[Neurons] 2010 Meta Reflections #38

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall 

Meta Reflections 2010 - #38

August 16, 2010

History of NLP Series #5

 

 

THE INVIGORATING 1970s

 

It all began with the creative collaboration of Bandler and Grinder which
apparently occurred in 1973 to 1975.  It was in 1974 that they collaborated
on the writing of Structure of Magic I and II (published in 1975) and
Patterns of the Hypnotic Patterns of Milton H. Erickson (published in 1975
and 1976).  "What was within the original mix out of which came
"Neuro-Lingiustic Programming?"

1) Gestalt Therapy (Perls) and 2) Family Systems Therapy (Satir) as viewed
through the theoretical formulations of 3) Transformational Grammar
(Chomsky) and 4) the Cognitive Psychology Movement (Miller, Pribram,
Gallanter) and 5) the Anthropological and Systems approach of Bateson.

 

This is the psychology of NLP as well as the philosophy of NLP.   So what
became NLP was truly an inter-disciplinary field from the beginning.  Its
theoretical and philosophical foundations come from Anthropology, Neurology,
Psychology, Physiology, Linguistics (Transformational Grammar), Systems,
General Semantics, Cybernetics, and Communication Theory.  Many "NLP
Trainers" either don't know this or don't communicate this foundation- to
the detriment of those entering this field.

 

Who were the people who started it?  NLP began with a young college student
along with an associate professor.  When it all began Richard Bandler was
only 21 years old (in 1972) and a student at Kresge College.  Myths have him
as a mathematician and a computer science, but he never received any degree
mathematics or computer science and such things were not part of the
original models.  As a matter of fact, Richard was not a Gestalt therapist,
he was not a mathematician, and he was not a computer scientist.  He was in
his third or fourth year, it wasn't until 1973 that he got his bachelor's
degree in philosophy and psychology (not in mathematics or computer
science).  His master's degree was also in Psychology.   And John Grinder
was 32 (in 1972), had just completed his doctorate degree (1971) in
linguistics, "On Deletion Phenomena in English."

 

The Modeling of three experts in therapeutic communication.  Each of these
experts had a different model and focus.  Each also had a very different
style and yet somehow each was able to facilitate transformational change
that struck people as fascinating and amazing.  Perls, Satir, and Erickson
were the three original models.  Yet what no book on NLP before 2007 ever
noted was that Perls, Satir, and Bateson knew each other and worked together
at Esalen as part of the Human Potential Movement (Self-Actualization
Psychology, 2008).

1972 Fritz Perls was the first person modeled, but not in person.  He died
in January 1970 in Chicago after spending most of 1969 in Canada attempting
to establish a Gestalt community there.  There are mythical stories that
Bandler has propagated about meeting Perls, but I have not been able to find
any evidence of those stories.  What apparently happened was that Richard
read and studied various books on Gestalt and then learned the language
patterns and voice emphasis from the tapes of Perls so that he was able to
replicate those patterns.  He then taught a Gestalt Class in 1973.  Dr.
Spitzer later wrote about this:

            "Richard spent day after day wearing ear phones watch watching
the films -making certain that the transcription was accurate.  He came out
of it talking and acting like Fritz Perls.  I found myself accidently
calling him Fritz on several occasions." (p. 41)

[Spitzer, Robert S. (1992).  Virginia Satir and the Origins of NLP.  Anchor
Point.  July, 1992, pp. 40-44]

 

1973 Virginia Satir was doing a Family System's Reconstruction and Robert
Spitzer sent Richard Bandler to record the program.  Richard apparently
picked up on her patterns and processes while sitting in the small recording
room.  One story has it that he was listening to Pink Floyd cassettes and
Virginia got upset and confronted him.  His response was that "Anyone could
do this stuff" and so Virginia challenged him to show what he could do.
When he was able to replicate the patterns, Virginia was surprised and
amazed.

"During the summer of '73 Richard was asked to record for transcription a
seminar Virginia Satir was doing in Cold Harbor, Canada." [Interview with J.
Grinder by Patrick Merlevede, 1999,  NLP World, Volume 5, No. 1, p. 51.]

 

1974 Gregory Bateson introduced Richard and John to Milton Erickson.  Milton
Erickson, a medical doctor (MD) and psychiatrist in Phoenix Arizona who had
established the credibility of medical hypnosis, from which Ericksonian
Hypnotherapy evolved.  Two books were immediately produced from modeling
Erickson, Patterns of the Hypnotic Patterns of Milton H. Erickson.  In NLP,
this became known as "the Milton Model."  It is about the language patterns
and processes that comprise the heart of trance.

 

About the same time that The Structure of Magic books were published, 1975,
Bandler got his master's degree from Lone Mountain College in San Francisco.
If you google "Richard Bandler" there are many websites that provide the
following information: 

                "Born: February 24, 1950) is the co-inventor (with John
Grinder) of Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).  Bandler holds a BA (1973)
in Philosophy and Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz
(UCSC), and an MA (1975) in Psychology from Lone Mountain College in San
Francisco.  Bandler has no earned doctorate.  There are various
(unsubstantiated) reports (on alt.psychology.nlp) that Bandler has been
awarded two honorary doctorates though the details of these awards are not
specified."

 

So 1975 is the date usually given for the beginning of NLP.  That was the
date of the publication of the original books that brought together the
original discoveries of the language patterns of Perls and Satir.  Now one
story that I heard in the late 1980s was that the University of Southern
California at Santa Cruz wanted to grant Bandler recognition for his
co-creation of the new model but that he had not finished his thesis, so
Grinder wrote it for him.  But apparently that's not accurate, his master's
degree wasn't granted from that university, but from Lone Mountain College
in San Francisco.  There must be a story behind that, but I don't know that
one.

 

What was NLP called before it was called NLP?   I don't know.  Rodger C.
Bailey (1991) says that Bandler and Grinder "came up with the name [NLP] in
1977." [Anchor Point, Is It Time to Restructure NLP?, Oct. 1991, p. 20].  I
had not noticed that before, but when I flipped through The Structure of
Magic volumes, it does not appear to be there.  The only terminology used
there was "The Meta-Model of Language in Therapy."  Isabelle David, Montreal
Canada, tells the story of Richard and John up at the log cabin in the
mountains, after many hours and a bottle of California wine asking
themselves, "What the hell are we going to call this?"  And they decided on
Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

 

I heard a different story from Richard in 1989.  He told about being pulled
over on the highway by a policeman and being asked, "Who are you?  What do
you do?"  And Richard, looking in the back seat of his car saw a book on
Linguistics, one on Neurology, and one on Computer Programming, so he said,
"I'm a Neuro-Linguistic Programmer."   Of course, many, many years before
all of this, Alfred Korzybski (1933) wrote about "neuro-linguistic" and
"neuro-semantic" training and processes and in fact, Korzybski traveled the
United States in the 1940s doing "Neuro-Linguistic Training."  So who knows
the real story.  Given that "the map is not the territory" came from
Korzybski who constantly used the term Neuro-Linguistic, I would put my
money on him being the original source.

 

1976 Robert Dilts wrote his first papers on what was later titled, "Roots of
Neuro-Linguistic Programming" (later published under that title by Meta
Publications, 1983). 

 

1977 NLP Taught for the first time as "NLP."    Richard and Leslie were
married that year and then divorced in 1980.  This was the year also that
Leslie founded "The Society of NLP" over which the lawsuits in 1981 and
1996-2000 were about.

 

1978: David Gordon, a psychotherapist, took the basic NLP models and wrote
the book Therapeutic Metaphors.  1978 also was the year that Bandler and
Grinder ended their collaboration.  Bateson moved to Esalen as the
scholar-in-residence and died in 1980.  This year also Richard and John
commissioned Robert Dilts to write NLP Volume I.  Robert had written a
paper, "NLP: A New Psychotherapy." (McClendon, p. 103).  Steve Johns left
Gestalt therapy and entered NLP and become Steve Andreas (his mother Barry
Stevens, owned Real People Press, a devotee of Fritz Perls).

 

1979: Daniel Goleman visited Bandler and Grinder and wrote an article in
Psychology Today, "The People who Read People."  In this year Leslie Cameron
Bandler developed the first curriculum of NLP for the first Practitioner and
Master Practitioner courses in 1979 and the first Trainers course was 1980.
Rodger Bailey says that within the original curriculum a dilemma was
introduced. 

"The modeling technologies and the psycho-therapeutic models were mashed
together into a single, undifferentiated curriculum.  People did not learn
that Strategy Elicitation is a modeling technology and that V-K
Disassociation is a psycho-therapeutic model." (P. 21, Anchor Point, Oct.
1991).

 

During these early years of the 1970s John formed Grinder, DeLozier and
Associates and Richard had his company, Not Limited.  From The Wild Days of
NLP, we learn that Leslie joined with Michael Labeau and David Gordon,
Robert Dilts; Terry McClendon joined with Robert Dilts; and Frank Pucelik
created a partnership with Byron Lewis.  

 

In an Interview with David Gordon, Patrick Merlevede writes in NLP World
about 1978-1979: 

"First Institute in San Francisco, called DOTAR (Division of Training and
Research) ... situated in a converted church which they used as a seminar
room.  Leslie Cameron was the director of the Institute, Robert Dilts the
director of research, and David the director of training.  They worked
together, basically every day, creating the field, including the first
practitioner and master practitioner programs, but also working with private
clients.  Richard and John mainly acted as patriarchs. ... The DOTAR period
was probably the most productive in the NLP field.  It went on until 1982."
(p. 63). [Merlevede, Patrick E. (2000). Volume 7, No. 1.  The Story of David
[Gordon].  pp. 61-64]

 

So the 1970s were indeed invigorating years for NLP as it was first
launched!




 

Upcoming Trainings -  See Website for details:

 

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APG - NLP Conference - Brazil                      Sept. 22-24

Unleashing Leadership - Avignon France      Oct. 1-3

ACMC Coaching Mastery - Stockholm Sweden - Oct. 7-14

 

 

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, International Society of Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

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

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