Dick McHugh - NLP Guru with a FAKE PhD

Dick McHugh - NLP Guru with a FAKE PhD

Richard McHugh. Dick McHugh. Whatever you want to call him. This guy was brought to our attention recently. His neurolinguistic programming seminars, associated with a group called ComPAS Now, take him around the world from India to the United States. Numerous sources and students refer to him as a Jesuit priest and a PhD. We could care less whether he's really a Jesuit priest or not, as that is not the focus of our page. What did catch our attention was every source's inability to state where he received his PhD or in what area.

So we dug.
We searched one of the leading dissertation databases to find that he allegedly wrote a dissertation entitled, "Mind With a Heart." The first warning sign was the notice, "At the request of the author, this graduate work is not available to view or purchase." Most dissertation authors want their research to be available to all, especially other researchers. That is the premise of scholarly research. But McHugh is essentially hiding his. For what reason? We can only speculate that his graduate-level research was subpar and would not pass muster.

Let's examine the institution that this was written for. The Union Institute in Ohio. Have you ever heard of it? Neither have we. So we dug further.

In a recent scandal involving Michelle Bachmann, a former Republican candidate for the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, it was written about her husband that:

Mr. Bachmann holds himself out as a clinical psychologist, and describes himself as "Dr. Bachmann" based on an unaccredited "PhD" certificate in interdisciplinary studies that he received from Union Graduate Institute in Cincinnati. And Michelle brags about the money they get, and jobs they created, at that clinic that Marcus runs and they together own.

But Union Graduate Institute is a controversial institution; some call it a mail-order degree mill. It is not accredited by the American Psychiatric Association, and did not offer any degree in Clinical Psychology until after 2001, decades after Marcus graduated. (During that time it was renamed several times, and is now called "Union Institute and University.") In 2004, the US Department of Education censured Union Graduate's psychology program, and students were banned from getting federal loans until 2007, which resulted in the entire faculty being laid off.
(See http://www.realchange.org/bachmann.htm)

Our hunch was correct. There is a reason why McHugh is so secretive about his qualifications. His "doctorate" is not legitimate.

Unfortunately, many people have been scammed by McHugh and tout that they trained with the great "DOCTOR" McHugh, including:

Imelda Buckley of Life Coaching in Ireland in Woordpark, Dublin
Ann Joseph of Workplace Catalysts
G.L. Sampoorna of Awareness Integration Expansion
Patricia Casner of Awesome Outcomes Hypnosis and NLP in Aberdeen, MD and Baltimore, Maryland
V. Ranganathan of India