The changing face of NLP

A tour of the past, present and a prediction for the future

“Thank you John Grinder and Frank Pucelik for your work in providing us with an account of how Neuro Linguistic programming began as a seed and rapidly grew during the 1970’s.  NLP is now in its fifth decade and for the first time, we have a reliable book that offers a history of NLP. The Origins of NLP is both a story and collection of stories. The theme of the main story is the creation of NLP, the collection of stories is a rich anthology of the people who were there at the beginning and others who came along after the foundation was in place. The stories within this book capture the commitment of Grinder, Bandler , Pucelik and the spirited people they attracted to radically experiment with patterns of human excellence.  What makes this book exciting are the multiple voices narrating their personal experience of NLP during the heady days of the 1970s.  However, there is much more than history inside these pages. If you focus at a deeper level you will find something very rich that is missing in modern NLP and that is the fearlessness, the radicalism, the desire to experiment, the commitment to model and the willingness to undertake thousands of hours of practice. Without these elements we would not have NLP today.  As you read and enjoy the voices inside these pages you may want to consider how NLP would be more colourful in the current age if we embraced the attitude of the people who gave us so much in inspiring and creating the field of Neuro Linguistic Programming.”

NLP as you are probably aware changed after the Bandler ”“ Grinder split.  Many new trainers jumped on the bandwagon changing the dynamic in the field. The experimentation reduced significantly and was replaced with the certification programmes that dominated the field through the 80’s, 90’s, 00’s and now the 10’s. One could argue that the certification programmes reduced the creativity in NLP and stripped it of the adventurism present in the group of people who worked together to create the pattering that so many people are neatly packaging into Practitioner, Master Practitioner and Trainers Training courses.

As I say in my review of the ‘Origins of NLP the difference that makes the difference in the early NLP’ers is their willingness to be radical and experiment.  The groups which Grinder and Bandler led, used all their spare time to practice and explore the emergent patterning. Frank Pueclik once told me most of his evenings and quite a few days were spent organising the early NLP groups. The early NLP’ers were also testing the new patterning with clients and support services such as local youth services.  The Classic Code of NLP was developed over a period of 7 years and tens of thousands of hours of practice. In the current day some people take a 7 day course and then walk away with a Practitioner Certificate although they have little experience of applying NLP and in many cases the Trainer has little experience of real world application of NLP. I recognise it is not necessary for NLP Trainers to reinvent the wheel and follow the exact trajectory of the early NLPers, but I would however like to see more trainers with real world experience. You thoroughly know a pattern when you have discovered not only the contexts where the patterns work but you have experience of the constraints and contraindications of a pattern.

With the focus on certification trainings, in the late 80’s audio tape learning was introduced into certain NLP courses to supplement the course. People listened to audio recordings prior to attending the course itself to understand the theory of NLP.  Nowadays the media is different, either DVD, or CD but the principle is the same, priming a learners conscious mind prior to the course. This approach obviously appeals to the conscious mind intellect rather than the unconscious mind’s style of practical integration. The idea of pre-course learning to prepare a learner’s conscious mind does not fit with the experiential learning present in the original NLP groups where inductive learning and discovery were crucial aspects of the learning process.  As a trainer, I personally tested pre-course learning to support Practitioner classes and contrasted it with inductive learning courses.  The key difference is the people who are primed using pre course learning are constrained to the maps they bring to the live course built on their understanding of the precourse learning. The people who come with minimal NLP knowledge experience a series of exercises to help them develop a map built on THEIR experience as opposed to content they heard or watched on DVD.

So whilst present day NLP has a major focus on certification programmes, there is one notable exception where new material is being tested and introduced to the field. The exception is New Code NLP.  There is a difference in what is sometimes called NLP New Coding and New Code NLP (confusing I know). NLP New Coding is the term Robert Dilts and Judith Delozier use in their NLP Encyclopaedia to describe some new patterning that John Grinder began to develop in the mid 80’s whilst collaborating with Delozier. NLP New Coding refers to this brief period. New Code NLP refers to the work John Grinder has developed with Carmen Bostic St Clair from 1987 to the present date. New Code NLP is always evolving and is very different now than it was in 1987. Since I have worked with John and Carmen we began offering courses for New Code Trainers and people who have learned New Code NLP from us have now joined as developers in their own right. For me it’s a pleasure to observe some creativity in the field.

The future of NLP has been a major talking point since its inception.  NLP’s demise has been predicted by many, yet the field continues to grow. Had Grinder and Bandler protected their intellectual property they would most likely be wealthier people today but it is less likely NLP would have spread as it has, if the intellectual property was preserved.  As I said in an earlier paragraph, the focus on certification programmes stifled creativity in the field. I think NLP has a bright future. I do think to thrive and grow the field would benefit from some changes. A key change would be for NLP providers to offer more specialist courses rather than focussing on certification programmes. NLP has so many applications, weight loss, accelerated learning, coaching, education, supporting people with learning difficulties, and so on. We at the Academy will be offering new ways of applying NLP to specialist contexts and one such area is language aquiisation. John Grinder has a natural ability for learning languages; this ability has led to him being fluent in eight languages.  Carmem Bostic St Clair is a specialist in creating experiential learning formats.  This summer we will be launching a brand new course called ‘First Fluency Spanish’ where participants will use NLP modelling skills to acquire what Grinder calls first fluency in Spanish.  The course will take place over 4 days in the Murcia region of Spain. The future of NLP can be assured when we as a field are innovative in how we teach the technology we call Neuro Linguistic Programming.