When I first met Frank Farrelly in 2004, my whole world changed. I literally had to review everything I thought about communication. Up until that point I considered myself to be reasonably astute and had been running numerous trainings including NLP trainings for many years. On seeing Frank I sat dumbstruck and thought ‘WTF is this?”
Everything I had learned up to that point was turned on its head. I literally didn’t know what to make of what I was seeing and hearing. Frank was like a master magician, and I couldn’t make any sense of what he was doing.
Materials, what materials?
I reemember saying to Frank on day two of the first Provocative Therapy training, “I feel equally inspired and depressed!” Inspired as I can see that this is a whole new way of working, but depressed as what I have seen means I am going to rethink everything I do from the ground up. On asking about study materials Frank told me about the original book, but aside form his “Me and God” book about his upbringing, that was the totality of available material. Worse still that book was only available in German! There was a cassette of the co creators of NLP attempting (I choose this word deliberately) to understand Frank’s work, but that was it!
To my amazement, none of Frank’s hosts seemed to have sorted release forms for his work, so the wider public had no study material. His website was out of date, so none of the training dates was accurate, and some seminar hosts limited public access to his trainings. In short, his marketing was beyond terrible, and it’s little surprise that Provocative Therapy was the world’s best-kept secret
Setting the record straight
I decided to host Frank from 2005 and to record all the training events. I also encouraged Frank to do a series of interviews about his work so finally the wider public could have access to this amazing approach. The first training was in 2005 in Leeds, which was recorded as “Frank Farrelly live in Leeds” my tongue in cheek reference to the classic Who album “The Who live in Leeds”
The DVD includes three main demo sessions, and they are still available. I also recorded subsequent training events and several interviews with Frank. Frank was also kind enough to comment on and provide feedback on my 2006 product, “Provocative Change Works for Phobias”. This was my early attempt to incorporate Frank’s approach into a new modality. Frank encouraged me to develop the PCW model, and I was careful to adhere to his wishes to ensure his classic Provocative Therapy model did not have any certifications. When Frank passed, he entrusted me with his archive of material, and some of that is available for study. I have also had to hold some characters to account who tried to hijack Frank’s work, and reluctantly I set up a blocklist to alert the general public to them.
Frank was very clear about how he wanted his work preserved and taught, and I take his wishes seriously. He gave me written approval many years ago and used to call me “The can-do kid”. Frank is greatly missed, but I still protect his classic work and run trainings according to his wishes, as well as teaching my own PCW model.
Next month I am starting a new training in Frank’s Provocative Therapy, as well as continuing to teach my own PCW around the world in the UK, Europe, the USA, and Asia. Check out some video testimonials here about how I’ve brought both Frank’s Provocative Therapy training and my own PCW model to a global audience.