and medical workers;
d. Psychiatrists and psychologists;
e. Graduates of psychology;
f. Addiction therapists.
I am even referenced in this page, see highlighted section in bold
Individuals who have completed the Fundamentals of Provocativeness training led by Joanna Czarnecka, Norbert Grzybek, Dr. Noni E. Höfner, Dr. Jaap Hollander, Nick Kemp or Frank Farrelly may begin the certification process after prior discussion with the substantive supervisor of the given Certification Course
I have repeatedly asked you to remove me from all your website copy and yet here we are again…
In case you missed it, here are Frank’s thoughts on this matter – https://youtu.be/kkZMq6N_bpQ?si=yCAAjxfMo9AHJ9Sb
Please adhere to Frank’s specific wishes about his approach and adjust this copy within the next 14 days of receiving this e-mail
Failing that, I am happy to make a public statement on the front page of the actual main site www.provocativetherapy.com as well as alerting all those around the world who respect and support Frank’s wishes for his work
If you want to run certifications in Provocare, improv or whatever else then fine, but not in Provocative Therapy as this is against Frank’s specific wishes.
Regards
www.provocativetherapy.com
Nick Kemp
Unethical behaviour from Fundacja Provocare?
This company also started selling merch with Frank’s photo without permission. These are just two examples of many unethical and unprofessional behaviours. During the one training I agreed to with this company, we were surprised to see them selling merchandise with Frank Farrelly’s photo, without any agreement from his estate. This is not only pretty rude but highly unethical.
I had had many conversations with Frank’s son, Tim, about these characters, and they are a terrible advert for Frank’s work.
I agreed to run one training for them, but there were so many problems with the organiser’s behaviour that I withdrew from doing any more events. Its a shame because the group were quite receptive to the one training I conducted.
This company’s owner claims to have an endorsement from Frank, yet interestingly, in our hundreds of conversations and communications over the years, Frank never once mentioned such an endorsement, and this company never hosted Frank while he was alive. There is no mention of Fundacja Provocare in any of Frank’s communications and/or on video. The official Frank Farrelly archive contains thousands of hours of audio and video of Frank talking about his work. There’s not a single reference to Fundacja Provocare in any of this material, which many may consider a bit odd. If this company ever had any actual genuine discussions with Frank (which I doubt based on lack of evidence) then they clearly either didn’t understand his wishes or chose to ignore his specific wishes for his work.
I therefore let people make up their own minds about all of this…
Either way, they have misrepresented Frank’s work and continue to try to present themselves as “an authority” in the field. I’ve also had members of this group contact me privately with precisely the same concerns I have voiced over the years, the main ones being a lack of professionalism and misrepresentation of Frank’s wishes. One of these individuals at Fundacja Provocare was extremely concerned about the owner’s behaviour and reached out for advice. Let’s remember that Frank did not speak Polish and that, during his lifetime, he was never hosted by these characters who now seem to be trying to position themselves as an international concern.
Status seeking
This company engages in endless status seeking. There have been endless attempts to link me to create the impression I am supporting this nonsense. In recent years I have people from Poland concerned about this business and in recent times highlighted another attempt to link my reputation to this business, see below. I can’t decide if these characters are too stupid to follow basic requests or simply don’t care. Either way, I’ll continue to flag this unethical behaviour and point out that in all the years of discussing with Frank Farrelly, this group was never mentioned even once in any conversation…
This may seem odd…
This company has been blasting social media for months with requests for people to attend the “2nd International Congress of Provocativity.” The speakers listed are, from what I hear, almost all from Poland, with a couple of exceptions. The event was due to start on March 12th, but it was postponed until October. This is, for many people, a bit odd. Firstly, anyone planning to attend the original date is disadvantaged with zero notice. The adverts described “legends” presenting at this event, but from what I see, these legends (many may consider the term a bit of a stretch for some characters) have not really promoted the event. Of course, each to their own, and people have very different ideas of how to run events, but in my 40 years of running trainings, I’ve never seen any event cancelled on the exact same day it was due to start.
Ongoing plagerism
Its hard to know if these characters don’t understand good manners and respect for other people’s work and the issue of copyright. I’m increasingly getting emails from Poland citing behaviours including the one below on social media
The cited quote from Richard Banlder on Frank was lifted from my comments online and in live trainings. Joanna Czarnecka would never have been in that 2003 London NLP Master practitioner trainer and doesn’t grasp the English language. She also has started contacting colleagues of mine who she has never met to try and enroll them in her latest pet project about Frank. One contacted me and said asked who on earth this Polish character was that contacted him out of the blue seeking comments on Frank. As with all such communications, I simply point them to this page and make them make up their own minds based on the history to date, that seems to get worse month on month <sigh>
The level of imaturity is quite something, a recent example below in an advert. I’ll let you decide what demographic they may be aiming for and I know what Frank would say about all this nonsense
“Provocativeness”
After being caught out on several occasions misrepresenting Frank’s Provocative Therapy, this company then decided to rebrand, talking about “provocativeness” Aside from being a pretty daft term, the result is an awkward mish-mash of ideas which bear little relation to Frank’s original work. The main orientation seems to be to gain imagined status by promoting “international congresses” which, of course, are almost exclusively from Poland.
Interestingly, nobody from this company ever showed any interest in Frank’s lifetime archive of work.
Make of that what you will…
Caveat Emptor is the term that comes to mind.
Nick Kemp
Custodian of Frank Farrelly’s archive
Dmitry Sytchev
Photo copyright Nick Kemp Training Ltd
Dmitry Sytchev
Dmitry Sytchev decided to translate Frank Farrelly’s “Provocative Therapy” book without seeking permission. He had zero training in this therapeutic approach and is not even a qualified professional translator, but he seems to consider himself to have great translation skills!
Despite many requests from Tim Farrelly, the copyright holder, and myself Nick Kemp, he continued promoting this poorly AI-translated version to sell courses in his version of provocative therapy online. He’s well known for scouring the internet to scrub other people’s web pages for content to add to his site without permission. The result is a confused mish-mash of information that bears no resemblance to Frank’s work.
This is one of several approaches he seeks to pass himself off as an authority and other trainers have warned him not to behave in an unethical and illegal manner. The idea that this individual is a provocative therapy trainer” is just as daft as believing he is a “generative coaching trainer.” Steve Gilligan has also asked him to stop misrepresenting himself in this manner just as Tim Farrelly have asked him to stop misrepresenting himself with Frank’s work. As well as trying to pass himself off as a trainer in Frank and Steve’s work, he continues to pirate personal change author’s books without permission.
This is total misrepresentation and essentially scamming the public for commercial gain. In Feb and March 2025 I’ve talked about this in two major online Eastern European trainings and pointed out the misrepresentations regarding Frank’s work that are essentially just babble and pure nonsense.
The official legitimate publisher of Frank’s book, Piter Publishing House Ltd., sent a notice to curtail this illegal activity. The unlawful copy has finally now been withdrawn. This resulted in a series of outbursts, including the one below
“Buy and read the clumsy translation printed on toilet paper”
Dmitry Sytchev
Decide for yourself on the level of maturity of somebody making such a comment. There are countess such comments, many of which were submitted in a daft reply from this person to a hosting company, claiming he was the victim of defamation!
The publisher has now sent yet another request for good manners and basic ethics, and of course, the latest immature comment has been removed. It’s a shame that professional parties must take legal action to ensure what is little more than basic good manners.
Trance Masters Company Moscow
This company is known for pirating author’s material without copyright permission. The primary trainer promoting their versions of Frank’s work with no actual training in Provocative Therapy is Dmitry Sytchev.
His partner Alisa SHAKHUNOVA is also listed as a trainer with this company. Both individuals have been caught misrepresenting other coaching models by established international trainers and setting themselves up as official trainers without permission or relevant experience. Fortunately, legitimate provocative therapy trainers in Russia with professional ethics teach provocative therapy as Frank intended. Provocative therapy is also not the only approach that this company misrepresents.
We now know of at least one other trainer whose original work is being misrepresented and also asked Dimitry and Alisa SHAKHUNOVA to refrain from “illegal and unethical actions” concerning his trademarked work. She describes herself as “a psychologist” on her web page.
Both Dimitry and Alisa are a terrible advert for personal change and coaching. They have been told by Steve Gilligan to cease misrepresenting his work and by myself and Tim Farrelly to stop misrepresenting Frank Farrelly’s work. They are scamming the public in the worst possible way and are an embarassment to all those coaches and trainers who have a professional duty of care and basic good manners.
Piter Publishing House Ltd also confirms that Trancemasters has acted illegally in promoting a pirated version of “Provocative Therapy” These are just some of the reasons why this company is blacklisted here.
As if this were not reason enough, Dimitry is now also blacklisted by the company who first introduced him to Nick Kemp’s training in Moscow.
The Official publisher for Provocative Therapy in Russia
There is ONLY one official publication for Provocative Therapy in Russia, and that is
Vitaly Stepanov
Rights Manager
Piter Publishing House Ltd.
mailto: stepanov@piter.com
http://www.piter.com/page/rights
If you are being sold a course or encouraged to download a pirated version of Frank Farrelly’s original work, please be aware that such actions are illegal and unethical.
This is the official book, translated professionally as opposed to somebody running the original text through AI and then claiming they are an actual translator!
All material copyrighted by Nick Kemp Training Ltd in all mediums
UPDATE – Both Alisa SHAKHUNOVA and Dmitry Sytchev have also been caught misrepresenting Steve Gilligan’s work in trying to pass themselves off as trainers. They adopted the same strategy as with Frank Farrelly’s work, adding scores of articles to their site suggesting endorsements, while in reality simply scamming the public. It’s very unethical and unprofessional behaviour. They have been sent a “cease and decist” letter, but history suggests they will continue to ignore such communications.