[Neurons] 2010 Meta Reflections #31

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2010 - #31

July 12, 2010

History of NLP Series #1

 

NLP HISTORY

AND SELF-ACTUALIZATION

 

 

As you probably know, I began exploring some of the pre-history of NLP a few
years ago and discovered The Secret History of NLP in 2005.  And at various
conferences I have playfully said, "It is a secret history that Richard
Bandler and John Grinder don't want you to know about."  At other times I
teased saying, "And they don't even know about this secret history."  What I
didn't know was how true that has turned out to be.

 

Recently I went back to re-read John Grinder's Whispering in the Wind to
look for any indication that he knew or had any awareness of the
relationship between Maslow, Rogers, the Human Potential Movement, Esalen,
etc. to NLP.  And what I found not only confirmed what I've been saying, but
goes further.  Even today John Grinder does not know about this history!
Apparently he hasn't been reading my books! 

 

What is the evidence?  From his own words, here is some: 

On page 2 of Whispering he makes a list of therapies and he lists
"self-actualization" which he keeps separate from what he and Bandler were
doing in NLP.  He also mentioned Aldous Huxley (p. 26) without indicating
that he had any awareness of his role in the Human Potential Movement (HPM).
He mentioned that Bateson was at Esalen and refers to "a lecture taped at
Esalen Institute just before Bateson's death, available through Esalen" (p.
115)

 

Then he distanced himself from Maslow, the HPM, and Self-Actualization
Psychology when he wrote the following which like his jabs about myself and
Robert Dilts, he here does to Maslow: 

"Relax, Maslow, there is no full realization of human potential, only an
ascending spiral of differences and change." (315)

 

So while Grinder knows about Esalen and Maslow and Self-Actualization, and
even that Bateson was at Esalen, and speaks about them in a general wa, he
does not, even to this day, demonstrates any awareness of their historical
significance to NLP.  He does not seem to know that Bateson, Perls, and
Satir worked together at Esalen and that it was from the context of the
Human Potential Movement that NLP arose.  Perhaps he was, and is, too close
to things to have that expanded historical perspective.

 

In fact, here's my analysis of all of this.   I think that at the beginning
Bandler and Grinder was so close to the idea of picking up the linguistic
distinctions of Perls and Satir (and later Erickson)   that they never
really stepped back to ask, "What's this all about?  What is the larger
frame?  What unites Perls and Satir?"

 

Historically they simply stumbled upon the strange "effectiveness" that
resulted when Richard was mimicking Perls in his "Gestalt Class," which
surprisingly led people in the class to change and transform.  Richard
simply thought it was funny getting people to hallucinate a mom or dad into
a chair and yell at them.  So they began trying to figure out what was the
structure of this "magic."  Their focus was on the details, and since both
were reductionists, or as Grinder admits, "minimalists," they looked down to
the tiniest of distinctions like eye-accessing cues and sensory-specific
linguistic distinctions.  They never looked up.

 

And without looking up, they didn't even ask "What is Perls and Satir doing
that's similar?"  They only asked for differences, "What are they doing
that's different from everyone else?"  This was their original genius-
mismatching for differences.  And by focusing on such, they found some very
unique distinctions that now make up the foundations of NLP.  Yet without
the balance, they also missed something that was right in their face- the
Human Potential Movement which could have given them a big why and tie them
(and hence NLP) to the HPM.

 

Yet the result of their mismatching was that they pushed away from
everything and everybody else working in the field of psychology and
psychotherapy as this sought to create their own unique field.  You can see
this pushing away from everyone else in all of the original NLP books.  And
it is still starkly evident in Whispering where John has to mismatch his
earlier self, Bandler, and a great many leading NLP trainers in the field
today.   Several unfortunate things resulted from this- one being the
inability to define what NLP is.  Of course, it is most fundamentally a
Communication Model, yet it is also a form of psychology, and a field of
modeling.

 

Yet because Bandler and Grinder were so driven by mismatching for
differences, they could not, and would not, connect with all of the sources
that define and position NLP: Gestalt (Perls), Family Systems (Satir),
Cognitive (George Miller, Noam Chomsky), General Semantics (Alfred
Korzybski), Anthropology (Bateson) or the Human Potential Movement (Maslow,
Rogers, Huxley).  So that left NLP out in the cold, alone, disconnected, and
without a history.

 

Yet NLP does have a history- a history that goes back many, many years prior
to Bandler and Grinder.  As with every movement, it grew out of the ideas
and passions of the time and "on the people on whose shoulders they stand"
(even if Grinder has expressed dislike for that phrase!).  NLP's history
goes back to the very fields and people listed above and most of all, it
goes to the movement that Maslow initiated as he pioneered a paradigm shift
in psychology from the sick side to the healthy side.  And that's why we
have made Self-Actualization Psychology the foundation of Neuro-Semantics
and to that extent, re-discovered the fuller history of NLP.

 

[If you were there at the beginning, 1972-5 or in the 1970s or early 1980s
and have some NLP history to share, send to me at  <mailto:meta at acsol.net>
meta at acsol.net.]

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

(ISNS) International Society of Neuro-Semantics

The International Meta-Coach System

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

      <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com 

       <http://www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com/>
www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com 

       <http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org

       <http://www.meta-coaching.org/> www.meta-coaching.org

       www.meta-coachfoundation.org 

       <http://www.ns-video.com/> www.ns-video.com 

 

To sign up for a free subscription to the egroup of Neuro-Semantics
(Neurons) go to  <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com ---
you can  subscribe and unsubscribe there.   Meta Reflection articles by Dr.
Hall are sent out every Monday and meta-Coach Reflections sent out every
Wednesdday to the Meta-Coaches egroup.  Contact Dr. Hall at  meta@ acsol.net


 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://eight.pairlist.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20100712/429f8782/attachment.htm>