[Neurons] 2010 Meta Reflections #40

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2010 – #40

August 23, 2010

History of NLP Series #6

 

 

THE 1980s

WHEN NLP FRAGMENTED

 

 

The 1980s started out pretty well for the field of NLP, but it did not end
that way.  In fact, almost as soon as the 1980s began, the field began
dividing into various divisions as both founders led the way by going their
separate ways.  By the end of the 80s, each was claiming to do “pure NLP”
and essentially “dissing” the other.  As the 80s others were creating their
versions of NLP and creating separate “kingdoms.”  What a sad development
for such a dynamic field.

 

Now the 1980s actually began in a wonderful way with the publication of
“Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Volume I” (1980) by Robert Dilts published by
Meta Publications.  Robert had been commissioned to write that book back in
1978 having written a document on strategies that impressed both Richard and
John.  And this book, along with Robert’s other original books on NLP, went
a long way to establishing the credibility of NLP.

 

Many years later, Oakley Gordon wrote a two part article in Anchor Point,
“What is NLP?  A Brief History” (May and July 1995).  In those articles, he
wrote in part the following:

“‘Volume I’ implies a ‘Volume II’.  The second volume was to present the
modeling techniques of NLP, the processes by which the NLP developers
modeled excellence in human behavior.  The project was aborted, however, due
to the dissolution of the community of NLP developers.” (p. 14, Anchor
Point, July 1995).

 

And so the vision of a series of volumes on NLP came to an end immediately
after the first one.  No other volume in that series ever appeared.  Many
years later when I wrote NLP Going Meta (1997/ 2004) I contacted Meta
Publications and asked Fred Tappa for permission to name it “NLP: Volume
II.”  He said the term was reserved for the next volume and that was 1997—
17 years later!  At the time I thought Fred was holding onto hope; but
looking back my guess is that it was a joke and I just didn’t get it(!) at
that time.  The very next year, 1981, the first law suit between Bandler and
Grinder occurred and as McClendon noted in The Wild Days of NLP, “Bandler
bought John out of the Society” of NLP (p. 117).

 

About this dissolution of the society (and the community to a great extent)
the collaboration between the original developers came to an end.  Gordon
(1995) noted:

“While there was some degree of tracking each other’s innovations, the
overall effect of the breakup of the original group was a diversification in
the trajectories of NLP with a resulting blurring of its definition.” (p.
16)

 

So in a way, the 1980s brought so many challenges to the field that in some
ways it is really surprising that NLP survived the 80s.  Now among the
challenges to the field, one of the strangest was Grinder’s attack on the
original formulations of NLP.  In 1983 Grinder and DeLozier decide the whole
field was wrongly oriented and formulated and so created a “New Code” to
replace the old code of NLP.  Grinder went on to argue against the focus on
conscious awareness in NLP claiming the “unconscious mind” as more
intelligent and less likely to error.  So the idea of “running your own
brain,” so central to NLP (as per Bandler’s 1985 book, Running Your Brain
for a Change), was called into question.

 

1986: Bandler provided his own challenges to the field due to actions in his
personal life.  In the middle of the 1980s he was arrested, charged with an
account of murder, and spent 120 days in county jail.  That certainly didn’t
do the field of NLP any good!  Steve Andreas lead a defense fund for Richard
and personally provided $60,000 to Richard for the trial.  What happened? A
young woman, Corine Christensen, was shot by a .357 magnum revolver, the
only other persons in the house was Richard Bandler and James Marino, an
admitted cocaine dealer and her boyfriend.  Though it was Marino’s house and
although they had been fighting, the district attorney decided that the
evidence pointed to Richard than the drug dealer!  Anyway this lasted from
1986 to 1988 and ended in the grand jury unable to decide, so the charge was
dropped.  But, of course, not without the trial hitting the headlines in
many papers and journals— including a scathing review in Mother Jones
magazine that you can still find on various websites.

 

Another Bandler lawsuit occurred sometime later (1988 or 1989) against Tony
Robbins.  That one was against Robbins because he was not certifying people
as NLP Practitioners or Master Practitioners through The Society of NLP.
Settled in 1990 out of court with Tony promising to “certify people through
the Society and pay his $200 for each one certified in NLP,” he promptly
stopped training “NLP” as such and invented a new name, NAC— Neural
Associative Conditioning.  And so with that Richard Bandler essentially
chased Robbins away from the field with the result that even to this day
Anthony Robbins will not say the three letters, NLP, when he is on Larry
King or other international television programs.  Richard just chased away
the greatest salesman he could have ever had!

 

Another conflict arose during my Master Practitioner training in San Diego,
1989.  One of the trainer there was Tad James.  He had been participating in
the Bandler trainings, but this time was different.  Apparently without
informing Bandler, Tad had claim ownership of the Time-Lines model that
Bandler had created and had filed a trademark for “time-line therapy” (which
by the way was never registered).  From the stories I heard from trainers
who were there, Richard and Tad argued loudly about this and almost came to
blows.  So that ended their relationship.  After that Tad introduced his
many versions of New Age religions including Huna into his sect of NLP.

 

With all of this fragmentation, many new Associations were created
throughout the 1980s, but by the end of the 1980s, there was no
International Association or body to govern the field of NLP.  Again, Oakley
Gordon (1995) write in Anchor Point:

“There is no organization with the authority to pass judgment on the quality
of the diverse NLP training programs currently being offered, or even to
define what is, and what is not, NLP.” (p. 17) ...   For the field of NLP
has no single voice, no universally agreed upon definition, no quality
control over what is offered under its name.  An outside entering these
waters may encounter anything from the sublime to the ridiculous.” (p. 18)

 

On a very positive note, it was during the 1980s that NLP went global.  It
was introduced into England 1981 or 2; then to Europe in the early 1980s,
NLP came to Hong Kong in 1982, and so it went.  Men and women from around
the world began showing up in Santa Cruz and other places in America where
NLP was being taught and then taking it home to their own countries.  When
and by whom NLP was taken abroad is much of the story that I don’t know so
if you do know specific details, do let me know.

 

So the decade that began so positively and that began to see the spread of
NLP everywhere, a decade that began with so much hope ended in
fragmentation, embarrassment, and conflict.  It’s the way of many movements,
perhaps most movements.  And yet for a movement about positive psychology,
human excellence, and all based on a cutting-edge communication model— the
1980s were really a challenging time for the field of NLP. 

 

 

Upcoming Trainings --- 




In September — 3-5, 6-8, and 10-12

 

What               Unleashing Vitality —             Sept. 3-5


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Coaching Mastery — Module III of Meta-Coaching

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                                    Niklas Daver,
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In November 2010 — Nov. 15– 16

 

What:                          Unleashing Potentials

When:                          November 15– 16, 2010

Where:                        Bedfordshire, England

Time:                           9:00 am — 6:00 pm 

 

Organizers:                 Joe and Melody Cheal [
<mailto:joe.cheal at gwiztraining.com> joe.cheal at gwiztraining.com] 

Contact Info.: email:  <mailto:info at gwiztraining.com> info at gwiztraining.com 

                                    phone: 01767 640956

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The GWiz Learning Partnership

 

 

In November 2010 — Nov. 19-21 

 

What                           Unleashing Vitality

When:                          November 19– 21

Where                         City Hotel — North Central Italy

                                    I-40026 Imola BO

Airport                         Bologna ( <http://foxyurl.com/4qg>
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Time:                           9 am to 6 pm.

Contact details            Nicola Riva and Lucia Giovannini

                                    mobile: +39 348 5600507

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                                    Discount for enrollment before August
20th.

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, International Society of Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

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