The following is offered as information to anyone who is considering recommending or attending Mel Abbotts “Empower Therapies» as treatment for ME/CFS.

Mel Abbott is a certified Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Lightning Process (LP) practitioner. Both NLP and LP are pseudoscientific and considered quackery. Claims of recovery from illnesses due to LP (or versions of it) are undocumented. Before you decide to recommend or attend a course, you should be aware that:

1. LP-courses are not held by certified health care professionals. This means that you do not have any patient rights should your health deteriorate as a consequence of the course.
2. Claims of recovery are often about unidentified people with unverified diagnosis who do unbelievable things just hours after attending a course. These stories are then supported by former satisfied customers and fake SoMe-accounts. These stories are anecdotes and not scientific evidence.
3. There is no sound research to support claims that LP has a positive effect on ME/CFS. There is one study; the SMILE-trial from 2017, which claims this but it has a 3000-word long correction and the results are not trustworthy.
4. The process was developed by Phil Parker, a “clairvoyant” who is apparently able to step into other people’s bodies to assist them in their healing. In 2012 the British Advertising Standards Authority ruled that Phil Parker Ltd should not make medical claims for the LP and not to refer to conditions for which advice should be sought from qualified health professionals.
5. LP has many similarities with a sect: Is the Lightning Process a sect?
6. In Norway, LP is considered alternative treatment/complementary medicine. In 2017, when it became prohibited for LP-instructors to claim that their customers had recovered by using LP, a group of LP-instructors founded a “patient-association” and then continued with the same claims by letting their customers tell their stories: Recovery Norway is a Lightning Process organization.  This organization is also a PR agency for researchers.
7. Newspapers will publish these recovery stories because people love to read about miracles.
8. Politicians will lend their ears to the instructors because they love quick and cheap solutions to complex problems.
9. The success rates are not impressive: Lightning Process as treatment for ME: What are the figures?
10. Children should be protected from what some call a form of abuse: Treating children with the Lightning Process?
11. ME/CFS is a complex, chronic medical condition affecting multiple body systems. The following systematic reviews have confirmed this: USA (2014), USA (2015), USA (2016), Netherlands (2018), Belgium (2020), UK (2021) and USA (2023).
12. There is no cure for ME. This makes some patients especially vulnerable and many are desperate to find help.
13. Due to the reported negative experiences to do with the confusing nature of the educational component, the intensity of the sessions, and the secrecy surrounding the therapy the UK NICE-guidelines are clear: “… the Lightning Process should not be offered to people with ME/CFS.”

Please also see the Norwegian site where people share their negative experiences with LP, translated to English: LP-stories

Written by

Nina E. Steinkopf

Former HSEQ Chief Executive

Now: ME-patient and writer