[Neurons] 2016 "Neurons" #43 Steve & Connaire Andreas' Contributions to NLP

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2016 "Neurons" Meta Reflections - #43

September 12, 2016

Reflections about NLP #8

 

 

STEVE AND CONNAIRE ANDREAS'

CONTRIBUTIONS TO NLP

 

 


With seven posts on the primary contributors to the development of NLP which
Bandler, Grinder, and Pucelik relied on, yet another source is one that I
cannot overlook- Steve and Connaire Andreas.  In fact, in my opinion, it was
the early contributions of Connaire and Steve Andreas that significantly
helped to put NLP on the map.  That's because it was their seminar books of
Bandler and Grinder that primarily got the word out.  And that's because of
a singular fact- you could read those books!   Does that imply you can't
read The Structure of Magic?  Yes, those are not very readable books.  If
NLP was dependent on those books communicating NLP, it would have had an
early death!

 

It was the later books, and especially the four "seminar books" from the
Andreas' that began spreading the word about Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
The first NLP book that I bought and read (well, actually "devoured"!) was
Frogs Into Princes (1979), then Trance-formations: Neuro-Linguistic
Programming and the Structure of Hypnosis (1981)- a big seller, selling
350,000 in the first few years!  No other NLP book until Robbins sold those
kinds of nubmers.  Then, Reframing: NLP and the Transformation of Meaning
(1982), and then Using Your Brain - For a Change (1985).

 

These books came from the actual trainings and workshops that Richard and
John were doing, and mostly recorded what Richard was doing.  Similar to
what Robert Dilts had been doing since 1975, they began doing-sequencing,
systematizing, and organizing the NLP materials.  They were also business
savvy and then created the first NLP Training Center that lasted more than a
year or two.  Decades later, "NLP Comprehensive" of Boulder Colorado became
the stable, ongoing Training Center- where they brought Richard in to NLP
Comprehensive repeatedly over the years to introduce their work and whatever
they were newly working on and later John (which then triggers Bandler's
lawsuit against the field of NLP in the United States, but that's another
story.)

 

After the seminar books (1979- 1982), they began writing their own books and
developing new patterns.  First Change Your Mind and Keep the Change (1987)
and then Heart of the Mind: Engaging Your Inner Power to Change (1989).  In
Change Your Mind Richard Bandler wrote this: 

"Steve and Connirae are among the few who have gone on to use NLP modeling
techniques to develop useful new patterns, and this is evident in ...
Chapter 8, 'A Strategy for Responding to Criticism..." (1987, p. v, italics
added)

 

Now what makes the Andreas especially fascinating to the history of NLP and
those who contributed to its development is Steve's history prior to NLP.
Before NLP, he had a different name, he was John O. Stevens- a key thinker
and developer in Gestalt Therapy and he was a well-known, even famous,
Gestalt Therapist!  Further, John O. Stevens had also published several
books about Gestalt Therapy.  Before NLP even began, he edited and published
Awareness: Exploring, Experimenting, Experiencing (1971).  Then, in the same
year that the first book on NLP was published, he published  Gestalt Is
(1975).   Further, he did this via the Gestalt Publishing Company, Real
People Press, which his mother, Barry Stevens had created years earlier.

 

So the Gestalt history of NLP with Fritz Perls goes back through the
relationships he had with Barry Stevens, Real People Press, and John O.
Stevens who became Steve Andreas.  For example, Barry Stevens' book, Don't
Push the River (1970) tells the story of her life with Fritz and their time
together when he moved from Esalen to Canada to establish a Gestalt Kibbutz
there.  During that time Fritz, as his self-proclaimed title, "a dirty old
man" (mentioned in his auto-biography, In and Out of the Garbage Can) had
numerous relationships.

 

Interesting enough, when NLP began Fritz Perls was already dead.  Yet before
that, when Steve Andreas came into NLP in 1977, he brought in his personal
acquaintance with Fritz Perls- something that neither Bandler, Grinder, or
Pucelik had.  By contrast, Steve learned Gestalt Therapy directly from Fritz
Perls.

"He learned Gestalt Therapy from Fritz Perls, and combined Gestalt with
teaching psychology and social science at Diablo Valley College, California,
for seven years.  Out of this came his book of Gestalt awareness
experiments, Awareness: Exploring, Experimenting, Experiencing (1970)."
(Transforming Your Self: Becoming Who You Want to Be, 2002, p. 274)

 

Yet there's more historical connections.  Steve received his Master's degree
in Psychology at Brandeis University in 1961 where he had studied with none
other than Abraham Maslow himself.  So if there was anyone who was the
direct link between the Human Potential Movement and NLP, it was Steve
Andreas.  Then after studying with Maslow, he studied with Carl Rogers!
Some years ago I asked Steve about his relationship to Esalen after he
learned NLP.  He said he did return to Esalen and presented classes on
Gestalt, but not on NLP. [As an aside, several of the early developers did
speak at Esalen and presented NLP, James Eicher did in 1978 (Origins, p.
119) as did Robert Dilts and Terry McClendon.]

 

 

Yes, the new book "GET REAL: UNLEASHING AUTHENTCITY" (2016) is still
available at the discount price for one more week.  Go to ---

              www.neurosemantics.com 

              Click "Trainers"            

              Click "Pay a Statement"

 

Copies are $20.  Shipping in the US ($6) and outside the USA ($34) . can put
1 to 3 books in the post office packages.  

              Multiply Number of books --- times $20

              Add Shipping.  Put into "Pay a Statement"

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

               Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

               Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

                    Dr. Hall's email:
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