words, their processes as well as the content of their communications and activities. The Palo Alto work led to further research at Stanford University and was a major influence on the early developers of NLP.
The focus of activity for NLP itself was, initially, the university at Santa Cruz, California, where the Dean had a vision of creating an environment where different disciplines, ideas and models could come together in a creative way. This whole area of California was a hotbed of ideas and development, including Santa Cruz, Palo Alto and Big Sur, where the famous Esalen Institute was to be formed. In this climate, a group of people at Santa Cruz became interested in personal enhancement, creativity and communications. The underpinning drive which lay behind most of the group’s activities was that of curiosity. This period has been written about in many books on NLP, including The Wild Days: NLP 1972–1981 by Terrence L. McClendon, which gives a highly personal account of the period.
NLP’s best-known founders, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, became part of the wider group at Santa Cruz, working on aspects of development. Bandler studied a range of topics – initially physics and computing, then psychology, philosophy, maths and other subjects. He was also a talented musician. Becoming disillusioned with existing university courses, he explored ways of bringing about practical changes in the fields in which he was working. One of his particular interests was Gestalt psychology and it has fairly recently come to light that a student at the university, Frank Pucelik, was also strongly interested in that subject and the two of them started a Gestalt group where they explored therapeutic approaches.
Bandler formed a close association with John Grinder, who was Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Santa Cruz. Grinder had gained a PhD in San Francisco, where his language studies included the theories of Noam Chomsky, the American linguist. He had been an interpreter in the US army and had engaged in covert operations. He was very experienced in working with language through ‘modelling’ (see Chapter 3), and had learned several languages using this process.
As Bandler had exceptional skills in absorbing other people’s behavioural patterns (in the early days he was referred to as a sponge, because of this ability to ‘become’ another person) and Grinder had great experience of modelling (and was sometimes referred to as a chameleon because of his ability to ‘change his colours without changing himself’), they began working together, with Bandler showing Grinder what he did and Grinder helping him model it. Bandler invited Grinder to observe the Gestalt therapy group that he and Frank Pucelik had set up, so that he could help them deconstruct what they were doing. Grinder helped them add more structure to their activities and the three of them eventually formalized what is known as the ‘Meta-Model’. As this was effectively the start of NLP as we now know it, all three of these people, Bandler, Grinder and Pucelik, should be credited as major founders (and Frank Pucelik believes NLP should still be known instead as Meta). Together (Pucelik left the country at some stage to pursue other interests overseas) they analysed the performance of many people, including some leading therapists – initially Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir, and later Milton Erickson. Although Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson were available face to face, Perls had already died and Bandler’s analysis of how he worked came from studying videotapes of him. It has been reported that Bandler became so focused on Perls that after lengthy periods with the video machine, he would emerge looking and sounding just like Perls, with a German accent and a stoop, and smoking heavily.
Together with Bandler and Grinder, a group formed, working on the various elements which became the foundations of NLP. Each of the emerging techniques was explored and refined on an ongoing basis. As well as working on NLP, people were experimenting with hypnotic techniques and language, including deep trance states, positive and negative hallucination, time distortion and amnesia. Terrence McClendon, in The Wild Days, remarks on the association between NLP and hypnosis: ‘You could say that the NLP techniques are the conscious mind’s model of how the unconscious mind works in hypnosis.’
It is difficult to attribute the emergence of a particular NLP technique to a particular ‘creator’, as the efforts of the whole Santa Cruz group often interrelated in order to allow these forms to emerge. As work continued, the different elements of NLP gradually emerged and many of its original creators and developers are still making further refinements and extensions.
Personal associations were also formed during the period in California. In 1977 Bandler married Leslie Cameron and she became Leslie Cameron Bandler. They were married by Grinder, who was a preacher from the Universal Light Church. The marriage lasted only a year or so. Grinder himself later married Judith DeLozier, with whom he formed Grinder, DeLozier and Associates after parting company with Bandler in the 1980s. His marriage also came to an end some while later and he is now in partnership with Carmen Bostic St Clair.
While they were still working together, Bandler and Grinder set up the Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, originally as a partnership between Bandler’s company Not Limited and Grinder’s company Limited Unlimited. They also formed a publishing company called Meta Publications, which was responsible for many of the notable books in the field of NLP.
In 1977 the Division of Training and Research (DOTAR), a training, development and research operation, was set up in Santa Cruz by Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Judith DeLozier, Leslie Cameron, Maribeth Anderson, Robert Dilts and David Gordon. This was the first NLP training institute and Leslie Cameron was overall Director, David Gordon was Director of Training and Robert Dilts was Director of Research.
By late 1976, some of the people who had been attending Bandler and Grinder’s workshops started to run their own. These people included Byron Lewis, Robert Dilts, Terrence McClendon and Steve Stevens (later Andreas). Also Leslie Cameron Bandler and Judith DeLozier began presenting workshops together.
As the field grew, so some of the original associations began to change and, in particular, the partnership between Richard Bandler and John Grinder came to an end in the early 1980s. Their interests had begun to diverge and they also had different ideas about what the future held in store for NLP. Both, however, continued to be driving forces within NLP and continue to train and write to this day.
NLP was, from its inception, very much about practicalities and application, rather than theory. Questions such as ‘How can this be used?’ and ‘How can this be taught?’ were asked frequently. The legacy of the Santa Cruz group lies, at least in part, in the attitudes of curiosity and usefulness which informed its work. As NLP continues to develop, questions about application and transfer are still foremost in the minds of many working in the field.
NLP IN THE UK
While NLP began life in the USA, the United Kingdom became a focal point for much activity and innovation, with two main strands to its development, involving Eileen Watkins Seymour and Graham Dawes. Together with Gene Early, Ian Cunningham and David Gaster, they made contacts which led to the foundation of the UK Training Centre for Neuro-Linguistic Programming (UKTC).
In Eileen Watkins Seymour’s account of how the field developed in Britain, she relates how in 1979 she was contacted by a fellow student on a humanistic psychology master’s programme in London and agreed to host a meeting with Gene Early and others who were interested in the subject.
Around a dozen people gathered and from this original meeting a study group was formed, which met on a fortnightly basis. Some of the people involved at that time were Michael Mallows, Willie Monteiro, Graham Dawes, Vivienne Gill, John Watson and Frank Kevlin, who later became Chair of the UK Association for Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
By the following year, members of the group became interested in starting some NLP training and Eileen, Gene Early, Graham Dawes, David Gaster and Ian Cunningham initiated the first Diploma programme in the UK, at the London Business School, and the UK Training Centre (UKTC) was born. The Diploma programme lasted eight months, with a focus on quality in both the training and the elements surrounding it. At the time it was the only full-scale NLP training anywhere outside North America.
The aim of the UKTC was to grow people, not to make money, and the whole ethos of the organization reflected this. Sessions