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NLP Associations and Credentials

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In the world of NLP training, there is no regulation of standards, syllabus content, duration of training nor levels of competency. At the same time, there are plenty of groups of people purporting to be professional or other NLP associations representing the interests of their members and offering cut price insurance.  This has become possible because John Grinder and Richard Bandler, in the best tradition of revolutionary activity, failed to identify and define the parameters for standards and training practice in NLP when they were in a position to do so.  At that time, the Society of NLP could have become the “official” organ and developed in due course into a statutory body. How bourgeois then, but how much better for the field in the long run.  

Instead, we have, for example, the ABNLP, BBNLP, INLPTA, NLPTRB, ANLP, AINLP, Society of NLP, Professional Guild of NLP and others from time to time, all of which are non-official, non-accredited bodies with the authority of a puff of hot air.  These bodies endorse NLP trainers and the certification of so-called “Practitioners” and “Master Practitioners” and in some cases “Trainers” and “Master Trainers”.

American Pacific University, which is associated with an NLP training organisation and an NLP association, has no charter, no Act of Congress, and is not accredited as a university (see www.ossc.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html), nor is it recognised in the Academic world. This kind of organisation is known as a “Degree Mill” and is illegal in much of the developed world. As a counter example, NLP University, to its credit, does not claim to be a university and states in its literature that it does not offer educational qualifications.

Many NLP organisations claim “international recognition or accreditation”. The Australian government describes this kind of program as a “hobby course” and requires GST to be paid on their fees.  Here are some definitions:

Accreditation, Endorsed and Internationally accredited

“Accreditation” means that a government has approved the program and training organization and has included them in its list of qualifications and approved institutions.   Universities are accredited under Royal Charter or Act of Parliament or Congress.  Registered training organisations in Australia are accredited nationally, through state training bodies, to offer nationally accredited training.

“Endorsed” means that a non-official, non-government organisation or person approves of a trainer and or their program. Endorsement may be worth more or less according to the expertise and standing of the endorsing entity and the subject of the endorsement. It has no official standing. “Internationally recognised” as used in NLP promotional literature, means that the proponent is trying to make a non-accredited program or organisation look accredited. What they mean is that some non-official person or body has endorsed it.

“Internationally accredited” means the same as “internationally recognised” and neither carries any authority.

You, reader, have the right to designate yourself a master practitioner right now, if you so choose, and no one can stop you. On the other hand, if anyone claims to have a degree when they do not, the full process of law is available to stop them. To have that privilege in NLP, we need worthwhile standards, accredited qualifications and a statutory body.

Twenty years ago, the associations were doing their best to keep NLP training in the hands of experts and to restrict membership to those who had completed 21 days of live training as practitioners and a total of 40 days to become master practitioners and been assessed as competent by association approved assessors. For a while, self-regulation seemed to work. Then the duration of practitioner training started to slip until the lowest was seven days with a distance learning component and scripted formats instead of patterns. The purveyors of short training programs marketed them aggressively, and from 1990 on, the seven day practitioners sought full membership of the associations, which needed members to stay in business. As these people acquired voting rights, the standards fell.

At Inspiritive, before we became a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) and chose the route of government accreditation, we had involvement with three associations. Each one was taken over subsequently by a majority of people who wanted lower standards. In the first case, it was to boost membership, in the second, it was to allow members to compete in the now debased market place and in the third case, it was ignorance of the distinction between patterns and content that prompted the change. One or more of these interests has reduced the capacity of any non-official body we have encountered, not just the above three, to promote accurate, comprehensive NLP that conforms to the descriptions in Grinder and Bostic’s “Whispering in the Wind“. Until there is one that does, we shall not be seeking their endorsement.

Instead, Inspiritive has become a Registered Training Organisation and has had a 450 hour Graduate Certificate in NLP accredited by the Australian government. We also have the honour to be endorsed by Dr. John Grinder, the co-originator of the field. Our course is all NLP, taught in a New Code framework to facilitate unconscious uptake of the patterns and natural, spontaneous behaviour with NLP thereafter. We distinguish between patterns and content, teach patterns and only identify content models that have been placed, erroneously in our opinions, in the field of NLP so that our students can learn to place learning materials in their proper context.

Learn more

Check our 10970NAT Graduate Certificate in Neuro-Linguistic Programming program.

(Note: If you would like to learn more about the New Code of NLP you can get a copy of  our latest Kindle book ‘AEGIS: Patterns for extending your reach in life, work & leisure’ by Jules Collingwood, NLP Trainer. For only $4.99 here).

Learn more about NLP, read our Ultimate NLP Compendium of NLP

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The Myth in NLP of the Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic Person

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Today, one of the hallmarks of a lack of appreciation of NLP is the notion that we “are” a representational system, as in “you are a visual, he is an auditory and I am a kinaesthetic”. A variation is “you are an auditory to visual to kinaesthetic and he is a visual to kinaesthetic to auditory” but this is just as benighted, only the box is bigger and if the very idea confuses you, that is how its user gets people to believe it. People do not have single, fixed sequences of thinking, however much they try to box ideas. How facile to attempt to identify a person on a single or small sample of expression, but this class of identification does make an excellent criterion to include in seeking a possible source of NLP training or practice.

Representational System Model

Representational systems is the name of a model of the way we code and order our thinking, memory and imagination. The model proposes that people think in combinations and sequences of images, sounds and sensations, tastes and scents. These internal representations match our external senses and when elicited in an associated form, like the sensory experience of being there, use the same neurological circuits as sensory experience. We distinguish linguistically between live sensory experience and internal representation by referring to sensory or representational vision, sound, feeling etc.

Everyone can use all internal representational systems simultaneously when attending internally, just as we can attend externally with all our senses, but often, only one system is in conscious awareness at any given moment. The supporting observations for this rely on personal reporting, choice of sensory specific words, known as “predicates” and the external evidence of eye accessing cues.

Eye Accessing Model

The eye accessing model proposes that people use location to gain access to the content of memory and imagination (this includes patterns). Material in different representations is accessed from particular locations by a flick of the eyes in the appropriate direction. The majority of people access visual representations by flicking their eyes above the eye line. Auditory or sound representations are sourced horizontally and feeling, both sensation and proprioception are found below eye level.

The distinction between accessing memory or constructed ideas is less clear cut. While there is a majority that keeps memory to the left of the body and imagination to the right, there is a sizable minority that does the reverse. Contrary to speculation in some NLP literature, the idea of a “normally organised right handed person” is not reliable. Ideally, to use eye accessing to assist someone retrieve information, we need to know exactly where each class of information resides for that person. We do this by asking questions to elicit deliberate accessing in each representational system and with reference to the past or the future. Questioning for future accessing needs to seek completely fresh ideas to ensure they have not been transferred to memory.

When information is accessed, it can be reviewed with the eyes on its location or it can be brought into our visual and/or auditory field and/or felt, smelled, tasted in the body. We can detect sequences of representation in someone else’s thinking through the sensory predicates they use and the directions of their eye movements.

Using Representational Systems

There is a choice, usually exercised unconsciously, of being aware of one or more representations simultaneously. When a memory or proposed situation is activated, we can become totally engrossed in it as if we were present in real time. Then we can experience all representational systems at once. If we represent the information as if from a distance, we might only see it or hear it, but in both these possibilities, use of more than one representational system is simultaneous.

Synaesthesia is another option. This occurs when we experience a representation, usually in a different system, in response to a sensory input or representation. Examples include, see favourite pet – feel warm glow; hear scratch on blackboard – feel teeth stand to attention; hear piece of music – see selection of colours. Synaesthesia is also the structure of phobias; see or hear phobic stimulus – experience disproportionately nasty feeling. The eye accessing evidence can be a fast flick of the eyes from one system to another, but this is seen with rapid multi-representational thought as well. If the eyes are defocused and facing front, this usually indicates a synaesthesia is happening. Synaesthesia can include more than two representational systems, though most reporting refers to two.

Outside NLP, most people are unaware of the way they use their internal representations or even that they have them. Synaesthesia is commonly defined as a condition a few people exhibit, not a choice. Some people are convinced they do not visualise and cannot learn to do it. In NLP, it is presupposed that we can learn to track our current uses of internal representations and learn to use the parts we have not known before. We can separate unwanted synaesthesias, create new and desirable ones, expand our repertoire of thinking by including habitually ignored representations and facilitate our capacity to learn with deliberate mental photographs and sound recordings. We can change the meaning we attribute to any content we think about by altering the size, volume, bandwidth, clarity, shape, brightness, temperature, distance, speed etc: of our representations of it. This uses a related model called Submodalities, which considers the packaging in which an image, sound or sensation is presented to us.

The myth of the visual, auditory or kinaesthetic person

When Grinder and Bandler first became aware of representational systems and eye accessing cues, it was through observation and listening. Grinder describes in “Whispering in the Wind”, hearing a conversation between two people in a petrol service station and becoming aware that they were using sensory specific words to each other, but from different senses. This did not produce smooth communication and it drew Grinder’s attention.

Grinder and Bandler conducted experiments with training groups, creating sub-groups based on sensory specific language. When they put strangers together according to the representational system used in their greeting, conversations were freer and more spontaneous in the group than when people were placed with others who greeted in different sensory predicates.

Initially, the idea of a preferred representational system was postulated, not to identify or label people, but as the basis for further research, which has been taking place ever since, with excellent results. But, the tendency of most people to take a single example of something, or an open proposal and over generalise from it occurred and the NLP community of the day welcomed the idea with open arms. Regardless of further observation and more discovery in the last 35 years, including evidence that we shift between representations when thinking and use all of them in different sequences or strategies, the original postulate has become an icon.

Learn more

Check our 10970NAT Graduate Certificate in Neuro-Linguistic Programming program.

(Note: If you would like to learn more about the New Code of NLP you can get a copy of  our latest Kindle book ‘AEGIS: Patterns for extending your reach in life, work & leisure’ by Jules Collingwood, NLP Trainer. For only $4.99 here).

Learn more about NLP, read our Ultimate NLP Compendium of NLP

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What is NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)?

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NLP explores the relationship between how we think (neuro), how we communicate both verbally and non-verbally (linguistic) and our patterns of behaviour and emotion (programmes) (Collingwood & Collingwood; 2001).

It is both an epistemology, in that it studies how we know what we know and a methodology for creating practical descriptions of how we function as human beings. The purpose of NLP is to study, describe and transfer models of human excellence. (Modelling).

There are a number of other descriptions of what is NLP. The founders of NLP Dr. John Grinder and Richard Bandler defined NLP as “the study of the structure of subjective experience” (Dilts et al; 1980). Judith DeLozier and John Grinder (1987) define NLP as “an accelerated learning strategy for the detection and utilisation of patterns in the world“. We think of NLP as a field that explores “the patterns of organisation of effective human intuition” (Collingwood & Collingwood; 2001). Through modelling an expert’s intuitive application of their skill, we can as Neuro-Linguistic Programmers, have those patterns of organisation for ourselves and / or make them available to others. Modelling is the core function of NLP, learning to model (self and others) the core activity of well designed NLP practitioner and NLP master practitioner certification trainings. It is certainly at the core of our postgraduate qualification in NLP – 10970NAT Graduate Certificate in Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

The most precise definition is made by John Grinder and is found on the back cover page of our book The NLP Field Guide part 1 (2001). Grinder states “NLP is a meta-discipline which focuses on the discovery and coding of patterns which distinguish the most capable of the practitioners of some particular discipline (managerial practice, medical practice, sports, therapy…) from the average practitioner. These distinguishing patterns are the substance of NLP”.

For practical purposes, learning NLP thoroughly will give you an edge when it comes to self management, creative and abstract thinking, communicating with other people in multiple contexts and increasing your skill levels at work and in private life. Specifically, you will sharpen your observation and listening ability and identify patterns in people’s behaviour and language so you can respond to the subtext of their communication. You will learn to communicate more effectively, create descriptions others can understand quickly and ask apposite and penetrating questions that lead their thinking in useful directions. Cut through distractions or make conversation that is well received. Your own thinking will benefit from these skills as you learn to identify the direction you want to take in action and interaction. These benefits only happen to their full extent with live training and class room practice of the full syllabus. If you settle for a short “practitioner” course, the chances are you will be given a sheaf of scripts which limit your ability to use the material creatively and naturally in real life.

References:

Collingwood, Jules., Collingwood, Chris. (2001) The NLP Field Guide; Part 1. A reference manual of Practitioner level patterns. Sydney, Australia: Emergent Publications.

Collingwood, Jules. (2016) Aegis; Patterns for extending your reach in life, work and leisure. Sydney, Australia: Emergent Publications.

DeLozier, Judith., Grinder, John. (1987) Turtles all the Way Down; Prerequisites to Personal Genius. Bonny Doon CA: Grinder, DeLozier and Associates.

Dilts, Robert., Grinder, John., Bandler, Richard., Cameron-Bandler, Leslie., DeLozier, Judith. (1980) Neuro-Linguistic Programming Volume 1; The study of the structure of subjective experience. Cupertino, CA: Meta Publications

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Learn more about NLP, read our Ultimate NLP Compendium of NLP

(Note: If you would like to learn more about the New Code of NLP you can get a copy of  our latest Kindle book ‘AEGIS: Patterns for extending your reach in life, work & leisure’ by Jules Collingwood, NLP Trainer. For only $4.99 here).

By Jules Collingwood, NLP Trainer at INSPIRITIVE

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How the NLP Swish Pattern began

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The NLP Swish Pattern

The NLP Swish pattern uses an individual’s own submodality changes at high speed to shift that person’s attention from the content they have to see, hear or feel each time they initiate an habitual act. The sensory representation of the memory of performing the start of their chosen behaviour shifts instantly into a highly attractive and dissociated representation of the person as they would like to be at some time after they have changed. This creates a shunt that diverts the person from the act they wanted to change before they do it.

  • Submodalities are the components of each representational system.
  • Representational systems are the systems of sight, hearing, feeling, taste and smell that we use to remember and imagine, creating trains of thought and emotions.
  • The senses are sight, hearing, feeling, taste and smell used in real time as we access external events.
  • Visual submodalities include size, brightness, location, distance, depth of field, focus, hue, rate of motion (think photoshop editing).
  • Auditory submodalities include location, volume, pitch, timbre, bandwidth, distortion, rate of motion (think sound mixing desk).
  • Kinaesthetic submodalities include temperature, pressure, location, rhythm, amplitude, moisture, volume, area, motion.

Submodalities provide and create the meaning we make of the content of our representations, (images, sounds and sensations) and the meaning of a representation changes when we alter the submodalities with which it is represented. A NLP Swish changes both the meaning and the content of representations attached to the act we want to change. For the purposes of using a Swish to break an habitual act, we use two analogue submodalities in representational systems of the person’s choice. These should be driver submodalities that change the intensity of the experience simultaneously with their direct action on the initial representation.

“Submodalities provide and create the meaning we make of the content of our representations”

  • Analogue submodalities alter in a continuous flow, increasing or decreasing in smooth increments, like the dimmer on a light switch or the volume control on a sound system.
  • Digital submodalities alter in discrete steps or have an on-off switch.
  • Driver submodalities alter the meaning or quality of the content of a representation while simultaneously altering additional qualities of the experience by changing at least one submodality in a different representational system. This change is linked to the change in the driver submodality.

The principle of the NLP Swish Pattern is to create an automated shift of the person’s attention to their highly motivating and self chosen representation of themselves in the future after the change.

The story of the Swish

Christina Hall is one of the founding owners of the Society of NLP and has been an NLP trainer since the early 1980s. She was working with Richard Bandler, the co-originator of NLP, as a blend of executive assistant and associate trainer. She also had a life partner called Peter, who played a central role in the development of the Swish.

“Christina Hall is one of the founding owners of the Society of NLP”

One evening, Christina was driving home from an NLP training seminar. Peter was with her in the car and they were discussing Bandler’s demonstrations. During the conversation, Peter experienced a sudden shift in his internal images and changed state. The new state was markedly resourceful and Christina’s attention was alerted. She asked Peter what he did and he described his experience as follows:

He had been thinking about something in life size, moving, associated images close in front of him. Suddenly the image shifted from its life size movie configuration and dropped down to his left side while it shrunk to a black dot at the bottom left of his field of vision. Simultaneously a (different) black dot rose up from the same place at the bottom left and enlarged and placed itself across Peter’s field of vision, where the previous image had been. This was a dissociated lifelike image of who he would be or how he would appear ideally, after making a change to the content he was first thinking about.

Christina took this information to Bandler and they experimented with it. In due course it became what is known as the Standard NLP Swish Pattern. It worked well for some people, notably those who include size, location and brightness in their analogue driver submodalities.

The swish created a shunt from the present state image with its unique components of the unwanted behaviour, directly to an idealised dissociated image of the person after the change is established. This produced a state that was sufficiently resourceful and different from the state associated with the habitual behaviour to break any link with the unwanted behaviour. As a shunt, any residual link would be broken each time the person was exposed to the initial stimulus.

Some people found it difficult to shrink an image and move it sideways while darkening it and others found it did nothing for them. These people use different driver submodalities. Bandler discovered that a large number of them work well using size and distance. For them, the initial associated image pulls away as if on a bungy cord, while shrinking down to become a dot in the far distance. Simultaneously, the desired state image starts from being a dot in the far distance and rushes forward, enlarging to occupy the position formerly held by the first image. This is known as the Distance NLP Swish Pattern.

Finally, for those who do not include any of these options in their own driver submodalities, or who prefer to work in the auditory or kinaesthetic representational systems, Bandler chunked up from the two formats above to describe the patterns that guide them. In the Designer NLP Swish Pattern, the individual subject’s use of submodalities is elicited and a swish is created for that person, using two of their own analogue driver submodalities. This is the most accurate description of the NLP Swish Pattern.

The Standard, Distance and Designer NLP Swish patterns are taught as part of the syllabus on our postgraduate qualification in NLP, the 10970NAT Graduate Certificate in Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

By Jules Collingwood, NLP Trainer

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The origins of NLP

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The origins of NLP

The originators of NLP are Dr John Grinder, Richard Bandler and Frank Pucelik. NLP began with the modelling of a genius: Fritz Perls, the father of Gestalt therapy. When they began the project that led to the birth of NLP, Grinder was an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Bandler was an undergraduate psychology student. In the beginning, Bandler approached Grinder with a request to assist him in building an explicit model of the intuitive skills he had in doing Gestalt therapy. Bandler’s ability with Gestalt therapy was unconscious. He could get results with Gestalt but did not have an explicit model of how he did it. Therefore he could not pass on the skills of using Gestalt to others, with any guarantee of the quality of the skill transfer. Bandler had modelled Perls implicitly; that is, he acquired the ability to do Gestalt through an unconscious uptake of Perls’ patterns. Bandler had acquired his considerable skills in doing Gestalt while working for a publishing company. He reviewed hours of audio recordings of Fritz Perls working his psychotherapy magic with clients, to select appropriate material for transcribing for the last of Perls’ books.

The originators of NLP are Dr John Grinder, Richard Bandler and Frank Pucelik.”

Grinder’s background made him ideal for the task of modelling Bandler. Once he was unconsciously competent in Gestalt, he was able to achieve a similar result for clients with the same types of presenting problems in the same time frame as Bandler. He could then build an explicit model. As well as being fluent in a number of languages, Grinder’s academic specialty was an aspect of linguistics developed by Noam Chomsky called Transformational Grammar.

Grinder was successful. He was able get similar results to Bandler, and then he made explicit a number of language patterns of particular responses to particular forms in the speech of clients. These patterns were being used systematically and unconsciously by Bandler. Grinder, having modelled them, recognised these patterns as belonging to a particular class of language patterns in linguistics, and was able to extend the collection of patterns to include others from the same class. Bandler and Grinder then tested the patterns and formulated what became the first model of NLP: the Meta Model of Language.

“Bandler and Grinder then tested the patterns and formulated what became the first model of NLP: the Meta Model.”

(Note: If you would like to learn more about the New Code of NLP you can get a copy of  our latest Kindle book ‘AEGIS: Patterns for extending your reach in life, work & leisure’ by Jules Collingwood, NLP Trainer. For only $4.99 here).

The Meta Model, Representational Systems and the Milton Model

The Meta Model provides a method for obtaining high quality information from clients through responding to the form of the client’s language. The Meta Model has proven invaluable in other contexts too. These include such areas as business consulting, management and any other context where obtaining high quality information in human communication is critical. Bandler and Grinder then conducted other modelling projects and produced new models, including the representational system model, the eye accessing cue model, and the Milton model.

Briefly, the representational system model, another model of human communication, states that, as human beings, we represent our experience in the world with visual images, auditory representations and sensations (or kinaesthetic representations). In other words, we think in images, sounds and sensations, and these representations are often expressed in the choice of adjectives and verbs that we use. A person might say, ‘… my future looks unclear to me.’ This statement presupposes that the person has a visual representation of their future that lacks clarity. One way to work with this person would be to evoke resources in the visual system that may lead to clarity, e.g. ‘What resources would you need to develop possible futures clearly?’ A comment may have a predominance of auditory predicates: ‘I have a matter that I need to talk about.’ One possible response may be, ‘Tell me what you want to say.’ A person may use kinaesthetic predicates in a sentence: ‘I feel a need to shape the situation in a better way.’ A possible response could be, ‘Can you get in touch with what it would be like if you had the situation feeling just right?’

It is our representations of the world that provide our ‘maps’ for how we live our lives. With a working knowledge of representational systems and the processes of how people use their representations, we can assist others (and ourselves) in creating change. The specific sequences of representations or thought processes can be the difference between success and failure in some particular context of endeavour. It is useful to engage the unconscious mind in changing a pattern of thinking, or finding and developing a state of resourcefulness with useful patterns of representations.

“It is our representations of the world that provide our ‘maps’ for how we live our lives.”

The Milton model is a linguistic model of the language patterns used by the legendary psychiatrist, Milton H. Erickson MD, to do therapeutic hypnosis. Even though the Milton model comes from, and has application to, the world of therapy, many of the linguistic patterns of this model can be found in everyday communication. The advantage of the Milton model of NLP is that it provides a method for communicating with the unconscious mind.

(Note: If you would like to learn more about the New Code of NLP you can get a copy of  our latest Kindle book ‘AEGIS: Patterns for extending your reach in life, work & leisure’ by Jules Collingwood, NLP Trainer. For only $4.99 here).

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By Chris Collingwood, NLP Trainer at INSPIRITIVE

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The Who’s who of NLP

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John Grinder

Dr. John Grinder is the co-creator of Neuro-linguistic Programming. He was an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz when Bandler first approached him for assistance in modelling the skills of Fritz Perls. Since co-creating the original models of NLP (the Meta model, representational systems, eye accessing cues and the Milton model) John has continued to model new patterns. First he co-created the NLP new code with Judith DeLozier. Then, more recently he has created NLP models and applications for cultural and organisational change in corporations with his partner Carmen Bostic St Clair. John and Carmen’s latest book ‘Whispering in the Wind‘ is a seminal work. It defines the scope of the field of NLP and specifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for effective NLP modelling. At the same time it identifies the intellectual antecedents of NLP and places the field in its historical context.

Richard Bandler

Richard Bandler is the other co-creator of NLP. Having co-created the original models of NLP with Grinder, Bandler produced a series of applications of NLP based on an elaboration of the sub modalities model. In recent years Richard has developed his new NLP model, Design Human Engineering.

Frank Pucelik

Frank Pucelik was the third person involved in the beginning of NLP. He worked with Richard Bandler in the first attempt to model the patterns used by Fritz Perls to achieve reliable success with Gestalt therapy. He remained in the original research group as a participating member when Bandler and Grinder teamed up. Frank is best known for co-writing ‘Magic Demystified’ with Byron Lewis. “Magic” remains an excellent introduction to NLP.

Contributing Developers to NLP

Leslie Cameron-Bandler

Leslie Cameron-Bandler was in the original Bandler and Grinder research group in Santa Cruz. Leslie is best known as the developer of Meta Programs, a content model in NLP. According to Leslie Cameron-Bandler,

“….for ten years I’d been looking for what’s the patterns that tell me about the person and for a long time I thought it was Meta Programmes and then it turned out not to be cause[sic.] they change by context too, so always I’d been looking for what’s the essence, what’s the core, because that’s what I want to be able to touch…”
From tape 6 side A of ‘Empowerment: The power that produces success’.

She also developed an NLP model for exploring patterns of organisation of emotions (with Michael Lebeau) and a system for modelling personality called the Imperative Self. Her model of the structure of emotions is published in the book ‘The Emotional Hostage’. She co-developed a description of modelling called ‘The Emprint Method’ with Michael LeBeau and David Gordon which is published in a book of the same name. Leslie’s model of the structure of emotions is an excellent application of NLP for creating emotional choice.

Judith DeLozier

Judith DeLozier was also in the original NLP research group. She co-developed the new code of NLP with John Grinder and together they wrote ‘Turtles All the Way Down; Prerequisites to personal genius’. Currently she works with Robert Dilts at Dynamic Learning Center in Santa Cruz, California. DeLozier and Grinder’s new code of NLP is one of the most significant contributions to establishing the field of NLP.

Stephen Gilligan

Dr. Stephen Gilligan was a member of the original research group with Dr. John Grinder and Richard Bandler when they were developing NLP at U.C.S.C. Santa Cruz. He was introduced to Dr. Milton H. Erickson at that time and has the distinction of being the only person to be invited to train with Erickson while still an undergraduate.

Over the next five years he spent a substantial amount of time with Erickson and has become a world leader in Erickson’s therapeutic methods. Today, Gilligan has a Ph.D. in psychology and is an influential member of the Erickson Foundation, an organisation of health professionals dedicated to the furtherance of Erickson’s work.

He also teaches Ericksonian hypnosis around the world, sponsored by members of the Ericksonian Foundation and some NLP training institutes. Gilligan is the author of ‘Therapeutic Trances; the Co-operation Principle in Ericksonian Psychotherapy’, ‘Therapeutic Conversations’, ‘The Courage to Love; Principles and Practices of Self-Relations Psychotherapy’. He edited ‘Brief Therapy; Myths, Methods and Metaphors’ with Dr. Jeffrey K. Zeig and co-presented two volumes of ‘The Syntax of Behavior’ tape series with Dr. John Grinder.

David Gordon

David Gordon was another member of the original NLP research group. His most notable area of contribution to NLP is the use of metaphors to effect change. He wrote ‘Therapeutic Metaphors’, co-wrote ‘Phoenix’ with Meribeth Meyers-Anderson and later co-wrote ‘Know How‘ and ‘The Emprint Method’ with Leslie Cameron-Bandler and Michael LeBeau. In recent years he has developed a model for modelling called the Experiential Array.

Robert Dilts

Robert has been involved with NLP since meeting John Grinder while a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He co-authored ‘Neuro-Linguistic Programming Volume 1’ along with John Grinder, Richard Bandler, Judith DeLozier and Leslie Cameron-Bandler in 1981. Since then he has written numerous books on NLP and its applications to health, creativity, education, leadership, business and NLP modelling. He is well known in the NLP community for his Re-Imprinting technique as well as other NLP formats and models. Over the last 20 years Robert has evolved a description of NLP which he calls Systemic NLP. Currently he works with Judith DeLozier and Teresa Epstein at NLP University in Santa Cruz.

Steve and Connirae Andreas

With over 20 years of experience in the discipline of NLP, Steve and his wife Connirae founded NLP Comprehensive, one of the first major NLP training institutes in the USA.

Steve Andreas was previously known as John O. Stevens when he was a significant figure in the Gestalt therapy and personal development movement. His publishing company, Real People Press published ‘Gestalt Therapy Verbatim’ by the creator of Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls and Perls’ autobiography, ‘In and Out the Garbage Pail’. Steve himself wrote ‘Awareness: Exploring, Experiencing and Experimenting’, a book of group exercise based on Gestalt Therapy.

Steve and Connirae edited and published many classic NLP books written by the originators, Richard Bandler and John Grinder. These include: ‘Frogs into Princes’, ‘Trance-formations’, ‘Reframing’ and ‘Using your Brain for a Change‘. Later they wrote many other books on NLP including ‘Virginia Satir, The patterns of her Magic’, ‘Core Transformation’, ‘Heart of the Mind’ and ‘Change your Mind and keep the Change’.

Steve and Connirae have developed a number of NLP processes based on their extensive work with sub modalities. These include the grief and forgiveness patterns and the original modelling and development of mental timelines in NLP.

Christina Hall

Chris is a well-known and respected international trainer and major contributor to the development of NLP. She began her NLP training with the Co-developers close to 25 years ago during the pioneering days (1977), and became a Certified NLP Trainer in 1980. Having spent five years (1981-1986) in apprenticeship training with NLP co-creator Richard Bandler. She has incorporated into her teachings and applications a unique and singular insider’s perspective.

Chris collaborated in producing some of the most outstanding developments of that time, including sub-modalities, the swish pattern, the compulsion blowout, temporal language patterns and verbal swishes, and many of the Sleight of Mouth Patterns. Focusing on a systems and holistic orientation, she has become best known for her work with the structure of time and her mastery and innovations in the area of language patterning an approach which she refers to as Neuro-Systemic linguistics’.

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