NLP Made Easy. Carol Harris
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showing Grinder what he did and Grinder helping him model it. Together 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 ran from Friday evening through the entire weekend. The first group consisted of 30 people, many of them therapists, and as well as the weekend training, everyone went to a weekly study group. Early trainers on the programme included Gene Early, Barbara Witney, David Gaster, David Gordon and Robert Dilts. Charlotte Bretto and Dave Dobson were also early trainers. Later, master’s programmes were offered, as well as speciality workshops given by visiting trainers from overseas.
By 1987, David Gaster had moved on and Gene Early and Graham Dawes felt it time to hand over the reins. Dudley and Regan Masters, trainers who had graduated from the UKTC, were given the Centre. Eileen was still keen to continue, but decided to ‘let go of [her] baby’. The UKTC only lasted for two further years and was then wound up. Dudley and Regan Masters have not been seen on the NLP scene since and word has it that they became born-again Christians. David Gaster, sadly, died a few years ago. Eileen, in conjunction with Clive Digby-Jones (now her husband), founded and still runs the Ravenscroft Centre in London. Graham Dawes continues his activities in NLP, as does Gene Early. Both are respected figures in their communities.
Several early graduates of the UKTC subsequently set up their own training centres in the UK. Some of the earliest ones were PACE, John Seymour Associates, NLP Training Program, Pace Personal Development and Sensory Systems, as well as associated bodies such as British Hypnosis Research and the Proudfoot School of Hypnosis.
Currently there are over 50 UK training organizations and although it is increasingly difficult to pinpoint individuals or individual organizations as ‘leading edge’, there are many innovative steps being taken which contribute to the development, and professionalism, of NLP in the UK.
In addition to the training organizations, numerous networking and practice groups have sprung up throughout the UK and these provide an opportunity for people at all levels of experience to meet, exchange ideas and work on their own personal and professional development. The most prominent of these started life as the Paddington Group, meeting near Paddington station in central London in the 1990s. This group introduced a wide range of people to NLP and acted as a forum for prominent practitioners from the UK and outside.
The Association for Neuro-Linguistic Programming (ANLP)
Formed in 1985 as a non-profit making organization, the Association for Neuro-Linguistic Programming was, until recently, a registered educational charity, recognized internationally as probably the leading association for those interested in, and using, NLP. Originally set up by Eileen Whicker following an inaugural meeting at the London Business School on 8 May 1985, it was envisaged as an umbrella organization for the development of NLP; in Eileen’s words, ‘setting core standards for training and practice, being a basis for exchanging information and experience, creating links with other NLP bodies, setting standards and ethics, promoting research, keeping abreast of legislation and representing