[Neurons] 2010 Meta Reflections #33

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2010 - #33

July 19, 2010

History of NLP Series #2

 

 

THE HISTORY OF THE BEGINNING

 

 

If you have been a long-term reader of Neurons, you know that one of my
interests for some time has been the History of NLP.  My interest is to
understand the sources of this field and model and the giants upon whose
shoulders we stand.  Understanding our roots also allows us to acknowledge
sources as any professional would do as well as to be able to see the
strengths and weaknesses of the models that we have inherited.

 

Two years ago I wrote some of the history of NLP in Self-Actualization
Psychology (2008).  Prior to that, I published that same content as articles
in various publications (i.e., Resource, London) and in an NLP Book
published in India (Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Concepts and Applications,
edited by Kunal Gaurav, 2008).

 

To know your history enables to know yourself- the narrative of the stories
that define how a group started, why, the antecedents that set up the
original direction, and how things evolved in the intervening years.  This
is also one of the things we do in NSTT as we prepare people to become
trainers and leaders in Neuro-Semantics.  Our aim is to provide a historical
perspective of NLP and Neuro-Semantics.  We also do that for a specific
purpose- to equip those who are becoming trainers to know our history and
understand the forces that have led to the experiences and conditions that
they will find in this field.  We do that to understand the people, ideas,
and influences that have contributed to creating the field as we know it
today.

 

So how did it all get started?  By accident.  It was all a combination of
some strange coincidences.  A young student at KresgeCollege at the
University of California in Santa Cruz needed some extra money and so worked
in the stockroom for Science and Behavior Books.  And then somewhere after
1970 that led to him being asked to transcribe tapes of Fritz Perls.  Now
the gift that Richard Bandler had at that time was that of hearing, as a
rock-star-wanta-be, he played the guitar and could hear with precision and
then he found that he could mimic what he heard.

 

So later Dr. Robert Spitzer would write that he would go into the room where
Richard was transcribing the tapes and Richard would speak in the voice,
tone, tempo, etc. of Fritz Perls and Dr. Spitzer would sometimes accidently
call him "Fritz."  That got Richard interested in Gestalt.  On one occasion
Richard said that he was house setting for a professor, found a book on
Gestalt in the library and thought that the idea of hallucinating your mom
or dad into a chair and yell at them about your disappointments was great
stand-up comedian stuff.  But then after Fritz died (January 1970) Spitzer
asked him to finish transcribing and editing the materials for a book.  That
became the book, The Gestalt Approach and Eye Witness to Therapy, published
in May 1973. 

 

The films and the transcribing gave Richard some experience with Gestalt and
so in the spring of 1972, as a fourth year student, he was allowed to create
his own curriculum for a class.  That's when he "taught" a "student directed
seminar on Gestalt Therapy." (McClendon, Wild Days, 1989, p. 9).  And that
had to be under the supervision of a professor, and that's how John Grinder
got involved.

 

What surprised them both was that by merely repeating the Gestalt language
patterns, Richard was able to "do Gestalt" and the participants began to
experience some tremendous changes in their lives.  How did that happen?
And that led to the mythical story of their original collaboration: John
would analyze the linguistic patterns that Richard was using to make
explicit the "magic" of the transformations and Richard would show John how
he was doing what he was doing so he could learn to do it as well.

 

Somewhere about the same time, Dr. Spitzer wanted audio-tapes made of
Virginia Satir and so sent Richard to Canada to record her and then
transcribe those tapes.  This led to integrating Satir's language patterns,
those of Family Reconstructions with those of the Gestalt awareness,
empty-chair, and encounter processes.  It began with their use of the
"Encounter Group" as they had inherited it from Fritz, but because they were
not therapists themselves, and had no training in such, they sought to
understand what was happening using the tools (and theories) from other
fields- primarily linguistics (transformational grammar) and computer
modeling.

 

And that's how the adventure began.  They happened upon two people who were
leaders in the Human Potential Movement (which they either ignored or just
didn't know) who were excellent in facilitating change and development in
people using their separate models and understandings about people.  So
simply replicating those patterns and seeking to understand what was going
on within the people due to the re-languaging and the re-patterning, they
stumbled on a somewhat theory-free form of therapy (they thought they were
modeling without any theory, but they did have a theory.  But I'll leave
that for later.)

 

To this format now add their attitude.   That was a key to what happened as
well.  Both men were absolutely curious and playful and "Richard had a flair
for the bizarre."  They both sorted for differences, each had a lust for
life, a "go for it" attitude and they were willing to play around so that if
something didn't work, they'd do something different.  And it was in that
mix that NLP emerged a little bit at a time beginning in 1972 and fully as a
model (the Meta-Model) in 1975.




 

 

 

 

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 

 

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Wednesdday to the Meta-Coaches egroup.  Contact Dr. Hall at  meta@ acsol.net


 

 

 

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