NLP is the study of excellence in human behavior according to many people. It has had a controversial history filled with intellectual property copyright lawsuits and is one of the best publicized therapeutic models in history.
NLP was first created by Dr. Richard Bandler and Dr. John Grinder in the 1970s. The two founders of the NLP movement already had a long history of academic excellence. Bandler was a computer programmer and Grinder a linguist and author. They lived in California and spent time with people like Fritz Perls, creator of Gestalt therapy, and Virginia Satir, founder of family therapy. They later studied Dr. Milton Erickson, considered the world’s greatest medical hypnotist at the time.
Bandler and Grinder applied what is now known as Modeling to the work of Satir, Perls, and Erickson. The modeling process studies the behavior of experts in such detail that it even takes into account how the person is standing and breathing, whether or not they blink while performing an action, and what effect this has on their performance. After collecting this behavioral data, it is used to teach others to get the same or even better results by doing exactly what the experts had done.
The results were remarkable and NLP was hailed by many as magical. NLP shortened the time needed to treat PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and other processes we developed to create rapid change. The therapy no longer needed to be carried out for years or even decades and the world had turned around, or so it seemed.
Things took a turn for the worse when Richard Bandler addressed the American Association of Psychotherapists and is said to have told the assembled members that they were ineffective as therapists.
This is what started a controversy surrounding neuro-linguistic programming and its origins. It was said that much of what Bandler and Grinder wrote was taken from the work of William James, the father of modern psychology.
When John Grinder and Richard Bandler parted ways in the early 1980s, there was more controversy over who owned the copyright to the term Neuro-Linguistic Programming. There were lengthy court cases that ultimately decided that neither party could establish copyright. However, other co-developers of NLP, such as Dr. Michael Hall, changed the name of what he taught to Neuro Semantics to avoid any litigation or potential litigation. Other NLP practitioners like Tony Robbins also changed the name of what they taught.
Despite its turbulent and somewhat checkered history, NLP is taught to thousands of people around the world each year and is currently trying to shake off its shady reputation by conducting scientific research that will ultimately validate the claims made about it.
