Pure NLP® is a refined version of the initial development of NLP. Since it's inception, many offshoots have cropped up and have unfortunately changed the simplistic manner which was and still is intended.
At it's core, NLP is an educational tool. Because it is a meta discipline, it works for anyone who wants to learn to use their brain more effectively, efficiently, elegantly, etc. It has has two identifiable parts: One part is comprised of "Skills" and the second part is comprised of "Applications" of those skills. Most of whatever is out there in the marketplace are "applications" of the basic skills of the technology. It seems that people have confused the two. The phobia cure, for example, is an application, a technique. Persuasion Engineering® is an "application", etc.
Pure NLP® focuses first on the skills, then applications of those skills.
If you think about baking as an example. It is much more effective if we teach you about the factors that make up baking: ingredients, temperature, humidity, timing, etc., before teaching you how to make a chocolate cake. If we teach you just how to make a chocolate cake, that's all you'd be able to make. By learning all the fundamentals about baking first, you will have the skills and flexibility to make a wide variety of cakes, rather than just one.