THE SYNTACTICIAN AND THE MODELLER

It’s amazing that Neuro Linguistic Programming whose inception came from synchronisation of two brilliant minds and personalities, John Grinder and Richard Bandler has expanded as it has, and is available all over the world, with millions benefitting from the patterning,

In this video, I talk about the roots of NLP and I elaborate further below.

Bandler had attended John Grinder’s linguistics class in at the University of California Santa Cruz, and was stunned at Grinder’s genius as a syntactician. Grinder was equally impressed with Bandler’s modelling prowess, and after observing Bandler’s unconscious assimilation of Gestalt founder Fritz Perls, Grinder said, when comparing to Bandler’s version of Perls to the original, that Bandler was a better Perls than Perls himself

In fact, Bandler was so good at being Perls, he was hired to edit Fritz Perls last manuscript and seminar transcripts for post humous publication of Perl’s last book ‘In and Out the Garbage Pail’

Bandler said of Grinder in 2025 at The NLP 50 Event ‘he was the best syntactician in the world at the time’ and probably still is’

The Syntactician and The Modeller merged their talents and Neuro Linguistic Programming was the result built on 8 years of research, modelling and coding of human excellence.

The motivation of The NLP co – creators was not inspired by money or fame. The inspiration was a deep fascination with making explicit the unconscious patterns of change inherent in the geniuses, they modelled and later generalising those patterns to build NLP design orientated models of change. Interestingly, design models became me the base of Grinder and Bandler’s future independent work, ‘Design Human Engineering’ (Bandler) and ‘New Code NLP’ (Grinder)

So when The Syntactician and The Modeller completed their NLP research and modelling, and started to work independently of each other, their natural skills had crossed over, both were syntacticians and modellers.

Interestingly enough, as can be seen on the NLP 50 Event, Bandler, ‘the modeller’, put much more emphasis on syntax and coding when explaining modelling and Grinder, ‘the syntactician’, focussed more on the unconscious assimilation of pattern, reversing their original natural talents which built NLP

The time and energy which went into NLP modelling was extraordinary. We can estimate this on the time stamps of publications and the accounts of the co-creators and their early collaborators.

Bandler with Frank Pucelik began exploring the patterns of Perls in 1971, and by the time John Grinder was recruited to provide the code for the work, Bandler had assimilated unconscious excellence with the patterns of Perls. Grinder stated, Bandler was a better Perls than Perls himself. Bandler achieved a similar accomplishment with modelling Virginia Satir with full time absorption for a month.

The book Structure of Magic was written 2 years later in 1974 and published in 1975. The behind the scenes efforts for the original modelling projects have not been published. Grinder said when he and Bandler began the coding they had 88 patterns, each was written on sheet of paper and he and Bandler woukd walk up and down beside the line of patterns, testing contextual examples of each pattern.

 

The patterns were then tested in the encounter groups run by Grinder and Bandler at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with rigour that was military like it’s precision. Stephen Gilligan, who was an active participant in the early modelling projects, said that they were restricted to testing one language pattern at a time, which could take many evenings testing just one pattern. Based on the testing Grinder and Bandler would either pass the pattern to be included as Meta Model pattern, or reject it on the basis the pattern did not fit the criteria of the model they were building

Only 12 patterns of the 88 made it into the Meta Model, some of the remaining 66 patterns featured in later NLP models, coded by Grinder and Bandler.

The Meta Model is a ‘Common Function Model’ in the sense it had more than one source, the main sources being Virginia Satir, Fritz Pells and Eileen Grinder. Very few people know about Eileen Grinder’s contribution to the coding of the Meta Model, but she was a major inspiration for John’s prowess with syntax and specificity.

Next, NLP co-creators, and a hand-picked team, visited Milton Erickson 5 times over a 9-month period, the first time, they were with Erickson for a week. By the time of the Erickson work, they had refined the NLP modelling process, and the core team all engaged in the unconscious assimilation. Stephen Gilligan became the prototype of the Milton Model, with his now famous deep trance identification (DTI) with Milton. Steve’s DTI was so effective, it had the effect of scaring Gregory Bateson to run out of the room, when Grinder and Bandler, presented their prototype (Gilligan) in full character as Erickson.

The Milton Model is known as a Common Source Model, where the model is built from a single exemplar.

Gilligan, continued to study with Milton for 5 years after NLP Modelling, staying in Milton’s visitor accommodation during vacation time, and completely immersed himself in the work of the great man.

By any standard the testing phases were extensive for the NLP Modelling as was the exposure to the original models; then add the precision of the coding, it’s brilliant work. A complete field was built that was so successful that the patterns of the geniuses modelled, are now transferred to people around the world in NLP Practitioner courses.

Edmundo Valesco, a Mexican NLP Trainer says, ‘that NLP is so good, then even when it is done badly it still works’, and he is right.

And NLP is done badly in so many of the courses on offer around the world, and in many cases the so called trainers who have not studied with the originators or people who were part of the original testing groups in Santa Cruz, that they the trainers do not really know how poor their product is and the public do not realise how poor the course they are taking is, as they usually have nothing original to compare it to.

An example of the above is an NLP Trainer, with 35 years of experience, who has never met or studied with the NLP originators, is now positioning himself as an expert on modelling and claims he can model anyone with just four questions.

You read that right, 4 questions

The above is laughable, but very serious as naïve audiences will be presented with this garbage at his events.

When Richard and John at a live event they hosted, to show case Virginia Satir’s work as a single model, with Virginia present, she was shocked that there was systematic code to her work. Previously, she claimed her work was totally intuitive. Such was the profoundness of her surprise that a precise model of her work could be applied by anyone, it took three days for her to process the model of her own work, that she had spent a life time developing but did not know consciously.

When the NLP originators were with Erickson, any question was responded to, not with a direct answer, but with multi layered metaphors, sending the questioner into deep trance. John Grinder said in all the time he spent with Erickson, he (Erickson) only ever gave a direct answer to a question once, with the intent of sending the questioner into trance, who was expecting a long layered metaphor, the usual style of Erickson.

So the NLP Trainer, positioning himself as modelling expert with just 4 questions, is missing the fact that 2 years of testing the Meta Model patterning, in encounter groups, and year with the Erickson patterning, and that no questioning was used, because it would have had no value. Perls was dead by the time the co-creators built the Meta Model, Satir would have answered her work was intuitive and Erickson would refuse a direct answer

But four questions to a genius can give enough information to build a model????

I have seen some crazy claims in NLP, but this is top of the list by far for NLP misinformation.

NLP at the moment is ‘festering’ in a sea of mediocrity, with attempts to package it as if its network marketing scheme, presenting NLP Trainers with money-making schemes but by degrading the quality of the patterning, often through ignorance, but nevertheless conning the public

I presented the quote from Edmundo Valesco, ‘that NLP is so good, that it even works when done badly’

But surely not this badly!

I will watch the four-question miracle modelling approach with bated breath.

this article was written by

Founder, NLP Academy

Michael Carroll is the Founder and Course Director of The NLP Academy, established in 1996. As a co–developer of New Code NLP, Michael formalised the training structures of New Code patterning for courses at different levels within the International Trainers and Coaching Academy of NLP (ITCA) which was set up by Michael, John and Carmen to benchmark high standards in the NLP field.

Prior to his NLP career, Michael owned a hugely successful Financial Services Consultancy, where he developed a fascination with psychological business methods. This led to his early studies of NLP and gaining a BSc in Psychology. Today, with 25 years of training and coaching experience, Michael is one of the leading educators in the field who continues to push the boundaries for innovation and high standards.