The following is adapted from a few discussions from 1996 in the Church of Virus forum archive:
Natural Language Programming (NLP), or Neuro-Linguistic Programming, originally started as a hybrid of clinical hypnotherapy, systems theory as applied to family dynamics and counseling, information science, linguistics, and oddly enough, mathematics. Like every profoundly useful thing, it has rapidly evolved since it was introduced in the early to mid-seventies in Santa Cruz, California.
NLP was developed by John Grinder, a linguist, and Richard Bandler, a mathematician, while studying, or rather, benchmarking the most effective agents/facilitators of permanent, effective personal change. in this case, Milton Erickson, a psychiatrist and clinical hypnotherapist who did ground-breaking work on the de-mystification of hypnosis and the links between hypnosis, communication, and info theory; Virginia Satir, who was making huge breakthroughs by applying systems theory to psychology, and Fritz Perls, the Founder of Gestalt therapy, and Gregory Bateson, a well-known anthropologist.
At the core of NLP are a few basic hypotheses: human brains are hardwired, more or less, the same in most people; there are only a few basic modes to operate the brain in based on which sense is taking up the most clock cycles at the moment, etc. In addition, the basic idea that there is a powerful, transparent, modeling strategy/methodology (a model for modeling, or "meta-model"), which is relatively easy to impart to others and has the advantage that you only need to learn it once. It then allows the user of the strategy to quickly model, duplicate, acquire, and improve any ability he can observe in someone else.
Grinder and Bandler attained a great deal of credibility by using this modeling methodology. They were able to quickly equal and surpass the abilities of the master therapists they were studying, and they were able to explain what these experts were doing unconsciously (things the experts themselves had not been able to transfer to their students very well before because although they could do it brilliantly themselves, they couldn't explain how to others). Most of all, the model's ability to explain why a given technique was effective, and its predictive ability to improve or generate even better techniques made folks all over the world sit up and pay attention to what would otherwise have been just another weird idea from California that started a weird movement only Californians would join…
Bandler and Grinder went off to do their own things more than a decade ago, but not before training a bunch of NLP practitioners and stoking them up with huge doses of curiosity as to how the meta-model could be applied to other aspects and areas of life. Both of them got tired of the therapeutic, remedial idea quickly, and instead wanted to do creative, generative stuff, taking good things and making them great rather than just fixing dysfunctional folks.
They left behind a few “disciples", for example, Tony Robbins, who uses the meta-model in his introductory seminar to replicate, and your average Joe Six-pack modern American. The shaman, who can walk on burning coals barefoot without injury, as well as a host of other brilliant users of the meta-model.
There are two reasons you should know about NLP: first, it can function as a social manipulator par excellence, and thus for the same reason people should be aware of memetics, they should be aware of NLP. Second, it is just plain incredibly useful.
NLP history
NLP Book list
For the latest information, do a search for NLP or DHE.
NLP and DHE: General Information Archive
Natural Language Programming (NLP), or Neuro-Linguistic Programming, originally started as a hybrid of clinical hypnotherapy, systems theory as applied to family dynamics and counseling, information science, linguistics, and oddly enough, mathematics. Like every profoundly useful thing, it has rapidly evolved since it was introduced in the early to mid-seventies in Santa Cruz, California.
NLP was developed by John Grinder, a linguist, and Richard Bandler, a mathematician, while studying, or rather, benchmarking the most effective agents/facilitators of permanent, effective personal change. in this case, Milton Erickson, a psychiatrist and clinical hypnotherapist who did ground-breaking work on the de-mystification of hypnosis and the links between hypnosis, communication, and info theory; Virginia Satir, who was making huge breakthroughs by applying systems theory to psychology, and Fritz Perls, the Founder of Gestalt therapy, and Gregory Bateson, a well-known anthropologist.
At the core of NLP are a few basic hypotheses: human brains are hardwired, more or less, the same in most people; there are only a few basic modes to operate the brain in based on which sense is taking up the most clock cycles at the moment, etc. In addition, the basic idea that there is a powerful, transparent, modeling strategy/methodology (a model for modeling, or "meta-model"), which is relatively easy to impart to others and has the advantage that you only need to learn it once. It then allows the user of the strategy to quickly model, duplicate, acquire, and improve any ability he can observe in someone else.
Grinder and Bandler attained a great deal of credibility by using this modeling methodology. They were able to quickly equal and surpass the abilities of the master therapists they were studying, and they were able to explain what these experts were doing unconsciously (things the experts themselves had not been able to transfer to their students very well before because although they could do it brilliantly themselves, they couldn't explain how to others). Most of all, the model's ability to explain why a given technique was effective, and its predictive ability to improve or generate even better techniques made folks all over the world sit up and pay attention to what would otherwise have been just another weird idea from California that started a weird movement only Californians would join…
Bandler and Grinder went off to do their own things more than a decade ago, but not before training a bunch of NLP practitioners and stoking them up with huge doses of curiosity as to how the meta-model could be applied to other aspects and areas of life. Both of them got tired of the therapeutic, remedial idea quickly, and instead wanted to do creative, generative stuff, taking good things and making them great rather than just fixing dysfunctional folks.
They left behind a few “disciples", for example, Tony Robbins, who uses the meta-model in his introductory seminar to replicate, and your average Joe Six-pack modern American. The shaman, who can walk on burning coals barefoot without injury, as well as a host of other brilliant users of the meta-model.
There are two reasons you should know about NLP: first, it can function as a social manipulator par excellence, and thus for the same reason people should be aware of memetics, they should be aware of NLP. Second, it is just plain incredibly useful.
NLP history
NLP Book list
For the latest information, do a search for NLP or DHE.
NLP and DHE: General Information Archive
