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Neuro-Linguistic Programming
10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

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Neuro-Linguistic
Programmierung

A Critical Appreciation for Managers
and Developers
Paul Tosey
Senior Lecturer, University of Surrey
Jane Mathison
Visiting Fellow, School of Management, University of Surrey

© Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison 2009
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
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To Sarah, Ellie, Gus, Ailsa and Catriona.


Inhalt
List of Figures xi

Acknowledgements xii
Part I 1
Chapter 1 Introduction 3
What are the aims of this book? 4
Headlines 5
Who is it for? 7
What is our stance, and what qualifies us to write this book? 7
Chapter outlines 8
Appendices 11
Chapter 2 What is NLP? The ‘Six Faces’ of the Field 12

About the title… 12
The six faces of NLP 13
‘Practical Magic’ 14
Methodology 16
Philosophy 18
Technology 19
Commodity 20
Professional service 23
Conclusion: A working description of NLP 24
Chapter 3 Organisational Applications of NLP 25

NLP in business: Visibility and invisibility 25
Conclusion 34
Part II 35
Chapter 4 The Road to Santa Cruz 37
The story of NLP in context 37
Bandler, Spitzer, Perls and Satir 41
John Grinder 44
Chapter 5 Discovering the Language of Change 46

Kresge College 46
A meeting of minds 47
vii

viii Contents
The collaborators 48
What is the meta-model? 50
Appraising the meta-model 52
Conclusion 56

Chapter 6 Exploring Inner Landscapes 57
Introduction 57
The role of the senses in making sense 58
The relationship between language and inner landscapes 61
Eye accessing cues 62
Sub-modalities 63
Representationalism: An excursion into epistemology 66
Conclusion 68
Chapter 7 The Influences of Erickson and the Palo Alto 70
Group
Milton Erickson 70
The Palo Alto Mental Research Institute (MRI) 74
Deconstructing constructivism 75
Categorisation 76
Metacommunication 78
Constructivist ideas in NLP 80
Reframing 82
Conclusion 83
Chapter 8 Gregory Bateson and Cybernetics 85

Gregory Bateson 85
Bateson’s influence on NLP 87
Cybernetics: The Macy Conferences 90
Circular causality and feedback 92
Second-order cybernetics 94
Chapter 9 The Presuppositions of NLP 97

What are the presuppositions? 98
The roots of NLP presuppositions in cybernetic 99
thinking
The TOTE and computer metaphors 104
The wisdom of the unconscious 107
The presuppositions; a revision? 108
Summary 109

Contents ix
Part III 111

Chapter 10 ‘Useful versus True’ – Theory, Knowledge and 113
Pseudoscience
What is ‘theory’? 113

Useful versus true 116
The difference between what do people do, and what 117
they say they do
Dual process theories 118
Alternative forms of knowledge 119
Science and magic: Is NLP ‘pseudoscience’? 124
‘It works!’ 125
Conclusion 128
Chapter 11 What Does Research Say About NLP? 129

Findings from relevant disciplines 129
Evaluation from within NLP 130
Independent research into NLP’s claims 132
The National Research Council studies 136
Review 138
Communities of practice 142
Conclusion 143
Chapter 12 NLP and Ethics – Outcome, Ecology and Integrity 144

Introduction 144
‘Manufacturing’ trust 145
All communication is hypnosis 147
Ethical codes and ethical reasoning 149
A conceptual framework 151
Outcome and ecology 152
Ends and means 154
Integrity 156
Influencing ethically 157
Conclusion 159
Chapter 13 NLP as a Movement – Values and Discourse 161

NLP as self-help 162
The Wild West: Mavericks and pioneers 168
Is NLP a cult? 170
Conclusion 174

x Contents
Part IV 175
Chapter 14 Synthesis 177
What are the answers to our core questions? 177
What is NLP? 177

Where and for what can I best use it? 178
What is it based on? 179
Where did it come from? 180
Why is it sometimes so hard to grasp what it’s about? 181
Is there any research behind it? 181
How can the claims made by practitioners be assessed? 182
Does it have any theory? 182
Is it ‘pseudoscience’? 183
Why doesn’t NLP work with emotions? 184
Is it manipulative? 184
Is NLP a cult? 185
What does it offer to HRD? 185
Chapter 15 Quo Vadis? 188

At a crossroads 188
Entropy? 189
The seeds of its own destruction? 191
Renaissance? 193
Appendices 196
A timeline of NLP 196
Precursors 196
Origins 197
Development 198
At a crossroads 199
NLP training levels 200
Weblinks 201
Notes 202
Bibliography 215
Index 229

List of Figures

2.1 The Six Faces of NLP 14
4.1 NLP, a Timeline 40
8.1 Linear and Circular Causality 92
xi

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the following people for their help in supplying
documents and responding to queries:
Mary Catherine Bateson; Tony Clarkson; Judith DeLozier; Christina

Hall; Michael Hall; David Lipset; Isabel Losada; Robert Spitzer; the
Bateson archive, University of Santa Cruz; University of Santa Cruz
Registry.
Thanks
To Richard Bandler and John Grinder – without your efforts we would

have no subject to write about. To Judith DeLozier, who epitomises
for us the heart of NLP, and Christina Hall, whose teaching and
understanding of language have been inspirational.
Our grateful thanks to the following people, and to anyone else we
have neglected to mention who has helped us on this journey:
Suzanne Henwood, Richard Churches, Karen Moxom, Judith Lowe,

Charles Faulkner, John Seymour, Judy Rees, Bruce Grimley, Lisa Wake,
Trevor Day, Martin Weaver, Christine Miller, Frank Bourke, Susie
Linder-Pelz, John Martin, Monique Esser, Dave Allaway, Ranjit Sidhu,
Sue White, Josie Gregory, Eugene Sadler-Smith, John Wilson, Chris
Rodgers.
The University of Surrey and the Higher Education Academy have

both contributed funding that has helped to support this work.
xii

Part I


1
Einführung

Welcome to this critical appreciation of Neuro-Linguistic Program-
ming (NLP). In this first chapter we describe the aims of this book;
who is it for, what can you learn from it, where are we coming from as
authors, and what you will find when you venture further inside it.
The answer to the question, ‘What is NLP?’, is in some respects
simple. It is an internationally prominent practice in business, man-
agement development and professional education, a method used
by facilitators of various kinds – coaches, trainers and consultants
– who claim to offer some innovative and highly effective approaches
to people development. It has been used to train top athletes, sales-
people and police forces among others, and it features in a well-
known airline’s ‘flying without fear’ course.1 As Neurolinguistic
Psychotherapy (Wake 2008) it is a recognised mode of psychotherapy
in the UK. It is used in education (Churches & Terry 2007), healthcare
(Henwood & Lister 2007), policing, community work, the arts and
more.
In other respects, NLP resembles more of a mystery story.2 The
nature of the field, its origins and its beliefs, can be difficult to pin
down. As a movement NLP, which dates back to the 1970s, is seen
by some as a relatively young field. Its founders,3 John Grinder and
Richard Bandler, who went their separate ways in 1978 (McLendon
1989), are still alive and active in the field; in 2001, Bostic St. Clair
and Grinder (2001:7) spoke of the need for NLP to ‘survive its ado-
lescence’, and the website of ‘NLP Comprehensive’4 suggests that
‘NLP is still in its infancy.’ Others see it already dated and passé.
It has been said that NLP used to be at least 10 years ahead of its

4 Neuro-Linguistic Programming
time, but is now more like 20 years behind its time;5 a colleague even
commented, ‘I didn’t know it was still around’. NLP is also a contested
field, one that sometimes draws extreme comment. Critics assert that
NLP has been disproven, or that it is ‘pseudoscience’ (see Chapter 10).

An article published in a UK newspaper in 2008 even accused NLP of
being the refuge of the ‘socially inadequate’ (Beadle 2008b).6
This book explores both the simplicity and the complexity of NLP.
What are the aims of this book?
Many of the books written about NLP rely on either the marketing
hype of those with commercial interests in its promulgation, on the
insistence of practitioners that it works because ‘they know it works’,
or upon the polemics of its fiercest critics. While both defence and
diatribe are rife, constructive criticism that would help people under-
stand the middle ground and debate the issues in the field is sadly
lacking. Yet this is what many existing and potential users say they
want and need. Equally, many NLP practitioners express a desire for
NLP to go mainstream, and become more accepted.
As NLP practitioners as well as researchers, we have been aware for
many years of the need for an approach to NLP that is enquiring,
research-based and critical; that can acknowledge the benefits and
potential of NLP without ‘selling’, that can identify drawbacks
and blind spots without merely trashing NLP, and that can set out
and discuss openly the issues in the field.
Much NLP literature, especially introductory texts, is highly repet-
itive, consisting of minor variations in ways of presenting a very
similar body of ideas and practices. These texts describe and illus-
trate the contents of NLP, but seldom dig beneath the surface to
question their validity, or examine issues; in the field of coaching
see for example McDermott and Jago (2002), among others. The
main exceptions to this, two volumes that do provide a scholarly
commentary on NLP (Esser 2004; Walker 1996), are not published
in the English language.7
That is the gap that our book aims to fill. Specifically, we aim to
address questions that many people ask about the field, such as:
• What is NLP?
• Where and for what can I best use it?

Introduction 5
• What is it based on?

• Where did it come from?
• Why is it sometimes so hard to grasp what it’s about?
• Is there any research behind it?

• Does it have any theory?
• How can the claims made by practitioners be assessed?
• Is it a ‘pseudoscience’?
• Why doesn’t NLP seem to be interested in emotions?
• Is it manipulative?
• Is NLP a cult?
• What does it offer to HRD?
By addressing these questions we examine the contemporary issues

in the field, presenting and weighing up the arguments to inform
users and practitioners alike.
In doing this, we have aimed to be thorough and scholarly in our
referencing, not merely to observe convention but especially to
make the trail of clues through which we have interpreted the
mystery of NLP available to readers. It is important to identify
sources of materials and opinions in a field that is flooded with
second and third-hand versions of its stories, principles and models.
Headlines
Overall we develop a view of NLP as an emergent, practical, and

diverse knowledge system. What are the headline messages arising
from that view?
• NLP offers a highly pragmatic and accessible approach to com-

munication and people development that can help with a wide
variety of needs for effective performance, change and learning;
• At its best NLP represents a distinctive, innovative cross-
disciplinary synthesis of knowledge about human commun-
ication, especially in the subtlety of its understandings of the
relationships between language, our inner worlds, and behaviour;
• NLP is often presented as if it sprang, fully-formed, from California
in the 1970s, in isolation from social, cultural and historical con-
texts and influences. The nature of NLP as a social movement
and a community of practice is under-examined;

• Contrary to what many NLP practitioners espouse, NLP is based

on theory, but that theory is poorly articulated. Some of the ideas
used within NLP exist in an intellectual time warp, so that it is
prone to being both out of date and out of touch with contem-

porary knowledge;
• The field lacks a thorough evidence base. However, this is true
also of many ‘people development’ practices. NLP has also lacked
a research ethos, leaving it over-reliant on claims that self-
evidently ‘it works’ and prone to operating as a self-sealing belief
system;
• The prevalence of concern about the motives of practitioners is
worrying. We argue that NLP per se is not manipulative, and
there are many people using NLP in a highly ethical and sensitive
way. There are also perfectly satisfactory ethical codes of conduct
in the field. However we think NLP is characterised by a need to
develop its ethical reasoning;
• We argue that there is also a need to revisit the designation ‘prac-
titioner’, given the variations in forms and durations of training
courses and the primarily commercial, self-regulated nature of
the field;
• On the other hand, NLP offers a radical challenge to any form of
people development through its insights into the ways in which
language communicates with the unconscious, and therefore
inevitably influences people. This raises a significant dimension
of ethical practice that is ignored or denied by many other
schools of thought;
• Altogether, we argue that NLP is at a crossroads in its development.
It is a widespread field, with practitioners across the globe, that
offers many benefits; yet it remains poorly linked to the world of
research, and is regarded with suspicion by many people.
There are a number of things this book does not attempt:
• It is not an introductory text. There are many books available

that provide this, for example, ‘Magic of NLP Demystified’ (Lewis
& Pucelik 1990).
• It is not a ‘how to’ book. Reading this book is no substitute for
learning NLP experientially. It is practical in the sense that it is a
book about how to think systematically about NLP, and we see
effective thinking as very much a part of what NLP is about.

Introduction 7
• It is neither a polemic against NLP, nor a defence. We seek to be

objective about its innovations and potential, and we also chal-
lenge the field where we feel challenge is merited.
• It is a perspective on NLP, not ‘chapter and verse’. We don’t

claim to know NLP better than its leading practitioners, authors
and developers. Ultimately, this appraisal represents our personal
view of the field, one that co-exists with others and that we hope
will encourage debate.
Who is it for?
Our own field of research is people development in business and

adult education. Primarily therefore we are writing for:
• Human resource development (HRD) professionals, including con-

sultants, coaches, trainers, facilitators and educators, who are seek-
ing an informed understanding of NLP. Wilson (2005:3) describes
HRD as representing ‘the latest evolutionary stage in the long tra-
dition of training, educating and developing people for the purpose
of contributing towards the achievement of individual, organ-
izational and societal objectives’, and NLP is part of this stage.
• NLP practitioners in business and adult education in particular,
and practitioners in general, (though we are not attempting to
address specific issues that arise in psychotherapy, healthcare or
school education).
• Any potential user or client of NLP and its services in these fields,
including decision-makers in people development (managers,
entrepreneurs, HR directors) who are considering investing time
or money in NLP-based services.
• Researchers, of whom there are a growing number at doctoral
level across the globe, students (most likely postgraduate), and
trainees on relevant academic and professional courses.
What is our stance, and what qualifies us to write this

book?
Who are we to offer these views?
We are academics who have extensive training in and experience of

NLP,8 professional educators working in the field of management

learning and human resource development (HRD), as teachers and

as researchers. As practitioners we use NLP in coaching and training,
as well as in daily life. We have both contributed to introducing
NLP into Higher Education,9 and have published on NLP in academic

journals (Tosey & Mathison 2003; Mathison & Tosey 2008), with a
particular interest in how NLP can be used as a research tool. We
have encouraged research in NLP and in 2008 we hosted the First
International NLP Research Conference at the University of Surrey.
This gives us a privileged as well as precarious position as we are
familiar both intellectually and experientially with NLP, and are not
dispassionate about the subject. We are informed by our own
engagement with NLP in practice through its courses, conferences,
networks and communities over some twenty years. For this book
we have read the NLP literature extensively, as well as related litera-
tures, and had many conversations with key informants, including
experts in the field as well as people not trained in NLP who have
told of their encounters with it. Our ambition is to pursue the ques-
tions we have posed, to inform readers and to contribute to the
creation of a research agenda for the field.
Chapter outlines
Part I
Part I sets the scene for the book with an introduction to the nature
of NLP as a movement and as a practice.
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter has set out the aims of the book and our approach.
Chapter 2: What is NLP?

In this chapter we present our map of the ‘six faces’ of NLP. Rather
than attempting a single definition, we view NLP as having multiple
identities. In conclusion we offer a condensed working description
of the practice.
Chapter 3: Organisational Applications of NLP

This chapter explores the incidence of NLP in business, and high-
lights its relevance to and potential for managers and developers,
illustrated through brief examples.

Introduction 9
Part II
Part II offers an extended treatment of the conventional story of
NLP and its development through time, identifying key influences
on its ideas and practices.

Chapter 4: The Road to Santa Cruz
This chapter outlines the social context in which NLP developed.
It highlights the role of Robert S. Spitzer, M.D. in Richard Bandler’s
enquiries into the practices of Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir, and
describes the early career of John Grinder.
Chapter 5: Discovering the Language of Change

In this chapter we describe what happened after Bandler and
Grinder met at Kresge College, University of Santa Cruz, and how
the collaboration between them and various colleagues led to
the initial NLP publications. We review, and discuss the need for
reappraisal of, the chief product of this phase, the NLP ‘meta-
model’.
Chapter 6: Exploring Inner Landscapes

A distinctive feature of NLP is its way of exploring internal
worlds and their role in human functioning. Through this,
the initial focus of NLP on language extended into non-
verbal behaviour and the sensory structures of people’s inner
landscapes.
Chapter 7: The Influences of Erickson and the Palo Alto Institute

We consider NLP as one of a number of practices influenced by
constructivism, a notable stream of twentieth century thought,
especially through the respective influences of Milton H. Erickson,
M.D., and the Palo Alto Mental Research Institute.
Chapter 8: Gregory Bateson and Cybernetics

Here we elaborate on the influence of a seminal figure, Gregory
Bateson, especially through his involvement in the emergence of
cybernetics through the Macy Conferences in the USA in the 1940s
and 1950s. We contend that NLP as a knowledge system is founded
intellectually on cybernetics, both in principle and through its
lineage.

Chapter 9: The Presuppositions of NLP

In this chapter we discuss the principles often said to underpin NLP,
known as ‘presuppositions’, and re-examine their sources. We iden-
tify a potentially significant feature that appears to be missing from

most formulations of the presuppositions.
Part III
In Part III we pose a series of critical questions about NLP. These
represent and address the main issues that have obscured or com-
plicated NLP.
Chapter 10: Useful Versus True – Theory, Knowledge, and the Question
of Pseudoscience
NLP typically emphasises what is useful over what is true; indeed
there is a view among some practitioners that ‘theory’ is irrelevant
to NLP. It is also charged by some authors with being a ‘pseudo-
science’. We discuss beliefs about the relevance of theory in NLP,
and explore the relationship between the NLP and academic world
as divergent communities of practice.
Chapter 11: What Does Research Say About NLP?

This chapter asks what research has to say about NLP. How much
research is there into NLP, of what kinds, and what conclusions can
be drawn from this? NLP appears to be over-reliant on the repetition
of anecdotes or the volubility of practitioners’ assertions that
‘it works’, yet potential support for its outlook can be found in fields
such as cognitive linguistics and neuroscience.
Chapter 12: NLP and Ethics – Outcome, Ecology and Integrity

This chapter surveys key issues relevant to the ethics of NLP, given a
common impression that it is ‘manipulative’. We indicate that
codes of ethics exist in the field, and argue that NLP per se is not
unethical. A gap in the field is the need for more explicit ethical rea-
soning. On the other hand, NLP’s notion that ‘all communication is
hypnosis’ raises an ethical challenge for the use of language by prac-
titioners in all forms of people development.
Chapter 13: NLP as Situated – Cultural Practices and Discourses

Finally in Part III, we identify various values that infuse NLP and its
discourse, including ideas such as ‘freedom’ and the pursuit of

Introduction 11
‘excellence’. These elements of NLP as a whole appear to derive

from its cultural milieu rather than from the central theories of
cybernetics and constructivism.
Part IV

In Part IV we synthesise and review our arguments and revisit our
questions about NLP and its future.
Chapter 14: Synthesis

Here we summarise our answers to the questions listed at the start of
chapter 1. What are we saying to our audience, and what are the
implications for managers and developers?
Chapter 15: Quo Vadis?

If NLP is at a crossroads, where does it go from here? We indicate
three possible directions branching out from the present, one of
which is a way forward based on a research agenda.
Appendices
Timeline of NLP
An historical sequence of dates and events relevant to NLP.
The NLP industry
Summarises the structure of NLP training.
Web links
Links to sources of research interest.
References
A full listing of the published sources consulted for this book.

2
What is NLP? The ‘Six Faces’ of

the Field
NLP has proved difficult to define neatly. Various definitions exist,

some enigmatic, some pithy, and some apparently competing. For
example, it has been described as an attitude of curiosity, as ‘the art
and science of excellence’ (O’Connor & Seymour 1990:17), as ‘the
study of the structure of subjective experience’ (Dilts et al 1980), and
more. Virtually all the definitions found in the literature have been
generated by people working within NLP and, as Young (2004:60)
points out, these perform a variety of functions. In contrast,
Isabel Losada, who has written about her experiences of a variety
of personal development and self-help methods, encapsulates NLP
as ‘variations on “learn how to feel great”’ (Losada 2001:194).
We resist the idea that NLP should be reduced to a single defini-
tion. How, then, can a reader new to the field gain enough sense of
what NLP is all about to engage with the practice? To fulfil this need
we describe our map of the field, which suggests that NLP has not
one, but six main ‘faces’.1
About the title…
Before we introduce that map, what does NLP’s title denote? The
phrase ‘Neuro-Linguistic Programming’ does not appear in a pub-
lished work until 1979 (Bandler and Grinder’s ‘Frogs Into Princes’).2
One story goes that Bandler and Grinder created it with their
tongues firmly in their cheeks, and that its quasi-academic obscurity
is intentionally mischievous. NLP is certainly not formally part of
any established academic discipline; however, its constituent terms
12

What is NLP? The ‘Six Faces’ of the Field 13
are neither random nor lacking entirely in connection to formal

study. They use, for example, terms that resemble the interests of
renowned psychologist George A. Miller (cognitive neuroscience
and psycholinguistics). One of the founders, John Grinder, spent a

year at Rockefeller University, where Miller was a Professor from
1968 until 1979 (Hirst 1988:269). The term ‘neuro-linguistic’ was,
we believe, first used by Alfred Korzybski (1941:xxxix) in the 1930s,
a thinker whose work appears to have been introduced to NLP’s
founders by Gregory Bateson (see Chapter 7).
Dilts et al (1980:2) offer an explanation of the title:
For us, behaviour is programmed by combining and sequencing

neural system representations – sights, sounds, feelings, smells
and tastes – whether that behaviour involves making a decision,
throwing a football, smiling at a member of the opposite sex,
visualizing the spelling of a word or teaching physics. A given
input stimulus is processed through a sequence of internal repre-
sentations, and a specific behavioural outcome is generated.
“Neuro” (derived from the Greek neuron for nerve) stands for
the fundamental tenet that all behaviour is the result of neuro-
logical processes. “Linguistic” (derived from the Latin lingua for
language) indicates that neural processes are represented, ordered
and sequenced into models and strategies through language and
communication systems. “Programming” refers to the process of
organizing the components of a system (sensory representations
in this case) to achieve specific outcomes.
The six faces of NLP
Our map of six faces is based on three main aspects that we believe
characterise the field. These ‘three P’s’ are:
• Practice: NLP as a behaviour, or practical communication – what

people do;
• Philosophy: NLP as a body of ideas and principles;
• Product: NLP as a commodity that can be consumed.
These three aspects and their combinations give rise to the six faces
shown on the diagram (Figure 2.1), numbered to reflect broadly the

Figure 2.1 The Six Faces of NLP
5. Commodity: consumables:
‘self-help’ products

6. Professional service: coaching, 4. Technology:
consulting, psychotherapy product frameworks, techniques
pr
ct
od
du
uc
ro
t+
+p
ph
ice
NLP
ilo
ct
so
a
pr
ph
y
practice philosophy
1. ‘Practical magic’: practice + philosophy 3. Philosophy: epistemology,

communication in action presuppositions
Source: © Paul Tosey & Jane Mathison 2009
way NLP has developed through time (though this is not intended
as a precise chronology).
An important feature of the map is that, metaphorically, it repre-
sents NLP as an iceberg. The three faces above the waterline are
more overt, and more immediately apparent to people encountering
NLP afresh. The identities below the surface are less obvious, yet
they comprise the main substance of the field.
Describing those six faces now will serve as an introduction to,
and an overview of, the field. It will also raise numerous issues that
are taken up in later chapters of this book.
‘Practical Magic’3
NLP is essentially a ‘model of human communication and behavior’

(Bandler & Grinder 1979:3). Dilts et al (1980:preface ii) call it ‘the
unexpected byproduct of the collaboration of John Grinder and
Richard Bandler to formalize impactful patterns of communication’.
This collaboration began in the 1970s through their curiosity about
how the skills of certain excellent psychotherapists, such as the influ-
ential family therapist Virginia Satir, differed from those of people who
were less effective. This is a story we will describe in detail in Part II.
Those skills, which most observers regarded as ‘magic’, or as some
unfathomable, innate ability, appeared to Bandler and Grinder to

have both a structure and logic, which would enable other people
to learn them; hence the titles of the first two NLP books, ‘The
Structure of Magic’.
NLP has gone on to identify the structure of many other naturally

occurring patterns, especially strategies used by successful people.
Consequently, in promotional literature NLP is often described in
terms such as ‘the art and science of human excellence in the areas
of communicating, influencing, goal setting, managing change and
understanding the use of effective language’.4 NLP does not invent
these patterns; it identifies them, strips them down to their essen-
tials, sometimes refining and repackaging them, and makes them
available for others to learn. Thus ‘Neuro linguistic programming …
is the study of what works in thinking, language and behavior (sic).
It is a way of coding and reproducing excellence that enables you to
consistently achieve the results that you want both for yourself, for
your business, and for your life’ (Knight 2002:1).
In one sense, therefore, NLP is a collection of naturally occurring
patterns of effective behaviour and communication that have been
made explicit. This has given rise to the suggestion that ‘if it works
it’s NLP’ (e.g. reported by McNab 2005:17), a claim that understand-
ably annoys people who perceive that methods developed in other
fields have become appropriated by NLP on this basis. What it does
indicate is that NLP offers a perspective that can be applied to all
human communication, such as experiencing, learning, and so on;
and that the focus of interest of NLP is, typically, ‘what works’.
This also means that NLP is highly eclectic in that it draws from
many diverse fields of practice; we have likened it previously to a
gryphon (Tosey & Mathison 2007), a fabulous beast that is (usually)
part-lion, part-eagle and part-horse. As one example, NLP is some-
times regarded as a form of accelerated learning. It has similarities to
practices such as Suggestopedia, there is literature that investigates
these connections (e.g. Sandhu 1994), and for a time there was
much interest in photo-reading or speed reading in NLP. However,
accelerated learning is a separate field of enquiry.
Dilts et al (1980:preface i) say that ‘it could be described as an
extension of linguistics, neurology, or psychology’. Our colleague
Richard Churches told us of his experience working with psycho-
logists who were initially very sceptical of NLP, yet came to realise that
it offered ways of utilising knowledge of (say) behavioural conditioning

that they knew as theory but had not imagined could be applied
in their everyday lives. This example illustrates some of the dif-
ficulty of defining NLP’s boundaries because much of the content
of this knowledge already existed in formal psychology. What

NLP supplied was an assumption that this knowledge could be
applicable in practice, and offered a way of understanding how to
do this.
Methodology
How did the founders of NLP identify those naturally occurring skills,
and test them to ensure they had captured them effectively? They
developed a method of study, which became known as ‘modelling’.
This gives us the second face of NLP, which is often portrayed as its
essence. In fact the founders originally described NLP as a method-
ology (Bandler & Grinder 1975b:6), and continue to emphasise model-
ling as the core of the practice (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:271;
Bandler 2008b:xv).
If NLP is a kind of reverse engineering, applied to human capabilities,
then modelling is the procedure by which it works. It is ‘the mapping
of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder
2001:271), a process that investigates the language patterns, behav-
iours, sequences of thought, and internal imagery that exponents use.
This is why NLP is sometimes described as a form of ‘study’, as in ‘the
study of the structure of subjective experience’5 (Dilts, Grinder, Bandler
& DeLozier 1980), although its purpose is firmly pragmatic:
The objective of the NLP modeling process is not to end up with

the one ‘right’ or ‘true’ description of a particular person’s think-
ing process, but rather to make an instrumental map that allows
us to apply the strategies that we have modelled in some useful
way (Dilts 1998:30).
An example of a naturally occurring skill that has been modelled in

NLP is spelling. The strategy used by people who are good at spelling
(e.g. Bandler & Grinder 1979:33) in essence involves three main steps:
1. visualise the word in your mind’s eye

2. spell it out to yourself (i.e. not out loud)

3. check whether it is correct through feeling (e.g. a gut sense of

whether it is right or not).
This sequence can be learnt by adults and children alike. Even

though it is ‘quite widely accepted that good spellers use internal
word pictures as part of their spelling strategy’ (Churches & Terry
2007:159), a phonic approach to spelling, which from an NLP per-
spective is likely to be a highly ineffective strategy, persists in
various forms. As O’Connor and Seymour say, ‘Wun wunders why
foenick spelling methods arr still tort in skools’ (1990:184).
The first book that describes how to model in detail is Dilts et al’s
‘NLP Volume 1’ (1980). Leslie Cameron-Bandler and her colleagues
produced and wrote about a variant called ‘Mental Aptitude Pattern-
ing’ (Cameron-Bandler, Gordon & Lebeau 1985) . A helpful, contem-
porary practical guide to modelling is that by Gordon and Dawes
(2005:3),6 who for example apply these principles to identify how
someone creates the experience of ‘being passionate about something’.
The nature of modelling is contested within NLP today. Robert
Dilts (1998) emphasises a more conscious approach that employs
conceptual frameworks to analyse the activity that is being mod-
elled, whilst Bostic St. Clair and Grinder (2001) argue that model-
ling is essentially an unconscious assimilation of an exemplar’s
capability. Dilts has used his version of the method to model a
number of ‘strategies of genius’, based largely on an analysis of the
language patterns used by historical figures such as Albert Einstein
(Dilts 1994a; Dilts 1994b). One such strategy reflects the creative
process used by Walt Disney, based on Disney’s description of how
he created stories, comprising three functions that Dilts termed
‘dreamer’, ‘realist’ and ‘critic’.
In practice these two modes are often used in combination, and
the validity of the distinction between them made in ‘Whispering in
the Wind’ has been challenged by Steve Andreas (Andreas 2006a). 7
Argument about which constitutes ‘true’ modelling may be largely a
red herring, reflecting the internal politics of NLP. Among the more
significant questions that could help to develop the potential of this
methodology are the extent to which modelling works – since the
evidence for it is largely anecdotal – and the validity of its assump-
tions about human functioning, especially the idea that anyone can
learn to reproduce another person’s excellent performance.

Philosophy
Whilst the relevance of theory to NLP is often questioned within

the field (see Chapter 10), it is clearly based on underlying ideas and
views of the world. For example the belief that one can ‘model’ pat-

terns of excellent behaviour is itself a kind of theory. These ideas
often appear in NLP literature as a set of ‘presuppositions’, or work-
ing principles; for example, ‘the meaning of your communication
is the response that you get’. We explore the presuppositions in
detail in Chapter 9; suffice to say here that virtually all the pre-
suppositions pre-date NLP. So, while NLP’s world view offers a parti-
cular synthesis of these sources, one can also locate NLP within the
context of certain streams of twentieth century thought and prac-
tice. This counters the impression that NLP was somehow created
out of thin air in the 1970s, or that it was wholly original, and makes
it easier to engage with its ideas.
NLP’s philosophy draws from two main areas of thought. The first
is cybernetics, a cross-disciplinary view of how systems are organised
based on feedback that was developed in the 1940s and 1950s, and
in which Gregory Bateson was a core figure (see Chapter 8). The
second is constructivism (see Chapter 7). Essentially this says that
people cannot know ‘reality’ per se, so inevitably they act according
to the constructions that they create. Constructivism arrives in NLP
largely via the work of the Palo Alto Mental Research Institute in the
1960s, in which Bateson was also centrally involved.
We will argue in Chapter 9 that nearly all NLP’s presuppositions
can be traced back to these two areas, via the espoused philosophy
of the figures whose practice NLP originally studied (i.e. Virginia
Satir, Fritz Perls and Milton H. Erickson) and through the link with
Gregory Bateson. Together, cybernetics and constructivism provide
a particular approach to what we can know, and to how the world
of communication functions. This is what Bateson refers to as an
‘epistemology’, a term found frequently in NLP literature.
To illustrate what epistemology is about, the question ‘what
colour is your front door?’ elicits interest in the content of the
response, a piece of information (e.g. ‘red’); the question ‘how do you
know that your front door is red?’ is interested in the process of
knowing, or of how you arrive at the response ‘red’ (you might, for
example, have referred to a visual image of closing your front door
as you went out this morning, said to yourself ‘it’s red’, and con-

firmed this with a feeling of being right). NLP is interested primarily

in this approach to knowing – not what we know, or what the world
is ‘really’ like, but instead how we know. Based on this, NLP then
explores how we may be able to change the world of our experience.

Finally, it is important to note that NLP has gone on to make use of
knowledge from outside Western scientific traditions too, especially in
DeLozier and Grinder’s (1987) reformulation of NLP as ‘New Code’ in
the 1980s. That book was strongly influenced, for example, by Carlos
Castaneda’s series about (ostensibly) the system of knowledge of Yaqui
Indian sorcerers (e.g. Castaneda 1970),8 as well as by experiences of
Congolese drumming. Bateson figures again, for example through
reference to his anthropological work in Bali, where he developed
ideas about art as a form of knowledge (e.g. Bateson 2000a:128–152).9
Technologie
Modelling excellent practitioners yielded certain insights into the skills

and patterns of human communication. These insights became coded
as various frameworks, strategies, procedures and techniques that can
be learnt and used by other people. NLP’s fourth ‘face’ is therefore as a
form of practical knowledge, a technology comprising a wide range of
models and tools that are presented in the copious popular literature
and are taught in NLP training programmes. Some of the major NLP
models are concerned with language patterns.
The technology of NLP can be used in many different ways. The
following types of applications are common in business; (we sum-
marise literature about known business applications in the following
chapter):
• Modelling ‘excellence’; this is a way of ‘reverse engineering’

human capabilities, that can identify the keys to excellent prac-
tice and enable others to learn how to do it themselves;
• Designing and refining outcomes, ranging from broad visions to
very specific goals, and understanding the resources needed to
achieve them;
• Exploring and improving communication skills (verbal and non-
verbal; spoken and written);
• Increasing self-awareness (e.g. of one’s behaviour patterns, of
one’s internal world of imagery and self-talk, and so on);

• Coaching for performance, for example to improve specific

behaviours and skills, and to increase confidence and flexibility;
• Overcoming limiting beliefs, perceptions and/or patterns of
behaviour.

The techniques of NLP have become voluminous. Reliable practical
introductions for managers can be found in books such as those by
Knight (2002), Molden (2001) and many more. Another by Churches
and Terry (2007), while written for teachers, also provides an
informed and lively introduction that is likely to be helpful to any
professional wishing to understand more about NLP.
The tools found in NLP are to be used ‘as-if’ they were true, and
which can be modified or rejected if they are found to be ineffective
in practice. Its technology consists, in that sense, of heuristics – prac-
tical, working theorems. This practical, applied emphasis is often
attractive to managers.
NLP’s heuristics are also provisional in the sense that while there is
again much anecdotal evidence about the usefulness of NLP, there is
little in the way of formal evidence that demonstrates the efficacy of
its claims to the public. Here we are thinking not so much of the hard-
boiled sceptic who demands scientific proof for everything, more of
reasonable people who are interested in the types of solutions that
NLP may offer, yet who would not accept sales claims at face value.
We will examine the research evidence relating to NLP in Chapter 10.
Commodity
In the late 1970s, as the range of frameworks and techniques gener-

ated by NLP grew, there was a shift from addressing the primarily
psychotherapeutic audience of ‘The Structure of Magic’ towards
making NLP available to the public at large. There is reference to
NLP workshops and seminars being given in the US in 1977 by
Byron Lewis (Lewis & Pucelik 1990:161) and by Robert Dilts and
Terence McLendon (McLendon 1989:100). According to Merlevede
(2000:63), the first practitioner and master practitioner programmes
were created not by Bandler and Grinder, but by Leslie Cameron,
David Gordon and Robert Dilts at ‘the first NLP Institute, DOTAR
(Division of Training and Research)’. McLendon (1989:113) refers to
‘Not Ltd.’, run by Richard Bandler, Leslie Cameron-Bandler and

associates, offering training and developments workshops in

1978.
A central feature of NLP, therefore, is that its identity has evolved
from asking questions (how does this work?) to offering solutions

(this is how to help people change!). We regard the point at which
its knowledge became packaged and sold as a system of trainings,
and related artefacts such as books and audio tapes,10 as pivotal in
NLP’s development. On the one hand, NLP’s developers deserve
credit for being excellent entrepreneurs, and for making NLP widely
available rather than restricting it to the exclusive domain of estab-
lished professionals. On the other hand the commercialisation of
NLP seems to have had the effect of taking it further away from
academic research, and of leaving purchasers free to use these
powerful tools in any way they wished.
NLP training rapidly became a global phenomenon. In Europe,
for example, the Austrian Training Center for NLP was founded in
1984 (Schütz 1994:49); NLP is also very popular in France, where
it is known as PNL (La Programmation Neuro Linguistique). In
1990 O’Connor and Seymour (1990:201–211) listed NLP trainings in
seventeen countries across four continents, North America, South
America, Europe and Australia; in 2007 a practitioner training took
place in India.11 In the UK, the longest established training organ-
isations were founded in the mid to late 1980s.12 In 2008, more
than 50 training schools were operating in the UK alone. 13 To indi-
cate the number of certificated trainers worldwide, the website of
the International NLP Trainers’ Association refers to having held
40 Trainer Trainings since 2000 (and several before).
NLP now involves a large number of practitioners across the
world, as well as commercial training providers, membership bodies
and other organisations, conferences, discussion groups, websites,
practice groups, and a wide range of publications and artefacts. It is
difficult to place a figure on the number of NLP practitioners. We
estimate, bearing in mind that such courses have been offered since
the 1980s, and that there are many providers, that a figure of some
30,000 UK-trained NLP practitioners in the 20 years from 1985
to 2005 is not unrealistic.14 It may be a conservative estimate; for
example, O’Connor and Seymour claimed in 1990 that 100,000 people
in the USA had ‘done some form of NLP training’ (O’Connor &
Seymour 1990:23), and a profile of John Grinder on an Irish NLP

training organisation’s website states that globally some 20,000

people each year attend NLP seminars.15
NLP training is a highly competitive commercial market. It includes
organisations that act both as training providers and as essentially

self-appointed authorities that regulate their own particular brand of
NLP certification, both directly and through other affiliated training
organizations.16, 17 For example, the website of the International
NLP Trainers’ Association stipulates that ‘only NLP Trainers who
attended an INLPTA Trainers Training are able to become members
of INLPTA’.18 A ‘Consumer’s Guide’ to NLP training written by
Connirae and Steve Andreas refers bluntly to ‘commercial enter-
prises masquerading as professional organizations’, and emphasises
that ‘NLP is a completely non-regulated area’.19
One different kind of NLP association, which attempts to put for-
ward an independent view in the sense that it neither offers training
programmes nor authorises certificates, nor is affiliated to any organ-
isation that does so, is the UK-based Association for NLP (ANLP). Now
established formally as a community interest company, it is ‘dedicated
to making NLP more accessible to the general public’.20 Membership
is voluntary, by subscription; practitioners who are members agree
to be governed by the ANLP Code of Ethics and are encouraged to
participate in their continuing professional development.21
The Professional Guild of NLP, an association of training organisa-
tions, was initiated in 2003 by ‘a group of established NLP Training
Providers’ who shared an in-principle commitment to quality based
on the minimum standard of 120 hours direct training, in no fewer
than 18 days, for an NLP practitioner level.
Given that NLP can be seen as a commodity, some events con-
cerning intellectual property rights in the field are relevant. In 1997,
Richard Bandler initiated court action in California to assert certain
rights in relation to NLP. His claims were not supported; the outcome
of that action is detailed in an article by Christina Hall (Hall 2001). A
release agreement issued as part of that action is reproduced in
‘Whispering in the Wind’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:376–381).
In parallel, Tony Clarkson, a UK practitioner, applied to the English
courts to revoke Bandler’s registered trademark ‘NLP’. Clarkson,
who took the action as an individual but with support from NLP prac-
titioners internationally, succeeded in 1998. This means effectively
that in England and Wales ‘NLP’ has been declared a generic term, and
it cannot therefore be trademarked.22

Professional service
In evolutionary terms the final face of NLP to have emerged is that of a

professional service. This is ironic because, in its early days, NLP’s

founders emphasised its identity as a methodology that existed at one
remove from the modes of psychotherapy (e.g. Gestalt) that it invest-
igated. For example, the founders were reluctant to create the kind of
belief system or ‘theology’ (Bandler & Grinder 1979:5) that, in their
view, characterised and hampered psychology.
Today, people who have trained in NLP offer their services as
executive coaches, sports coaches, consultants, trainers, psycho-
therapists and more. NLP can be the overt method of practice used
by coaches and psychotherapists who are accredited by bodies in
their respective fields.23
Beyond this, it may be difficult to identify exactly when, where and
how NLP is being used in a professional service. Ponting (2006) iden-
tified that it is common for practitioners in business to use NLP without
naming it as such. Several reasons were apparent. Sometimes practition-
ers were anxious that NLP could have negative connotations for clients.
The word ‘programming’ in particular is one that many people, not just
those in business, find off-putting; for example, ‘I have always been
wary of “programming” approaches to human development’ (Mike
Pedler, foreword to Molden 2003:xi). A second reason was a desire to
avoid jargon. As remarked above, NLP is difficult to define. Also, for
managers whose learning style preferences (Honey & Mumford 1992)
are for pragmatism and action, the title appears quite theoretical – per-
haps ironic in view of NLP practitioners’ emphasis on what is useful
and their apparent disdain for theory. Business clients typically are
more interested in what a practitioner can do, and the results they can
achieve, than in the theory behind a practice. For example, ‘I tend to use
an NLP approach and work with NLP techniques without direct reference
to NLP at all – I rarely label the techniques I use in coaching’ (Hayes
2006:3). Furthermore NLP can be used effectively in a conversational
way, without need for its terminology to be introduced or explained. A
third reason is that NLP is used by many practitioners as just one ingredi-
ent in an eclectic form of practice. They have no objection to making
their use of NLP explicit, but it would be inaccurate to suggest that their
approach was exclusively NLP. Finally, we are aware personally of cases
where NLP has been applied extensively, yet the client organisation has
insisted that their use of NLP must not be made public.

Conclusion: A working description of NLP
These six faces are, of course, not distinct in practice. Potential

clients with their desires, casual viewers with their curiosities, and

sceptics with their questions, all of whom experience NLP from (as
it were) the outside, may encounter any of these faces, and any
combination of them; similarly, those people who constitute the
community of NLP may be engaged with any or all of them.24
Having begun this chapter with the question ‘What is NLP?’, and
suggested that it has six diverse faces, we end with a potential
working description of the practice:
NLP is interested in how people communicate, perform skills and

create experiences through patterns of thought and behaviour,
mediated by language. NLP helps people create more preferable
and useful (to them) experiences of the world, typically by attend-
ing to and modifying those patterns of thought and behaviour.
Here, as we shall discover in subsequent chapters, both ‘thought’ and

‘behaviour’ involve language in significant ways, as well as internal
imagery, emotion and physiology.25 One of NLP’s distinctive features
is its insights into language and its role in sense-making. It encourages
the exploration of people’s inner worlds, and assumes that communi-
cation, experience and performance all involve mechanisms of percep-
tion that operate outside people’s conscious awareness.
According to this description, people who use NLP as practitioners
have been introduced to both (a) a systematic approach to commun-
ication, and (b) methods through which it is possible to understand
and influence the way people create their experience. Accordingly NLP
practitioners, in whatever field they may operate, can be thought of as
offering two generic services. The first is to identify how an existing
outcome or effect is achieved through particular combinations of
people’s language, thought and behaviour. The second is to facilitate
people who wish to enhance their existing behaviour and skills, or to
change something they dislike about their experience, to learn relevant
new combinations of thought and behaviour that will be both effective
and respectful for the client and their environment. Practitioners achieve
this by using language and communications skilfully and flexibly.
In the next chapter we review some of the ways in which NLP has
been applied in organisational settings.

3
Organisational Applications

of NLP
This chapter is an exploration of some of the ways in which NLP

has been applied in organisational settings to enhance performance,
drawing on our own personal experiences and published accounts.
We give a brief overview of some of the ways in which NLP has
been applied in organisational settings, ending with a discussion of
coaching.
NLP in business: Visibility and invisibility
While NLP initially studied psychotherapists, other applications

soon emerged. Because NLP is about human communication in
general, its potential applications in organisations are endless. Sue
Knight (Knight 1995) presciently anticipated the ‘personal develop-
ment explosion’ in business, and wrote of NLP’s potential for helping
to develop learning organisations.
How much NLP is actually used in the business environment, and
what is the evidence? While both of us have heard stories of how
leading NLP trainers and innovators have used NLP in well known
multi-national organisations, documented applications of NLP in
organisational settings are sparse in comparison with the volume of
anecdotes.
Practitioners use NLP in training (Yemm 2006), leadership develop-
ment (Deering, Dilts & Russell 2002), and extensively in coaching
(Grimley 2007; Linder-Pelz & Hall 2007; McDermott & Jago 2002;
McLeod 2003; O’Connor & Lages 2004). Other examples of practition-
ers’ accounts can be found in NLP magazines such as ‘Rapport’ and
25

‘The Model’; the ANLP website1 has cited applications in organisa-

tions that include Astra Zeneca, British Telecom, and Towergate
Insurance. In the media, The Times has reported benefits of NLP
training as experienced by PA’s;2 Fran Abrams, writing in the Times

Educational Supplement in 2004, mentioned NLP courses being run
for BBC staff.3 The UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development includes NLP course in its training programme.4
The literature on NLP in academic HRD journals is minimal. Of
these, an article by Dowlen (1996) attempts a critical review of NLP
and its relevance to management learning. Von Bergen et al (1997)
review NLP and other alternative training techniques from a scien-
tific perspective. Thompson et al (2002) report an attempt to evalu-
ate the impact over time of NLP training on sales and customer care
in hospitality in Northern Ireland. Their findings are interesting in
that, according to the measures chosen, benefits evident at six weeks
after training appear largely to tail off after six months.
It is possible to indicate how NLP is used in organisations, there-
fore, though it is difficult to offer much in the way of evidence for its
effectiveness. The sources above probably underestimate the usage of
NLP. As reviewed in the previous chapter, for various reasons it is
common for practitioners in business to use NLP without naming it
as such. Similarly, theories and approaches derived from NLP have
seeped into business and management literature, where techniques
and the ideas behind them may be presented with little or no refer-
ence to their origins in NLP, leaving it less visible and acknowledged
than it might be.
Yardley’s ‘Business Confidence’ (1995) is one such case. Yardley,
an NLP trainer,5 includes references to the writings of Bandler and
Grinder, Dilts, and Gregory Bateson in his bibliography, though the
book itself consists mainly of formulaic advice on how to achieve
more success with others in the business environment.
The first example of this phenomenon, ironically, was probably
John Grinder’s own adaptation of the core NLP language model
for the business market, for which it was renamed ‘The Precision
Model’ (McMaster & Grinder 1980). The book refers to its contents
as the ‘technology of management’, and it carries a foreword from
Dr. Paul Hersey of the Centre for Leadership Studies, who with
Kenneth Blanchard (of ‘One Minute Manager’ fame) developed the
well-known model of Situational Leadership. Interestingly, in rela-

Organisational Applications of NLP 27
tion to issues of the relationship between NLP and academic

world, Hersey refers to the Precision Model as a ‘useful theory’
(McMaster & Grinder 1980:v). This volume offers a primer in some
basics of NLP, but nowhere do the authors use the title ‘Neuro-

Linguistic Programming’ or refer to Bandler and Grinder’s previous
publications. Its closest brush with this title is on the book jacket,
which suggests that there is a need for management development
theories to keep pace with ‘breakthroughs’ in fields including
‘neuro-psychology’.
NLP can be applied to selling, to improving communication skills
of all kinds, and to increasing confidence in one’s own abilities. It
can, and has been, to our knowledge, applied to goal setting, self-
management, presentation skills, negotiation, leadership, team build-
ing, and interviewing. The following sections illustrate some of the
typical applications.
Goal-setting
When Unipart managed a turnaround of its business against all
market predictions, it did a number of things. One was to change
the way that it ran meetings. Managers recognized that the
emphasis in their meetings previously had been on problems,
even though they were nominally called progress meetings. They
acknowledged that they did not consider or imagine what they
really wanted from their meetings or their projects prior to con-
sidering how to get there. So they began every meeting with a
discussion of what they did really want – an outcome. (Knight
2002:280)
This example illustrates the NLP principle that when we change the
language we use, we can change how we make sense of a situation,
and also how we then act. Here, what Knight describes is a re-
categorisation, or ‘reframing’ (Bandler & Grinder 1982) of the events
under discussion from problem to outcome.
Secondly, the focus also switches from the present situation to the
future, and enables people to construct a representation of what is
wanted in recognisable and concrete terms. The kinds of questions
that help people to identify the specific actions and resources
needed to make their goals achievable are part of NLP’s collection of
language patterns.

This emphasis on the importance of paying attention to future

outcomes, and how they are to be achieved, is characteristic of
NLP. It is very ‘outcome oriented’; it encourages managers to con-
struct a clear image of their goals as and when they have been

achieved, using whatever senses (seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting,
smelling) may be the most appropriate to use to build their internal
imagery.
NLP also goes beyond goal-setting by helping to access and
strengthen the inner resources the person needs to achieve their
goal. For example, an NLP technique known as the ‘circle of excel-
lence’ (Laborde 1988:172) is designed for this purpose:
The client accesses a number of highly positive experiences from

their past, each time stepping into a vivid, imaginary circle in
front of them. The combination of the positive experiences
becomes linked or ‘anchored’ to the imagined circle. Then,
whenever the person wants to access feelings of confidence and
resourcefulness in future, they can imagine themselves stepping
into that circle.
The potential for mental rehearsal of various kinds to influence per-

formance is used in sports psychology. We cite support for mental
rehearsal in academic literature in Chapter 11.
Selling
One of the main areas to have been influenced by NLP is that
of selling. Illustrating the general approach, Robertson’s Sales:
the Mind’s Side (1989) applies NLP to persuasion. Apart from laud-
ing the pursuit of states of excellence and peak performance, and
how to access them, it gives simple information about how people
use their senses internally to make decisions, how some people
are more ‘visual’ than others, and how important it is to match
the other person’s body language to create rapport. NLP as such
is not mentioned in the main text, but the bibliography makes
extensive reference to Bandler, Grinder and other developers in the
field.
Washburn and Wallace’s volume (1999) is enticingly entitled Why
People don’t Buy Things, and the publicity on the front cover claims
that it offers the reader the opportunity of dramatically increasing

their sales. It draws on a number of different sources, the first one

cited in their bibliography being Bandler and Grinder’s Frogs into
Princes, even though the initials NLP are noticeable by their absence.
A significant part of the content is devoted to explanations about

how to identify different types of people, including those who make
choices visually. Lakhani’s Subliminal Persuasion (Lakhani 2008) is a
primer of how to use NLP language patterns and hypnosis to
influence people to act in particular ways, and to be motivated to
then buy things.
NLP has also been promoted as a way of successfully selling
over the telephone, (Zarro & Blum 1989) with advice for people on
how to overcome ‘phone phobia’, identify visual, auditory and
kinaesthetic types of ‘phone responders’, and how to influence
people on the phone through using Ericksonian hypnotic language
patterns. Knight (2002:158) describes how people who are good
at telephone communication will make an internal visual image
of a successful outcome to their call before they pick up the
phone.
Psychological profiling through meta-programmes

NLP proposes a model of psychological and behavioural prefer-
ences, based on the way people respond to and process information.
These preferences are called ‘meta-programmes’ (Charvet 1997)
and are, metaphorically speaking, ‘programmes’ and motivational
strategies that people run, as it were, in particular situations.
A simple example of a meta-programme is the one often referred
to as ‘sameness-difference’. A person whose preference is ‘same-ness’
may be the one that goes along with the views of the crowd, rarely
disagrees, takes a broad overview of situations, and tends to repeat
certain actions when faced with a problem. Someone sorting for dif-
ference, on the other hand, may be constantly scanning incoming
information for what does not fit, or what he or she can disagree
with. Such a preference may lead that person to seek novel solutions
to problems.
Another standard meta-programme is referred to as ‘towards
– away from’. This describes whether a person is motivated more
by wanting to avoid a particular consequence (away from), or is
attracted towards an outcome. An ‘away from’ person might answer
the question ‘do I want a fast car?’ with ‘oh no! I might have

an accident!’ A ‘towards’ person might respond ‘yes, rather’ as she

imagined the excitement of roaring along a French motorway.
Applications of this model include recruitment, market research,
career planning and performance management (Thompson,

Courtney & Dickson 2002). The original instrument based on meta-
programmes, called the Language and Behaviour (LAB) profile, was
developed by Rodger Bailey. Another called ‘Thinking Styles’ is
designed to be used in coaching (Beddoes-Jones & Miller 2007).
Notably, another recent instrument called the cdaq®,6 developed by
Paul Brewerton (2004), was granted registration as a psychological
test by the British Psychological Society (British Psychological
Society 2007). Any approved instrument must prove its credentials
rigorously, so effectively this means that the psychology establish-
ment in the UK recognises the validity of this model. This seems
significant given the criticisms sometimes aimed at NLP from acade-
mic psychology.
Leadership development
NLP has been applied to leadership in education in the UK within
the Fast Track teaching programme provided by the CfBT Education
Trust,7 which provides graduate leadership development programmes
that mirror fast track programmes in industry and the wider public
sector. Fast Track teaching was originally developed and funded by
the Department for Education and Skills in 2001 and became a
National College for School Leadership programme in 2005. The
programme design and content is designed and delivered by CfBT
Education Trust. Training opportunities including NLP8 are struc-
tured to support specific competency development. Since 2004, over
2,000 Fast Track teachers have had some training in NLP and by the
end of 2009 nearly 800 will have done the INLPTA Diploma
(Churches & West-Burnham 2008).9 Subsequent in-house evaluation
research has shown that this has had a positive impact on teacher
and school leader development (Jones & Atfield 2007). NLP has also
been used effectively to support headteacher development in chal-
lenging school contexts (Hutchinson, Churches & Vitae 2007) as
part of the London Leadership Strategy’s Consultant Leader pro-
gramme. This programme identifies outstanding headteachers and
gives them training and development as well as deploying them in
consulting roles to support other London schools.

Modelling excellence
In Chapter 2, we described modelling as one of the six faces of NLP.
The essence of modelling is to gain insights into the internal strate-
gies used by exemplars. These insights are then used to produce a

model, which identifies and maps the necessary variables needed to
perform the skill. A good model is believed to enable others then
to replicate this skill.
Modelling has been used to identify and map the cognitive stra-
tegies that lie behind skills that are useful in organisations such
as motivating oneself, successful negotiation, effective chairing of
meetings, making persuasive speeches, and many others. According
to a factsheet on the CIPD website,10 for example, ‘it is possible to
model any of the following:
• the ability to connect immediately with customers;

• the charisma of an inspiring business leader;
• the ability to create a compelling vision;
• the capacity to maintain motivation towards a goal;
• a state of congruence and truth;
• an ability to resolve situations of conflict;
• the skill of coaching people to achieve their best performance’.
In the 1970s, Bandler and Grinder (1979:36) referred to working for

an advertising agency in order to ‘clone’ their most creative people
by modelling the ones considered to be the most successful:
We determined the strategy that one creative person used to

create a commercial, we taught other people in that agency to
use the same structure at an unconscious level. The commercials
they came up with were then creative in the same way, but the
content was totally unique.
Modelling has been applied in other business contexts. An interview

with Charles Faulkner, an NLP trainer and author, in Robert
Koppel’s ‘The Intuitive Trader’ (Koppel 1996:71), tells how Faulkner
modelled the intuitive judgements of leading traders, using the
results of his modelling to become a successful trader himself. Jay
Spechler claims (1995) to have modelled excellence in business,
specifically in quality management; his ‘When America Does It

Right’ (1991) includes case studies of numerous North American cor-

porations, including Boeing, American Express and Hewlett Packard.
Unfortunately this book does not describe how Spechler used the
modelling method.11

The NLP modeller needs to be able to ask the right questions so as
to identify the particular behaviour or strategy that is the main dif-
ference between success and failure. One of us (Jane) was intrigued
by the way in which a Head of a Government Department in New
Zealand ran successful and productive meetings. One of the ques-
tions asked when eliciting the strategy behind his behaviour as
Chair was about how he dealt with people who talked too much,
went off the point or interrupted him. Here is his account of his
strategy:
If I am speaking and someone cuts in over the top of me, I stop

and when they have finished, I repeat the first part of my sen-
tence. Often the same person will cut in again at exactly the
same point. I then repeat the first part of the sentence a third
time. I have found that I rarely need to do that more than three
times.
If there is a person in the room who continually cuts in over
the top of everyone I use a slightly different tactic. I simply keep
talking at the same level and pace. Most people simply give up
when that happens and allow the rude person to have the floor.
I think it’s a confidence thing. I find that if I keep talking, no one
can hear either me or the other person, and it’s a matter of who
gives up first. I don’t. Sometimes by then I am talking drivel but
no one can understand it anyway with two people talking. My
experience is that the person cutting in will generally stop first as
they realise that they have not been given the floor. They don’t
do it to me a second time.
This gives a simple strategy that others could learn. Identifying the
factors that make the strategy work, of course, involves investigat-
ing other dimensions as well as the exemplar’s behaviour; it will be
subtended by certain beliefs in his own capabilities and rights to
maintain his authority, and an internal construct of what he wants
to achieve from the meeting. Some of the individual skills, such
as the ability to continue talking, come what may, and maintain an
authoritative tone of voice, can be taught through coaching.

Coaching
The world of coaching is a rapidly expanding part of practical
organisational psychology. It is estimated that the number of new
coaches joining the market place is doubling every year (Rogers,

preface to Hayes 2006). Coaching is part of the toolkit of many
coaches in the UK, and a growth area in the applications of NLP in
organisations – in 2009, 310 trained NLP practitioners were listed by
the ANLP as offering a specialism in business coaching.12
How is NLP applied in coaching? Grimley (2007) provides a case
study of an executive client who had recently been laid off. Grimley
describes how he used NLP to identify the specific problems the
client wanted to work on, explore new perspectives on the issues
that helped him to manage his anger at being laid off, and access his
own inner resources, such that the client ‘felt he was truly out of his
rut and moving forward in his life’ (Grimley 2007:208). Grimley
also stresses the need for NLP’s claims to be tested in a more robust
way, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Hayes emphasises the practical aspect of coaching, observing that
coaches need to work ‘in the reality of the moment’ (Hayes
2006:121). He expresses scepticism about many of the claims of NLP
and of its community, and nevertheless states that in his work as a
coach he finds in NLP an invaluable set of tools to help others to
attain their goals. His book gives examples of many of the NLP tech-
niques that can be used in coaching. For example, he describes
working with Brian, a chief executive, who ‘was deeply troubled
when it came to presenting an argument or a report to groups of
senior managers and non-executive directors’. After using, among
other things, a process called the meta-mirror, which encourages a
client to witness themselves as seen through other people’s eyes,
Brian ‘recognized that the group was not, as he had assumed, con-
spiring to create his discomfort but was a group of individuals who
wanted him to succeed and were terrified of their own embarrass-
ment if he were to struggle to perform well in front of them’ (Hayes
2006:63–64). This led to further insights that enabled Brian to learn
what he needed in order to handle the situation better.
Linder-Pelz and Hall describe the work of NLP coaches as being
about ‘facilitating a client’s performance, experience, learning and
growth and about actualising goals’ (Linder-Pelz & Hall 2008:43).
They encourage clients to be more aware of the many dimensions
to their thinking and acting, as part of acquiring insights through

self-reflexivity. Using the idea of ‘meta-states’ (Hall 2000), they

claim that it may be meaningful for the client to explore not only,
for instance, how he or she views a particular situation, but also
how he or she has categorised these perceptions. Does he or she feel

challenged by a problematic situation, or helpless?
These authors stress the need for coaching people in organisations
to become more self-reflexive so as to enable them to understand
themselves and others better. A coach using this approach ‘enables a
client to reflect on potentials they previously may not have believed
they had and on beliefs and feelings that may be holding them
back’ (Linder-Pelz & Hall 2008:44). Where NLP is thought to be a
useful approach is that it enables the practitioner to use ‘precision
questioning… as well as language that induces and utilises states as
well as framing, reframing and deframing meaning’ (Linder-Pelz &
Hall 2008:46). This highlights that a practical understanding of the
powers of language to affect meaning-making is likely to receive
special and detailed emphasis in the training of NLP coaches.
Some publications in this field appear to be re-hashes of NLP
Practitioner and Master Practitioner training manuals, listing tech-
niques that are said to be useful to the NLP coach but making little
reference to theories of learning and human development. Accord-
ing to Linder-Pelz and Hall (2007), NLP coaching integrates a
‘disparate but significant body of established knowledge and theory’
(Linder-Pelz & Hall 2007:15) which draws on various disciplines,
including Bandura’s cognitive learning theory (Bandura 1986).
Fazit
In this chapter we have described some of the ways in which NLP

has been applied in organisational settings. It is used to model suc-
cessful exemplars, to enable people to set compelling goals and to
learn new skills, and to develop leaders. Its use in coaching is prom-
inent. The question of the effectiveness of NLP in practice is one that
we resume in Chapter 11 – this is potentially a researcher’s paradise,
as there is a lack of well-documented cases, and NLP’s claims need
to be evaluated more thoroughly.

Part II


4
The Road to Santa Cruz

The story of NLP in context
What constitutes a ‘history’? The Encyclopedia of NLP, a major

work, running to 1,625 large-format pages spread across two
volumes, includes a section headed ‘Historical Overview of NLP’. Yet
within this entry, the part that recounts the ‘history’ is a single para-
graph giving a very brief narrative account of how ‘NLP was ori-
ginated by John Grinder… and Richard Bandler’ (Dilts & DeLozier
2000:850). Other accounts in the field, such as that by Peter Young
(2004:61), are similarly sparse.
There has been relatively little published information about the
specific events that led to the emergence of NLP in the early 1970s.
McLendon’s ‘The Wild Days’ is a very entertaining and informative
account from someone who was directly involved. It is not necessarily
accurate in detail yet, according to Bandler, it captures ‘the spirit of
adventure that gave birth to NLP’ (McLendon 1989:ii). Then in 2001,
with the publication of ‘Whispering in the Wind’ (Bostic St. Clair &
Grinder 2001), John Grinder expanded in print on some of the events
and theories that informed the development of NLP. This account is
invaluable in many respects, if hard going in places and difficult to
obtain.1 As noted in Chapter 1, the two most scholarly accounts of the
circumstances surrounding NLP’s conception, those by Wolfgang
Walker (1996) and Monique Esser (2004), are from continental Europe,
and have not yet been translated into English.
Compounding this, ‘serious’ study of NLP has sometimes been
discouraged. Whether because that is to miss the point of NLP, or
37

because many of the details of events in the 1970s are now hazy, or
because it preserves a sense of mystique and elusiveness, is a matter
for debate. Grinder says, in the foreword to O’Connor and Seymour’s
‘Introducing NLP’:

These two men… have set out to make a coherent story out of an
outrageous adventure… What you are about to read never hap-
pened, but it seems reasonable, even to me.
(O’Connor & Seymour 1990:15)
Relying on NLP literature can therefore convey a very NLP-centric

view of its own origins, one that is not only obscure in its detail but
also stripped from its location in twentieth century culture and the
ideas and practices that informed it, giving the impression that the
field sprang fully formed, sometime in the early 1970s in Santa
Cruz, California, from the labours of its progenitors, Bandler and
Grinder. Dowlen (1996:29) says, for example, that; ‘It is interesting
to note the degree to which NLP is personalized in connection with
these two individuals (i.e. Bandler and Grinder), with far less
emphasis being accorded to either the origins of NLP or its sub-
sequent development by others.’ The NLP Story appears to some, to
have become a sort of Adam and Eve ‘Creation Myth’.2
While a focus on Bandler and Grinder is inevitable, because they
are so prominent in both the literature and the practice of the field,
we also aim to take a wider perspective on this reconstruction of its
origins, both historically and conceptually. Can one appreciate the
biography and identity of NLP without acknowledging, for example,
its emergence from streams of twentieth century intellectual
thought? It is difficult to see how NLP could have evolved without
the theories about the ways in which people process information
and understand their worlds that were developed through construc-
tivism and cybernetics.
Also significant is the human potential movement and the cul-
tural revolution of the 1960s. California became the epicentre of the
growth movement, epitomised by the Esalen Institute that was
founded at Big Sur in 1962, in which both Satir and Perls were
involved.3 The state was a hub of countercultural activity – alterna-
tive therapies, new lifestyles, experimental rock music, altered states
of consciousness and a drug culture whose values were initially

The Road to Santa Cruz 39
formed by the rejection of materialism, coupled with political

dissent that was fuelled by revulsion towards the Vietnam War.
McLendon says of Santa Cruz at that time, ‘for those in the know
about crystals, pyramids and tarot, Santa Cruz’s stature is equal to

that of the Bermuda Triangle, Boulder, Colorado and other high
energy windows to the universe’ (McLendon 1989:1). As we shall
discover, NLP grew from a distinctive educational experiment hap-
pening within this context, that of Kresge College at the University
of Santa Cruz.
One could take a longer-term perspective and consider NLP as an
example of the type of twentieth century social movement that
emerged in the USA. For example, NLP’s sometimes exaggerated
emphasis on the potential for the person to change themselves, and
its promises of empowerment and personal success, reflect an ethos
of self-improvement that can be traced back to Dale Carnegie’s
‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ (first published in 1936),
and Norman Vincent Peale’s ‘Power of Positive Thinking’ (from
1952). The self-help movement may have shaped the identity of
NLP more than is usually acknowledged, not only in its guise as a
commercial product but also in its contents. Some of these ideas
sound remarkably similar to NLP, such as Carnegie’s emphasis on
appreciating the other person’s point of view, and on adjusting
one’s own response in order to influence other people, and Peale’s
interest in boosting self-confidence.
Acknowledging this wider context, a timeline of NLP could take
us at least as far back as the 1940s, as shown in Figure 4.1 (we will
explain the connections to the Macy Conferences and to the Palo
Alto group in the forthcoming chapters). A more detailed timeline
of events is included as an Appendix.
In this and the following chapters we flesh out the bare bones of the
usual stories of NLP’s origins by describing how four main aspects of
NLP evolved, making links backwards in time to their antecedents.4
The first aspect involved Bandler, then Grinder, together with
various collaborators, discovering ways in which language directly
influences people’s thinking and their subsequent actions. This col-
laboration began in 1972 and led to the development of the NLP
‘meta-model’ (Chapters 4 and 5).
The second aspect focused on non-verbal communication. It
comprised the discovery of the significance of people’s ‘inner

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect -
40
Figure 4.1 NLP, a Timeline
Palo Alto Mental Research
Institute founded, in which
Bateson, Satir and Spitzer
were all involved ‘Structure of Magic I’
Publisher Robert Spitzer published ‘New Code’ NLP
encourages Bandler’s (DeLozier & Grinder)
studies of Satir and Perls
2011-04-19
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Litigation
The Macy Conferences, New
York, 1946–1953; Gregory Bandler & Grinder stop
bateson was a member of the Bandler and Grinder meet working together
core group Bateson through Kresge
College
Source: © Paul Tosey & Jane Mathison 2009

landscapes’, the ways in which people re-create experience inter-

nally through inner sensory modes of vision, hearing, feeling, and
more (Chapter 6).
The third aspect arose through encounters with Milton H. Erickson,

the renowned hypnotherapist, who provided further insights into the
unconscious effects of verbal and non-verbal communication, yield-
ing not only an appreciation of hypnotic language structures per se,
but also a deeper and richer understanding of language patterns and
communication generally (see Chapter 7).
The fourth aspect is more dispersed in time, yet one that is central to
a critical appreciation of NLP. This centres on the influence of Gregory
Bateson, ‘one of the most provocative social scientists of the twentieth
century’ (Rieber 1989), who happened to be in Santa Cruz in the
1970s. Bateson provides the link between NLP and the science of
cybernetics, which we argue is foundational to any theory of NLP (see
Chapter 8). This aspect links forward to 1987, when Judith DeLozier
and John Grinder developed ‘new code’ NLP (DeLozier & Grinder
1987), an attempt to re-invent NLP as a practice more closely aligned
to Bateson’s ecologically-informed thinking, thereby distancing it from
the mechanistic influence of early cybernetics.
While these stages only take the story of NLP up to the 1980s,
they represent the main influences and events that have shaped
NLP today. We update this story, and argue that today NLP is at a
crossroads, in the final chapter of the book.
Bandler, Spitzer, Perls and Satir
What can be gleaned from published sources about the lives of

Bandler and Grinder before the 1970s, and about the route that
brought them together?
Bandler, an only child from a Jewish background (McLendon
1989:10), was born in New Jersey and grew up in the poorer quarters
of San Jose, California (Walker 1996:21). At one time his family
owned a restaurant, and Bandler developed ‘a natural ability for
cooking’ (McLendon 1989:3). In 1967 the then seventeen year old
Richard Bandler was an unwilling student at Freemont High School
when he came to the notice of one Robert S. Spitzer.
Spitzer is a little-mentioned but important figure in the origins
of NLP. For example, the dedication to ‘Changing with Families’

(Bandler, Grinder & Satir 1976) reads ‘To Bob Spitzer, who has made
possible so much of the actualization of our creativity’. It was
largely thanks to Spitzer, in fact, that Bandler had access to the
people and the material that sparked his curiosity about how suc-

cessful therapists achieved their results. Spitzer trained as a Freudian
psychiatrist,5 and lived in Santa Cruz, where he was a director of the
publishing house Science and Behavior Books. He first met Virginia
Satir at the Mental Research Institute, Palo Alto, in 1961 and,
inspired by her, joined the Institute himself. He later wrote the fore-
word to Virginia Satir’s classic book, ‘Peoplemaking’, which was
originally published in 1972 (Satir 1978:ix–x).
Spitzer recounts (1992:1) how his wife Becky had been impressed
with the musical abilities of Richard Bandler, who was a friend of
their son’s, and who played musical instruments, and composed jazz
and rock without any formal training. They also noticed Richard’s
interest in philosophical questions. Recognising his potential, Spitzer
initially employed him in various capacities in his publishing house.
Thus the Spitzers became Bandler’s unofficial mentors.
After graduating from Freemont High School, Bandler entered
Foothill College, in the Los Altos Hills (McLendon 1989:4), where
apparently he drove his teachers to near despair (Spitzer 1992:1)
because he would not conform to its regime. Foothill College, was
(and still is)6 a college preparing students for entry into a University
degree programme through accumulating credits. After two years at
Foothill Bandler ‘transferred to the university at Santa Cruz where he
began a major in mathematics and computer sciences, later transfer-
ring his interest to the behavioural sciences’ (McLendon 1989:4).
Spitzer, impressed with Bandler’s work, engaged him on a new
task. Fritz Perls, one of the main developers of Gestalt therapy and
another of Spitzer’s authors, had died in 1970, leaving behind him
some unfinished work. Spitzer asked Bandler to transcribe record-
ings of Perls at work and contracted him to help with the editing of
his uncompleted manuscripts, planning to include examples of
Perls’ work in a book to be published posthumously (i.e. Perls 1973).
The second part of that book was mainly the result of Bandler’s
transcription and analysis.
Bandler immersed himself in the task, spending many hours
watching and transcribing Perls’ audio and filmed recordings, and
running through them repeatedly to check the accuracy of his tran-

scriptions. Spitzer wrote later that Bandler ‘came out of it talking

and acting like Fritz Perls. I found myself accidentally calling him
Fritz on several occasions’ (Spitzer 1992:2). Illustrating how Bandler
had begun to use the approach that would later be called ‘model-

ling’, Spitzer says: ‘He said this was how he learned music. Richard
would listen to the music of someone he admired over and over
until he sounded just like the person being imitated. He was not
worried about imitating or losing his identity. Apparently musicians
often use a form of deep identification in their learning processes’
(Spitzer 1992:2).
The Spitzers owned a weekend cabin, and they agreed to let the
young Bandler build his own house nearby and be caretaker for their
property (Spitzer 1992:1). Richard first met Virginia Satir at a seminar
she gave at the cabin, probably in 1972 (Walker 1996:31);7 by this time
Satir had moved on from the Palo Alto Mental Research Institute to
become the first director of training at Esalen (Satir 1978:ix).
Spitzer then asked Bandler to tape and transcribe a month-long
workshop that Satir was due to lead in Canada, intending to turn
this material into a book. ‘Richard was quite taken by Virginia’,
wrote Spitzer (1992:2), being intrigued by her abilities to elicit in-
formation from other people, and fascinated by how she achieved
her results.
Incidentally, it is important to acknowledge that the practices of
Satir and Perls were themselves influenced by other psychotherapists.
For discussions of these types of connection, see Bolstad (2002) and
Wake (2008).
Satir was also impressed with Bandler’s abilities, describing him as
being a brilliant young man with a fantastic intellect and a wide
ranging curiosity (Walker 1996:32). Towards the end of that work-
shop, according to O’Connor and Seymour (1990:173), ‘Virginia
had set up a counselling situation and asked how the participants
would deal with it, using the material that she had been teaching
them. The participants seemed stuck. Richard came storming down
from his room and successfully dealt with the problem… Richard
found himself in the strange situation of knowing more about Virginia’s
therapeutic procedures than anyone else, without consciously trying
to learn them at all.’
One of Satir’s therapeutic tools was what she called the ‘Parts Party’,
based on the idea that a person has a number of psychological parts, as

it were, that could be harmoniously expressed in a healthy indi-

vidual. At a Parts Party the therapist, or party giver, would analyse
the interactions between a person’s different ‘parts’ and guide them
to take up different perspectives on each other, so that they could

work co-operatively. According to Walker (1996:34), Bandler was
apparently rendered speechless at the changes she facilitated in him
– though Spitzer’s recollection is that neither Bandler nor Grinder
‘personally experienced a family reconstruction in the context of an
extended training. I think such an experience for either of them would
have added an (sic) new dimension of appreciation of Virginia and
life’ (Spitzer 1992:4).
John Grinder
Born in 1940 in Detroit, Michigan, John Grinder was the first of a

family of nine children. He received a Catholic education and studied
to bachelor’s degree level ‘under the tutelage of the Jesuits’ at the
University of San Francisco. He married and also enlisted in the US
Army in 1962, serving in Germany until 1967 (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder
2001:122, 144).
Walker (1996) and Dilts and DeLozier (2000:460) both comment on
Grinder’s military service during which, according to McLendon
(1989:9a), he worked as an interpreter and participated in covert oper-
ations. This experience seems to have been formative in the develop-
ment of Grinder’s non-verbal, non-cognitive approach to ‘modelling’.
During this time, apparently, he found that he could rapidly imitate
an indigenous speaker sufficiently well to pass himself off as a native.
According to McLendon (1989:9a), one language Grinder acquired in
this way was Swahili.
Grinder then comments that ‘for a variety of reasons, I resigned my
commission as captain’, then became a graduate student in Linguistics
at the University of California, San Diego in 1968. He ‘spent one acad-
emic year as a guest researcher in George Miller’s lab at Rockefeller
University (1969/70) in New York City’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder
2001:123). Presumably resulting from this period, two of Miller’s
best-known ideas appear frequently in NLP. The first is the well-
known dictum that the conscious mind can process at most ‘7 plus or
minus 2’ pieces of information (Miller 1956), the second is the test-
operate-test-exit (TOTE) model of human behaviour (Miller, Galanter
& Pribram 1960), of which we say more in Chapter 9.

After completing his doctorate at the University of San Diego

(Grinder 1971) on ‘deletion phenomena’, an aspect of contem-
porary linguistics, Grinder joined the University of California, Santa
Cruz as an assistant professor ‘in the fall of 1970’ (Bostic St. Clair &

Grinder 2001:123). It was there that he and Bandler would soon
come to meet.
Spitzer’s influence continued after Bandler and Grinder met, though
ultimately they were ‘like prodigal sons who never came back’ (Spitzer
1992:4). His publishing house was part of other extensive properties he
owned at 1000 Alba Road,8 Ben Lomond,9 which he and his wife
Becky rented out. There they brought together a community of people
who were interested in alternative life styles. Bandler, John Grinder
and Judith DeLozier would come to be neighbours at this ‘intellectual
hotspot’ (Spitzer 1992:2); Gregory Bateson (see Chapter 8), his wife
Lois, and their daughter Nora would go to live there in the summer of
1974; and Virginia Satir considered moving in too, though decided
against doing so.
We continue this story in the next chapter, at the University of
Santa Cruz.

5
Discovering the Language of
Change1

Kresge College
After Foothill, Richard Bandler enrolled at Kresge College, the sixth

college established at the University of Santa Cruz. Kresge was a
radical experiment in education. Its founding provost, Robert Edgar,
was a microbiologist who had become deeply impressed by the
person-centred educational approach of Carl Rogers. Grant and
Riesman comment that; ‘if Kresge College could have adopted the
name of its patron saint rather than its benefactor, it would have
been called Carl Rogers College’ (1978:77).
Kresge, which Grant and Riesman described as the University of
Santa Cruz’s ‘most avant garde experiment’, opened in 1970 with a
‘planning year’ in which staff and nearly forty students participated
in a course called ‘Creating Kresge College’ (1978:92). Kresge’s edu-
cational ethos and practices were based on T-groups, or sensitivity
training, a behavioural science approach to personal growth and
organisation development founded by Kurt Lewin, encapsulated in
Kresge’s ‘Ten Commandments of T-grouping’ ‘Straight talk’ and
willingness to participate in a weekend T-group became require-
ments for hiring staff. Students were allocated to ‘kin groups’ that
had both social and academic functions, but with the ethos that stu-
dents and staff were co-learners As Grant and Riesman observe,
these rules ‘completely shake the conventions of ordinary academic
discourse’ (1978:84). It was intended to be ‘an integrated living/
learning environment shared (in principle, at any rate) by students,
faculty and staff’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:142).
46

Discovering the Language of Change 47
Grant and Riesman’s account, written contemporaneously in the

1970s, conveys that experiences and opinions of Kresge were com-
plex and diverse. The approach brought tensions within the College
between those fully committed to the T-group ethos and those more

lukewarm or sceptical. Some students thrived, others struggled and
yet benefited, still others rebelled. It also opened Kresge to attack
from those outside who were either threatened by, disapproved of,
or failed to understand its radical approach. By the mid 1970s
Kresge had a new provost, and its ethos shifted direction. Edgar’s
dream had reached too far too fast, faltered and stalled, though it
did not disappear.
Kresge was therefore by no means typical, either of American
college education, nor even of the University of Santa Cruz. If any-
thing it was the exception. What is most relevant in relation to NLP
is that Bandler and Grinder, and later Bateson, were involved in the
relatively short period during which this experiment in communal,
alternative education was at its height.
A meeting of minds
The precise date of Bandler and Grinder’s first encounter is unclear.

According to Grinder, he and Bandler met in one of Kresge’s
T-Groups that he (Grinder) sponsored as a member of the faculty
(Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:142).
Bandler’s fascination with patterns of communication and behav-
iour, his apparently insatiable curiosity about ‘what worked’, and a
desire to find out how a successful therapist’s communication could
produce change, drove him to experiment with Gestalt Therapy
himself. At that time undergraduates at Kresge could present their
own work in order to gain credits. Bandler therefore started a Gestalt
group on the campus in the spring of 1972, often collaborating with
Frank Pucelik, in which he tried out the interventions and ideas that
had emerged from his immersion in Perls’ work (McLendon
1989:9–15). Gestalt therapy was at the time considered to be highly
innovative. According to McLendon, Bandler needed to be super-
vised by a faculty member in order to deliver his course.
Bandler had by then had so much exposure to Satir’s and Perls’
work that he could repeat and adapt their communication patterns
in order to work successfully with clients. What remained was the

challenge of formalising these patterns and teaching them to others.

He had noted that John Grinder, an associate professor in Linguistics,
had interesting ideas about the relationship between the processes of
natural language and ‘the structure of the human mind’ (Bostic

St. Clair & Grinder 2001:143). Grinder’s expertise was reflected in the
doctorate he had recently completed at the University of San Diego
(Grinder 1971) and a book called a Guide to Transformational Grammar,
co-authored with Suzette Haden Elgin (Grinder & Elgin 1973).2 Might
he help Bandler understand some of the things that were happening
in the experimental Gestalt groups that he and Frank Pucelik were
running?
Grinder was at first reluctant to take part in the Gestalt therapy
groups. However, ‘a single evening was more than adequate to
capture my attention… Indeed when I later compared their work
with Perls’ work presented on film and audiotape, I found Pucelik
and Bandler’s work to be significantly more effective than the model
(Perls) they were imitating’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:143).
Pucelik, Grinder and Bandler then worked together for several
months as Grinder applied his understanding of linguistics to puzzle
out and classify these patterns.
The collaborators
At this point it is relevant to acknowledge people besides Bandler

and Grinder themselves who were associated with the development
of NLP, including the meta-model. We have seen already how
Robert and Becky Spitzer played a significant part. Frank Pucelik is
mentioned as one of the three men around whom ‘an excited group
of people’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:173) collected to read the
manuscript of ‘The Structure of Magic’ and assist them with their
research – although apart from this and reference to his involve-
ment in the Gestalt groups, Pucelik’s contribution to NLP is scarcely
mentioned.3
Who else appears in the NLP family constellation? Many of the
early collaborators were later to become the first cadre of NLP train-
ers; among those mentioned in NLP literature are Leslie Cameron,
Judith DeLozier, Byron Lewis, David Gordon, Terence McClendon,
and Robert Dilts. Other people associated with early NLP went on to
develop their own practices, such as the forms of brief therapy and

solution-focused therapy that are associated with people like Steve

Gilligan, Bill O’Hanlon,4 and Steve de Shazer.
The role and voice of women, especially, seems to be under-
represented in the NLP story. Women in the NLP community are

aware of this issue,5 yet with the exception of Helm (1991) there
does not appear to be any published discussion of gender anywhere
in the field.6
Just three examples of the many influential women in NLP are
Leslie Cameron-Bandler, Judith DeLozier, and Christina Hall.7 Byron
Lewis (Lewis & Pucelik 1990) cites Leslie Cameron and Frank Pucelik
as the people who led him into NLP. Cameron , who became known
as Leslie Cameron-Bandler after marrying Bandler in 1977 (McLendon
1989:109), went on to write several books. As mentioned in Chapter 2
this included one of the first to detail the core NLP methodology for
mapping and reproducing competences (Cameron-Bandler, Gordon &
Lebeau 1985). Cameron is called ‘one of the world’s most creative
family therapists’ in the dedication of ‘The Structure of Magic II’, and
she played a central role in the development of NLP training. Accord-
ing to Patrick Merlevede, she was director of the first NLP Institute,
called DOTAR (Division of Training and Research), in which Robert
Dilts and David Gordon also had active roles, with Bandler and Grinder
acting mainly ‘as patriarchs’ (2000:63).
Judith DeLozier has played a central role in NLP, virtually since its
inception, and continues to do so. With a background in religious
studies and anthropology, she ‘got involved in NLP about the time
the book The Structure of Magic was just a manuscript’, through her
friend (later her husband) John Grinder (DeLozier 1995:6). She is co-
author of many NLP books (including Grinder, DeLozier & Bandler
1977; Dilts, Grinder, Bandler & DeLozier 1980; Bretto et al 1991) and
has championed the more holistic approach to NLP known as ‘new
code’ (DeLozier & Grinder 1987). As co-author of the ‘Encyclopedia of
NLP’ (Dilts & DeLozier 2000), she is also jointly responsible for the
major reference work produced from within the field. Therefore it
may seem surprising that her contribution is not asserted more
strongly in discussions of NLP.
Christina Hall is another case in point, especially since, according
to her report of the legal judgement of the Superior Court in Santa
Cruz (Hall 2001), she contributed substantially to the development
of NLP in the late 1970s.

Accounts of NLP, such as those passed on in training courses, some-

times give the impression that there was a single community or
‘meta-model group’ that was engaged in this work from the begin-
ning. It seems more the case that there were several groupings and

events at different times, with fluctuating memberships, as one might
expect to find in an unplanned, emergent process. Many meetings
took place at friends’ houses.8 For example, McLendon (1989:39)
mentions a group at Mission Street, in Santa Cruz, ‘initiated by a
person named Ken’, and to ‘Frank Pucelik, Leslie Cameron and Judith
DeLozier’s house in the Santa Cruz mountains’ (McLendon 1989:25).
Later, there were the people among whom Bandler and Grinder
circulated the manuscript of The Structure of Magic (which was in
existence by early 1974), who helped to test and refine its contents.
Another grouping comprised those who joined Bandler and Grinder
in studying with Milton Erickson (see Chapter 7). It seems likely
that these groupings centred on those involved in the community
at 1000 Alba Road that was fostered by the Spitzers.
What is the meta-model?
The first substantive product of this period, the ‘meta-model’,

appeared in print in 1975, titled ‘The Structure of Magic I’ (Bandler
& Grinder 1975b)9 and sporting a colourful image of a wizard on the
front cover.10 It carried a foreword by Gregory Bateson who, with
reference to his own previous work on human communication, said:
‘Grinder and Bandler have succeeded in making explicit the syntax
of how people avoid change and, therefore, how to assist them in
changing.’ (Bateson in Bandler & Grinder 1975b:x)
The meta-model patterns were essentially a classification based on
the cognitive or conceptual processes that each one involved. The
meta-model, which is claimed to be ‘the first complete syntactically
based language model for an express purpose ever created’ (Bostic
St. Clair & Grinder 2001:148), conceived of grammar and syntax as
mirroring cognitive processes, thus providing a means by which to
understand people’s ways of making sense.
Adopting Chomksy’s ideas about transformational linguistics, the
meta-model categorises certain linguistic transformations, or ways
in which the ‘surface structure’ of verbal communication can differ
from the ‘deep structure’, which is effectively a fuller description of

experience. These transformations, which are described in detail in

Bandler and Grinder (1975b), arise through the processes of dele-
tion, distortion and generalisation, which sound undesirable but in
fact help to make our communication more concise. Chomsky

assumed that deep and surface structure were simply different
(shorthand and more expanded respectively) versions of the same
thing; asking meta-model questions could recover this detail.
A manager applying the meta-model to preparing an important pre-
sentation would start with the question; ‘what processes do I want to
influence in my listeners in order to enable them to understand what
I’m saying in the most useful way?’ The various meta-model patterns
relate to processes we use to make sense, to construct meaning, and to
map the worlds of our experiences on to our belief and value systems.
The meta-model also identifies ways of questioning and challenging
each of these patterns, and to elicit information about the cognition
and conceptualisation used in formulating a problem.
We can illustrate these principles through Harry Beck’s classic
London Underground diagram,11 which McDermott and Jago
(2001:33) cite as an example of a map that is valuable because it is
useful. As a representation of London this map deletes a huge
amount of detail. For example it shows no streets or parks – the only
geographical feature is the schematic representation of the River
Thames. In terms of ease of use, for the purpose of travelling by
Tube, you only have to compare Beck’s map with a street map of
London. On the latter it is difficult enough to identify stations, let
alone to track the lines.
Second, Beck’s map distorts in several ways. Thus the orientations
of the Tube lines are stylised; they are either vertical, horizontal, or
at 45° angles. Distances between stops are not to scale, so do not
correspond to geographical distances. Nor are distances consistent
on the map relative to each other (for example, from Piccadilly
Circus to Oxford Circus is longer on the map than from, say, Baker
Street to St. John’s Wood; in geographical distance the reverse is
true).
The third feature is generalisation. An example is the way that
all stations are shown as one of two symbols; either a small notch
of the same size adjacent to the line, or a small circle if it is an
interchange. Stations are treated as quite uniform, despite large
differences in size, layout and facilities.

By virtue of its judicious use of deletion, distortion and general-

isation, the Tube map is both functional and aesthetic. If it were
more ‘accurate’, in terms of maintaining proportions and features
we find in physical reality, it would be much more complex and

probably be far less useful, as may be seen from versions of the map
that existed prior to Beck’s work. Thus for travelling on the London
Underground, Beck’s map is excellent, while for finding one’s way
around the streets of London it is virtually useless.
By analogy, the meta-model provides a way to elicit the informa-
tion missing from a person’s map. It is a guide to enquiring about
what another person is thinking or experiencing in more detail in any
specific instance, through forms of question that enable specific, and
perhaps uniquely situational, meanings to be revealed. For example,
one category of the meta-model is called ‘comparative deletions’,
which occur when comparatives (e.g. closer, higher, greater) are used
without specifying what the comparison is with. People in Britain
may remember former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s election slogan,
‘Things can only get better’ – better than what? In that instance, the
deletion helps to make the phrase effective as a political slogan. What
comparison might a coaching client be making, though, if they say
they want things to be ‘better’? Better then ever before? Better than
yesterday? Better than in a rival company? The coach and the client
probably need to access the deleted information in order to make
progress.
Appraising the meta-model
The meta-model remains central to NLP and continues to be referred

to as the foundation (Bandler & Grinder 1979:70) of NLP. Given
that more than three decades have elapsed since its discovery and
publication, it is remarkable that there has been so little appraisal
of it.
While a criticism of NLP is that it is under-researched and out of
touch with relevant academic fields, there is a case for saying that
the development of the meta-model, indeed the groundwork behind
much of NLP in the 1970s, was strongly research-based. Bandler and
Grinder engaged in a form of empirical research through obser-
vation, analysis, experimentation and continuous testing. This exemp-
lified NLP’s methodology of ‘modelling’ through the identification

and repetition of the strategies and language patterns used by people

who are successful in their own field. Indeed, Esser (2004) has described
them as typical researchers.
Grinder’s retrospective comments also indicate that there was

rather more method and rigour to those early studies than was pre-
viously known; he recounts, for example, one of the ways in which
they tested these patterns, through the ‘Repeat Miracle Group’
(Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:145). Grinder would attend one of
Bandler and Pucelik’s groups on a Monday evening, watching how
they worked with people’s problems. Then he would run his own
Gestalt group on the following Thursday evening, attempting to
achieve similar results by using the same patterns of communi-
cation with his own participants. Grinder reports that he became
able to reproduce the same ‘miracles’ that he had observed happen-
ing in the Monday evening group.
As another way of testing the effects of these language patterns,
Bandler and Grinder devised a novel experimental procedure, which
was to use a ‘pseudo-therapist’. A client would be interviewed by
someone who had been primed by them on exactly what questions
to ask to elicit the structure of the problem, while the ‘real’ thera-
pists listened in. The pseudo-therapist would then leave the client,
and confer with Grinder and Bandler on the best approach to the
presenting problem. Grinder wrote that ‘they (the pseudo-therapist)
would then be instructed by us to return and execute some inter-
vention we determined to be relevant’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder
2001:148). As well as their own experiments, they worked with
clients sent to them by Satir (Walker 1996:34) who by then had
faith in the effects they were producing.
One of the difficulties in assessing the validity of the claims made
in these early publications is that the evidence and research pro-
cedures are not available for scrutiny. Other than the material that
appeared in ‘Structure of Magic’ there appears to be no record of
either the data or the validation that could be assessed indepen-
dently by others. Readers of the two ‘Structure of Magic’ volumes will
know that they do not include the methods used, the raw data, or
the process of analysis and interpretation that resulted in the meta-
model. Even the illuminating further detail provided in 2001 by
Grinder does not provide an audit trail. Nor have the patterns iden-
tified in the meta-model been verified through systematic formal

research, to our knowledge, beyond that conducted by Mathison

(2003).
It must be borne in mind that Bandler and Grinder were not
writing for an academic audience, therefore it would seem unfair

retrospectively to impose expectations on writing that was produced
for a different purpose. Nevertheless, such details might have helped
respond to the critiques from studies discussed below. Despite the
gaps, it is telling that this early work remains the most substantial
body of evidence generated to date from within NLP for one of its
own models.
It is notable that theory, specifically that of transformational
grammar, Grinder’s own field of expertise, provided an under-
pinning to this model from the start. This is explicit in ‘The Struc-
ture of Magic’ (1975b:23, 40), and confirmed in ‘Whispering in the
Wind’ (2001:78–79).
Despite the role that transformational grammar played in develop-
ing the meta-model, however, it is a misconception to suggest that
NLP is extensively based on Chomsky’s theories. NLP adopted both
the principle that language is an example of rule-governed behav-
iour (Bandler & Grinder 1975b:23), and Chomsky’s notion of trans-
formations between surface and deep structure, an idea that is still
taught in mainstream cognitive psychology textbooks today (e.g.
Quinlan & Dyson 2008:513). De Shazer (1994:17–22) offers a crit-
ique of this structuralist thinking, saying for example that it is erro-
neous to assume that a person’s ‘true’ meaning can be determined
simply by accessing their ‘deep structure’.
Grinder was also influenced by the direction in linguistic taken by
Paul Postal, whom he knew from his time at Rockefeller University.
Postal became a proponent of the Generative Semantics movement,
with which NLP has largely lost touch despite noting its significance
in both ‘The Structure of Magic’ and ‘Changing with Families’; thus
‘… we suspect that some of the research currently being conducted
in Generative Semantics… will be particularly useful in expanding
the Meta-model further’ (Bandler & Grinder 1975b:109).
At that time, many linguists were investigating the problems posed
by attempting to programme machines to ‘understand’ human lan-
guage. These included Lauri Karttunen, who lectured at the University
of California, Santa Cruz. Bandler and Grinder were especially inter-
ested in Karttunen’s work on presuppositions (e.g. Karttunen 1974),

referring to his ‘series of incisive papers’ (Bandler & Grinder 1975b:

221).12 Today Karttunen13 is a leading figure in the fields of com-
putational linguistics and ‘Natural Language Processing’, which shares
the acronym ‘NLP’. His work, however, appears not to figure again in

the Neuro-Linguistic Programming literature.
Acknowledging that ‘at the present time, presuppositions are a
major focus of study for a number of linguists, especially linguists
who consider themselves Generative Semanticists’ (Bandler & Grinder
1975b:211), they also cite someone who has become a leading thinker
in the field of language and its relationship to thought, George Lakoff
(e.g. Lakoff 1987). Yet with scarce exceptions (e.g. Andreas 2006b)
Lakoff, and contemporary linguistics in general, appear not to have
informed NLP’s literature any further.
As indicated in ‘The Structure of Magic’, interest in the theory
behind NLP’s perspective on language probably needs to shift away
from Chomsky’s ideas, towards the sense making processes that
language patterns can activate. Contemporary work in cognitive lin-
guistics and neuroscience appears to support the central principle that
the ways in which information is communicated directly influence
our sense-making processes. For example, Fauconnier, to whom Bostic
St. Clair and Grinder (2001:108–109) do make reference, is at the fore-
front of developments in cognitive linguistics. He acknowledges the
principle that is fundamental in NLP, that language shapes cognition,
proposing that; ‘… understanding grammar in its context and use …
(will) yield insights into cognitive organisation’ (Fauconnier 1997:67).
The main assumption that Bandler and Grinder drew from their
practical investigations was that communication activated a variety
of sense-making processes, and that these could be identified. This
view is also receiving support in scientific literature. For example,
Richardson et al (2003) have shown that when people listen to
certain types of words or phrases, particular neuronal networks in
identifiable areas of their brains are activated. Pecher et al (2004)
claim that words activate events in the sensory-motor system of the
brain and play a critical role in understanding; Grossman et al
(2006) believe that words that represent certain types of categories
and activate different parts of the temporal-occipital part of the
brain; and Yokoyama and his colleagues (2006) have demonstrated
that verbs elicit greater activation of a part of the brain called the
left middle temporal gyrus than do nouns.

On a broader note, Leynes et al (2006) believe that inviting people

to remember a past experience activates different patterns of neuronal
responses than asking them to imagine a future activity. Rizzolatti
and his colleagues (2001) and Tettamanti et al (2005) believe that we

understand an action (and therefore words that represent an action)
because the motor representation of that action is activated in our
brain by its ‘mirror neurons’.14 Whenever we communicate, we are
not simply exchanging information, but directly activating certain
neurological processes in ourselves and others.15 This has considerable
ethical implications, which we explore in Chapter 12.
In short, the ways in which we use language, the grammatical
forms we choose together with patterns of non-verbal communica-
tion, may directly influence how people process the information at
the neurological level. We may be influencing how people use their
brains when we present them with certain types of language struc-
tures. Thus:
An important point for cognitive scientists is that language does

not directly carry meaning. Rather it serves as a powerful means
of prompting dynamic on-line constructions of meaning that go
far beyond anything explicitly provided by the lexical and gram-
matical forms.
(Fauconnier 1999:615)
Fazit
The story of NLP began to take off at Kresge College in Santa Cruz,
where Bandler, Grinder and their various collaborators met, and
became public in 1975 through ‘The Structure of Magic’. The meta-
model remains central to the field despite its subsequent lack of
testing in relation to developments in linguistics. We know of no
reason to suggest that this renders the meta-model language pat-
terns themselves invalid; on the other hand, it underlines the need
for NLP to refresh and update its knowledge base in the light of
developments since the 1970s.

6
Exploring Inner Landscapes

Einführung
John Grinder recounts how, in the mid 1970s, after he and Bandler
completed The Structure of Magic and while still in the creative,
playful and experimental phase of their collaboration, they were
driving together to the first meeting of a new group. Bandler
stopped and went into a shop to buy something. When he came
out, ‘he was laughing. I asked what was so funny. He said (more or
less), “You know John, people say the weirdest things, the woman I
was talking to at the counter. She said ‘I see what you’re saying’.” He
then relapsed into convulsive laughter’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder
2001:165).
That evening, by the time they had driven to where their new
group was meeting, they had generated the hypothesis that people
processed and represented information through preferred sensory
systems, and that these were revealed by words they used, called
‘predicates’. Thus ‘see’ is a visual predicate, ‘hear’ is an auditory
predicate, and ‘feel’ is a kinaesthetic predicate.
When they invited each of the members of the new group to
introduce themselves, Bandler and Grinder listened carefully to see
if they could identify people’s preferred sensory system. They had
decided beforehand to have available three sheets of different
coloured paper, each colour representing a particular sensory type.
This evening… as each member of the group finished their short

introduction, either Richard or I would reach down, touch one of
the three colors of paper lying on the floor in front of us… and
57

present it meaningfully to the participant, naturally without

explanation.
(Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:165).

Bandler and Grinder then asked all the people who had received
paper of the same colour to introduce themselves to each other for
the first ten minutes. After that, they were to go and talk to people
with a piece of paper of a different colour to theirs. The first ten
minutes were animated, noisy and full of laughter. By contrast, in
the second ten minutes communication appeared desultory, frag-
mented and interspersed with periods of silence, with low levels of
eye contact and fewer movements.
This revealed another apparently significant and influential
dimension of communication. Bandler and Grinder noticed that,
in addition to the meta-model patterns, language also holds in-
formation about the ‘ways associated with our five senses that we, as
humans, have of representing our experiences’ (Grinder & Bandler
1976:7). ‘Things look bleak’, ‘it sounds awful to me’, and ‘it gets me
down’ are descriptions a person might give of the same problem,
each indicating a different sensory mode and therefore a different way
of experiencing that problem. Bandler and Grinder hypothesised in
The Structure of Magic II that the way the practitioner responds, by
matching or mismatching the sensory mode in their own predicates,
would lead to different experiences for the person. They expected, for
example, that matching predicates would enhance rapport, as in the
group described by Grinder.1
The role of the senses in making sense
Skills of observation and calibration have played a part in NLP from

the very beginning. The Structure of Magic is in one respect about the
ability of effective psychotherapists to calibrate to whether a client’s
predicates are primarily visual, auditory or kinaesthetic. NLP takes
the view that people generally under-use the potential of their
sensory apparatus, and NLP training is in part an endeavour to make
fuller use of abilities we already possess.
This chapter is about the ways in which NLP explored these inner
landscapes of experience; specifically, how our senses actively shape
and re-present the domain of experience, forming a vital part of the
dynamic of our thinking processes.

Exploring Inner Landscapes 59
According to Walker (1996:257), Perls, Satir, and Milton Erickson

had all recognised that people use their senses internally as part of
how they coded and processed information; the senses were used in
the internal re-creation, as it were, of experience. Spitzer refers to

Satir’s use of sensory modalities in a video tape that he gave to Bandler
and Grinder, saying that; ‘These became described as representational
modes in Neuro-Linguistic terminology’ (1992:3–4). These modes were
written up in ‘Changing with Families’ (Bandler, Grinder & Satir
1976), and ‘The Structure of Magic II’ (Grinder & Bandler 1976).
Spitzer adds that he believes Satir’s awareness of different sensory
modalities stemmed from deafness she experienced for several years
when young; ‘She taught herself lipreading and I believe learned non-
verbal communications as a second language…. When hearing did
eventually come back she had the opportunity to compare what added
learning or confusion came from the addition of this modality’ (Spitzer
1992:4).
Milton H. Erickson, from whom Bandler and Grinder went on to
learn new possibilities of sensory observation, had also developed
an exceptional capacity for fine sensory discrimination through
experiences of illness at the age of seventeen. Thus:
An attack of anterior poliomyelitis in 1919, shortly after my grad-

uation from high school , rendered me almost totally paralyzed
for several months, but with my vision, hearing and thinking
unimpaired. Since I was quarantined at home on the farm, there
was little diversion available. Fortunately, I had always been
interested in human behaviour, and there was that of my parents
and eight siblings, and also that of the practical nurse who was
taking care of me, available for observation. My inability to move
tended to restrict me to the intercommunications of those about
me. Although I already knew a little about body language and
other forms of non-verbal communication, I was amazed to dis-
cover the frequent, and, to me, often startling contradictions
between the verbal and the non-verbal communications within
a single interchange. This aroused so much of my interest that
I intensified my observations at every opportunity.
(Erickson, preface to Bandler & Grinder 1975a:vii)
Erickson had written (in 1961) that he had already begun to wonder
about the role of the senses in hypnotic inductions in the 1920s,

and explored to what extent trance could be elicited in people

through commands directed at each of the patient’s visual, auditory
and kinaesthetic channels (Walker 1996:257).
Varela et al (1993) describe a similar notion from Buddhism.

Frances Yates (1992) recounts how, in classical times, scholars would
develop their memories by deliberately using their imagination to
build complex and detailed imagined inner landscapes, buildings or
conjectured palaces. They would then place the ideas or objects to
be remembered in specific places, so that items to be remembered
were associated with the locus or place they had been ‘stored’. The
publication of Yates’ work produced a surge of interest in these tech-
niques; populist Derren Brown presents these as useful ‘tricks of the
mind’ and encourages the activation of the senses in others when
using hypnotic language: ‘Appeal to all the senses in your subject by
referring to things you would like them to see, hear, feel, smell or
even taste …. Only when these things are multi-sensory will they
seem potent and real’ (Brown 2007:161). Thus whenever we
imagine, plan, remember, reflect or dream, we do this through a
mixture of pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, smells, and movement.
Usually in NLP these sensory constructs are referred to as ‘internal
representations’.
Internal imagery, of course, played a significant role in Jung’s
psychology and related therapeutic approaches such as Roberto
Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis, and is used in personal development
(Glouberman 1989) and sports psychology. Bandler and Grinder
rediscovered this idea experientially, brought it to the foreground,
made it practical and accessible, and began to develop new insights
and frameworks. Gregory Bateson acknowledged this innovation
when he wrote, with reference to his foregoing work with the Palo
Alto group, that; ‘we did not see that these various ways of coding –
visual, auditory, etc. – are so far apart, so mutually different even in
neurophysiologic representation, that no material in one mode can
ever be of the same logical type as any material in any other mode’
(Bandler & Grinder 1975b:x–xi). Bateson’s recognition that visual
and auditory information were of different logical types is an impor-
tant distinction.
The sensory modes were formalised as the (perhaps inelegant)
notion of the ‘4tuple’ (Grinder, DeLozier & Bandler 1977:11). This
denotes that whether someone is thinking of a memory, a dream, a

fantasy, or an outcome, it is experienced, mostly at an unconscious

level, as a kind of hologram made up of four modes of information
– visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, and gustatory/olfactory (Dilts,
Grinder, Bandler & DeLozier 1980:17).2 Familiarity with the tech-

niques for investigating and changing internal representations
remains one of the mainstays of NLP Practitioner trainings. Indeed,
according to Grinder, ‘the application of NLP patterning to change
work has as its objective nothing more than the manipulation of
representations’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:198).
The relationship between language and inner landscapes
While this domain of experience is distinct from language, lan-

guage still plays a vital role in activating it. This idea appears in the
work of Korzybski (1958), who first published his views in 1941 that
human beings operate from their internal maps, which may be
linked to language. There are certain NLP trainers, such as Christina
Hall who have developed insights into this relationship that have
yet to be published, but have become part of the praxis of many of
her students.
Grinder states that when we attempt to understand someone’s
communication, we involuntarily activate what he calls our ‘stan-
dard language meaning making processes’. These, he believes, are
unconscious; ‘To understand a word or phrase is to activate – some-
times consciously and always unconsciously – the set of images,
sounds and feelings associated with that word or phrase’ (Bostic
St. Clair & Grinder 2001:157).
This, in NLP, is considered to be an essential aspect of meaning
making, and many NLP interventions engage people in accessing
how they have configured information at the level where they inter-
nally re-create events, (what they see, hear, feel, and so on). This is
true whether using the phobia cure, or teaching poor spellers to
visualise the letters of words as more vivid internal representations.
Bandler and Grinder also realised the implication that when
someone is asked ‘how do you feel about situation x’, then that
directs that person to attend to the kinaesthetic part of their inter-
nal representation about situation x. This would yield information
of a different order or logical type to being asked ‘how do you
see situation x’. The first would most likely elicit information

represented kinaesthetically, whereas the second probably would

elicit visually stored data. The use of specific sensory predicates in a
question could thus lead people to access information in that parti-
cular modality. With this discovery came the insight that the thera-

pist’s words could direct the client to access specific aspects of their
current experiences.
Eye accessing cues
Among these developments was a set of ideas about the relation-

ship between eye movements and internal representations that is
probably among the most contentious in NLP.
In 1976, according to Dilts and DeLozier (2000:383), Bandler and
Grinder had begun to notice that people who use a lot of visual
predicates often looked (or accessed) upwards, when they were
accessing information visually. Similarly, people who attended to
sound (and therefore used a predominantly auditory predicates)
tended to look sideways. Those who glanced down to the right
appeared to be attending to feelings, whilst looking down to the left
seemed to indicate attention to internal dialogue.
From this realisation they produced the ‘eye accessing cue’ model.
This first appeared in the second of their books about Milton
Erickson (Grinder, DeLozier & Bandler 1977:35–37), of whom we
say more in the next chapter. Bostic St. Clair and Grinder say that
this was an original piece of research by Bandler and Grinder, and
remark on ‘the amusing situation where some of those original stu-
dents who were successful in meeting the challenge… of finding the
eye movements themselves, have apparently come to believe that
they actually were the original discoverers of this pattern’ (Bostic
St. Clair & Grinder 2001:193). Although accounts about who discov-
ered the significance of eye accessing cues may vary, Robert Dilts
undoubtedly made a significant contribution by going on to test eye
movements at the Langley Porter Institute in San Francisco in 1977,
a rare attempt from within the field to add empirical support to its
claims (Dilts 1983).
According to Dilts and DeLozier (2000:382), the idea that eye
movements are significant can be traced back to American psycho-
logist William James, in 1890. According to Pierre Vermersch (1994),
the possible meanings of people’s eye movements were raised ori-

ginally by an American psychiatrist, M. E. Day, who suggested that

certain types of eye movements indicated when people were attend-
ing to their internal worlds of thought, memory and imagination.
Day attempted to correlate these with cognitive functions (Day 1964;

Day 1967). Vermersch (1994) has incorporated this principle into his
research methodology, called ‘psychophenomenology’, and encour-
ages the researcher to be aware of an interviewee’s eye movements
when eliciting information about their experience.
What has emerged in NLP is, similar to the insights into sensory
modes of representation, a specific, practical model of the relation-
ships between eye movements and internal processing. The prin-
ciple behind the model is that the direction in which people’s eyes
move when they turn their attention inwards and think about
something, correlates with the particular sensory system to which
they are attending. However, the model’s claims remain hotly
debated, and we discuss the issue of the research evidence relating
to it in Chapter 11.
Sub-modalities
The representations in each sensory modality also have more fine-

grained characteristics; an experience may be represented visually,
for instance, as in bright colours, faded, or even in black and white.
Sounds may be experienced as loud or soft, harsh or melodious, and
so on. There are also indications that language structures may
actively influence this perceptual level of sense making3 (Mathison
2003), though this is an area that needs far more research.
These are called ‘sub-modality’ distinctions, based on which
people such as Bandler and MacDonald (1988), Christina Hall (per-
sonal communication) and Charles Faulkner (1999) have developed
a range of NLP interventions. One of the most informative
books on NLP’s approach to eliciting change through working
with sub-modalities is Using your Brain for a Change (Bandler
1985).
However the earliest explicit discussion of sub-modalities in the
field – and it is an extensive treatment of the subject – appears
to be that within David Gordon’s ‘Therapeutic Metaphors’ (Gordon
1978:105–152). Indeed Gordon’s book includes a valuable appendix
(1978:213–243) that details relevant psychological research into the

sensory modalities. Although described by Gordon as not exhaus-

tive, this survey represents one of the few attempts in NLP literature
to link its ideas to research in related fields.
This contemporary discovery of sub-modalities also has ancient

echoes. Yates (1992) says that Cicero, active in the first century BC,
had encouraged scholars to develop their memories by developing
rich internal imagery. The following passage, taken from Yates’
book, illustrates what Bandler and Grinder would describe as build-
ing internal representations:
We ought then to set up images of a kind that can adhere longest

in memory. And we shall do so if we establish similitudes as strik-
ing as possible; if we set up images that are not many and vague,
but active; if we assign to them exceptional beauty or singular
ugliness; if we ornament some of them, as with crowns or purple
cloaks, (…) or if we somehow disfigure them … as by introducing
one stained with blood … so that its form is more striking. But
this will be essential – again and again to run over rapidly in the
mind all the original places in order to refresh the images.
Cicero, cited in Yates (1992:25–26)
Cicero describes variations that would make these internal represen-

tations more memorable. For example, he encouraged people to use
movement and bright colours to make the imagined construction
more interesting and therefore more memorable. These variations
correspond directly to NLP sub-modalities, in this instance sub-
modalities of the visual representational system. Re-presented sound
and bodily sensations also have sub-modalities. For example, sounds
may appear to be coming from near or far, from a particular loca-
tion, have tonality, pitch, or volume, and may be also represented
as music, or words. Bodily sensations can have location, size, tem-
perature, duration, intensity, and more.
How are internal representations and sub-modalities (which are
labelled perceptual processes in the language of cognitive linguistics),
used in NLP? One standard exercise in NLP Practitioner training is
to evoke two memories, one that has been classed as ‘good’ and the
other as ‘bad’, and then to compare the two in detail. Often people
find there are marked differences; for example, for some person a
‘good’ memory may be in colour and contain movement, and evoke

a feeling of warmth in certain locations in the body. The ‘bad’

memory, on the other hand, may be darker, or paler, or not have so
much movement, and be accompanied by loud angry voices, and a
sensation of heaviness in the body. These qualities are not gener-

alisable, since everyone appears to codify experience at this level
differently.
The idea that there are distinctions in visual imagery, which is
processed by the cortex, is supported by neurological evidence (Bolstad
2002:19). Bolstad also cites research that supports the idea that, neuro-
logically speaking, size, motion and colour are mediated by separate
neuronal networks, all of which are responsible for visual representa-
tions. Other functions include brightness, orientation, and binocular
disparity. Bolstad reports further that there has been research showing
that remembered and constructed images use the same neurological
pathways as any current images being constructed.
Contemporary neurological research by Goldstone and Barsalou
suggests that cognition is grounded in our perceptual processes:
‘our perceptual systems have evolved to establish useful concepts’
(1998:234). They suggest that perceptual processes may also play a
role in how we categorise objects or events:
For example, to decide that a particular couch belongs to the

category things that will fit through the front doorway, a good strat-
egy is to manipulate an analog representation of the couch’s
shape in reference to an analog representation of the doorway
(Goldstone & Barsalou 1998:237).
Mental imagery may enable people to plan by manipulating these

self-generated images. Psychologists, with support from findings in
neurology, are finding this a rich seam to mine for further nuggets of
information. For example, Barsalou and Wiemer-Hastings (2005)
propose that there is increasing evidence that conceptual representa-
tions are grounded in sensory modalities. Neuro-imaging researchers
(e.g. Pecher, Zeelenberg & Barsalou 2004) report increasingly that the
different areas of the brain responsible for generating information in
the form of sights, sounds, sensations, movement and so on, become
active during conceptual processing, though people may not be aware
of this. Barsalou (1999:64) also distinguishes automatic processing
from what he terms strategic processing, which is the construction and

manipulation of a novel simulation. These ideas are further developed

through Barsalou’s work on ‘grounded cognition’ (Barsalou 2008a).
Representationalism: An excursion into epistemology

As NLP clearly has used, and continues to use, the term ‘represent-
ation’ it would help to clarify where it stands in relation to crit-
icisms of the notion of representationalism. In essence, these question
the idea that our internal imagery is a representation in the sense of
being like a photograph of an external reality.
First, we can only know the products of what our perceptions con-
struct; we cannot know how those perceptions are created. At the
Second Conference on Mental Health in Asia and the Pacific in 1969,
Gregory Bateson asked his audience to give him a show of hands if
they saw him. His response to this was, ‘I see a number of hands – so I
guess insanity loves company. Of course you don’t “really” see me.
What you “see” is a bunch of pieces of information about me, which
you synthesise into a picture image of me. You make that image. It’s
that simple’ (Bateson 2000a: 486). This ‘truth’ was based on Bateson’s
acquaintance with the perceptual experiments of Adelbert Ames:
… I discovered that when I see something, or hear a sound, or

taste, it is my brain, or perhaps I should better say “mind” – it is I
who create an image in the modality of the appropriate sense
organ. My image is my aggregation and organization of informa-
tion about the perceived object, aggregated and integrated by me
according to rules of which I am totally unconscious. I can,
thanks to Ames, know about these rules; but I cannot be con-
scious of the process of their working….
It seems to be a universal feature of human perception, a
feature of the underpinning of human epistemology, that the
perceiver shall perceive only the product of his perceiving act. He
shall not perceive the means by which that product was created.
The product itself is a sort of work of art.
(Brockman 1977:237–238)
Second, an important development in thinking since Bateson’s

writing, which is emphasised by Humberto Maturana among others,
is that our perceptions do not merely receive and represent an ‘exter-

nal’ world; instead they create our experience. For Maturana, ‘we bring
forth the world we live by living it’ (Maturana & Poerkson 2004).
There is ‘feed forward’ from both the mechanisms of perception and
from our intentions and predispositions. Varela et al make a similar

point: ‘… cognition is not the representation of a pre-given world…
but is rather the enactment of a world’ (Varela, Thompson & Rosch
1993:9).
The question of what is ‘really’ going on in perception is highly
complex; as Bateson said, ‘we wander off into philosophy if we ask,
“Is there really a territory?”’ (Brockman 1977:239). Suffice to say
that, for Maturana, the idea of a ‘territory’ was invalid because all
that could be said about it was that it was dependent on our person-
alities and our perception.
Similarly, Heinz von Foerster relates the work of Johannes Müller,
a nineteenth century German physiologist, who discovered that ‘the
nerves of the different sense organs responded to different kinds of
stimuli such as light, sound, and pressure in their own specific way.
And this happens independently of the physical nature of the stimu-
lus that triggers off the sensation’ (Von Foerster & Poerksen 2002:17,
emphasis in original).
What does this mean for NLP? The significance is that it disman-
tles the view that our perceptions are the result of a successive
filtering of events in the world. Thus ‘we can only know what our
senses conjure up from these sensations…The only thing we know
for sure is that there is a stimulus or perturbation… With these
observations in mind, and they can be found in any textbook on
the essentials of physiology, it is absolutely grotesque and down-
right stupid to talk about a representation of the outer world in the
inner world’ (Von Foerster & Poerksen 2002:17–18).
This has implications in particular for a map that appears in
several NLP books (e.g. Molden 2003:32) of the process by which
representations are supposedly produced. This map is usually called,
somewhat oddly, ‘the communication model’. Its origin is unclear,
as it appears not to have been articulated by Bandler and Grinder
themselves even though it is based on their writing about percep-
tual filters (e.g. Bandler & Grinder 1975b). It appears in diagram-
matic form in James and Woodsmall’s ‘Timeline Therapy’ (1988:4),4
attributed to the work of Bandler and Grinder. This map portrays
perception as a process whereby information from the ‘territory’

(the external world) is filtered and comes to form internal represen-

tations. James and Woodsmall emphasise that a model is ‘only a
description’; nowhere in NLP is the principle that ‘the map is not
the territory’ more important to remember than with this model.

Maturana’s critique would appear to undermine it, because it simply
neglects the way that our perceptions go forth into the world, and
do not wait passively for sense impressions to arrive.
We do not regard NLP’s idea of internal representations per se as
discarded by this critique. In essence Bandler and Grinder were draw-
ing attention to the existence of this ‘inner landscape’, and how it
can be used for people’s benefit. Hubbard (2007), for example, argues
that the concept of mental representation is fundamental to studies
of consciousness.
However, NLP literature, including ‘Whispering in the Wind’,
continues to put forward a view that portrays representations as the
end result of a sequence of filters, starting with some datum or event
that originates in the external world.5 Thus Bostic St. Clair and
Grinder use the metaphor of ‘data streaming’ (2001:13) and say that
what we perceive, a kind of hallucination, is actually the end result
of many millions of neurological events from the point at which our
receptors are stimulated by, say, a photon (in the case of visual recep-
tors), through complex pathways, both neurological and biochemical,
reaching that part of the brain which enables us to be conscious of a
particular image. This view adopts the metaphor of giving access to the
world. Yet according to the views of Maturana and others, perception
does not give us ‘access’ to anything else at all; it is our experience. The
principle that our experience is perceptually constructed, and logically
distinct from whatever constitutes ‘the world’, is important and
helpful; on the other hand, the persistence of the ‘communication
model’ and metaphors such as ‘access’ is a feature of NLP that could be
held to express a ‘representationalist’ position.
Fazit
We began this chapter with the story of the ways in which Bandler
and Grinder, and many of their collaborators, discovered the rich-
ness and complexity of the world created by the senses in our inner
landscapes. This became an essential dimension of NLP, to the extent
that we regard it as foundational for this knowledge system.

The way in which NLP makes specific, detailed, intentional use of

this inner domain through its notions of sensory modes and sub-
modalities is characteristic, and distinguishes it from many other
approaches to learning and personal change. The internal world of

the senses is a rich resource for planning, imagining, dreaming,
remembering and reflecting, which deserves more investigation. An
important hypothesis that emerges from this work is the idea that
language can directly influence configurations in this internal domain.
We have also explored briefly some of the philosophical and epis-
temological puzzles that an awareness of the importance of inner
landscapes produces, and have argued that whilst NLP’s notion of
internal representations does not constitute ‘representationalism’ as
such, representationalist views continue to appear, epitomised by
the NLP ‘communication model’.

7
The Influences of Erickson and

the Palo Alto Group
The next aspect of the story involves NLP’s links with the psychia-
trist and hypnotherapist, Milton H. Erickson M.D., and with the
work of the Palo Alto Mental Research Institute (MRI). It introduces
one of the underpinning streams of thought from which NLP has
evolved, that of constructivism.
Milton Erickson
The manuscript of The Structure of Magic received an initial, unfavour-

able review from Jay Haley, a pioneer of family therapy, so Grinder
and Bandler asked Gregory Bateson to provide a further review (Bostic
St. Clair & Grinder 2001:190–191). Bateson, who was also a friend of
Robert Spitzer’s, was more impressed, which persuaded Spitzer to
publish the book.1
Bateson then invited Bandler and Grinder to an evening at which
they were ‘treated to an intellectual feast – a remarkable and stimu-
lating discussion with Bateson that lasted for hours’ (Bostic St. Clair
& Grinder 2001:173). Not only did Bateson offer to write the fore-
word to The Structure of Magic but also, because of their interest in
the effects of language, he urged them to make contact with a friend
and colleague of his, Milton Erickson.
Bateson and Erickson had known each other for many years,2
because Bateson and Margaret Mead had consulted Erickson in con-
nection with their work on Balinese trance (Lipset 1980:201; Haley
1973:9). Their acquaintance dates back at least to 1942 when
Erickson addressed a meeting (on the subject of hypnotism)3 that
was the precursor of the Macy Conferences (see Chapter 8).
70

The Influences of Erickson and the Palo Alto Group 71
Bateson arranged for Bandler and Grinder to go to Phoenix, Arizona,

where Erickson still lived and practised. Indeed this episode echoes
events more than twenty years earlier in 1953, when Bateson had
arranged for Jay Haley to attend a seminar in hypnosis given by

Erickson, following which Haley and John Weakland ‘began to make
regular visits to Phoenix, where Dr. Erickson was in private practice. We
spent many hours talking with him about the nature of hypnosis and
watching him work with subjects’ (Haley 1973:9). Bateson, it seemed,
had long harboured the desire to understand more about Erickson’s
methods.
Grinder describes how, after waiting several days in Phoenix, he
rang Erickson’s house to arrange a meeting. He and Bandler had
rehearsed what they had managed to glean about Erickson’s use of
language for hypnotic inductions, and used this when speaking to
him on the phone for the first time. They succeeded in gaining an
audience: ‘you boys come over here immediately’, was Erickson’s
response (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:177).
For the next ten months he and Bandler would spend days at a time
observing and modelling Erickson at work. They distilled the language
patterns through which Erickson induced trance and effected changes
in his clients, then would test their mastery by trying out these patterns
on other people (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:177).
As with the meta-model, there was a rigour in the way they
researched Erickson’s work. For example, when testing the effectiveness
of particular syntactical patterns that Erickson had used, Bandler and
Grinder would work with similar, paired clients, applying Erickson’s
patterns but leaving out a single element with one of the clients:
The key question was,
Did leaving out the particular behaviour that distinguishes the treat-
ment offered to the two clients make a difference to the results?
If the answer is yes, the behavior involved will be maintained as a

conditionally essential part of the model.
(Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:181)
When satisfied that they had identified the patterns, they wrote them
up as the two volumes of ‘The Patterns of the Hypnotic techniques of

Milton H Erickson, M.D.’ (Bandler & Grinder 1975a; Grinder,

DeLozier & Bandler 1977), acknowledging the assistance of Erickson’s
student Rossi, who collaborated with Erickson and published some of
his case studies at the same time, for providing them with many

recordings and transcripts (1975a:xi). Much of the content of the two
volumes of ‘Patterns’ was presented in a more accessible, workshop
format in ‘Trance-formations’ (Grinder & Bandler 1981), and Bandler
has recently produced an updated version of this subject (Bandler
2008b).
While Grinder’s account of this period in ‘Whispering in the
Wind’ mentions only himself and Bandler, some of their contem-
poraries had also explored Erickson’s methods, including the afore-
mentioned Steve Lankton (Lankton 1980:2) and Bill O’Hanlon,
Steve Gilligan, who is described as ‘one of the world’s most effective
hypnotists’ in the dedications to ‘The Structure of Magic II’, and
David Gordon, who wrote a book on metaphor (Gordon 1978), a
core feature of Erickson’s work that receives little attention in the
two volumes of ‘Patterns’.
There is an extensive Ericksonian literature that complements
many of these findings (for example, Haley 1973; Rosen 1982), so
the two volumes of ‘Patterns’ represent only a fraction of the books
about Erickson’s work. However, Bandler and Grinder appear to
have generated some fresh insights. In particular they recognised
that Erickson’s use of language bore a relationship to the meta-
model – Erickson appeared to be using these same patterns, but in
an inverse way. While the emphasis of the meta-model was on
recovering deleted material in order to increase the information
available about a client’s construction of a problem, Erickson would
introduce deletions purposefully, in a way that invited the client to
discover their own meanings through what was termed a ‘trans-
derivational search’ (Bandler & Grinder 1975a:220).
The main fruit of this work, known as The ‘Milton Model’, has
become a standard feature of most NLP practitioner and master prac-
titioner trainings. It is taught alongside the meta-model, as the basis
for practising hypnotic language through techniques such as embed-
ded commands. Most significantly, these patterns are believed to facil-
itate communication with the unconscious, which in this approach is
reckoned to be the source of most of the resources a person needs in
order to learn and change.

What of the validity of Erickson’s approach, and of NLP’s under-

standing of these techniques? Illusionist Derren Brown questions
the extent to which Erickson’s reputation rests on admiration and
devotion inspired by anecdotes more than on substantiated results.

He even goes on to describe NLP as the ‘Frankenstein grandchild’ of
Ericksonian hypnosis (2007:128), and wonders about the extent to
which people in NLP may have utilised Erickson’s technique in
order to construct plausible stories of NLP’s credibility and efficacy
as a substitute for an evidence base (an issue to which we return in
Chapter 11).
Views on Erickson are divided. Jay Haley, for example, refers to
Erickson’s ‘brilliant therapeutic techniques’ (Haley 1973:9). The
only published critique to which Brown refers is one by McCue
(1988), which, from our reading of it, consists more of incredulity
than evidenced challenge. Thus, apart from alleging some minor
factual discrepancies between Erickson’s accounts and those of
certain other authors, McCue’s argument relies on assertions that
‘some of Erickson’s explanations and assertions are hard to believe’,
and that ‘his case reports probably give an exaggerated impression
of their author’s therapeutic prowess’ (McCue 1988:265).4 Rosen, on
the other hand, says that, based on personal observation of Erickson
at work, the accounts are generally factual (1982:32–34).
Critical appraisal of Erickson’s work is nevertheless important, not
least because the potential for influencing others through ‘hypnotic
language’ clearly has ethical implications. Erickson used these tech-
niques as a means to elicit and facilitate a client’s change, and not
(as is commonly assumed to be happening with hypnosis) as a way
to impose the practitioner’s views or will.
Has NLP accurately represented Erickson’s work? According to
Erickson, yes, except that it gives a partial view; in the preface to
‘Patterns I’, Erickson acknowledges its contribution to elucidating his
patterns, but also described the book as ‘far from being a complete
description of my methodologies, as they so clearly state it is a much
better explanation of how I work than I, myself, can give. I know
what I do, but to explain how I do it is much too difficult for me’
(Bandler & Grinder 1975a:viii). Immediately following this com-
ment, Erickson cites his daughter Kristina’s insight into how, as a
medical student, she routinely used her own language skills to gain
permission from her patients to rectal and hernial examinations,

which they had a right to refuse. It would be surprising, indeed

astonishing, given Erickson’s renowned artistry with stories, if the
placing of this anecdote was purely accidental. The point Erickson
may have been making, dear reader, we leave to your imagination.

The Palo Alto Mental Research Institute (MRI)
Among those interested in Erickson’s work specifically, and in the

effects of language more widely, were the researchers at the Palo Alto
Mental Research Institute. We have already noted the involvement of
both Robert Spitzer and Virginia Satir at this Institute, which was
founded in 1959 in Stanford, California. Developed through Gregory
Bateson’s decade-long (from 1952 to 1961) collaboration with John
Weakland, Jay Haley, William Fry, and Donald D. Jackson, its purpose
was to further the understanding of the cybernetic nature of human
communication, and about ways of using this knowledge to produce
therapeutic change. In contrast to NLP, there are extensive records of
that collaboration (Ray & Govener 2007).
In the mid 1960s, the Mental Research Institute went through a
crisis, after which many of the founders and originators went their
own ways. Bateson had already moved on in 1963, Satir left in 1966,
and Paul Watzlawick, took a leading role. In the same year Richard
Fisch founded the Brief Therapy Institute as an adjunct to the MRI.
Bandler and Grinder, and their co-workers, knew of, and acknow-
ledged, the work and discoveries of the MRI, for example through ref-
erences to Haley, Watzlawick and others in ‘Changing with Families’
(Bandler, Grinder & Satir 1976). Judith DeLozier has said that the
MRI’s work was simply part of ‘all the new stuff that was going on’
that the originators of NLP absorbed.5 Nor was the influence entirely
one-way. Paul Watzlawick’s ‘Language of Change’ (1978) makes
several references to ‘The Structure of Magic’ and to ‘Patterns I’, and
acknowledges Bandler and Grinder’s detailed study of Erickson’s work.
Like Bateson, the Palo Alto researchers were interested in the rele-
vance of logical types and game theory to human interaction. As
we shall discuss below, they also explored reframing as an approach to
producing change (Watzlawick, Weakland & Fisch 1974:92). Signifi-
cantly, they focused on understanding how patterns of behaviour
functioned to form, maintain and resolve problems – hence their
emphasis on the pragmatics of human communication (Watzlawick,

Beavin & Jackson 1967:13). This notion of pragmatics appears to

encapsulate something of the essence of NLP too; indeed Robert Dilts
notes that he once took a class by John Grinder at the University of
Santa Cruz that was called ‘Pragmatics of Human Communication’

(1994b:ix).
The Palo Alto group also showed a fondness for the prefix ‘meta’
(1967:286), especially through the concept of metacommunication,
that appears in NLP in numerous variations; the ‘meta-model’, the
‘meta-mirror’, ‘meta-states’, and ‘Meta Publications’.6 However, despite
a strong interest in language – for example, their work was informed
by Wittgenstein’s philosophy (e.g. Watzlawick 1990) – there is no
evidence that the Palo Alto group drew from the work of Chomsky,
Lakoff or others. This linkage to contemporary linguistics, albeit
one that was not sustained, must be regarded as Bandler and
Grinder’s innovation, as acknowledged in Bateson’s foreword to
‘The Structure of Magic’.
The Palo Alto approach fed into a number new therapies pre-
dicated on the idea that the therapist’s task was to enable the client
to change the constructions of the problematic situations for which
they have sought help. These included Brief Therapy (McDermott &
Jago 2001) and Provocative Therapy (Farrelly & Brandsma 1974).
In Brief Therapy the emphasis is on finding solutions rather than
causes, explanations or invoking past events. In Provocative Therapy
the therapist deliberately challenges the patient to recognise the
areas of their belief systems that are proving problematic and dif-
ficult to talk about (Farrelly & Brandsma 1974:61). Bill O’Hanlon and
James Wilk refer to Bandler and Grinder in ‘Shifting Contexts’
(1987), another example of a constructivist approach.
While having many similarities to NLP, and sharing the interest
in ‘pragmatics’, the work of the Palo Alto group developed through
a more explicit emphasis on research, and through articulating its
underlying theory, especially that of constructivism, in published
works (e.g. Watzlawick 1990:131–151). This leads us to the question,
what is constructivism?
Deconstructing constructivism7
In essence, constructivism introduces the idea that people construct

their own versions of ‘reality’ (whatever reality means!) which then

acts as the basis for their ways of understanding and operating in

the world. Constructivists do not ask ‘what is real?’ but rather
‘how do we construct our understanding of what we imagine to be
real?’

Heinz von Foerster (who, as we shall describe in Chapter 7,
attended many of the Macy conferences with Bateson) is considered
to be one of the founders of the constructivist movement, although
he argues that ‘constructivism’ is a word that should be eradicated
from our language:8
In my opinion, what is referred to as constructivism should

remain a pure and simple sceptical attitude that casts doubt
on the evidence of realism. (Von Foerster & Poerksen 2002:
45–46)
What is the relevance of constructivism to NLP? Like Paul Watz-

lawick, NLP is fundamentally interested in ‘the way in which com-
munication creates reality’ (Watzlawick 1976:xi). Thus Watzlawick
wrote that constructivism ‘examines those processes of perception,
behaviour, and communication which we human beings use to
create our individual, social, scientific and ideological realities, instead
of finding them ready-made in the outside world’ (Watzlawick
1990:132). As we saw in Chapter 6, NLP’s interest in internal rep-
resentations opens up issues about what (if anything) is being
represented. The stance of the radical constructivist is that our
representations do not describe any outer reality (Von Foerster &
Poerksen 2002); the only ‘reality’ is that which is produced by our acts
of cognition.
Categorisation
Attending to questions of how our realities are constructed, and of

how they are structured, highlights the significance of categor-
isation. As we shall discover, categorisation lies behind the various
NLP techniques of reframing (Bandler & Grinder 1982).
In the early 1950s, one of the phenomena that intrigued Bateson
was the way in which animals and humans used categories, or
frames, as part of their sense-making. He was influenced by Bertrand
Russell’s exploration of classes of information as being of different

logical types (Bateson 2000a:180). In 1954 he wrote that ‘human

verbal communication can operate and always does operate at many
contrastive levels of abstraction’ (Bateson 2000a:177–178), and that
these levels of abstraction act as categories. This was a significant

insight into epistemology, which is concerned with the processes
involved in perceiving, understanding, making sense and explain-
ing, and also with how people know instead of what they know.
In his seminal work, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, George
Lakoff (1987) explores the processes of categorisation and their philo-
sophical implications, arguing for an essentially subjectivist view of
knowledge. He suggested that how information is categorised influ-
ences how it is then perceived and responded to. Categorisation is
so fundamental an epistemological process that people tended to
attribute a real existence to the categories themselves, thus: ‘There is
nothing more basic than categorisation to our thought, perception,
action and speech’ (Lakoff 1987:5). Then categories are thought to act
as a kind of blueprint, which contains within it templates informing
subsequent behaviour and people’s perceptions of cause-effect relations.
For example, Watzlawick recounts an informal experiment carried
out at the Palo Alto Mental Research Institute in which Don Jackson,
an internationally known psychotherapist, was asked to interview a
paranoid patient who, he was told, thought he was a clinical psycho-
logist. A ‘real’ clinical psychologist was asked if he would be willing to
be filmed interviewing ‘a paranoid patient who thought he was a
psychiatrist’. The meeting was duly set up; ‘Both promptly went to
work treating each other for their delusions’ (Watzlawick 1976:84–85).
The category to which each person in the experiment was assigned
indicated how they should be understood.
Categorisation can happen at a number of different levels. For
example, consider the statement that a dolphin is a cetacean, which
is a mammal, which is a vertebrate, which is an animal, which is a
living organism, and so on. Here there are at least six different levels
of categorisation, representing different levels of abstraction. As
one metaphorically goes ‘up’ the hierarchy of levels, so more in-
formation is packed (again metaphorically) into each category.
There are more ‘things’ in the category ‘vertebrates’ than there are
in ‘cetaceans’. This principle is used in NLP through its notions of
‘chunking’ up and down logical levels (e.g. O’Connor & Seymour
1990:150–152).

This line of thought suggests that categorisation is a process that

is created, perpetuated and activated by language. Karl Weick, writ-
ing about the field of management, illustrates how the categorisa-
tion of a task may change people’s approach to it.

If a person justifies a decision to accept an unpleasant assignment
with the explanation that it will be a challenge and an oppor-
tunity, that person often can create just such attractions and
solidify the justification by the way he or she performs the
assignment (Weick 2001:23).
Similarly, Cazden (1988:116) cites an example of the influence of a

perceived category, transmitted through language, on the responses
of schoolchildren to a command that asked them to assign an activ-
ity to a category (i.e. being a guard) as they were doing it: ‘In two
Soviet experiments, preschool children were able to stand still
longer when asked to “be a guard” (contextualised instruction) than
when asked simply to stand still.’
Another relevant contribution is that from Robert Goldstone, a cog-
nitive psychologist, who proposes (Goldstone & Kersten 2003) that the
act of interpreting any information is fundamentally an act of cate-
gorisation, and that an extremely wide variety of cognitive acts can be
understood as being based on this process. There are, in his view and
those of his co-workers, at least nine different perceptual effects that
categorisation can potentially exert on the perceiver.9 Research in neu-
robiology even suggests that our nervous systems may be metaphor-
ically ‘hard wired’, as it were, to classify incoming information into
abstract categories (Grossman et al 2006).
Developments in cognitive psychology over the last half century
are increasingly in agreement that abstraction and categorisation are
critical to how our cognition operates. Yet, with the exception of
recent work by Steve Andreas (Andreas 2006b), there is little discus-
sion in the literature of NLP of the contemporary thinking about
categorisation by authors like Lakoff and Goldstone.
Metacommunication
Another constructivist notion that became central to the work of

the Palo Alto school was that of metacommunication.

Communication is based on being able to use, and distinguish

between, such logical levels. Bateson discovered that when animals
interact, there are always signals that assign the activity they are
about to engage in to a category. Animals squaring up to indulge in

play fighting will transmit this information by non-verbal signals,
for example; dogs will bare their teeth to show aggression but wag
their tails to signal ‘this is play’. Animals distinguish between play
and true threat by giving each other information about the type of
activity their behaviour represents, (Bateson 2000a:177–193).
Such signals are essentially a message about the message. Bateson’s
recognition, during a visit to a zoo, that monkeys that are play-
fighting know that they are playing, and not fighting (Bateson 2000a:
179) , is regarded by Ivanovas (2007:847) as ‘one of the milestones of
Western science’.
As noted earlier, the technical term for this is metacommunication.
According to Bateson and the Palo Alto school, all interaction involves
both communication and metacommunication. Metacommunica-
tion, which is at a different logical level, is information that is
exchanged between people about their relationship, or the context
for their interaction. In business, it is through metacommunication
that people convey messages about power and authority, culture,
and so on, without needing to make these things explicit. This insight
fundamentally challenges the view that ‘clear communication’, in
which people say exactly what they mean, is possible if only people
would use language with precision.
Two features complicate this. Bateson believed that while we can
identify metacommunication as logically distinct in theory, and
indicate how it works, in practice one cannot pull communication
apart to separate out the metacommunication ‘element’. Second,
Bateson recognised that paradoxes and double binds were parti-
cular cases in which listeners could not undisputedly assign the
information to a category.
These insights into the structures of communication enabled
Bateson to develop a new approach to the treatment of schizo-
phrenia (Bateson et al 1956). This was regarded as seminal work,
and was continued through the Palo Alto group’s research into
communication patterns. Bateson’s view was that the person with
schizophrenia may have been exposed to double binds in their com-
munication with significant others, usually in their own family. The

result is a sometimes painful confusion of logical types, of which

Watzlawick cites an elegant example:
Give your son Marvin two sport shirts as a present. The first time

he wears one of them, look at him sadly and say in your Basic
Tone of Voice: ‘The other one you didn’t like?’
(quoted in Watzlawick, Beavin & Jackson 1968:211).10
The person on the receiving end of this type of communication may

begin to doubt their own ability to make sense. These patterns are
not only confined to pathogenic families, though; they are also part
of everyday discourse. Jane was recently working with some man-
agers from a local organisation that had been taken over by a larger
conglomerate in the previous month. The managers reported their
pain and confusion after the new MD had addressed them. First he
assured them that it was important to be completely transparent
about the future of their part of the organisation. ‘I can assure you
that your jobs are safe’, he told them, but then went on: ‘Of course,
I know things that I can’t divulge about what could happen a year
from now.’ The conflicting messages behind the speech included
‘I am transparent, and at the same time I’m not transparent’ and
‘your jobs are safe, but maybe they’re not’. This was a typical
‘double bind’ structure.
Constructivist ideas in NLP
Bandler and Grinder based their work on the belief that people
operate out of their individual ‘maps of the world’, not from reality
itself; ‘we operate within that world using a map or series of maps of
that world to guide our behaviour in it’ (Bandler & Grinder 1975b:3).
Hence Craft (2001:131) argues that principally NLP ‘draws on the
fundamental assumptions of the theoretical framework of social
constructivism’. Esser (2004) agrees that NLP is anchored in the con-
ceptual matrix of constructivism; this is also consistent with the
classification of neurolinguistic psychotherapy as an ‘Experiential
Constructivist’ mode in the UK. On the other hand, the idea that
NLP is based on social constructionism is contested by Rowan (2008).
The influence of constructivism on NLP is evident both in its
broad approach, and in various specific respects. Here we focus on

two, the principle that ‘the map is not the territory’, and the notion
of reframing.
The influence of constructivist ideas on NLP is illustrated by
Bandler and Grinder’s references to the comparatively little-known

ideas of two writers. One was Hans Vaihinger (Bandler & Grinder
1975b:7), a philosopher who was interested in how the human
mind could both deform and transform itself, and who stressed the
importance of imagination to healthy functioning (Esser 2004:155).
The other was Alfred Korzybski (Bandler & Grinder 1975b:5–12),
from whom NLP takes the central idea that ‘the map is not the ter-
ritory’. Korzybski (1879–1950) was a Polish engineer who emigrated
to the United States after the First World War. It seems likely that he
came to the attention of Bandler and Grinder via Gregory Bateson,
who had given the Nineteenth Annual Korzybski Memorial Lecture
in New York in 1970 for the Institute of General Semantics (Bateson
2000a:454). Korzybski’s General Semantics was an attempt to
explain the relationships between people’s language, thinking, and
experience (Esser 2004:155). In ‘Science and Sanity’ (Korzybski 1958,
originally published in 1933) he explored the implications of
abstraction to mathematics and linguistics, and to how we know
that we know.
Just as later with Bateson, Korzybski was influenced by Russell and
Whitehead’s theory of logical types, which proposes that there is a
significant epistemological distinction to be made between an indi-
vidual event, and the group or category to which it was assigned.
Korzybski was writing at time when fascism was spreading, and
warned of the dangers of confusing the abstract word with the real
thing, echoing Whitehead and Russell’s concerns about the fallacy
of false concreteness, that is of assigning a concrete reality to a cog-
nitive construct. Thus ‘Fatherland’ is an abstraction, which belongs
to a separate logical type. To think of it in the same way as a con-
crete object and to act is if it were ‘real’ would be an example of that
fallacy.
Korzybski, however, is not regarded widely as an influential
thinker. Indeed Gardner (1957) describes him as someone who held
his own work in high esteem, but whose ideas were often flawed
and derivative. Holl (2007:1053) suggests that Korzybski’s major
work, ‘Science and Sanity’ has ‘endless redundancies’ and that its
nearly thousand pages could be reduced to ten. Given the frequency

with which Korzybski is cited in NLP, it is interesting to note that

Bateson’s writing actually makes very little reference to him.
Harries-Jones (1995:67) observes that, according to Bateson’s cor-
respondence, he ‘regarded Korzybski’s ideas as a second-hand ren-

dering’ of the ideas of the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead.
Bateson was interested in Korzybski’s ideas about the structure of
knowledge, primarily by the notion that is so familiar in NLP, ‘the
map is not the territory’; thus; ‘language bears to the objects which
it denotes a relationship comparable to that which a map bears to
the territory’ (Bateson 2000a:180). Incidentally, what Korzybski
actually said was; ‘A map is not the territory it represents, but, if
correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for
its usefulness…’ (Korzybski 1958:58–60) as acknowledged and
quoted by Bandler and Grinder in ‘Patterns I’ (1975a:181).
In short, Bateson cited Korzybski’s dictum in order to emphasise
that the act of mapping is essentially metaphorical (Bateson
2000a:407), and that to confuse map and territory was one of the
errors perpetuated by Western thought. Korzybski’s work did
become an extensive and central influence on ‘neuro-semantics’,
the offshoot of NLP that is the ‘brainchild’ of Michael Hall and
Bobby Bodenhamer.11 Ultimately, however, NLP appears to take
little from Korzybski apart from ‘the map is not the territory’, which
is universally cited as a presupposition in the field (see Chapter 9).
Reframing
A feature of categorisation is that a change of category to which an

event is assigned has significant and useful effects. This was recog-
nised by Bateson, who explored the importance to our thinking of
what he termed ‘frames’ (Bateson 2000a:184–189), and their effects
as the contexts on perception and understanding. He suggested that
these were analogous to a picture frame, which is intended to organ-
ise the way the viewer pays attention; which is picture and which is
the wall it is hanging on? The intention of the frame is to instruct
the observer to ‘attend to what is within and do not attend to what
is outside’ (Bateson 2000a:187).
Bandler and Grinder incorporated the use of reframing in NLP as
a way to elicit changes in how people thought about situations
that they had construed as problematic (Bandler & Grinder 1982).

Reframing is a technique that can be used by any coach, mentor or

manager. It offers new sets of lenses, as it were, through which a
problematic situation can be viewed differently. The editors of
‘Reframing’, Steve and Connirae Andreas, point out in their intro-

duction that one form of re-framing (‘content’ reframing) was
widely used in contemporary family and systems therapies, citing
Watzlawick and Haley at Palo Alto as well as Salvador Minuchin and
therapists at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic (see also
Gordon 1978:48). Bandler and Grinder elaborated on this technique
and added a second type, which they called ‘context reframing’.
This uses the principle that almost any behaviour is useful some-
where, therefore what people define as ‘problematic’ behaviour can
be redefined by thinking of a viable alternative context. One of their
favourite examples of a reframe, based on a pattern originally used
by Virginia Satir, is the following:
When the father says ‘Oh my daughter is just too stubborn’ and
you say ‘aren’t you proud that she can say “no” to men with bad
intentions?’, that’s a really valid way of looking at the situation.
(Bandler & Grinder 1982:42)
However, their chief claim to innovation is to have introduced ‘six-

step reframing’ (Bandler & Grinder 1979:137–157), described as
NLP’s ‘breakthrough pattern’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:198).
Whereas both content and context reframing typically involve the
conscious use of language to offer alternative meanings, six-step
reframing shows Erickson’s influence in the way that it engages the
client’s unconscious. It is used, typically, where a person is meeting a
valid need through behaviour that has become inappropriate. The
practitioner invites the client to communicate with his or her ‘cre-
ative part’, which generates new behavioural options, thereby access-
ing unconscious resources to resolve the situation.
Fazit
NLP’s thinking about people’s ‘maps of the world’ has its source in
constructivism. It can therefore be seen as one of a number of new
approaches to therapy that were informed by constructivism via
the work of the Palo Alto school, which was itself influenced by

Milton Erickson’s work long before Bandler and Grinder’s introduc-

tion to him. Erickson’s influence on NLP is significant, and informs
its beliefs about how to communicate with and work with the
unconscious.

Many features of constructivism are evident in the way NLP is
practised, including the slogan taken from Korzybski that ‘the map
is not the territory’, and an emphasis on working with categories
through reframing. NLP also shares the Palo Alto group’s emphasis
on the pragmatics of human communication. As we shall discover
in the next chapter, constructivism is closely related to another
foundational theory behind NLP, that of cybernetics. Where con-
structivism informs us about some of the features of our notions of
reality, cybernetics complements this by providing a theory of how
perceptions, constructions, and behaviour are organised as systems.

8
Gregory Bateson and Cybernetics

John Grinder refers to living on a plot of land in the 1970s with
Judith DeLozier, where ‘One of the amazing characters who we’ve
crossed paths with was a tall, slope-shouldered Englishman by the name
of Gregory Bateson’ (DeLozier & Grinder 1987:5). We have already
referred to Gregory Bateson numerous times. Who was he, and what
was his involvement with NLP? Significantly, Bateson provides a
direct link between the founding of cybernetics in the 1940s and
the origins of NLP.
Gregory Bateson
Bateson, who lived from 1904–1980, is held to be one of the most

influential thinkers of the twentieth century (Harries-Jones 1995:14), if
one who is neglected due to ‘his refusal to stay within the bounds of
single disciplines’ (Charlton 2008:1). Described variously as having
an ‘exceptional capacity for imaginative conceptualization’, ‘an enor-
mous capacity for playful conversation’, and also ‘a “prima donna”
syndrome of some kind’ (Lipset 1980:185, 255), he influenced develop-
ments in such diverse fields as family therapy and communications
studies (Hawkins 2004). His stature is indicated by the fact that
two academic journals, ‘Kybernetes’1 and ‘Cybernetics and Human
Knowing’,2 both produced special issues to mark Bateson’s centennial.
As the third of three sons of the geneticist William Bateson, Gregory
grew up in an intellectual family. He attended Charterhouse , a well-
known English public school in Surrey, then went to Cambridge
University where initially he read zoology (Lipset 1980:95). In 1925
85

he turned to anthropology (Lipset 1980:114). His early life was

scarred by tragedy; by 1922 he had suffered the loss of both of his
brothers, one killed in World War I, the other committing suicide
(Lipset 1980:90–91).

In 1936 he married Margaret Mead, with whom he conducted anthro-
pological fieldwork in New Guinea and Bali, and then in 1940 took up
residency in the USA. There they were both prominent members of the
Macy conferences, which began in 1946 and which laid the founda-
tions for the science of cybernetics, which we describe in more detail
below. They divorced in 1950; their daughter, Mary Catherine (Cathy)
Bateson, who has described her parents’ relationship in ‘With a
Daughter’s Eye’ (Bateson 1994), went on to become a professor of
Anthropology and English at George Mason University. Imagined dia-
logues between father and daughter, based on conversations Gregory
and Cathy used to have (Lipset 1980:199) appear as ‘metalogues’ in
some of his books (e.g. Bateson 2000a:3–58). Gregory married again in
1951 and had a son, John (Lipset 1980:197), by his second wife.
In the 1950s, the dynamics of human communication became the
main focus of Gregory’s work when Jurgen Ruesch introduced him
to psychiatric medicine (Ruesch & Bateson 1951). He began working
with Don Jackson, Jay Haley and John Weakland, with whom he
developed the ‘double bind’ theory of schizophrenia (Bateson,
Jackson, Haley & Weakland 1956). He then became involved in the
influential Palo Alto Mental Research Institute that Jackson founded
(Lipset 1980:227). In 1961 he married for a third time; he and Lois
Bateson had a daughter, Nora, in 1969 (Lipset 1980:246).
From 1965–1972 he was Associate Director for Research of the
Oceanic Institute, Waimanalo, Hawaii. There he had the opportunity
of observing the behaviour of dolphins, based on which he devel-
oped his theory of ‘levels of learning’ (Bateson 2000a:279–308),
which inspired NLP author Robert Dilts to develop his well known,
and contested, ‘neurological levels’ model (Dilts & Epstein 1995).3
Bateson then moved to Santa Cruz, where the events described in
previous chapters unfolded, and in 1976 he was appointed to the
Board of Regents of the University of California by Jerry Brown,
then Governor of California (Lipset 1980:290). Bateson died in 1980,
from cancer.
David Lipset, Bateson’s biographer, states that Bateson, with his
wife Lois and their daughter Nora, took up residence at the University

Gregory Bateson and Cybernetics 87
of California in Santa Cruz in January 1973 (1980:280), affiliating

himself with Kresge College at the end of the year.4 Kresge’s new
provost, geneticist Robert Edgar, had become concerned about its lack
of academic mission. He persuaded Bateson, whose ‘Steps to an

Ecology of Mind’ had been published to some acclaim in 1972, even
being reviewed in Rolling Stone, to join Kresge, hoping that Bateson’s
presence and interests might give the institution a more coherent
intellectual focus. Although Bateson’s role at Kresge was intended to
be central, he found that many students spoke ‘a horrible touchy-
feely jargon’ (Grant & Riesman 1978:121) and his influence was far
less than Edgar had hoped (Lipset 1980:281).
Bateson and his family moved to a rented house near Ben Lomond
‘after concluding the academic year of 1974’ (Lipset 1980:281).
According to Walker (1996:36), this was because Lois Bateson was
interested in alternative childbirth, which featured in the Spitzers’
community. The Batesons lived there for four years until moving to
Esalen sometime after August 1978 (Lipset 1980:301).
It was at Ben Lomond that Bateson became the neighbour that
Grinder describes. By the time he joined that community, Bandler
and Grinder’s work on the meta model had already been done, and a
manuscript of ‘The Structure of Magic’ had been written; a letter
from Bateson to Helen Kennedy of Kresge College, dated 10th January
1974,5 refers to ‘conversations about the book jointly authored by
Grinder and Bandler’, and prefigures Bateson’s foreword to ‘The
Structure of Magic’, with its reference to ‘a rather dry and formal
linguistic analysis of some psychopathologies and psychotherapeutic
processes’. The letter’s purpose was to support John Grinder in rela-
tion to a decision to be made by a committee, saying; ‘I very much
hope that Kresge will be able to take Grinder under its wing.’ Bateson
adds that ‘it is really, I gather, since the writing of the book that John
has blossomed into a very fertile thinker and talker’.
Bateson’s influence on NLP
Dilts and DeLozier say that Bateson’s influence on NLP ‘goes largely
unacknowledged’ (2000:90), and Michael Hall (2001)6 has suggested
that Bateson still receives too little credit for the way his ideas have
contributed to the field. Nevertheless, Bateson is probably the most-
cited ‘non-NLP’ author in NLP literature. Works such as ‘Whispering

in the Wind’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001), Dilts and DeLozier’s
‘Encyclopedia’ (2000:90–93), and ‘Turtles all the Way Down’
(DeLozier & Grinder 1987) discuss his ideas at length.
According to Dilts and DeLozier (2000:91): ‘Key NLP concepts,

such as “states,” “metaphor,” “conscious/unconscious relationships,”
“perceptual positions,” “multiple descriptions,” “perceptual filters,”
and “levels of learning and change”… were directly inspired by
Bateson’s work’. Hall (2001) also emphasises the significance of
Bateson’s interests in the relationships between language, thought
and perception, or ‘epistemology’.7 Bateson also addressed the dis-
tinction between form and substance, which is reflected in the
central NLP interest in the process (or structure) rather than the
content of communication (e.g. Bateson 2000a:154).
What, though, was Gregory Bateson’s perspective on NLP? About
this, it is interesting that so little is said. Bateson’s foreword to the
two volumes of ‘The Structure of Magic’ acknowledges the advance
they made on his work with his colleagues at Palo Alto: ‘We already
knew that most of the premises of individual psychology were useless, and
we knew that we ought to classify modes of communication. But it never
occurred to us to ask about the effects of modes upon interpersonal rela-
tions’ (Bateson in Bandler & Grinder 1975b:x). Apart from the fore-
word we have found no published comment by Bateson about
either NLP or his encounters with Bandler and Grinder. Nowhere is
there any evidence that Bandler and Grinder’s work influenced
Bateson’ own writing,8 nor is there evidence of dialogue between
them after Bateson had introduced Bandler and Grinder to Milton
Erickson, even though they were neighbours and knew each other
well (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:173).
Furthermore their encounters at Santa Cruz are ignored in all the
major literature on Bateson and his work. Not in Brockman (1977),
Charlton (2008), Harries-Jones (1995), Lipset (1980), or the two journal
special issues mentioned above, does there appear a single reference to
Bandler, Grinder, or NLP. Lipset, for example, mentions various faculty
and students at Kresge by name. He describes Bateson’s meeting with
English radical psychiatrist Ronnie Laing, and also refers to Bateson’s
links to humanistic psychology, family therapy, and Gestalt during these
years. But he makes no reference whatsoever to Bandler or to Grinder,
nor to any other figure associated with the early development of NLP.
The Bateson archive throws no further light on the collaboration.

In terms of published comment by Bateson we are left, therefore,

with one letter and Bateson’s foreword to ‘The Structure of Magic’.
If Bateson was as convinced of the significance of Bandler and
Grinder’s insights as that foreword suggests, why did he not say

more? Given Bateson’s insistence that ‘one cannot not communi-
cate’, this is intriguing, rather like the dog that did not bark in the
Sherlock Holmes story, ‘The Silver Blaze’.
As Grinder acknowledges, Bateson may have influenced NLP, but he
did not endorse it (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:93). The most
obvious explanation for Bateson’s silence probably lies in his ambi-
valence about efforts to apply his ideas, even for apparently benign
purposes. The foreword to ‘The Structure of Magic’ itself conveys
Bateson’s despair at those who had begun to count double binds. Mary
Catherine Bateson says; ‘even in psychiatric contexts, he resisted the
transformation of his ideas into specific strategies of intervention’
(Bateson 2000b:87). She comments further; ‘I believe this was true of
NLP as it was of the work at (the Mental Research Institute) by his
close colleagues from the Palo Alto days in developing new forms of
psychotherapy’.9 For Bateson, that era had ended none too happily
when his co-researchers produced a manuscript, eventually published
as ‘The Pragmatics of Human Communication’ (Watzlawick, Beavin &
Jackson 1968), that spelled out many of Bateson’s ideas and clearly
overlapped with a volume that he had proposed (Harries-Jones
1995:27). Bateson, who objected to the emphasis on pragmatics,
distanced himself from the work of the MRI as it focused more on
developing applied techniques; he saw himself primarily as a theorist
researching into the epistemological conundrums posed by the com-
plexities of human communication. Bateson also held a ‘deeply
passive attitude’ towards human interference in nature, wondering ‘if
any deliberate social planning could be developed which preserved the
complexity and spirit of the biological world’ (Lipset 1980:287).10
It seems most likely therefore that NLP may have appeared too
outcome-orientated, too instrumental, and simply too pragmatic,
to retain Bateson’s interest. Bateson also had a strong commit-
ment to the value of theory – had NLP begun to reflect the type of
intellectual paucity that Bateson encountered at Kresge?
Reference to Bateson from within the NLP community can verge
on the worshipful. Yet his ideas, like any others, need critique and
updating (see for example Harries-Jones 1995). There has been scant

evidence of any systematic attempt at this within NLP, and the

reverence shown for Bateson leads us to wonder about the extent to
which he is, in effect, invoked in order to lend the discourse of NLP
some intellectual gravitas. This again fuels the suspicion that NLP’s

ideas exist in a kind of intellectual time-warp, stuck in the 1970s. In
fact, for a theoretical base for NLP we may need to begin by looking
even further back, to the emergence of cybernetics in the 1940s, in
which Bateson was centrally involved.
Cybernetics: The Macy Conferences
The history of cybernetics is itself complex and contested, perhaps

even more so than that of NLP. What is generally acknowledged is
that the Macy Conferences mark the beginnings of cybernetics as a
strand of interdisciplinary intellectual endeavour. In the previous
chapter we referred to the inaugural meeting that Milton Erickson
addressed in 1942,11 an event organised by Frank Fremont-Smith,
head of the Macy Foundation’s medical office, with the support of
Laurence K. Frank, his friend and mentor. The Macy Foundation,
named after the philanthropist Josiah Macy, Jr., was interested
mainly in medical research (it has no connection to the famous
Macy’s department store in New York City).12
After the end of World War II, prompted by Bateson and Warren
McCulloch, who were also participants in that 1942 meeting,
Fremont-Smith initiated what became a series of ten conferences,
held in New York13 between 1946 and 1963. These involved a
core group of about twenty ‘intellectual enthusiasts’ (Von Foerster
& Poerksen 2002:160) from a variety of disciplines, plus invited
guests. The core group included Bateson, McCulloch, Margaret
Mead, von Foerster (from 1949), Norbert Wiener and John von
Neumann.
This was a formidable gathering of intellects. Von Neumann and
Wiener were ground-breaking mathematicians. Wiener has been
portrayed as the prototype of an absent-minded professor. One story
goes that he ‘went to a conference and parked his car in the big lot.
When the conference was over, he went to the lot but forgot where he
parked his car. He even forgot what his car looked like. So he waited
until all the other cars were driven away, then took the car that
was left.’14

Bateson and Mead are referred to as ‘two seemingly improbable

additions to this “hard science” population’.15 Montagnini, who des-
cribes Bateson’s involvement in the Macy conferences in detail, notes
that Wiener was very sceptical about including social science in this

programme of work (2007:1012). Bateson and Mead, however, ‘became
so enthusiastic about the new ideas as to vigorously and effectively
evangelize the new field outside its original natural science and engi-
neering context’.16
The key achievement of the conferences was the emergence of a
cross-disciplinary ‘language’, one that challenged the prevailing New-
tonian understandings of the world. That language, which became
known as cybernetics, branched out into different forms of systems
thinking. It is noteworthy, given our discussion of definitions of NLP
in Chapter 2, that the participants in these conferences:
… all eminent in their many respective fields, would go on to dis-

seminate their individual impressions of and elaborations upon
‘cybernetics’ for decades thereafter. This made for a new field
whose many facets make it easy to treat as a significant intellec-
tual innovation but difficult to delineate as a coherent whole…
In other words, the process’ product (cybernetics itself) is many
things to many people, and the process’ narrative is either a
mystery or a matter of hearsay. It is therefore no surprise that the
coalescence of cybernetics has been mythologized by both its
adherents and its critics.17
Von Foerster celebrates the ‘absolute rainbow of attempts’ to define

the term, saying that it is a ‘kind of thinking that allows a wide variety
of approaches in a very relaxed spirit’ (Von Foerster & Poerksen
2002:102).
A further resonance with NLP is in the difficulty of choosing an
appropriate name for this new field. A possible title that was being dis-
cussed was ‘Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological
and Social Systems’. Heinz von Foerster, an Austrian, spoke limited
English at the time and asked that the field should be called by the
single term, ‘cybernetics’, as in the title of a book recently published
by Norbert Wiener (Von Foerster & Poerksen 2002:136). This term
‘is derived from the Greek kybernetes meaning (“steersman”)’; Wiener
himself defined cybernetics as the science of ‘control and commun-
ication in the animal and the machine’ (Capra 1996:51).

Circular causality and feedback
In retrospect, a significant loss in the adoption of Wiener’s title was

that the notion of circular causality ceased to be explicit. This prin-

ciple is a key to understanding not only cybernetics (Von Foerster &
Poerksen 2002:102), but also the essence of Bateson’s thinking (e.g.
Bateson 2000a:405–416) and, consequently, many of NLP’s stated
presuppositions.
How is causality ‘circular’? Imagine a cat sitting on someone’s lap,
purring as he or she strokes it. Did the cat’s purring cause the person to
start stroking it? Did the stroking cause the purring? From a cybernetic
view it is not possible to identify a simple, single cause. In the prevail-
ing Newtonian ways of explaining events, however, every event, ‘B’,
has a physical cause, ‘A’, that is located outside the event itself and
prior to it in time – a red ball lands in the pocket of the billiard table
because of the angle, velocity and force of the ball that hit it.
This explanation for events in the world of human commun-
ication has two fundamental flaws. The first is that the apparently
A B
A B
Figure 8.1 Linear and Circular Causality

linear18 relationship between cause and effect is but a partial arc of

the circuitous relations that obtain in the world of ongoing inter-
action. The second flaw is the use of quasi-physical concepts, such
as force and energy, as explanations (Bateson 2000a:xxix) because,

in the world of human communication, events happen as the result
of complex flows of information. Circular causality refers to the reci-
procal nature of systemic processes: ‘A responds to B’s response to A,
to which B, in turn, responds, and so on’ (Flemons 1991:6).
Norbert Wiener (1965) used the image of a thermostat in a central
heating system as a paradigmatic example to illustrate the basic
principles of cybernetics. A thermostat responds to the temperature
of the air in a room. If the temperature falls below the threshold at
which the thermostat is set then the switch, governed by the
thermostat, turns the heating on; if the temperature rises above the
threshold, the thermostat switches it off. In a sense the thermostat
‘knows’ what the temperature ‘should’ be from its setting.
Cybernetics views all human activity as goal-directed. Thus the
setting on a thermostat is determined by the occupier of the house,
whose intentions (operating at a ‘higher’ logical level) govern the
thermostat. There may be further intentions influencing the owner
of the thermostat, such as the global need for energy conservation,
shaped by the particular social and historical context in which the
individual operates.
This gives us at least three levels of activity – thermostat, house
occupier, and society. Now, which is cause, and which effect? Accord-
ing to cybernetics this cannot be decided, except in the realm of
how we make sense of events. The idea of explaining these as all
due to one simple, linear chain of events breaks down at this point.
What guides the activities of the thermostat is a complex web of
information, coming, as it were, from both past present and future
(i.e. the goal), and from different logical types.
In cybernetics, the concept of feedback is central. Bandler and
Grinder clearly reflect this principle, and a cybernetic way of think-
ing in general, when they say that ‘the basic unit of analysis in face-
to-face communication is the feedback loop’ (Bandler & Grinder
1979:2). Norbert Wiener (1965) introduced the notion of feedback
as information through which the system ‘knows’ whether or not it
is on track to achieve its goal. Positive feedback confirms that it is
on track; negative feedback informs it that it needs to alter course.

In the case of the thermostat, a temperature lower than the thresh-

old at which the thermostat has been set is negative feedback; this
activates the switch and turns the heating on.
These terms have, unfortunately, become loaded with implications

that sabotage their original cybernetic usage. Positive has somehow
acquired the sense of meaning ‘praise’, being something good and
desirable, whereas negative is thought of as ‘criticism’, implying the
opposite. In the cybernetic sense, both are equally necessary to the
effective maintenance of a goal-directed activity. There, positive and
negative have no emotional valence, but are simply two types of direc-
tives that are only meaningful in the context of the achievement of a
goal. Life would be impossible without negative feedback because
organisms could not regulate themselves. They would function like an
electric kettle that fails to cut out – the water boils away and the
system overheats, crashing and burning.
Finally, the dimension of time is also central to the cybernetic
world view. A goal is generated in the system as information about a
future event – i.e. one that has not yet happened – not as a past or
present occurrence. In striving to achieve a goal, a cybernetic system
necessarily compares its present activities with the goals it intends
to achieve.
It is impossible to overstate the significance of these distinc-
tions between these classical, mechanical and cybernetic modes of
explanation.
Second-order cybernetics
The Macy conferences also led to a number of insights into the lim-
itations of early cybernetic thinking. One of these was that human
systems have different orders of purpose, that are not reducible to a
single identifiable goal (Keeney 1983:74).19
A related insight was that any observer is an integral part of the
system he or she is observing, and therefore all observations are
information from within the system. Thus; ‘You learn to understand
yourself as part of the world that you wish to explain’ (Von Foerster
& Poerksen 2002:110). This is the central principle of what von
Foerster called ‘second-order cybernetics’.20 The world previously
perceived as having a separate existence ‘out there’ dissolves, the
observer becoming at one with the observed.21

What matters about this distinction? It means that the ways in

which we build our understanding of the worlds we inhabit have
to change drastically. The notion of a pure objectivity has to be
abandoned because human systems are recursive:

You end up in a loop that connects the observer to the respective
object that is under inspection. You not only have to explain the
brain of another person, but also your own brain that is being
used to work out the explanation.
(Von Foerster & Poerksen 2002:110)
Bateson believed passionately that it was urgent to revise the naïve

assumption that the world was separate from humanity before, in his
view, we destroyed our planet. People could not operate upon the
planet as if it were an external, disconnected object. Moreover, our
maps of the world – how we thought about ecology – were themselves as
much a part of that ecology as an oak tree growing outside the window.
These insights into the limitations of first-order cybernetics also
characterise Bateson’s epistemology and should – to the extent that
Bateson’s views are taken to be its foundation – underpin NLP. They
imply, for instance, that in any interaction between a coach and
their client, the coach is involved in a recursive engagement within
that system, being changed by it at the same time as he or she is
attempting to facilitate change in the client. The coach is not able
simply to ‘reprogramme’ the client, because he or she is part of the
‘programme’ that is running in the interaction. Yet practitioners
may be trained to operate as if they are external to the client system.
As Keeney explains in his lucid discussion of this issue, second-order
cybernetics therefore leads us into questions of ethics, a theme that
we develop further in Chapter 12.
From an ethical perspective we do not ask whether we are ‘objec-

tive’ or ‘subjective’. Instead, we recognize the necessary connection
of the observer with the observed, which leads to examination of
how the observer participates in the observed.
(Keeney 1983:80)
In summary, Bateson’s influence on NLP is immense, to the extent

that NLP seems to have grown dependent on his work for its

intellectual authority. Significantly, there is a direct line from

Bateson’s involvement in the founding of contemporary cybernetics
to the origins of NLP. Next, in Chapter 9, we examine the way that
cybernetics is reflected in NLP’s presuppositions.

9
The Presuppositions of NLP

Two common questions asked about NLP are, does it have any
theory; and what is distinctive about it? Many NLP practitioners
would probably agree with McDermott & O’Connor, that ‘the root
of NLP’s individuality lies in its presuppositions’ (1996:58).1 What
are these and where did they originate? Do they indicate that NLP
has any theoretical basis?
Presuppositions are principles that are intended to be assumed or
taken for granted when practising NLP; rather as the principle that
‘things fall down, not up’ (i.e. the law of gravity) is something we
usually take for granted in our everyday lives. Expressed as maxims
(e.g. ‘there is no failure, only feedback’) that are usually listed in
NLP course manuals, they indicate the axioms or beliefs on which
the practice of NLP is predicated.2 They are the principal expression
of the face of ‘NLP as philosophy’, and are discussed in detail by
Dilts and DeLozier (2000), Wake (2008) and Young (2004), among
others.
It is suggested in NLP that one makes use of these presuppositions
by acting as-if they were true; they are not claimed to be accurate
statements about how the world ‘really’ is. This is like saying that,
although people know the earth is round, for the purposes of get-
ting around their local area it is effective for most people to act as if
the earth were flat.
In this chapter we examine the presuppositions in detail and argue
that they largely reflect the principles of cybernetics. Ironically, ground-
ing NLP in cybernetics may give it a stronger theoretical foundation
than is found in many other approaches to people development,
97

including some forms of coaching. However, we also suggest that the

presuppositions reflect what became known as first-order cybernetics,
and that NLP could usefully be positioned as a practice based on
second-order cybernetics.

What are the presuppositions?
It is important to note that Bandler and Grinder’s joint publications

contain no explicit discussion of any set of presuppositions. They
have tended to mention these principles in passing,3 or to have
embedded them in stories. In ‘Frogs Into Princes’ they refer not to
presuppositions but to some ‘organising assumptions’ (Bandler &
Grinder 1979:137).
Indeed, Bostic St. Clair and Grinder comment that ‘… if the so-
called presuppositions of NLP are to be taken seriously, this decidedly
odd collection of different logical types and levels are badly in need
of revision and reorganization’ (2001:202, emphasis in original).
They regard them as a ‘pedagogical device’ that is of limited value.
While we agree that the way to learn NLP in practice is not via these
conceptual statements, we also believe that investigating and debat-
ing them is important for those whose goal is for NLP to become
more mainstream.
The presuppositions therefore emerged as NLP developed, and
were not articulated as any kind of a priori theory. Making the pre-
suppositions explicit appears to have been largely Robert Dilts’
project (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:202). For example, in ‘Roots
of NLP’ (1983), Dilts articulates and explores the systemic principles
underlying the emergent practice of NLP.
What are these presuppositions? There is no definitive list, and the
number varies among training manuals. Here we adopt the set of four-
teen identified by Wolfgang Walker (1996:111), which is reasonably
representative and comparable with the sets identified by other
authors. Walker suggests that all but one of these fourteen can be attrib-
uted to sources that pre-date NLP, identifying their origins as follows:
1. Every behaviour is potentially communication (Bateson, Perls,

Satir, Erickson);
2. Mind and body are part of the same cybernetic system (Bateson,
Perls, Satir, Erickson);

The Presuppositions of NLP 99
3. People have all the resources they need to make changes (Perls,
Satir, Erickson);
4. People orientate themselves by their internal maps, their model
of the world, and not to the world itself (Korzybski);

5. The map is not the territory (Korzybski);
6. People make the best choices that present themselves to them
(Satir);
7. Choice is better than no choice (Satir);
8. Every behaviour is generated by a positive intention (Satir);
9. The meaning of a communication is the response it elicits, not
the intention of the communicator (Erickson);
10. Resistance is a message about the communicator (or therapist)
(Erickson);
11. If what you are doing isn’t working, do something different
(Erickson);
12. There is no failure, only feedback (Erickson);
13. The most flexible variable controls the system (Ashby’s law of
requisite variety);
14. Everything that a human being can do can be modelled (Bandler
and Grinder).
(translated4 from Walker, W. (1996:111))
First, it is salutary to note the extent to which NLP’s axioms are not ori-
ginal creations. With one exception, according to Walker, they are all
imported. Even the one presupposition that Walker says is attributable
to NLP, that which proposes that ‘everything a human being can do can
be modelled’, may be influenced by Bandura’s work (e.g. Bandura 1977)
and its antecedents in cognitive science. In that respect they underline
the importance of appreciating the roots and influences of NLP.
Second, as instructive as Walker’s analysis is, we think it can be
taken a step further. Walker identifies the people from whom the
presuppositions originated; one can also investigate the philosophy
underlying these principles. This shows that they are not a random
collection that has somehow coincidentally coalesced within NLP.
In fact most of them are directly attributable to cybernetics.
The roots of NLP presuppositions in cybernetic thinking
First, we will illustrate this cybernetic dimension to NLP.5 Later in

the chapter we identify two other facets of the presuppositions,

which are their use of metaphors drawn from computing, and the
humanistic assumption that the unconscious is benign and wise.
Beginning with the second presupposition on Walker’s list, ‘Mind
and body are part of the same cybernetic system’6 affirms the rele-

vance of a cybernetic perspective to NLP. Robert Dilts has extended
this into the statement that ‘life and mind are systemic processes’,
which echoes Bateson’s thoughts.
‘There is no failure only feedback’ (Walker’s number twelve) high-
lights the central cybernetic notion of feedback. Recalling the pre-
vious chapter’s discussion of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ feedback, this
emphasises that feedback is information, and is value-free. It is
people themselves who place such interpretations on events, and
people who decide to label particular feedback as ‘success’ or ‘failure’,
a judgement that is a distortion of the information itself. This pre-
supposition conveys the sentiment of Kipling’s famous lines, ‘If you
can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors
just the same’. In coaching, therefore, if a client does not respond
in the way a practitioner expects, the practitioner is urged not to
jump to the conclusion that they have failed. The client’s response is
information, and may hold the key to what the practitioner could do
instead.
The first presupposition in Walker’s list, ‘Every behaviour is poten-
tially communication’, also reflects the cybernetician’s focus on per-
ceiving phenomena as fundamentally involving information rather
than physical particles. It declares that behaviour is significant for
its informational value, and represents another way to express the
notion that we cannot not communicate (Watzlawick, Beavin &
Jackson 1967:48).
The ninth presupposition, ‘The meaning of a communication is
the response it elicits, not the intention of the communicator’ (see
Bandler & Grinder 1979:61) is closely related. Returning to the classic
cybernetic example of the thermostat, if the temperature in my room
is not what I desired, it is nevertheless the way I set the thermostat
that has led to this unwanted result (assuming of course that the
thermostat is working). It is no good me going to the thermostat
and complaining that it misunderstood me, or refused to do what
I wanted it to, or has deliberately overheated me because it had an
unhappy childhood. In relation to a thermostat this sounds obvious,
yet one of NLP’s insights from its very earliest days is that people can

readily attribute a problem that results from ineffective communica-

tion to a fault within the system on which they are operating. Thus
‘in the field of psychotherapy… you take the fact that what you do
doesn’t work and you blame it on the client’ (Bandler & Grinder

1979:13). The coach who attributes the ineffectiveness of their
interventions to the client’s ‘resistance’, is doing the equivalent
of berating a thermostat for failing to understand the intentions of
the person who sets it. Presupposition number ten, ‘resistance is a
message about the communicator’, arises from this and could be
thought of as its corollary.
Bandler and Grinder say that ‘one of the operating procedures of
most disciplines that allows a field to grow… is a rule that if what
you do doesn’t work, do something else’ (1979:13, italics in original).
This is the eleventh presupposition on Walker’s list, and also follows
on from number nine. Again, this is more a logical derivation from
cybernetic thinking than a distinctive principle. It means that prac-
titioners need to vary their own behaviour in order to elicit a differ-
ent result. If I go back to the thermostat, move the dial back and
forth, but leave it back at the same setting as before – believing
perhaps that I was right all along and that it will work properly next
time – the output of the system (the resulting room temperature)
will be no different.
Walker’s eighth presupposition suggests that all behaviour, whether
appropriate or not, is generated by a ‘positive’ intention. This is con-
gruent with cybernetics to the extent that seeking the intention
‘behind’ an individual’s behaviour distinguishes between two different
logical types; the behaviour of system and its goal. This presupposition
says that it is helpful to think of a person’s behaviour as an action
designed to achieve a goal (of which the agent may or may not be
aware). Importantly, this cybernetic view does not excuse or justify the
effects of the behaviour, nor does it mean that a person ceases to be
morally responsible for their actions. It does not mean, for example,
that it is morally acceptable to impose punitive controls in organisa-
tions simply because these serve a goal that is desirable for the man-
agers. The cybernetic significance is that recognising intention as part
of a system increases the information available, and provides a differ-
ent perspective from which to generate options for intervention.
Note that this presupposition, as expressed in NLP, entails a non-
cybernetic use of the term ‘positive’ (see Chapter 8). The word now

denotes a judgement about what is ‘good’ for the system, such as its
survival. It is a sign of the presuppositions edging into ethical ter-
ritory. In other words it introduces the question of judgements
about the rights and wrongs of people’s goals, and about the means

they use to achieve them.
Coupled logically with the presupposition about positive intention
is number six, which proposes that, ‘People make the best choices that
present themselves to them’. In other words, one assumes that, how-
ever unpleasant a manager’s behaviour may be for employees, it repre-
sents their ‘least worst’ option for achieving their goal. It implies that
rather than being labelled a bad person, the manager can be perceived
as being constrained by the options he or she believes to be available.
Here the cybernetic logic adopted by NLP is that however irrational
a person’s behaviour appears to be, it will make sense in relation to
the system’s goals and capabilities, even though they could have inap-
propriate consequences in certain contexts.
‘Frogs Into Princes’ includes reference to both this principle (Bandler
& Grinder 1979:122) and the related notion that ‘you can treat every
limitation that is presented to you as a unique accomplishment by a
human being’ (1979:67). This is an interesting idea that reframes
‘problem’ behaviour as a skill, just as much as a ‘desirable’ behaviour.
NLP aims to remain curious about how someone manages (for
example) to be late for appointments, both because understanding
their strategy might give clues as to how they can change, and because
the behaviour might be useful in other contexts.
According to Walker, presupposition number seven, ‘Choice is
better than no choice’, is directly derived from the ways in which
Virginia Satir approached her clients’ problems. Heinz von Foerster
is also known for the saying, ‘Act always so as to increase the
number of choices’.7 The cybernetic principle here is that one needs
to increase variety; in NLP parlance, this is about making choices
available. Often, an NLP practitioner aims not to change the goal or
‘positive intent’, which is assumed to reflect a human need, but to
enable the person (or system) to find new choices that will meet
that intent in ways that have more beneficial effects for themselves
and others in the systems in which they participate.
In essence this is the same principle as presupposition number
thirteen, which is taken directly from cybernetics; Ross Ashby’s ‘law
of requisite variety’. Hence, more choice is better because it repre-

sents an increase in variety. In fact, Ashby’s law actually states that

‘only variety can destroy variety’ (Ashby 1965:207).
This law is interpreted within NLP as the idea that in any cyber-
netic system ‘The element in the system with the widest range of

variability will be the controlling element’ (Bandler & Grinder
1979:74). This proposes that the part of a system that has the most
flexibility (i.e. the most choices available) will be the most influ-
ential. However, Ashby’s law could also be taken to imply almost
the opposite of this interpretation; it is the very absence of variety in
a practitioner that can most influence the outcomes for the system.
As a prosaic example, if the only tool you possess is a hammer, then
you treat everything as if it were a nail; the lack of variety in the
hammer reduces the possible variety in the states of the system (i.e.
outcomes are limited to those that can be effected by a hammer).
What Bandler and Grinder argue is that a practitioner can be con-
strained in their own variety by (for example) professional codes of
conduct or by certain beliefs; a client, who is not constrained in
this way, may be more influential because they have more options
available to them. In short, Ashby’s law declares that there is an
important relationship between the variety that exists within the
way a system is regulated, and the variety of possible states of the
system.
Based on the above discussion, we might distil down the ten
cybernetic presuppositions (Walker’s numbers 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,
12 and 13) to the following:8
1. Every behaviour is generated by a goal or intention; behaviour

and goal/intention are different logical types.
2. We can infer that people’s behaviour represents the best choice
available to them to satisfy that intention.
3. The meaning of a communication is the response it elicits;
meaning is judged according to feedback, not according to the
communicator’s intent.
4. There is no failure, only feedback; ‘failure’ and ‘success’ are judge-
ments made about the meaning of feedback.
5. ‘Only variety can destroy variety’ (Ashby’s law of requisite variety).
The relevance of the science of cybernetics is clearly acknowledged

by some NLP authors, including O’Connor and Seymour (1990:81)

and Esser (2004:154). The nature of NLP as a cybernetic approach

was first articulated in earnest by Robert Dilts, thus:
The goal of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is to inte-

grate the macroscopic information about human behaviour and
experience available to each of us through our sensory experi-
ence with the unobservable microscopic information of the neuro-
physiology of behaviour and experience into a useful cybernetic
model.
(Dilts 1983:3, italics in original)
However we contend that the presuppositions cited so far reflect a

specific form of cybernetics, known as first-order cybernetics, and as
such they make no essential distinction between thermostats and
people. First-order cybernetics arose as a description of mechanical
systems, such as the governor in a steam engine. Bateson, Warren
McCulloch and others pointed out that it was limited to the under-
standing of control-based mechanical systems. As we shall go
on to discuss, in the later development known as second-order
cybernetics the practitioner is perceived as inescapably part of
the changing system. He or she construes what is happening
from within, and is affected recursively by their own inter-
ventions. Before we discuss the implications of that shift for the
presuppositions, we address the remaining items in Walker’s
list.
The TOTE and computer metaphors
Another influence on NLP was the psychologist George Miller, to

whose department John Grinder was seconded in the late 1960s.
Miller drew from cybernetics (Miller 1970:106) and, prefiguring the
combination of interests found in NLP, was also interested in
psycholinguistics and problems of cognition.
Miller and his colleagues (Miller, Galanter & Pribram 1960) pro-
posed that people continuously test or monitor what they are doing
and what is happening in the environment in relation to their
pursuit of a goal. Eugene Galanter recounts how their central idea of
the TOTE model emerged from dissatisfaction with the ‘self-imposed
limits of the classical behaviourist paradigm’. An acronym stand-

ing for ‘Test-Operate-Test-Exit’, the TOTE represents a template

of a cybernetic system, with feedback as one of its organising
principles:

… the three of us (i.e. Galanter, George Miller and Karl Pribram)
were arguing about what the conceptual basis for a new theory of psy-
chology could be. At one point, George proposed that we examine some
intentional human act.
‘Flying a plane,’ I suggested.
‘No – too much. How about crossing a street? An equally dangerous
act in the Bay area,’ Karl responded. I went to the blackboard and
started a flow chart. The boxes, lines, and arrows snaked around the
board as step after step was drawn.
‘No,’ George said, ‘all that stuff on the board is only a string of
reentrant reflexes. Let a whole piece of action be repeated until it’s
finished.’
‘How will it know?’ from Karl.
‘With a cybernetic test,’ replied George.
‘But how do I draw it?’ I asked.
‘Like this,’ said George, and the TOTE replacement for the reflex was
designed.
(Galanter, in Hirst 1988:40)
How does this model work? First the system tests or evaluates
the extent of progress towards the specified goal. It then performs
an operation designed to bring the system closer to achieving the
goal. Then there is another test. When the goal has been achieved,
then the system can exit the operation. The model was adopted
in early NLP (Grinder, DeLozier & Bandler 1977:6) and elaborated
by Dilts (Dilts, Grinder, Bandler & DeLozier 1980:26–30; Dilts
1983).
Drawing on a seminal paper by Tolman (1948), Miller, Galanter
and Pribram also recognised the crucial role of internal represent-
ations (which they often referred to as plans) in this process, arguing
that they were necessary in order for any activity to be carried out
successfully. The activity of the TOTE always involves comparing
the system’s present state with the future outcome it is endeavour-
ing to achieve. Without an organism’s ability to (re)construct an

internal representation or map, either of experience or of a future

outcome, there could be no meaningful behaviour. Thus:
A human being – and probably other animals as well – builds up

internal representations, a model of the universe, a schema, a
simulacrum, a cognitive map, an Image.
(Miller, Galanter & Pribram 1960:7)
This reflects the fourth presupposition in Walker’s list, ‘People

orientate themselves by their internal maps, their model of the
world, and not to the world itself’. This, of course, is closely related
to the constructivist notion taken from Korzybski that, ‘the map is
not the territory’ (presupposition number five) that we discussed
earlier.
Miller’s model, added to cybernetics, emphasises the extent to
which NLP has adopted an information-processing model of the
person. In the 1970s, before the advent of personal computers
and the spread of digital technology, information-processing and
computing metaphors were both relatively fresh and meaning-
ful, seeming to shed new light on human behaviour. Now they are
somewhat stale and limiting. While cybernetics as a field remains
multi-disciplinary, it is probably most associated with work on
artificial intelligence and control systems. The prefix ‘cyber-’ has
connotations of distinctly non-human systems, reflected in terms
that have become familiar such as cyborgs, cybermen,9 and cyber-
space.
On the one hand, the view that human behaviour can be thought
of as far more ‘programmed’ than people normally assume to be the
case is supported in psychology, through notions such as executive
control (Norman & Shallice 1986) and automaticity (e.g. Logan,
Taylor & Etherton 1996). As Bandler and Grinder have noted,
‘It’s important for some people to have the illusion that their con-
scious mind controls their behaviour. It’s a particularly virulent
form of insanity among college professors, psychiatrists and lawyers’
(1979:166). According to Halligan and Oakley (2000), ‘all of the
brain’s information processing activities occur at an unconscious
level’. Contrary to what common sense may tell us, much of our
perception happens outside our conscious awareness, and people
exercise conscious choice far less often than they might imagine.

A different perspective, that of discourse analysis, shows that people

also behave according to socially learnt, ‘customary ways of categor-
izing and ordering phenomena’ (Willig 1999:2). These observations
fit with the idea that there is more predictability, and less free will,

in human behaviour than we might imagine.
On the other hand, in the 1990s the dominance of the computer
metaphor in the cognitive sciences was roundly criticised by authors
including Francisco Varela and colleagues (Varela, Thompson &
Rosch 1993) among others.10 They argued that while people can
be thought of as functioning like computers in some respects, the
computer is a wholly inadequate metaphor for understanding
the totality of a person, and becomes misleading as a basis for under-
standing cognition. Varela instead looked to biology for a funda-
mental metaphor, and emphasised the notion of mind as ‘embodied’,
with cognition as complex, emergent and active in all living
beings.
The message from the work of Varela and others is that computing
metaphors represent an outdated ‘story’ of human functioning,
albeit one that still has its uses. Nevertheless, computing metaphors
still infuse NLP through its terminology such as ‘programming’,
and descriptions of people as ‘hardware’; earlier we remarked on
Bostic St. Clair & Grinder’s usage of the metaphor ‘data streaming’
(2001:13). As another contemporary example, the back cover of a
recent introduction to NLP (Linden & Perutz 2008) includes the
following statement; ‘As its name suggests, NLP is based on the idea
that the human mind is a sort of computer; our verbal and body lan-
guages are the programming that allows us to change our thoughts
and to influence other people’. The implication that NLP practi-
tioners are involved in ‘reprogramming’ people is a source of disquiet
to many, and such metaphors reinforce a first-order cybernetic view
in which the practitioner can stand outside a client system and
operate as an external expert.
The wisdom of the unconscious
The remaining presupposition is the third on Walker’s list, the

idea that ‘people have all the resources they need to make changes’
(see also Bandler & Grinder 1979:137). This is interesting because
it seems to bear no relation to cybernetics at all. It is more a

metaphysical position, a statement of faith.11 It may originate in

Virginia Satir’s humanistic values and profound spiritual belief that
the human unconscious contains the seeds of human psychological
growth and development. In this, according to Walker (1996:227)

she was in agreement with Erickson.
The assumption that ‘the unconscious’ will operate as a resource
for the person, and is benevolent and wise, is significant and fre-
quently articulated in NLP, though it does not feature among the
presuppositions listed by Walker. While it is a notion that cannot
be traced back to first-order cybernetics, Bateson regarded the un-
conscious as ‘by far the largest, most effective, most important, and
most wise area of mind’ (Charlton 2008:36).
This assumption is especially important not to take at face value.
Such a view of the unconscious, which is espoused rather uncritic-
ally within NLP literature, lacks empirical backing and clashes with
other views, such as that of Carl Jung, from whose perspective it
appears naïve and potentially risky to assume that the unconscious
is always benign (e.g. Jung 1985:227). The concept of the un-
conscious as used in NLP appears to emphasise that dimension
of individual processing that happens outside of conscious aware-
ness, though could usefully be clarified. Bateson, for example, acknow-
ledged four different usages of the term ‘unconscious’ (Bateson
2000a:136).
The presuppositions; a revision?
Thus far, we have argued that most of NLP’s presuppositions are

derived from cybernetics, or are logical derivations of cybernetic
principles. We have also argued that they reflect ‘first-order cyber-
netics’ with its emphasis on control, and are related to metaphors
based on information-processing or computing. The issue is, how
appropriate is that perspective for working with people?
The view of the person as a mere information-processing system is
limited and, according to authors like Varela, inadequate as an
approach to cognition. Furthermore it has no satisfactory ethical
perspective, as it is limited to relatively crude criteria concerning the
necessity of survival and goal attainment.
Both these limitations could be addressed through second-order
cybernetics (Von Foerster & Poerksen 2002). It seems surprising, given

the frequent reference to cybernetics in NLP, that this ‘second order’

variety is scarcely on the NLP radar. Robert Dilts has for many years
emphasised ‘systemic NLP’, and implicitly appears to have a profound
appreciation of the chief principle of second-order cybernetics. Yet the

one explicit discussion of this topic in the NLP literature, which Dilts
co-authored, greatly underplays its significance, implying that it is
something of a special case, ‘to do with higher levels of learning and
change’ (Dilts & DeLozier 2000:1180). In no sense is there acknow-
ledgement that, if Bateson’s supposedly central influence is taken to
heart, second-order cybernetics should probably underpin NLP.
‘New Code’ NLP, the direction espoused by John Grinder and
Judith DeLozier in the 1980s, can also be seen as an attempt to
transform the field through aspects of this second-order cybernetic
thinking. In ‘Turtles All The Way Down’,12 these authors refer to
their efforts in ‘extending and making more explicit some of the
splendid work of Gregory Bateson’ (DeLozier & Grinder 1987:xi–xii).
They emphasise the importance of epistemology, abandon the
mechanistic coding and reproduction of skills found in ‘Old Code’
NLP , and advocate instead the role in human development of wisdom
and grace (DeLozier & Grinder 1987:6), influenced by Bateson’s work
in Bali.13 The emphasis of second-order cybernetics on the notion that
the observer is part of their own observations can also be discerned
here, though is approached through reference to Carlos Castaneda
(e.g. Castaneda 1970) rather than through the theoretical writing of
people like von Foerster.
Summary
In this chapter we have discussed NLP’s presuppositions, which are the

most prominent manifestation of NLP’s identity as a philosophy.
Through analysing the presuppositions we have argued that cyber-
netics has a central role in the intellectual lineage of NLP, even
though, as in the case of linguistics, NLP has maintained minimal
contact with subsequent developments in the field. Most of its pre-
suppositions appear to be predicated on first-order cybernetic think-
ing, and therefore do not adequately reflect the way Gregory Bateson’s
ideas developed, even though he is cited widely as influencing the
philosophy of NLP. Armed only with the viewpoint of first-order
cybernetics, one may be prone to treat people as equivalent to

machines to be re-programmed, be they thermostats or computers. If

a second-order perspective were to become more centre stage in
NLP, it could unlock issues of principle, practice and ethics. If the
presuppositions are taken to reflect NLP’s philosophy, therefore,

something may be missing. This may relate to the doubts that Bostic
St. Clair and Grinder have expressed about the value of these sets of
principles. Their disquiet also touches on the sometimes fractious
relationship between NLP and ‘theory’, the theme to which we turn
in the following chapter.

Part III


10
‘Useful versus True’ – Theory,

Knowledge and Pseudoscience
People can be wary of NLP because it is seen as not academically

respectable. The worlds of NLP and academe have sometimes been
like ships in the night, passing each other without contact and with
little awareness of the other’s existence. Stereotypes appear to be
common; on the one hand NLP is seen as lacking credible theory
and is dismissed as ‘pop’ psychology or ‘pseudoscience’ and, on the
other hand, academic theorising is seen as irrelevant to, or even anti-
thetical to, NLP. There seem to have been more success at engage-
ment with academic communities in countries such as France,
Germany and Austria, where English is not the first language, than in
the UK, the USA and Australia.
In this chapter we examine the relationship between NLP and
theory, and then unpack the debate around ‘pseudoscience’. In
Chapter 11 we examine the related issue of the state of research into
NLP. Together these chapters develop further the view of NLP as an
emergent system of practical knowledge.
What is ‘theory’?
We start by taking a closer look at attitudes towards the notion of

theory in NLP.
A prominent question asked about NLP is whether there is any
theory behind it, and if so what is it? Some NLP authors resist dis-
cussing theory altogether. One exception is Peter Young (Young 2004),
whose ‘unifying theory’ of NLP offers interesting insights based on the
work of Will McWhinney (1997). Ultimately we suggest that Young
113

reorganises and reclassifies NLP more than articulates its underlying

theory. As Young himself says, ‘in this book I have rearranged the
jigsaw puzzle pieces provided by NLP…’ (2004:272).
Practitioners can deny that theory has any relevance to NLP at

all.1 This is ironic given NLP’s reverence for Bateson, who deplored
the lack of effective theory in the social sciences. Note for example
the language used here: ‘The NLP Presuppositions are sometimes
accused of coming under the heading of NLP theory, but they can
put up a strong defence against such a charge; neither theories or
beliefs, they are simply invitations to imagine expanding the para-
meters of possibility…’ (Spence 2007:14).
Dilts et al (1980) say that NLP ‘makes no commitment to theory,
but rather has the status of a model’:
A theory is taxed with the task of finding a justification of why

various models seem to fit reality. We are modelers and we ask that
you evaluate this work as a model, ignoring whether it is true or
false, correct or incorrect, aesthetically pleasing or not, in favour of
discovering whether it works or not, whether it is useful or not.
(Dilts, Grinder, Bandler & DeLozier 1980: page 7 of ‘Forward’)
The difference between a theory and a model is not necessarily so

clear cut, however. According to Chalmers, ‘Theories are construed
as speculative and tentative conjectures or guesses freely created by
the human intellect in an attempt to overcome problems encoun-
tered by previous theories to give an adequate account of some
aspects of the world or universe’ (Chalmers 1999:60). This seems to
describe quite well the ideas generated within early NLP about the
structure behind the ‘magic’ of excellent communication.
The term ‘theory’ can have several usages. For example, it can
apply to a single hypothesised explanation or conjecture (e.g. a
theory about why my football team is not as successful as I would
like it to be), to a set of assumptions that creates a way of perceiving
events (e.g. Freud’s theories of psychosexual development), or to
grand schemes of ideas (e.g. Marxism).
Steve de Shazer (1994) argues that all theories are stories we con-
struct to help us make sense of events. In the previous chapter we
argued that the metaphors of computing found in NLP may repre-
sent an outdated story. As another example Evelyn Fox-Keller,

‘Useful versus True’ – Theory, Knowledge and Pseudoscience 115
exploring that twentieth century totem, the idea of the gene, points
out that this notion has:
…carried us to the edge of a new era in biology, one that holds

out the promise of even more astonishing advances. But these
very advances will necessitate the introduction of other concepts,
other terms, and other ways of thinking … thereby loosening the
grip that genes have had on the imagination of life scientists
these many decades (Fox-Keller 2000:147).
This view of theory pervades the social sciences, where theory is con-
sidered to be a constructed point of view that offers insights and poss-
ible explanations, and not an accurate description of reality. Gareth
Morgan’s well-known book, ‘Images of Organization’ (Morgan 2006),
argues that all theory is based on metaphor; that there is no such
thing as pure theory because inevitably we understand one phe-
nomenon in the world in relation to something else that we have
experienced.
How, then, have some people in NLP become hostile to theory?
There is an interesting range of issues behind this question that
are interrelated but which, if taken together indiscriminately, may
lead a practitioner to adopt the attitude that theory and NLP do not
mix. By sifting through them it is easier to pinpoint some worth-
while challenges about knowledge that are posed by NLP. These
issues are:
1. For the purposes of identifying effective patterns of behaviour,

NLP is interested in the criterion of ‘what works’, not with what
is ‘true’.
2. NLP is concerned with studying what people actually do, not
what they may believe or espouse that they do.
3. People use two modes of processing, a rational, analytic mode
and a more intuitive, holistic mode. The rational mode, which is
the mode that can formulate and debate theory, is ineffective
for certain purposes. For example, it might not directly enable
someone to act effectively.
4. In our culture, intellectual, conceptual knowledge is often pri-
vileged over practical, experiential knowledge. NLP is interested
in holistic and non-conventional forms of knowledge.

Useful versus true
First, NLP literature and practices stress that it was created in

order to be used. This is summed up in Bandler and Grinder’s

claim (1979:7) that: ‘We have no idea about the “real” nature
of things, and we’re not particularly interested in what’s “true”.
The function of modeling is to arrive at descriptions which are
useful.’
This proposes that the core criterion for the validity of knowledge
in NLP is that something works, not that it is an accurate des-
cription of the ‘real’ world. It also denotes that in NLP one is mainly
concerned with whether something is effective; why it works is a
separate issue.
NLP is not alone in taking such a stance. We have noted the
Palo Alto group’s similar emphasis on the pragmatics of commun-
ication (Watzlawick, Beavin & Jackson 1967:13). Dilts and DeLozier
(2000:565–567) refer to William James’ pragmatist philosophy,
and George Kelly, the founder of Personal Construct Psychology,
emphasised that the importance of constructs is not whether they
are right or wrong, but whether they are useful or not (e.g. Kelly
1991:138). Bateson, commenting on everyday assumptions about the
nature of the world that are, if examined, epistemologically incor-
rect, said, ‘you and I are able to get along in the world and fly to
Hawaii and read papers on psychiatry and find our places around
these tables and in general function reasonably like human beings
in spite of very deep error. The erroneous premises, in fact, work’
(Bateson 2000a:486–487).
This view finds an echo in a story cited by Karl Weick, writing in
the field of management and organisational theory:
A small Hungarian detachment was on military maneuvers in the

Alps. Their young lieutenant sent a reconnaissance unit out into
the icy wilderness just as it began to snow. It snowed for two
days, and the unit did not return. The lieutenant feared that he
had dispatched his people to their deaths, but the third day the
unit came back. Where had they been? How had they made their
way? Yes, they said, we considered ourselves lost and waited
for the end, but then one of us found a map in his pocket. That
calmed us down. We pitched camp, lasted out the snowstorm,

and then with the map we found our bearings. And here we are.
The lieutenant took a good look at this map and discovered, to
his astonishment, that it was a map of the Pyrenees.
(Weick 1994:214)

Weick’s story makes the point that managers do not seek, and
do not require, theories that are accurate or true in a con-
ventional sense; what they need are maps that precipitate
action. A map that is wrong is better than no map at all, because
the point is to do something. Through taking action, we dis-
cover ways in which the map may need to be changed in order
to be more useful another time. Bandler and Grinder’s prag-
matic, utilitarian stance, far from being antithetical to that
taken by academics, is very similar to that illustrated by Weick’s
story.
The difference between what do people do, and what

they say they do
Secondly, NLP began with a clear interest in studying what

people do, and paid ‘very little attention to what people say they
do’ (Bandler & Grinder 1979:7). It distinguishes between observed
behaviour and people’s reports of their behaviour. NLP’s stance
is that the ‘theories’ people hold and through which they explain
their behaviour can be mistaken, or can bear no relation to
action. Bandler and Grinder (1979:8) give the example that
we can all generate language; but we don’t know how we do
this.
Organisational theorist Chris Argyris (1999) makes precisely this
point. He says that all human behaviour is guided by ‘theories of
action’, even if those theories are tacit. Argyris distinguishes, how-
ever, between espoused theory and theory-in-use. Espoused theory is of
little value in discovering how someone acts because they simply
may not know; their account may include pet ideas or self-justifying
claims that do not marry with their actions. Theory-in-use is the
theory that can be inferred from, and accounts for, what people
actually do. NLP is in tune with Argyris’ thinking in attending to
‘in-use’ rather than ‘espoused’ theory as evidence for the purposes of
modelling.

Dual process theories
The third strand of NLP’s stance towards theory concerns the limit-
ations on what the intellect and its conceptual thinking are useful for.

Robert Frager, who edited the third edition of Maslow’s ‘Motivation
and Personality’, tells of an incident at Esalen in the 1960s that
captures the radically different styles of Maslow and Perls (Frager in
Maslow 1987:xl):
Maslow was too much of an intellectual to become a convert to the

almost total emphasis on feeling and experiencing in the human
potential scene. He gave his first Esalen workshop two years after
Esalen began. The Institute had been gaining a national reputation
as the avant-garde center for encounter groups and other intense,
emotionally charged workshops. Maslow’s weekend was, in com-
plete contrast, purely intellectual. Because they were interested in his
ideas, several of the Esalen staff members sat in on his talks and
discussions.
In the middle of Maslow’s first evening talk, Fritz Perls, the
founder of Gestalt therapy and enfant terrible of Esalen, got bored
with the lack of emotional action. He began crawling towards an
attractive woman across the room, chanting ‘You are my mother; I
want my mother; you are my mother.’ This effectively broke up the
evening session. Maslow left the room upset and offended. Charac-
teristically, he shut himself in his cabin that night and thought
through some of the differences between his own approach and the
experiential emphasis prevalent at Esalen. That night he completed
the outline of a classic article contrasting Apollonian control with
Dionysian abandon.
While NLP has not adopted Perl’s tendency to elevate the impor-
tance of feelings, it considers sensory experience to be very impor-
tant. NLP recognises in particular that people use two different
modes; a rational, analytical, conscious mode of thinking, and a
rapid, intuitive, preconscious mode.
The analytic mode is excellent for theorising, but hopeless for pro-
ducing skilled performance. Grinder says that his experiences of
learning a language taught him that ‘understanding is in no way a pre-
requisite to acting effectively in the world’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder
2001:144, italics in original). Similarly, ‘I really believe that the face-

to-face task of communicating with another human being, let alone

a group of people, is far too complex to try to do consciously. You
can’t do it consciously. If you do, you break up the natural flow
of communication’ (Bandler & Grinder 1979:71). This suggests that

when taking action, we just have to get into our bodies because
conscious thinking will get in the way.
Of course, these ideas themselves constitute a kind of theory.
Contemporary psychology has seen the development of dual pro-
cess theories (Evans 2008), which explore the differences and inter-
relations between intuition (System 1) and analysis (System 2)
(Stanovich & West 2000), based on the Nobel prize-winning work of
Daniel Kahneman.2 NLP publications show little evidence of being
aware of this work, and of the subtleties within it. There is no estab-
lished, clear agreement amongst researchers about the difference
between System 1 and System 2, although Kahneman says there is
a broad consensus. There is also a consensus that both modes are
necessary.
Many thinkers, among them neuroscientist Antonio Damasio,
have challenged the ‘mind-body split’, an idea reinforced by Descartes,
which casts the brain (and thinking) as superior, and the body (and
movement and emotion) as inferior. Damasio argues instead that
a person is a whole mind-body system in which emotion is an
integral part of cognition (Damasio 2006). Another contemporary
expression of this principle comes through the notion of embodied
knowing, as developed by Varela et al (1993), and by Lakoff and
Johnson (1999). Bateson’s view of mind, similarly, was that it resides
in the relational connections through which we participate in the
world, not in the organ that sits inside our skulls; he gave the
example of a man chopping a tree with an axe, who is engaging in a
‘circuit of mind’ that includes the tree and the axe, the feel and the
sound of the chopping, and so on, as a system of information in
which it is impossible to delimit where the human agent begins and
ends.
Alternative forms of knowledge
The fourth and final strand of this complex of issues is to do with

the way the academic world, and formal education in some soci-
eties, tends to privilege intellectual, conceptual knowledge, assum-
ing that it is superior to other forms of knowledge. Knowing why

something happens, and being able to explain and predict events in

the world, is considered a central goal of Western science.
NLP, which places greater value on ‘knowing how’, has refused
to privilege the intellect and has discouraged the temptation to

create a belief system out of conceptual knowing. Bandler and
Grinder refer to the way that psychology was characterised by
‘theology’ of this kind (Bandler & Grinder 1979:5–6).
Instead NLP embraces and values multiple forms of knowing.
One map of such forms, created by philosopher and educational-
ist John Heron (1992:174), shows a series of layers that start with
experience, moves through symbolic or imaginative represent-
ation, becomes conceptual knowing, and moves into practical
knowing.
Practical knowledge: ‘Knowing how’

Propositional knowledge: Conceptual knowing using language
Presentational knowledge: The imaginal mode; movement, sound,
colour, shape, etc. that connects per-
ceptual imagery
Experiential knowledge: Knowledge by acquaintance, through
participation; feeling.3
Despite the orthodoxy that persists in formal education, proposi-

tional knowing is not superior to other forms. Heron, referring to
the philosopher Gilbert Ryle, also asserts that practical knowledge
cannot be reduced to propositional knowledge (Heron 1992:172). In
applied fields, including management, there is increasing recog-
nition of the importance of practical knowing, and managers them-
selves are typically very interested in being able to apply knowledge.
We have already emphasised in this chapter that one of NLP’s main
areas of interest is in the sensory realm of experiential knowing.
Bateson, for example, referred to dancer Isadora Duncan’s response
to a question about the meaning of a dance: ‘If I could tell you
what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it’ (Bateson
2000a:137).
In relation to criteria for the quality of practical knowledge, Heron
says:
Its canons of validity are canons of competence. Whatever the

skill is, you need to be able to demonstrate that you can actually

do it, over a significant time span, under all relevant conditions,

and with an appropriate economy of means….
(Heron 1992:173)
This is so close to NLP criteria for effective modelling that it might

almost have been written by an NLP author. Compare Heron’s state-
ment with the following quotation from Bandler and Grinder:
We do not test the description we arrive at for accuracy, or how it

fits with neurological data, or statistics about what should be going
on. All we do in order to understand whether our description is an
adequate model for what we are doing is to find out whether it
works or not: are you able to exhibit effectively in your behaviour
the same patterns that Virginia (Satir) exhibits in hers, and get the
same results?
(Bandler & Grinder 1979:10)
Another feature of NLP is an interest in indigenous forms of knowledge

as an alternative to Western intellectual traditions. Judith DeLozier
(1995:7) cites the influence on ‘New Code’ NLP of ‘our African experi-
ence of drumming, dancing, singing and story-telling’. Another
significant influence in this (e.g. DeLozier & Grinder 1987) was the
works of Carlos Castaneda (e.g. Castaneda 1970). Castaneda, initially a
graduate student at UCLA, wrote a series of books about a Yaqui sor-
cerer, Don Juan, that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s, and which
sparked much controversy over whether they were true or fictional
– or indeed whether that really mattered. Presaging the shift between
‘The Structure of Magic’ and ‘Frogs Into Princes’, while Castaneda’s first
book (‘The Teachings of Don Juan’) was written in the form of an
anthropological report, he soon abandoned third-person commentary
altogether and adopted first-person narratives.
David Silverman, a sociologist, used Castaneda’s work with exactly
the same intent as NLP, that of introducing students to issues of epis-
temology. Silverman comments that; ‘it does not matter to me in the
least whether any or all of the “events” reported by Castaneda ever
“took place” … what text is not a construction?’ (1975:xi).
Anthony Grant, who is prominent in the field of coaching, offers
the following comment on NLP:
A key factor in the derailment of the human potential move-

ment in the 1960s and 1970s was a reluctance to engage with the

academic community. For example, if it were not for the anti-

science sentiments shown by the founders of NLP, today we could
have seen the original NLP making a useful contribution to the
applied psychology curriculum taught at universities – after all, the

core of NLP is an often elegant application of cognitive behavioural
science and linguistics. Instead we have seen some sections of the
NLP community drift further and further away from solid found-
ations towards increasingly esoteric learnings and sometimes out-
right bizarre ideologies.
(Grant 2007:212)
The appearance in NLP literature of Castaneda’s ideas may be one

basis for Anthony Grant’s reference to ‘esoteric learnings’ and
‘bizarre ideologies’. This type of view, however, risk limiting explo-
rations of human experience to forms of knowing that are privileged
by contemporary scientific communities.
Another of the forms of knowing in Heron’s model is that of pre-
sentational knowledge. This is also prevalent in NLP, reflected in the
frequent use of story and metaphor by Milton Erickson. For Bateson,
too, stories were no mere entertainment. They represented some-
thing important about the nature of mind, an example of the
significance of the aesthetics of human systems, or ‘responsiveness to
the pattern which connects’ (Bateson 1979:17):
A man wanted to know about mind, not in nature, but in his

private large computer. He asked it (no doubt in his best Fortran),
“Do you compute that you will ever think like a human being?”
The machine then set to work to analyze its own computational
habits. Finally, the machine printed its answer on a piece of paper,
as such machines do. The man ran to get the answer and found,
neatly typed, the words:
THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY
(Bateson 1979:22)
NLP did not always emphasise presentational forms of knowing.

As we have seen in earlier chapters, NLP evolved from within a
university setting, albeit it one that was a radical experiment. It
was also built upon theory from its very inception. ‘The Structure

of Magic’ uses the terminology of transformational linguistics,

complete with quasi-mathematical symbols and annotated tran-
scripts. It is difficult to imagine how obtuse labels such as ‘modal
operators of necessity’ and ‘complex equivalence’ could have come

from anything other than academic theory. Bateson described it as
‘a rather dry and formal linguistic analysis’.4
‘The Structure of Magic’ was not an altogether promising start
on the road to becoming an ‘airport psychology book’, except perhaps
through the appearance in the title of the provocatively unscientific
term ‘magic’ and the gaudy covers.5 It is often overlooked, how-
ever, that Bandler and Grinder’s explicit project was to show that
the abilities of charismatic practitioners, which many perceived to
be magical, in fact had a structure and could be learnt by others
(Bandler & Grinder 1975b:6). The early findings of NLP were arrived
at through a process broadly recognisable as research into the
‘theory-in-use’ of Satir and Perls.
What happened to the conceptual approach of these early books?
Once again ‘Frogs into Princes’ (Bandler & Grinder 1979) seems to
mark a watershed at which NLP flowed into the commercial world
and veered away from academic and professional communities.6
Certainly, even before that point NLP was always concerned with
practical knowledge. But its books conveyed that knowledge in the
propositional terms that were familiar to its audience of, principally,
professional therapists. They were more likely to overlap the inter-
ests of the academic world because they used a similar, conceptual
form of discourse.
With ‘Frogs Into Princes’ the discourse becomes almost the
inverse, or mirror image, of conventional academic writing.7 It uses
narratives of experience that enable the reader, as it were, to enter
and engage with the workshop experience.
In summary, it is simply too crude to dismiss the relevance of
theory to NLP altogether. Among other things, this misses certain
interesting challenges to assumptions about the nature of know-
ledge. Denying that NLP has theory altogether, rather than embrac-
ing and exploring the types of theorising that are prevalent, can
render NLP evasive, prone to retreat from the challenge to examine
the beliefs that it promulgates. We can see that NLP engages with
theory in the sense that it is usually concerned with Argyris’ ‘theory-
in-use’; it holds a theory about modes of knowing that is broadly
compatible with, but so far not informed directly by, dual process

theories; and it has a theory about the value of non-conceptual

forms of knowing.
Science and magic: Is NLP ‘pseudoscience’?

If NLP practitioners sometimes reject academic theory, the reverse
is also true. For example, NLP is sometimes dismissed as ‘pseudo-
science’.8 What does this mean, and is there substance to this?9
The term ‘pseudoscience’ originated with Karl Popper, a philo-
sopher of science who was educated in Vienna in the 1920s. Accord-
ing to Chalmers (1999), Popper became suspicious of the capacity of
contemporary Freudians, Adlerians and Marxists to interpret any
event in such a way as to support their theories; ‘it seemed to
Popper that these theories could never go wrong because they
were sufficiently flexible to accommodate any instances of human
behaviour or historical change as compatible with their theory’
(Chalmers 1999:59).
Reacting to this, Popper advocated the principle that scien-
tific theories must be falsifiable. That is, any theory should be
capable of being put to the test and being shown to be false. If
a theory is self-sealing, or if it rests on faith alone, then it is not
scientific.
Popper’s views are contested and somewhat idealistic. Chalmers
goes on to explain how they could fuel a mythical view of science
because theories do not evolve by falsification, they are the products
of human minds continuously searching for explanatory principles.
The practice of falsification may be a useful check and balance
against dogma and ideology but, according to Feyerabend, history
shows that; ‘it is the normal case (that) theories become clear and
“reasonable” only after incoherent parts of them have been used for a
long time’ (Feyerabend 1993:17). Frank Farrelly, the founder of
Provocative Therapy, makes a similar point about the way many
psychotherapists’ theoretical systems emerged (Farrelly & Brandsma
1974:30). Chalmers notes (1999:91) that if the principle of falsifica-
tion had operated strictly, Newton’s gravitational theory would have
been rejected by apparently contradictory observations that took
some fifty years to explain. Nor do theories necessarily develop along
neat, deductive lines within single disciplines. For instance, Darwin’s
theory of Evolution drew on population studies (Thomas Malthus),

questions from Natural Theology (William Paley), and the emerging

science of Geology (Charles Lyell), among other influences.
Furthermore, the positivist idea that knowledge can only be pro-
duced through the application of orthodox, scientific methods has

been the subject of wide-ranging critique in the social sciences (for
example, Lincoln & Guba 1985). Ironically, there is a naïve view of
science among some people in the NLP community that actually
reinforces belief in that view, through the hope that scientific
research will ‘prove’ that NLP works.
The form of ‘pseudoscience’ allegation that originates from a pos-
itivist, falsificationist perspective by no means singles out NLP. It
also challenges a wide range of training, development and organ-
isational change practices. If applied strictly, most of these practices
would probably have to be regarded as pseudoscientific too; many
coaches, consultancies and training organisations would be out of
business. For example, Eisner (2000) critiques not only NLP but also
Gestalt therapy, Psychosynthesis and more – in short, any approach
to psychotherapy that has not been supported by a dominant form
of research, namely clinical trials.
Beyerstein (1990) criticised the way that ‘New Age’ entrepreneurs,
in which he included contemporary proponents of NLP, exploited
science, and specifically brain research, to lend authority to their
claims. He challenged movements like NLP to produce evidence to
support their claims, and to show awareness of relevant research
(1990:33). We agree in sentiment, but would contest the way in
which Beyerstein insists that this is done. He dismisses construc-
tivism at a stroke and, like Eisner, insists that ‘double-blind, placebo-
controlled evaluations of all medical, psychological, and educational
interventions are essential’ (1990:34).
‘It works!’
Where we think NLP could be most vulnerable to the charge of

being a pseudoscience is in the lack of research and evaluation that
seeks to challenge and refine its ideas. The lack of a credible, public
evidence base is one of the most significant barriers to more wide-
spread acceptance of NLP. It is wholly reasonable to seek testing
of the validity of NLP’s claims, without needing to subscribe to
Popper’s notion of falsification – even if the question of what

provides for an evidence-based approach is complex and contested

in many fields, including Human Resource Development (McGoldrick,
Stewart & Watson 2002).
Sharpley (1987:104), noting Einspruch and Forman’s (1985) state-

ment that practitioners have ‘a wealth of clinical data indicating that
[NLP] is highly effective’, says that if so, they ‘need to provide this
data for the wider professional public’. Derren Brown (2007:131)
writes that much of the evidence of the efficacy of NLP ‘comes
from… anecdotes rather than from any actual testing or documented
case histories’.10 The experiences of practitioners do, of course, con-
stitute a body of evidence, if one that is diffuse and difficult to assess.
This is not to suggest that anecdotes are without value; see for
example Isabel Losada’s account (Losada 2001:200–201) of someone
overcoming their fear of travelling in lifts.
A common tactic, however, is simply to assert that ‘NLP works’,
based on the personal experience of the practitioner. Bostic St. Clair
and Grinder, for example, make the breathtaking claim that the
widespread dissemination of NLP ‘can be accounted for by a simple
observation – the patterning they (i.e. Grinder and Bandler) modeled
and coded works. It works across cultures, generations, genders, age
groups and fields of application’ (2001:3).11 Martin Gardner points
out that L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Dianetics, relied on exactly
the same mantra (Gardner 1957:279). The claim, ‘it works’, should
therefore be treated with scepticism, and not be accepted at face
value.12
What are some of the difficulties with the appeal, ‘I know it
works’? First, we could apply several of NLP’s own meta-model
questions to this claim, such as, ‘in what way, specifically, does it
work?’ Another key question is, ‘how do we know it works?’ It may
seem odd that, knowing of the importance of these questions in
NLP, any practitioner would encourage a client to rely on appeals
to the practitioners’ own experience, personal integrity or (perhaps)
persuasiveness.
Secondly, within NLP there is a remarkable lack of consideration
for counter-evidence. In our personal experience, NLP works some of
the time but not all the time. In the field of healthcare, the standard
of effectiveness is to better the rate of success of the placebo effect.
To suggest that any treatment has a success rate of 100% is simply
not credible. Yet where are the debates about when NLP does not

work? There is scant evidence of acknowledgement of this, let alone

enquiry into what can be learnt from such cases.
Thirdly, there is enormous potential for error in interpreting the
meaning of our own experiences. For example, Beyerstein (1990:34)

argues that ‘the gurus of self-improvement tend to rely on their own
experience and alleged insights into “what works”. Much research
on the fallibility of human judgement makes it clear why such
affirmations are so unreliable, even if they enjoy surface plaus-
ibility’.13 It is widely acknowledged that observation can be unreli-
able; we have noted that Bateson wrote about the way perception
can be fooled, after experiencing the experiments of Adelbert Ames
(Bateson 2000a:487).
In NLP, practitioners are taught that it is not enough to see some-
thing with one’s own eyes; that, for example, ‘memories’ are con-
structed in the present, and that one’s interpretation of an event
depends on one’s perceptual position, filters and so on. How is it
that this appropriate scepticism is abandoned when advancing the
claim ‘it works!’?
An evidence-based, sceptical approach is typically encouraged in
NLP trainings. Trainers exhort participants to test NLP’s claims for
themselves. Unfortunately this apparently liberal invitation is also
disingenuous. Let us say that the NLP practitioner does genuinely
attempt to test NLP’s claims for him or herself. What are some
obvious barriers to making such an evaluation systematic and reli-
able in research terms? A relatively straightforward issue is of how
rigorous and systematic participants will be in record-keeping. For
example, will they notice successes but ignore failures?
Then, as with any movement, and as with any business organ-
isation, NLP is prone to tendencies towards social conformity, not
just conformity about evidence but potentially despite the evidence.
This phenomenon is illustrated graphically by the experiment con-
ducted by Professor Solomon Asch (Watzlawick 1976:85–89). Asch
showed that over a third of people (36.8% in his experiment) will
change their view of something as simple and apparently objective
as the relative length of two lines in order to avoid being out of step
with a majority opinion. A recent re-run of the Asch experiment, led
by Dr Gregory Berns (Berns et al 2005), used MRI scanners to show
that peer pressure can neurologically alter our very perceptions.14
In other words people do not just know privately that the lines are

of different lengths, but choose consciously to modify their declared

view in order to fit in. Instead, peer pressure seems to change per-
ception itself.
Added pressures include that fact that participants are often

paying significant amounts of money for their training; most people
will assert the value of a purchase rather than appear to be a fool for
having parted with their money. NLP trainings offer certificates, for
which participants are assessed by trainers. It is well known in edu-
cation that there is unequal power between assessors and assessed,
and that participants will often be obedient to, or seek to stay on
the right side of, perceived authority figures.
Finally, from a more sociological perspective, a training course in
NLP can be seen less as a process of acquiring specific competencies,
and more as a rite of passage towards being accepted into a parti-
cular community of practitioners, or ‘NLP-ers’. To the extent that
participants value this outcome, they are less likely to risk flouting
the norms of that community.
None of these concerns is unique to NLP; they are based on estab-
lished knowledge in the social sciences and apply to any form of
organised learning, including university education. The issue is that
apparently plain-speaking appeals to personal experience to validate
the efficacy of NLP are unreliable. One way to enhance the credibility
of NLP, therefore, could be to show how this issue is being addressed,
instead of relying on the mantra ‘it works!’ to assert efficacy.
Fazit
As a knowledge system NLP is characterised by a distinction between

what is ‘useful’ and what is ‘true’. NLP is not as lacking in theory as it
may seem; it also emphasises practical knowledge, employs present-
ational knowledge, and has explored alternative unorthodox (in
Western scientific terms) forms of knowing. Accusations that NLP is
‘pseudoscience’ need to be scrutinised as they tend to emanate from
a particular view of science. However, they also highlight a lack of
research activity in NLP, which surely has relied too much on the
mantra ‘it works!’

11
What Does Research Say About

NLP?
Many people who come across NLP want to know whether it is

backed up by research. ‘Even its greatest enthusiasts are hard-pressed
to find serious scientific research that backs up its wilder claims’,
wrote Fran Abrams of NLP in the Times Educational Supplement in
2004.1 Is this a fair comment? In this chapter we examine the
research that is available into, and relevant to, NLP.
Findings from relevant disciplines
There are three main types of research to be concerned with:
1. Indirect research – findings from relevant disciplines

2. Evaluation from within NLP
3. Independent research into NLP’s claims.
Of these, the first is the area that may offer most support to NLP’s
ideas and practices. We have cited, for example, the work of Lawrence
Barsalou on the role of the senses in cognition, as supporting NLP’s
perspective on the role and significance of internal representations
(Barsalou 2008b); that of Robert Goldstone on categorisation as sup-
porting NLP’s stance on the relationship between language and think-
ing (Goldstone & Kersten 2003); and that of neuroscientists as giving
insights into the dynamics of, for example, rapport through work on
‘mirror neurons’ (e.g. Rizzolatti & Craighero 2004).
There is a growing trend in recent NLP literature for authors to
specify relevant research findings from mainstream psychology and
129

other disciplines;2 examples of publications in which this is done

include Bolstad (2002),3 Churches and Terry (2007), Linder-Pelz and
Hall (2007) and Wake (2008). This marks a shift of attitude towards
research, and usefully counters a tendency for NLP training courses

and literature to recycle knowledge that has been in circulation
since the 1970s. This trend might also help to counter the pro-
pagation of myths or misconceptions about what various pieces
of research actually say.4 Finally, it also reflects the fact that many
people in the NLP community are genuinely interested in how
research findings (regardless of whether they directly concern NLP)
can inform and improve their practice.
Evaluation from within NLP
Moving on to the second category of research, as noted in Chapter 10

the evidence base created within the field of NLP is especially in
need of development. Unlike related practices such as Solution-
Focused Therapy, and with the exception of research into NLP psycho-
therapy promoted in Europe (by the EANLPt) and the USA (by the
NLP Research and Recognition Project), NLP has done little to open
itself up to independent evaluation.5
Why is this? One possible reason is that the people who have
developed and promulgated NLP regard themselves, in Judith
DeLozier’s words, as ‘searchers not researchers’.6 In other words
their motivation is to explore and to develop new ideas. They are
simply not drawn to the different type of endeavour that research
involves, though they have no objection to this being done by other
people. Based on their written output, of the long-established NLP
trainers it is probably Robert Dilts and John McWhirter who have
shown the greatest inclination to be researchers as well as searchers.
However the same ambivalence towards and stereotyping of
theory that we described in Chapter 10 also affects research. State-
ments like ‘there’s a whole body of people called “researchers” who
will not associate with the people who are practicing!’ (Bandler &
Grinder 1979:6, italics and spelling as in original) appear to have
influenced some NLP practitioners’ attitudes towards research.7 Platt
(2001) reports his experience that ‘people who practise NLP are not
receptive or even prepared to countenance critical reviews of the
field’. We had the experience of being told by a leading UK trainer

What Does Research Say About NLP? 131
that NLP did not need to be researched, and being chided for
hosting an NLP research conference.
As mentioned in Chapter 10, NLP has relied a great deal on
informal research by its thousands of practitioners who have been

encouraged to test NLP in practice for themselves. There is, on the
other hand, a strand of research-mindedness that runs through NLP
from its very beginnings. We have described the research that
informed the NLP publications of the 1970s, even though it left
no effective audit trail. A case book called ‘Leaves in the Wind’
(Bretto, DeLozier, Grinder & Topel 1991) includes research-based
reports. A journal called ‘NLP World’, founded and edited by G. Peter
Winnington, and published between 1994 and 2001, was notable for
encouraging more scholarly writing in the field.8 The journal carried
many conceptual articles and some examples of the type of scholarly
critique that might have helped move the field forward. Other arti-
cles began to contribute to an evidence base for NLP.9 It is note-
worthy that more than 35% of the authors of its articles held PhD’s,
from a variety of disciplines.10 Ultimately this journal failed to make
an impact beyond the NLP community. Judging by its list of review-
ers it probably relied too much on evaluation by NLP practitioners
and authors, another example of the inward focus of the field. Never-
theless, Peter Winnington deserves great credit for this contribution
to research in NLP.
Despite this work, the ‘trail of techniques’ left in the wake of the
early developments in Santa Cruz has been over-sold and under-tested.
For example, anecdotes about modelling may give the impression that
through this method one can ‘speed-learn’ capabilities such as that of
fluency in a foreign language. John Grinder’s apparent claims in this
respect (‘While I myself have long journeys ahead of me to mastery,
I have working competency in some eight languages’)11 may well
be true, but they have not, to our knowledge, been evidenced or cor-
roborated in published form. Nor have these claims been specified;
thus, what is ‘working competency’? While it seems plausible that one
could learn to act as native speaker, perhaps through appropriate non-
verbal behaviour and armed with phrases suitable for everyday inter-
action, it seems far less plausible that one could bypass the trial and
error that would usually be involved in learning a language in depth.
Another issue is that genuine applications of NLP sometimes do
not come to light. We know personally of someone who organised a

new way of training volunteers for an international organisation,

but who has never mentioned NLP in any of that organisation’s
publications; and of a psychiatrist who used NLP to model how
people who had experienced a certain form of trauma were able

to access their coping mechanisms, but omitted any reference to
Bandler and Grinder in order to be taken seriously by medical col-
leagues. Our own explicit reference to NLP has sometimes raised
eyebrows, and we have been gently advised on occasion to re-brand
our interest.
In recent years, on the other hand, there have been signs of
greater engagement with the academic world, providing some of
what Hancox and Bass (1995a:43) have described as ‘cultural pacing’.
First, there has been a growing voice in NLP publications advocating
the need for research in a plurality of modes (Hancox & Bass 1995b;
Hollander 1999; McKergow 2000; Miller 2005). Secondly, there are
welcome, contemporary examples of systematic efforts by practi-
tioners to evaluate their work (e.g. Hutchinson, Churches & Vitae
2007). As mentioned in Chapter 3, one NLP model, that known as
‘meta-programmes’, has been tested to the extent that it is now the
basis of a validated psychological instrument (Brewerton 2004). It
has also been used as a research method by Nigel Brown (e.g. Brown
2001). Thirdly, at the time of writing there are many PhDs
under way in established universities that are investigating NLP
in fields that include management, education (Day 2008) and
engineering.
Independent research into NLP’s claims
The third and final category is independent research into NLP.

Perhaps surprisingly, little formal academic research has been done.
Most of the research studies of NLP that do exist were conducted
in the 1980s and 1990s by researchers in experimental psycho-
logy who tested some of the assertions made in NLP publications
in the 1970s. While that research generally does not support the
claims that were tested, this is not the same as saying that
research has rejected or disproved NLP as a whole field. For
example, some commentators have questioned whether those
studies have provided valid and reliable tests. Also, the findings
that do exist were regarded as interim. What do these findings
say?

The view that research has discredited NLP appears to stem mainly
from a chapter written in the late 1980s in an edited book on hypnosis
(Heap 1988). Heap wrote what is called a ‘meta-evaluation’, in which
he summarised the results of sixty-two studies of NLP. These studies

were principally psychological experiments that were concerned with
testing three main notions in NLP. These were, first, ‘primary represen-
tational system’, according to which individuals have a preferred
sensory mode of internal representation; secondly, the principle that
matching sensory predicates enhances rapport (for example between a
practitioner and a client); and thirdly, the ‘eye movement’ model,
which suggest that the direction of a person’s gaze corresponds to the
sensory mode in which they are processing information. Details of most
of these studies are accessible via a database developed by Dr Daniele
Kammer at the University of Bielefeld in Germany.12 It is interesting
that the meta-model, which is typically portrayed as the core of NLP,
was not the subject of any of the empirical studies reviewed by Heap.
Significantly, Heap described his conclusion as an ‘interim
verdict’, declaring that Einspruch and Forman (1985) were ‘probably
correct in insisting that the effectiveness of NLP therapy undertaken
in authentic clinical contexts of trained practitioners has not yet
been properly investigated’ (Heap 1988:276). Nevertheless Heap is
quite definite in his conclusion:
… the assertions of NLP writers concerning representational sys-

tems have been objectively and fairly investigated and found to be
lacking. These assertions are stated in unequivocal terms by the
originators of NLP and it is clear from their writings that phenom-
ena such as representational systems, predicate preferences and eye
movement patterns are claimed to be potent psychological pro-
cesses, easily and convincingly demonstrable on training courses by
tutors and trainees following simple instructions, and, indeed in
everyday life…. It may well be appropriate now to conclude that
there is not, and never has been, any substance to the conjecture
that people represent their world internally in a preferred mode
which may be inferred from their choice of predicates and from
their eye movements.
(Heap 1988:275)
While there are some qualifications to add, Heap’s broad conclusion

is a fair summary of the findings of studies prior to 1988 which, in

short, was unfavourable to NLP. Should that interim conclusion

suffice to dismiss the entire field? Logically, these findings should
be a stimulus for further research. However, in the 1990s direct
research into NLP began to dry up and it is only now beginning to

reappear.
Heap’s interim conclusion can be qualified in several respects.
First, the quantity of publications available to Heap was very limited
by academic standards. As a quick comparison with a related con-
temporary research theme in HRD, an online search on a manage-
ment database for academic journal articles with ‘coaching’ in the
title between 2000 and 2006 returned one hundred and sixty-
nine ‘hits’, representing nearly seventeen journal articles per year.
This compares with fewer than three per year for NLP research
in the period that Heap considered. Despite this greater volume of
studies, so far as we are aware, no definitive conclusions have been
reached about coaching.
Secondly, of the sixty-two studies cited by Heap, thirty-six are
postgraduate dissertations (mostly at Masters level) and only twenty-
six are published journal articles. According to the information pro-
vided on the aforementioned Bielefeld site, and by Heap’s references,
the authors of only five of these dissertations can also be identified
as an author or co-author of a subsequent journal article. Thirty-
one studies, for whatever reason, were apparently not developed into
academic articles.
Significantly, it appears that Heap’s review was based on only the
abstracts of the dissertation studies included in his meta-evaluation,
not on the dissertations themselves.13 Typically the abstracts consist
of a synopsis of two hundred words or less. There is no indication
that Heap undertook any critical appraisal of the methodologies
used by these studies, or that he assessed their validity.
While Heap’s chapter appears to have taken the merits of these
studies at face value, other researchers have voiced concern about
their quality and validity. Beck and Beck (1984) and Einspruch and
Forman (1985) have argued that many of these studies suffer from
problems including inadequate interviewer training and misunder-
standing of the NLP approach. Sharpley (1987), on the other hand,
rejects these criticisms. For example, he points out that researchers
have not reinterpreted NLP, but have investigated specific claims
stated by Bandler and Grinder in publications.

Subsequent to Heap’s meta-evaluation, Baddeley and Predebon

(1991) reviewed seven previous studies and found that ‘all studies
except that of Buckner et al (1987) had consisted of significant mis-
interpretations of the NLP hypothesis…. Even the Buckner study

can be faulted on design errors which call into question the validity
of the findings’ (1991:4–5). For example, some research reported
that when some people looked up, they did not necessarily use a
‘visual’ word (‘I see what you mean’), but perhaps an auditory or
kinaesthetic predicate, (‘that sounds good’, or ‘that’s my feeling’).
This could be explained by Bandler and Grinder’s notion of a lead
system, which means that a person could be looking up, accessing
an internal image, but paying attention to their feelings about the
image. In this case they are using their lead system (visual) only as a
gateway to the sensory mode (kinaesethic) that generates the pre-
dicate. Baddeley and Predebon concluded that more innovative
investigation was needed to develop a sufficiently complex account
of the eye movement phenomenon.14
It is important to note also that although this research rejects the
specific claims made by Bandler and Grinder, it does not contest the
phenomenon of eye movements per se. For example, Heap does not
question the fact that eye movements are considered generally to be
related to internal cognitive processing. For example we mentioned
in Chapter 5 the American psychiatrist, M. E. Day, who suggested
that certain types of eye movements indicate when people were
attending to their internal worlds of thought, memory and ima-
gination, and attempted to correlate these with cognitive functions
(Day 1964; Day 1967). Heap’s criticism, like that of Baddeley and
Predebon (1991), is of the particular correlations that are put forward
in ‘Frogs into Princes’, as well as Bandler and Grinder’s failure to refer
to an existing literature on ‘Lateral Eye Movement’.15
This research probably calls for a revised, testable ‘eye movement
hypothesis’ that clarifies what NLP is claiming about the relation-
ship between predicates in a question that is posed by one person,
and the respondent’s subsequent eye movements. Some NLP authors
claim that this model is only a map that can be used ‘as-if’ it is
true (O’Connor & McDermott 2003). Yet this conflicts with explicit
reference to the eye movement model as a ‘discovery’ (Bostic St. Clair
& Grinder 2001:171) of a phenomenon of human behaviour.
Experimental studies have interpreted the claim as indicating a

stimulus-response relationship, which therefore should yield cor-

relations between questions and eye movements. Beck and Beck on
the other hand, say; ‘Eye movement in neurolinguistic program-
ming is viewed not as a response to a stimulus but as an indication

of the person’s internal processing of information’ (1984:176). This
implies a somewhat different claim, purporting a correlation
between eye movement and internal processing; the relationship
between questions and eye movements may therefore be uncertain.
Similar arguments apply to studies reviewed by Heap about inter-
nal representations (see Chapter 6). The notion that people make
such representations, and that these make use of sensory modes,
is not at issue. The appearance of sensory predicates in language
is undoubtedly an everyday phenomenon, illustrated by conversa-
tions, e-mails, media interviews, novels, and so on; the question is
what, precisely, do they tell us about cognitive processes?
What the research queries is the notion that a person has a primary
or preferred representational system. A reading of Heap’s chapter sug-
gests that he took Bandler and Grinder to be proposing a trait
theory, rather than treating people’s preference for representational
systems as contextual and variable. Once again it would be helpful
for NLP to have developed a more precise, refined statement of such
claims, perhaps making clearer the distinctions between lead system,
representational system, and reference system (Bandler & Grinder
1979:28).
The National Research Council studies
Besides Heap’s review there is a second strand of research to address.

Conducted in the USA by the National Research Council (NRC),
chaired by John Swets (Druckman 2004:2234), this used an ortho-
dox scientific approach to test methods of performance improve-
ment for application in the US Army. Beyerstein comments that in
relation to the efficacy of NLP, the NRC’s original investigation
‘could unearth no hard evidence in its favour, or even a succinct
statement of its underlying theory’ (1990:28). Druckman comments
that the NRC’s initial experiences with NLP led to two conclusions:
On the one hand, we found little, if any evidence to support NLP’s

assumptions or to indicate that it is effective as a strategy for social

influence. It assumes that by tracking another’s eye movements

and language, an NLP trainer can shape the person’s thoughts, feel-
ings and opinions (Dilts 1983). There is no scientific support for
these assumptions. On the other hand, we were impressed with the

modeling approach used to develop the technique. The technique
was developed from careful observations of the way three master
psychotherapists conducted their sessions, emphasizing imitation
of verbal and nonverbal behaviours (Druckman & Swets 1988,
Chapter 8). This then led the committee to take up the topic of
expert modelling in the second phase of its work.
(Druckman 2004:2245)
The first conclusion is consistent with Heap’s meta-analysis.

The second, the comment that these researchers were impressed
with NLP’s method of modelling, is interesting, and supports the
potential of NLP as a methodology.
A proposed subsequent program on NLP was not implemented.
The NRC then engaged in a further twelve years of work, which
reported findings about the use of techniques of visualisation and
mental rehearsal; ‘A comprehensive review of experiments showed
that mental practice does contribute to gains in performance. These
gains are stronger for motor tasks that have cognitive components
and when it is combined with physical practice (Feltz & Landers
1983)’ (Druckman 2004:2240).
With regard to mental rehearsal, a study of basketball players
is often cited in NLP trainings. This refers to a paper by Clark
(1960),16 who reported that mental rehearsal of a specific basket-
ball shot proved to be almost as effective as actual rehearsal for
two groups of college students who were already familiar with this
type of shot. It was less effective for novice players, which may be
explained by the fact that this group had yet to develop the physio-
logical and neurological pathways involved in making the shot.
According not only to Feltz and Landers, but also to Driskell et al
(1994), Clark’s findings are broadly supported by subsequent work
in the field.
Of relevance to the NLP practice through which one person
‘mirrors’ another persons body language, Druckman reports that;
‘The committee’s work on socially induced affect showed that one
person’s expressed feelings can influence another’s feelings… This

process has implications for other topics studied by the committee,

such as influence through mimicry, group cohesion, self-confidence,
cooperative learning, and team training’ (Druckman 2004:2244). This
principle is taken up by Goleman and Boyatzis’ (2008) notion of

‘social intelligence’, in which they suggest that a leader’s demeanour
has a direct influence on the climate of their workplace. Related
findings affirm the impact on performance of confidence and self-
efficacy beliefs, which have been of interest to NLP (Dilts & DeLozier
2000).
In conclusion, there is little substantive support for NLP from the
independent research conducted to date. Yet that body of research is
not only small but also methodologically narrow. Its findings tend to
be repeated (e.g. von Bergen et al 1997), to the extent that the volume
of repetition drowns out relevant detail, such as the concern that
Heap’s 1988 evaluation appears to have taken the results of student
dissertations at face value. The additional research that could have
developed Heap’s interim conclusion into a more definitive statement
has simply not yet been conducted. NLP has been in something of a
Catch-22; it is dismissed because it is said that there is no evidence for
it, yet there is no evidence for it at least in part because research is not
being done, and research is not being done because the field is dis-
missed. Why? Because there is no evidence to support it…. The
research questions noted above have therefore become marooned,
abandoned by researchers who assume that they are not worthy of
investigation, treated as matters of primarily theoretical interest in
fields such as cognitive linguistics, and regarded by NLP practitioners
as irrelevant or not in need of further investigation.
Review
Based on the above analysis, the comment from Fran Abrams at the
start of this chapter, while offering a relevant challenge to articulate
NLP’s evidence base, seems to overstate the case. Even Derren
Brown, who can be scathingly critical of NLP, says ‘… there are
some sensible enough tools and techniques from that world which
are worth knowing about, as long as you don’t become a True
Believer’. (Brown 2007:188). Brown goes on over the next twenty-
five pages or so to attest to the validity and utility of much of the
practitioner level contents of NLP.17

It is also important to say that NLP should be judged on a

level playing field with other practices in HRD. Models and practices
that are not supported by research evidence are, if anything, the
norm. For example, what is generally known as the Tavistock

approach to human relations (e.g. Miller 1993) has no ‘hard science’
evidence to support its theories. What it does have is accumulated
case evidence that has been reviewed over many years through
critical dialogue. Sharpley, one of the strongest critics of NLP,
acknowledges the possibility that NLP principles ‘are not amenable
to research evaluation’, and points out that:
This does not necessarily reduce NLP to worthlessness for coun-

selling practice. Rather, it puts NLP in the same category as
psychoanalysis, that is, with principles not easily demonstrated
in laboratory settings but, nevertheless, strongly supported by
clinicians in the field. (1987:105)
As another example, it is commonly estimated that organisational

change strategies fail to deliver their outcomes 70% of the time
(e.g. Beer & Nohria 2000). Yet business organisations surely spend
vastly more on organisational change than they do on NLP; the
use of organisational change strategies probably impacts on more
people, and more deeply, than current use of NLP in the field. While
there are plenty of critics of organisational change and related
consultancy practices, there is scarcely the vehement opposition to
them that the lack of evidence behind NLP seems to attract. This
does not avoid the need for a more research-informed NLP, but it
does suggest that NLP should not be singled out for criticism in this
respect.
An important feature of this debate is that the body of research
discussed above took a positivistic approach, which in Chapter 10
we identified as being a particular, rather than a universal form of
research. In particular it is based on a cause-effect model; conse-
quently, it treats a learner or client as an object who will be affected
by the technique being used regardless of their participation in the
process, and regardless of their meaning-making about the situation.
From the perspective of cybernetics, with its central notion of circu-
lar causality, and especially from second-order cybernetics, which
regards not only the practitioner but also the researcher as part of

the system under investigation, this approach is highly problematic.

For example, as O’Connor and McDermott (2003) point out, while
the positivist approach aims to isolate variables and test their
effects, in any experiment the context, including the relationship

between researcher and participant, cannot be neutral and will
affect the phenomenon being studied.
This means that research into eye movements, for instance, will
have a dual layer. The first is the purported relationship between eye
movements and internal processing, which should be capable of being
investigated through conventional methods, as in Dilts’ (1983) use of
EEG recordings. The second layer is the relational context involving
the researcher, the respondent, the purpose at hand, and the interac-
tion through which these all influence each other. Most experimental
research regards this layer as an extraneous factor that can be con-
trolled so that its impact is rendered neutral. Bateson’s views about the
significance of relationship and metacommunication not only offer a
fundamental challenge to this assumption, but also regard this layer as
the more interesting to study. Thus Bateson;
knew in a very deep way that the 19th and 20th century methodo-
logical seduction of psychology by the pre-eminently successful
physical sciences was a historical tragedy… an error of both logical
typing and logical level… his task was to demonstrate that there are
fundamental differences between the patterns of the physical, sens-
ible world and the patterns of the world of mind without falling
into mysticism.
(DeLozier & Grinder 1987:xi–xii)
This means that it is problematic for the outcomes of processes like

coaching, which result from processes involving circular causality,
to be regarded as straightforward ‘effects’ for which one can identify
simple, single causes. In short, from a cybernetic perspective what
we call ‘change’ and ‘learning’ need to be understood as emergent, in
that they are consequences that cannot be predicted.
This argument is linked to wider contemporary debate in other
fields of people development about how to evaluate efficacy. For
example, in relation to psychotherapy, Wampold (2001) rejects the
dominant ‘medical model’ that seeks objective findings about tech-
niques, and instead argues that the evidence shows that all psycho-

therapies are virtually equal in their efficacy. This, he says, needs to

be explained through understanding psychotherapy from a con-
textual perspective, which shifts from the metaphor of a ‘cure’ pro-
vided by an expert, to one of a human relationship from which

‘healing’ can arise (Glass, in Wampold 2001:ix). Martin Seligman,
one of the founders of ‘positive psychology’, offers a similar chal-
lenge to the assumptions behind the conventional, experimental
efficacy study, because ‘it omits too many crucial elements of what is
done in the field’ (Seligman 1995:italics in original).
Does this mean that positivistic, conventional science is irrelevant to
NLP? No, because if NLP authors and practitioners make claims for the
objective existence of certain phenomena (e.g. eye movements), or for
the reliable efficacy of certain procedures (e.g. the phobia cure), it is
fair to expect that these claims should be available for testing. Even if
one accepts that the outcomes of coaching are essentially emergent,
discrepancies between published research findings about NLP and its
claims should prompt further enquiry. To reject or ignore unfavour-
able findings by suggesting that research in general is not relevant to
NLP creates a worryingly closed system that could serve to maintain its
existing model of the world. Any field of practice needs to be alert to
discrepant findings, which can mean that something new has been
discovered, and that existing knowledge can be refined.
Other types of research into NLP will also be important. A voice
that is strikingly absent from the field is that of the user, or client.
The few published examples of users’ accounts are rather drowned
out by the publicity offered by practitioners, which may be thought
surprising given the value espoused in NLP of considering multiple
perceptual positions. Published accounts by users, which are few in
number and often by journalists, generally attest to finding value in
NLP. For example, Robert Crampton reported benefits of NLP
therapy in The Times in 2002.18 The potential gains from NLP are
illustrated in a balanced way by Isabel Losada (Losada 2001).
Even if the weight of anecdotal reports of its efficacy suggest that
something of value is being experienced, the desirability for NLP of
providing more credible evidence should be clear. Without this type
of evidence, people may continue to wonder whether enthusiasm
for NLP is anything more than a contemporary case of ‘The Emperor’s
New Clothes’. There is great scope for evaluating users’ experiences
and the benefits they gain from NLP.

Communities of practice
Finally in this chapter we return to the relationship between NLP

and academe.

John Ziman (2000) points out that science is a culture, not a
method, one that is characterised by a particular belief system and
social practices. As an alternative to focusing exclusively on the
merits of their substantive contents, we can consider NLP and the
academic world as different communities of practice. NLP author
Lucas Derks acknowledges this perspective when he says that a new
idea ‘stands or falls by the location of its originator in the social
panoramas of the scientific community’ (Derks 2005:viii).19 Of
course there is no single ‘scientific community’, it is more a multi-
plicity of intersecting interest groups. Similarly when we talk of an
‘NLP community’, it means this kind of loose network of practi-
tioners – a very different kind of community from a small village
whose inhabitants interact daily.
In some respects, NLP practitioners and academics share more in
the way of concerns and approaches than may commonly be appre-
ciated. For example, in their own ways they are both intensely inter-
ested in how people construct understandings through language; in
questioning forms of knowing; and in creating useful, valid know-
ledge. NLP studies behaviour to find regularities and patterns within
it, and to enable action to be taken based on these patterns. NLP
and academic communities could therefore be seen as comple-
mentary, not opposed, investigating similar concerns but through
diverse spectacles and practices.
One difficulty for NLP practitioners wishing to participate in acad-
emic communities is that NLP has no established disciplinary home
in universities. Although its founders originally identified NLP as
broadly associated with the concerns and endeavours of psychology
(Bandler & Grinder 1975b:1), NLP is not the obvious remit of that or
any other discipline, and in many respects it is transdisciplinary.
Even constructivism and cybernetics, which we have argued provide
the intellectual foundations of NLP, tend to be perspectives taken by
individual academics, rather than the identities of whole university
departments.
This suggests that one way to accelerate the ‘mainstreaming’ of
NLP, therefore, could be to engage with the structures and processes

of academic debate – which is one of the points made by Anthony

Grant (see Chapter 10). Probably more important than ‘proof’ would
be for NLP to become discussed routinely within research commun-
ities. There are some examples of increasing engagement, especially

through the emergent doctoral research in NLP that we acknow-
ledged above.
Fazit
Thirty years after its inception, and twenty years after Heap’s meta-
analysis, research into NLP remains in its infancy. The existing body
of empirical research makes for uncomfortable reading for NLP prac-
titioners and gives no substantive support for NLP. It is, however,
methodologically narrow and unfortunately has not led to further
enquiry through refinements of NLP’s claims and evaluations of its
practice. We resist and challenge the view that the provision of
‘proof’ should be the primary purpose of research into NLP, or that
conventional science is the only legitimate method to use. There
remains a desperate need for an evidence base arrived at through
quality evaluation. It is especially notable, and unfortunate, that
there is an almost total silence from users.
The worlds of NLP and academe can be seen as communities of
practice that to date have operated largely at a distance; we believe
these worlds can gain from each other, and are beginning to do so
more.
Ultimately our position is that research into NLP is not only
merited, but also important, because it is so prevalent in HRD.
It would seem short-sighted to neglect further research when its use
is widespread; this does no useful service to its many existing, and
prospective, clients and users.

12
NLP and Ethics – Outcome,

Ecology and Integrity
Einführung
As we have seen, NLP makes a number of claims about the ways

in which communication can influence people. The meta-model is
essentially a model of the relationship between language, and
how people have constructed information about events at a level of
which they may not be aware. In selling, NLP is used to influence
people’s views about products and services. Ericksonian language
patterns, which are an integral part of the armoury of NLP practi-
tioners, are claimed to enable the user to bypass the listener’s
conscious, analytical mind, and exert an unconscious influence.
These are claims which have considerable ethical implications. Yet
with few exceptions, such as an entry Dilts and DeLozier’s encyclo-
pedia (2000:372–373), there is little explicit discussion of ethics in
NLP. In the late 1970s Bandler and Grinder acknowledged people’s
discomfort about using an approach that ‘did specific things to get
specific outcomes’ (1979:7), even if those same people were seeking
to become more effective professional communicators. This has
turned out to be prophetic.
We cannot escape the fact that there are worrying reports about
how NLP is used. There is an element of sensationalism in some
accounts; for example, it has been linked to teaching people seduc-
tion techniques, and to promises of gaining power, earning a fortune,
or easily changing people’s lives. Some people – mostly conspiracy
theorists, it would appear – even believe that NLP helped Barack Obama
win his presidential election campaign in 2008.1
144

NLP and Ethics – Outcome, Ecology and Integrity 145
Not every criticism of NLP in this respect merits serious attention.

We referred earlier to a newspaper article (in which NLP was called
the ‘refuge of the socially inadequate’), which seemed to be based
more on the author’s emotional response to NLP than on reasoned

consideration. This is mild compared to Megginson and Clutterbuck
(2005) who imply an analogy (which seems to us to be odious)
between NLP and an instrument of genocide.2
The existence of extreme views like these, however, does not alter
the fact that it is crucial to consider ethics in relation to NLP, not
least because of existing and impending government regulation in
the USA and UK. As we shall see, much has been achieved already
within the field to deal with issues of standards and ethical codes
that are compatible with other methods of people development. Never-
theless this is an area that needs more explicit attention within the
NLP community.
‘Manufacturing’ trust
According to published accounts there is evidence that people find

NLP skills and insights helpful, both professionally and personally.
Despite this many people, when asked about their impressions of
NLP, say that they have heard that it can be ‘manipulative’, or have
had an experience where they sensed they were being manipulated.
Charles Tart, whose field of expertise is the study of altered states of
consciousness, wrote:
I must confess to some ambivalence about Neurolinguistic

Programming, as the movement it has become shows a mani-
pulative and power-seeking attitude in some cases, but the techni-
cal developments are well worth following.
(Tart 1990:280)
NLP is sometimes stereotyped as being about manipulating another

person by mimicking their non-verbal behaviour in order to gener-
ate ‘rapport’ artificially. This process was in fact discussed originally
in NLP as a matter of ‘trust’ rather than of ‘rapport’ (Grinder &
Bandler 1976:14). The importance of trust is well established in the
fields of helping. Lewis refers to research by Strupp et al that showed
the patient’s trust in the therapist to be a ‘singularly important

variable’ (Lewis & Pucelik 1990:14), and cites Jerome Frank, who
emphasises the significance of trust in rendering the client suscept-
ible to the therapist’s influence.
Jane’s first experience of attending an NLP Practitioner course cer-

tainly raised concerns for her about the way she was asked to use
rapport:
The particular trainer in question wished to familiarise us with

Ericksonian Language Patterns. First he recounted how he used
them to trick people into believing that he could read palms. It was,
he said, particularly useful on long haul flights, where he would
charm the members of the aircrew handing out drinks into believ-
ing in his special powers, so that he could get more free drinks, as
they listened to his authoritative insights and prognostication. We
were instructed in how to take someone’s hand, focus their atten-
tion on their palm, induce a light trance and then explain to them
that the lines on their palm made a letter of the alphabet which
must signify something or someone important to them, and thus
send them on a trans-derivational search. We were told to calibrate
to their responses to our suggestions couched in vague and abstract
terms. After this exposition the whole group was sent out to a
weekly market in the town, to see how far they could go in con-
vincing innocent members of the public of their special powers,
even getting them to co-operate further by allowing members of
our group to engage them in ear-reading, and even sole-of-the-foot
reading. I refused to do this, but watched in some horror as my
fellow students persuaded innocent market goers of their special
powers. The following day the lead trainer took me to one side, and
suggested that as I was having difficulties with learning NLP,
perhaps I would like to make do with just an attendance certificate?
On the other hand, NLP highlights something that common sense

too easily forgets; for example that aspects of being ‘authentic’ are
learnt skills, or ‘programmes’, and may be more socially conditioned
and less’ natural’ than people typically assume. Many rituals that
may help to enhance rapport, such as asking a person one meets
how they are, complementing someone on their appearance, or
showing sympathy for a misfortune – are regarded as ‘natural’ and
‘authentic’ because they are socially and culturally familiar. Attend-
ing to this dimension of interaction consciously in order to improve

one’s social ability may be seen as inauthentic. Yet this creates a bind
for someone who recognises that their skills could be improved, or to
whom the notion of rapport is a genuinely helpful insight into the
nature of social interaction. Are they then perceived as calculating

just because they seek to be more effective at relating to people?
As explained in Chapter 9, it is also a myth that people’s beha-
viour is always the result of conscious choice. People overestimate
the degree to which they operate by conscious choice in daily life.
NLP holds that it is possible to learn alternative ‘programmes’, and
to establish these in such a way that a preferred programme will run
automatically in a real-life setting; an example could be a ‘pro-
gramme’ to feel confident when walking into a meeting – noting
that Derren Brown celebrates the fact that ‘Confidence can be faked.
It’s not real’ (Brown 2007:209).
All communication is hypnosis
Next we turn to a way in which NLP may in fact show a

greater ethical sensibility than many other modes of people
development. Lewis and Pucelik (1990:iii) cite Edward T. Hall’s
comment:
…we must learn to understand the ‘out of awareness’ aspects of

communication. We must never assume that we are fully aware
of what we communicate to someone else. There exists in the
world today tremendous distortions in meaning as men try to
communicate with one another.
There are critics who appear to assume that it is only NLP trained
people who seek to influence others through language. This mis-
conception seems (based on our personal experience) to be common
amongst practitioners who naïvely assume that being ‘non-directive’
somehow means that all influencing can be avoided. Bolstad cites
two examples of ways in which Carl Roger, the epitome of the client-
centred practitioner, unwittingly influenced his client during a film
in which Rogers, Fritz Perls and Albert Ellis each work with a client
called Gloria (Bolstad 2002:56, 65).
Furthermore, anyone who tries to avoid influencing risks being
ineffective in a work role; who would neglect to design a present-
ation so that it is persuasive, or put across an argument at a meeting

in such a way so that they are understood, or tell a story or a joke

to put their audience at ease? The use of influence in the world of
management is accepted as commonplace. Lakhani (2008:48), for
example, says:

The most effective marketers and persuaders are carefully craft-
ing, positioning, and packaging stories to make them most
believable and credible to the public.
The founders of NLP became convinced that ‘all communication is

hypnosis’ from their time studying Erickson (Grinder & Bandler
1981:1).3 Isabel Losada understood this from her direct experience
of NLP; ‘It’s a scary thought, but we hypnotise each other in this
way all the time. This is what you do when you say to people,
“You’re looking tired” and they had been feeling OK until you told
them they weren’t’ (Losada 2001:199). Richard Bandler, writing
about Virginia Satir, says: ‘Virginia was an exquisite hypnotist,
something she strongly denied at first. I showed her videotapes
of her and Erickson, and for the first ten minutes they said exactly
the same thing… It was superb hypnosis, but she said it was just a
centering exercise’ (Bandler 2008a:40).
That we necessarily and inevitably communicate with our own
unconscious, and that of others, in our everyday interactions as a
general phenomenon is increasingly supported by evidence from
neurological studies about how the brain processes information and
makes sense of language.
Furthermore, recent discoveries in this field indicate that both
words and actions are processed by recognisable patterns of activity
in our neurology;4 the words that we read or hear have physio-
logical and neurological effects, yet we are not consciously aware
of the responses they evoke. In effect this means also that mild
forms of trance state are everyday phenomena. Lankton (1980:171)
explains, with reference to Charles Tart’s classic work on altered
states of consciousness, that:
In fact, most of us alter our states so frequently that we fail to dis-

criminate between them. For example, a different state of con-
sciousness is operating while you are at work than when you are
swimming, fishing or picnicking… Daydreaming is easily distin-

guished from the quality of attention you would bring to flying

an airplane. For most people being immersed in an internal dia-
logue is subjectively unlike a direct conversation with a friend.

NLP’s ‘Milton Model’, based on verbal patterns used by Milton
Erickson, enables us to identify these types of verbal exchanges,
regardless of whether the speaker has any knowledge of NLP. For
example, Paul and a colleague were talking together about preparing
feedback on drafts written by a student whom they were supervising
together. The colleague, who is not trained in NLP, said to Paul,
‘I don’t know when you’ll get around to reading them’ (i.e. the
chapters). Unbeknown to her, she had used an embedded command
(i.e. ‘get around to reading them’) and a presupposition (i.e. that
Paul would indeed read them). Paul reflected back that there seemed
to be an assumption or two in her statement, at which she laughed.
From this perspective, any facilitator needs to develop an aware-
ness of, and take responsibility for, the way they communicate and
influence other people at the unconscious level. It is impossible
for all communication to be overt and conscious. Clearly, this con-
trasts dramatically with the views of people who maintain that it is
inappropriate or unethical to communicate with another person’s
unconscious without their knowledge and consent, and who believe
that some forms of coaching are free from the taint of any influence
on a client.
We need to talk, therefore, not about whether or not people exer-
cise influence in the first place, but about how someone influences
other people through their communication. Nobody can choose not
to influence other people because of the nature of communication
itself. This means that all who interact with others, professionally
and personally, do so at both conscious and unconscious levels, and
for good or ill. Thus there is a complex ethical dimension to all
human interaction.
Ethical codes and ethical reasoning
Since communication cannot help but influence, the issue is about

the way the practitioner uses that influence. Given that NLP acknow-
ledges this influence and makes it an explicit part of the practice,
it offers the potential advantage that the practitioner can make

informed choices. What perspectives could help to identify the types

of choice to be made? What are the key issues of ethics in NLP, and
how do we know when an action is ‘ethical’? These are complex
questions.

First, it is helpful to distinguish between ethical codes of conduct,
and ethical reasoning. Many practitioners, if asked about ethics,
would refer to their espoused code of practice, of which there are
plentiful examples within the field of NLP itself.5 The Association
for NLP has had a code of ethics for many years (Brion 1995). This
makes explicit reference to respecting ‘the dignity and worth of
every human being, and their right to self-determination’; and to
striving ‘to act with integrity, independence and impartiality, avoid-
ing conflicts of interests and acting in accordance with the pre-
suppositions of NLP’.6 Associations such as the Guild of NLP, and
the International NLP Trainer’s Association, have also developed
codes of practice. Specific codes of ethics exist in professions in
which NLP is an accepted mode of practice, such as psychotherapy.7
In Human Resource Development relevant associations to which
NLP practitioners may belong include the Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development, the British Psychological Society, the
European Mentoring and Coaching Council, and more.
There is a high degree of consensus in professional literatures
about the types of principles that comprise ethical codes; for example
in counselling (Jones et al 2000:9), and in nursing (Fry & Johnstone
2002:21). The codes that exist in NLP seem to be consistent with
Rowson’s ‘framework for ethical thinking in the professions’ which
uses the acronym FAIR to distil the most commonly cited ethical
principles:
• To treat individuals justly and fairly

• To respect people’s autonomy
• To act with integrity
• To seek the best results.
(Rowson 2006:151)
There are two main problems with codes of practice. First, such codes
may have little to do with ethics as such; according to Gregory
(2008) they can be more about controlling the behaviour of people
who are not ethically or morally mature.

There is also view that, despite the rhetoric of protection of the

client or consumer, in practice these arrangements tend to serve the
interests of the professional themselves. This is a complex matter
which is currently taxing fields such as coaching. Postle (2007)

argues that regulation reflects an agenda of state control and dom-
inance of established professions which, among other things, could
militate against the emergence of new fields.
The second problem is the question of whether, even if a code of
ethics exists, there is effective accountability. Most codes of conduct
in NLP itself are adhered to voluntarily; they are not universal. At
present, practitioners are more likely to be held accountable by the
codes of conduct of their other professions, rather than by NLP itself.
Codes of conduct, therefore, are prescriptions defining right action
originating from a source external to the practitioner. Authors like
Monica Lee (2003) and Richard Rowson (2006) argue that while
the existence of codes of conduct is important, and may be required
for legal purposes, they are not a substitute for moral development
and the capacity of the individual practitioner to engage in ethical
reasoning. Indeed there is a risk that compliance with such a code is
taken to be all that a practitioner needs to do; ethics is then reduced
to rule-following.8 According to Rowson, ‘the ethical obligation of
mature people’ includes ‘an element of judging for themselves what
they ought to do in particular circumstances’ (2006:49).
So, what are the bases on which individuals can make such
judgements?
A conceptual framework
This is not a book about ethics. We are, however, concerned with

promoting mature ethical reasoning and awareness in the field
and, in order to explore some of the main issues further, we ven-
ture briefly into the terrain of moral philosophy. There are two
branches of moral philosophy that may help with this mapping,
known as Consequential Ethics, often referred to as the utilitarian
approach, summed up by the saying, ‘the end justifies the means’;
and Deontological Ethics, which is concerned with the intrinsic
rightness of an action. We will link these philosophical positions to
the influence of Satir, Perls, Bateson and Erickson, and the way their
ideas were subsequently developed in NLP.

We suggest that there are three main types of ethical judgement

evident from NLP literature and practice, to do with the ‘ecology’ of
the client’s outcome; the consequences of the practitioner’s inter-
vention; and the ‘integrity’ of the practitioner. Practitioners may

be exercising all or none of these types of judgement. It is not our
intention here to say what judgements should be made; our purpose
is to offer a map of this particular territory that may be useful to
practitioners and clients alike.
Outcome and ecology
In consequential ethics, an action can be justified as ethically accept-

able if it is thought usefully to fulfil a purpose. How do we know that
what a client wants at a particular time is a suitable purpose?
Outcomes, of course, can vary tremendously in scope and scale,
from a local, practical goal desired by an individual client through
to an ideal such as ‘the wealth of the nation’. In effect the notion of
outcome can be extended in time and space, becoming concerned
with consequences and meanings for others, and not solely for the
client.
Consequential ethics is therefore often concerned with notions of
the greater good for the greatest number. How much greater, and
who can judge what is ‘good’, are of course the very issues to be
wrestled with. The notion of ‘the greater good’ has led to the estab-
lishment of the National Health Service, but also to totalitarian
regimes. How wide and far do we draw the scope, and from what
perspective do we view the outcome? For example, do we consider
the impact on the client and their family over the next week? On
humanity for the next 50 years? On the universe for eternity? And
who decides what constitutes the ‘greater good’ for humanity?
How is this type of judgement approached in NLP? One possibil-
ity is simply to accept the client’s outcome at face value. At this
level the ethic of NLP is quite simple; to enable the client to achieve
their outcome. Yet things are rarely that simple, and there are ways
in which NLP practitioners encourage clients to assess the likely
consequences of their outcome. A prominent principle in NLP that
relates to the idea of ‘the greater good’ is that of ‘ecology’. Thus ‘the
ecological check is our explicit recognition that… each one of us is a
really complex and balanced organism. For us to make a change in

pattern X and not to take into account all the repercussions in other
parts of (his) experience behaviour would be foolhardy’ (Bandler &
Grinder 1979:147).
Influenced by Bateson’s views about the ecology of human

systems, this entails the idea that an intervention must not have
deleterious consequences on either clients or their environment,
including the people in it. It is also reflected in the idea that an
outcome should result in a win-win situation for the people
involved.
One way in which this is addressed in NLP is to begin with the
client’s stated outcome, and to rely on the client’s own awareness of
its suitability or otherwise for them to emerge. I might start by
saying that my outcome is to gain a promotion, but through explor-
ing it I have come to appreciate more of what I could also lose
(perhaps more of my evenings and weekends will be taken up by
work issues). My sense of whether the prospective rewards will make
such sacrifices worthwhile then becomes the ‘ecology check’.
A second way is through Erickson’s belief that a person’s
unconscious is a more reliable guide to what is ecological for them
than their conscious mind. Erickson’s own writing is full of exam-
ples (Rosen 1982), and this principle is utilised in NLP’s ‘six step
reframing’ (Chapter 7).
Another stance is that described in ‘Whispering in the Wind’
(Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:208), which proposes that the ethics
of NLP should be to develop a client’s independence so that he or
she recognises that they are ‘the source of the resources and have
the ability to participate fully in the processes of change init-
ially managed by the agent of change’. This links the ethical con-
sequence to one of NLP’s own presuppositions (e.g. ‘People have
all the resources they need to make changes’). A potential difficulty
of this stance is that it involves a value judgement by the practi-
tioner about what is good for the client, even if at a high level.
The point that Bateson makes, however, is that we cannot know
with any certainty what will be ‘ecological’. Our conscious minds
perceive only limited parts of the subtle and complex connec-
tions involved in any system; we then assume that we can act on
those limited parts in a linear, cause-effect way in order to achieve
some goal, and that our action will only affect that part. This assump-
tion, according to Bateson, is not only profoundly mistaken but also

dangerous. He believed that our instrumental actions are likely to

do harm to, or at least have unanticipated consequences for, the
wider ecology.
Bateson’s own position became one in which nature, not human-

kind, was the focus; ‘the ethical unit is the relating between two or
more people and their relating to the larger environment’ (Charlton
2008:202). Instead of making this type of judgement through the
rational, conscious mind, Bateson favoured the idea that it would be
based on aesthetics. Thus Mary Catherine Bateson explains: ‘There
… is something like a template within the self that makes possible
the recognition of aesthetic order in the other. We reveal something
about ourselves in judging something beautiful’ (Bateson 2000b:89).
In order to make an ethical judgement about consequences, there-
fore, one may be involved in considering the scope of the outcome,
and in choosing perspectives from which to view its consequences.
In NLP literature we can see that this type of judgement is made in
various ways.
Ends and means
The second category of judgement is about the likely consequences

of the practitioner’s intervention, and whether the end justifies the
means.
Taken simplistically, the logical implication of making the client’s
outcome central is that the end always justifies the means. However,
things are not so simple and interventions have other consequences.
An illustration is Losada’s account of the way she experienced fear
being used as a means of control in the workshop she attended and
felt troubled by the lack of compassion she experienced in this inci-
dent, even though she went on to say, ‘… I still want to go back. I was
learning a huge amount and I’d laughed more this week than I ever
remember laughing before’ (Losada 2001:204).
To what extent, therefore, does the end justify the means? This
question has a lineage prior to NLP. Fritz Perls was prepared to be
outrageous if it would serve a client’s needs. Frank Farrelly, the
founder of ‘Provocative Therapy’, developed his approach because
he came to realise that his Rogerian training often did not work.
Many clients had constructed elaborate, entirely reasonable justi-
fications for why they couldn’t change and, in Farrelly’s experience,

Rogerian sensitivity and empathy only served to elicit these jus-

tifications. Farrelly believed, at root, that people will not, rather
than cannot, change (Farrelly & Brandsma 1974:37). He sought to
expose this by outwitting clients’ problematic patterns of thinking

and behaving.
Erickson’s approach was clearly utilitarian in many respects,
including that he would use verbal and non-verbal communication
in any way that he believed would help therapeutically. He often
used indirect or embedded hypnotic commands targeted at the
patient’s unconscious, and stressed the importance of the idea of
‘utilisation’ (Walker 1996:2), which meant that the therapist could
‘utilise’ any of the client’s beliefs and values to achieve the necess-
ary therapeutic goals. He would, for example, employ double
binds (Erickson & Rossi 1975) therapeutically. The Palo Alto group
would also use an apparently irrational method called a paradoxical
injunction (Watzlawick, Beavin & Jackson 1967:194). For example, a
client in a therapy group claimed that she could not say ‘no’ to
other people. The therapist instructed her to say ‘no’ to everyone
in the group – an injunction she could only avoid by saying ‘no’ to
the therapist.
What NLP has taken from sources such as these is the principle
that unconventional methods are sometimes necessary to achieve
the client’s outcome because more conventional, apparently rea-
sonable interventions are ineffective. Outrageous and challen-
ging behaviour is often encouraged, especially for trainers; the
reason given is so that whatever is being communicated is more
memorable.
It is, of course, possible to take the idea that the end justifies
the means to extremes, or even to adopt outrageous behaviour
as a posture that serves the practitioner more than the client. The
more excessive side of Perls’ behaviour has been downplayed in
Gestalt circles since, and the confrontive tenor of 1960s Gestalt
psychotherapy revised, in order to render it a more respectable, con-
temporary approach within the psychotherapy community.
Ingredients in the judgements made by practitioners about
whether the end justifies the means may therefore include whe-
ther the practitioner, cognisant of the implications of meta-
communication, is able to consider the wider consequences of their
interventions.

Integrity
The third category of judgement relates to the notion of intrinsic

purpose that is found in Deontological ethics, which concerns a prac-
titioner’s own ability to apply moral reasoning, and their own

mature moral sense to a situation for which they take responsibility.
Intrinsic purpose puts the onus on the practitioner to become
more aware of his or her own moral and ethical assumptions, and to
be open to critically reflecting on them. This ethical stance therefore
assumes that the practitioner will have developed a consistent value
system for themselves.
Deontological ethics focuses on the rightness or wrongness of the
intentions or motives behind people’s actions, instead of trying to
anticipate their consequences. Here the moral stance is more about
‘doing the right thing’ than ‘doing things right’, and may be based
on respect for people’s rights, or on duties or principles. This is a
central feature, for example, of Stephen Covey’s view (Covey 1992)
that effective people tend to be principle-centred.
Within NLP this stance is epitomised by Virginia Satir, who
believed deeply in the importance of humanism, where the indi-
vidual was perceived as a valuable part of the creation, and regretted
the lack of intrinsic values in the modern scientific world view, with
its inability to provide people with a more spiritual meaning for life
(Walker 1996:171).
In Erickson’s practice also we can find examples of ‘doing the
right thing’. He lived simply, in an unassuming house, and has been
described as someone who put the interests and wellbeing of his
patients and clients above his own economic needs, often charging
only what he thought his clients could afford (J. Zeig, cited in
Walker 1996:212). His students were able to attend his seminars for
four dollars. If a person was in need, but did not have the means
to pay him, there was no charge, provided that such clients were
motivated to work with him therapeutically.
Notions of ‘integrity’ (Laborde 1983) and ‘wisdom’ are probably
the most common expressions of a deontological, principle-centred
ethic in NLP. McNab (2005:146) for example, implies that concerns
about ‘manipulation’ can be answered through an appeal to ‘inte-
grity’. Judith DeLozier, writing about ‘New Code’ NLP, said that:
‘there is no wisdom in a piece of technology. Wisdom has to be the
carrier of that information’ (DeLozier 1995:7). This view implies that

a practitioner applies ethical judgements, and is not just making

technical decisions about how best to ‘reprogramme’ a client to achieve
an outcome.
The difficulty here, of course, is in knowing what is meant by nom-

inalisations such as ‘integrity’; how can we know that a practitioner’s
claim to be acting with integrity is not an empty self-justification?
From an NLP perspective, too, we will be more interested in how,
specifically, exemplars act with integrity than in semantic debate
about the concept.
Influencing ethically
So far we have argued that NLP practitioners may be making up to

three different types of ethical judgement, all of which are complex
and call for ethical reasoning. As illustrated above, the people who
most influenced the development of NLP had their own particular
perspectives in relation to ethics, which remain evident in NLP
today; Satir’s profoundly humanistic approach, Perls’ combination
of humanism with outrageousness, Erickson’s pragmatic utilitarian-
ism, supported by a deep commitment to healing, apparently above
his own economic needs, and Bateson’s ecological mysticism,
coupled with a concern for the harm that a naïve epistemology
would do to the planet and its inhabitants.
Is there a way to bring these threads together? One option is
to conclude that we can only rely on the individual’s choices.
O’Connor and McDermott say, ‘we each apply our own morality
and ethics to both our outcomes and the means we choose to
achieve them. The basis for the ethics is our common humanity and
our deepest essence as human beings’ (O’Connor & McDermott
1996:133–134). Ultimately, this is all we can rely upon. According
to Hayes (2006:12), ‘the key is to be able to identify those who work
well and ethically within NLP – thankfully, they can be found’.
Based on our own experience, we agree; yet there would appear
to be a pressing issue of the extent to which NLP practitioners are
perceived as trustworthy.
Within NLP, for example, there is the issue that lay people are
being trained to make interventions and to help prospective clients
achieve outcomes. The route to becoming an NLP practitioner is
somewhat short compared, for example, with the years of training

involved in becoming a Jungian analyst.9 An NLP training can be

perceived by participants as constituting a license to practice, and
such people are at liberty, under current law, to market themselves
as (for example) coaches and consultants. While some NLP courses

are designed as a dedicated training for coaches, most are generic
and cater for learners with a variety of interests and backgrounds.
There is little or no screening of the people wishing to take part in
these courses, who may wish to learn how to influence others for
any purpose they choose.
How trainees are then assessed is another matter. There is no stan-
dardised form of assessment and the extent to which an NLP
certificate is a reliable mark of competence must be open to ques-
tion.10 This is of concern to Steve Andreas, who also perceives the
need for sufficient training and an informed ethical stance for prac-
titioners, and is critical of the current fashion for very streamlined
forms of practitioner trainings.11
What ethical issues are raised by this, and how can people be
guided on how to make ethical choices when they use NLP? We
conclude this chapter with four recommendations.
First, one approach to ethics taken in NLP is to suggest that practi-
tioners should be have a duty to act as-if the field’s presuppositions
were true. This is one component of the ethical guidance adopted by,
for example the ANLP and the Professional Guild of NLP. It is a good
recommendation so far as it goes, as it would be a concern to find a
practitioner conspicuously flouting the presuppositions, for example
by practising NLP in pursuit of their personal goal at the expense of
their clients. The limitation is that, as we have argued in Chapter 9,
the existing presuppositions do not go far enough because they
reflect the perspective of first-order cybernetics, and practitioners
may be trained to operate as if they were external to the client system.
To become a more comprehensive set of ethical principles, they could
emphasise (say) circular causality, such that person A’s action towards
person B has consequences for person A.
Secondly, we suggest the time is ripe for a re-appraisal of the
designation of people as ‘practitioner’ on the basis of completing a
basic training alone.
Third, a principle on which we are keen is that of complemen-
tarity. This entails the idea that NLP may be used most ethically by
people who have training in, or experience of, a complementary

mode of working. Psychotherapist and author Lisa Wake (2008), for

example, argues that Neurolinguistic Psychotherapy is enriched
when the practitioner has other perspectives such as those, for
instance, of Object Relations.12 With the benefit of hindsight, one

might question the impact of extracting defined techniques from
the context of the principles that motivated the people who most
influenced its development. To what extent, when NLP became
marketed as a product, did those techniques become stripped of
their context? Haber (2002:32) notes that Virginia Satir ‘was sus-
picious of the way NLP used her techniques to create change with-
out attention to its higher purpose: “What got me is that my work
was taken, without heart and soul, and then it was used as a mani-
pulation thing … Anything that’s potent for change can be used
negatively or positively”.’
The rationale for complementarity is three fold. First, a comple-
mentary practice may provide its own ethical reasoning. Second,
this usage of NLP is more in tune with the notion of NLP as a
methodology, or meta-discipline, that exists to enhance people’s
practice, not as a method that is sufficient by itself. Thirdly, it
reflects NLP’s emphasis on the importance of being able to take
multiple perceptual positions.
Fourth, and finally, we note a criterion generally considered to be
part of the ethical duty of a profession, which is that of engaging ‘in
ongoing research to demonstrate how and when their work pos-
itively helps clients’ (Jones, Shillito-Clarke, Syme, Hill, Casemore &
Murdin 2000:5). Thus we reiterate our argument about the need for
research and evaluation in NLP.
Fazit
It is undeniable that NLP can be used appropriately as well as in-

appropriately. We resist and challenge the suggestion that NLP is
somehow more amenable to unprofessional usage than other
methods of working with people, yet the nub of the issue is that
people want to know if its techniques and practitioners can be
trusted.
NLP can offer a radical challenge to some ‘common sense’ assump-
tions about language, communication and behaviour. At best, NLP
can raise people’s awareness of how they may be influencing other

people, educates them, and encourages them to be more responsible

for the effects they have on other people. Arguably, it provides a
public service through educating people about such language pat-
terns, and the ability to recognise when others are influencing us.

This escalates, rather than diminishes the level of ethical respons-
ibility on the trained practitioner. Once we accept the principle that
we cannot not influence other people through our communication,
it becomes more problematic to distinguish between appropriate
and inappropriate influence. There is no simple answer to this; it
requires moral development and ethical reasoning. We have empha-
sised the need for dialogue about ethics to be more in the fore-
ground as NLP develops. Among our recommendations is that it
may be time to review the standard designation of ‘practitioner’ for
people who have only attended basic training courses.

13
NLP as a Movement – Values and

Discourse
NLP is a set of ideas located in time, a particular story, in de Shazer’s

(1994) terms, about people development. As Mike Pedler wryly
notes, in his foreword to Dave Molden’s ‘Managing with the Power
of NLP’, ‘NLP is indeed from California but it has travelled well’
(Molden 2003:xi). Since it is suggested in NLP that unconscious
modelling is such a powerful learning process, perhaps there are fea-
tures that might have become incorporated into NLP unawarely
from its historical and cultural circumstances? There is little in NLP
literature that attempts to be reflexive in this way, and which
addresses the field as it might be seen from outside.
Drenched in the sudden freedoms of the 1960s, exploration of
the limits of human experience and consciousness led to a tor-
rent of new practices: Timothy Leary’s experimentation with LSD;
R. D. Laing’s ‘anti-psychiatry’; Arthur Janov’s primal scream therapy;
and many more. The leitmotiv of California in the late 1960s
and early 1970s in particular was not country, family and achieve-
ments, but love, peace and personal happiness, together with the
exploration of altered states of consciousness; Huxley’s ‘Doors of
Perception’ – the source of the name of LA rock band ‘The Doors’
– is cited in The Structure of Magic I (Bandler & Grinder 1975b:9–10).
As noted before, NLP can be seen as part of that era’s ‘growth move-
ment’. This refers to diverse practices, loosely configured, many of
them emerging from Abraham Maslow’s advocacy of a ‘third-force’
in psychology (following Freud and behaviourism), which was called
‘humanistic’ psychology. Maslow, among others, was concerned about
the reductionist nature of behaviourism, and the authoritarianism
and pessimism of psychoanalysis. Along with figures like Carl Rogers,
161

Maslow developed an approach in which people were to be treated

as human beings, not as rats in a laboratory. Maslow was also
the chief influence behind the development of transpersonal psy-
chology which began to explore the spiritual dimension of human

experience.
Robbins (1988) reports that, according to sociological analyses,
the growth movement gave rise to various ‘new religious move-
ments’ of the 1970s, such as Werner Erhard’s ‘est’. Robbins suggests
that these can be seen not as new creations but as mechanisms
through which people sought to resolve the tensions between the
expressiveness of the counterculture and traditional American
values, essentially through enabling them to feel inwardly liberated.
While we do not develop this type of sociological perspective
here,1 this chapter attempts to make the familiar strange by asking
what kinds of features may have become taken for granted within
the community? For example, what values are apparent in NLP that
may reflect its historical and cultural origins?
The features we explore here are:
• The ethos of self-help, with its pursuit of individual freedom,

happiness, power, wealth and excellence;
• The ‘Wild West’: mavericks, pioneers, and outlaws who challenge
orthodoxy and the establishment;
• NLP as a cult.
NLP as self-help
Among the values apparent in the discourse of NLP, notions of

freedom, happiness, power, wealth and excellence are prominent. In
tenor, these seem congruent with the idealism of ‘the American
Dream’. Some of these values, at least, appear self-evidently worth-
while, so can remain unexamined facets of the field.
Freedom
From the beginning, NLP publications have espoused the autonomy
of the individual. Its motives have been described as ‘sharing the
resources of all those who are involved in finding ways to help
people have better, fuller and richer lives’ (Bandler & Grinder
1975b, from book jacket).

NLP as a Movement – Values and Discourse 163
NLP is based on the idea that people can realise their potential for
self-determination through overcoming their learnt self-limitations;
for example, it can ‘enable you to increase your own self-awareness
in order to allow you to achieve self-empowerment’ (Henwood &

Lister 2007:3). In the 1980s Bandler emphasised the right of people
to ‘run their own brain’ (Bandler 1985:21); in other words to be
involved in the repair, maintenance and enhancement of their own
minds, and not be dependent on professionals.
Bandler’s own emphasis on ‘freedom’ is sometimes so strong that it
seems more a drive than a mere value. For example ‘Conversations’
(Bandler & Fitzpatrick 2005) is subtitled ‘Freedom is Everything, and
Love is all the Rest’. Inside, Bandler emphasises ‘a freedom from
labels’ (Bandler and Fitzpatrick 2005:118), where ‘labels’ refers to the
orthodox psychological assumption that change is inevitably difficult.
This type of plea seems more charged than a simple espousal of
the American value of ‘liberty’. One possible interpretation, that
this expresses a desire for freedom from authority, would be con-
gruent with the frequent, sharp dismissal of various types of profes-
sionals. Hence we find psychotherapists parodied and condemned
as ‘the-rapists’; researchers are ‘people who will not associate with
the people who are practicing!’ (Bandler & Grinder 1979:6); acad-
emics are serious and, according to Bandler ‘being serious is a disease’.2
It seems ironic that this desire for freedom from other people’s
labels involves so much labelling of other people.
The notion of ‘freedom’ in the discourse of NLP reflects an
emphasis on individualism. Seeing the individual as self-creating
can ignore the ways in which identity is socially constructed, and
overplay the degree to which identity is a matter of individual psy-
chology. It is rare, however, to find acknowledgement within NLP
literature of the way our sense of identity emerges from parti-
cipation in social contexts. Even the human potential movement,
to which NLP broadly belongs, and which was characterised by a
radical intent to liberate people from oppressive social roles and
expectations (Rowan 2001:219), did not go so far as to suggest that
‘identity’ is within the conscious control of an individual.
This emphasis on the heroic potential for the person to change
themselves seems to reflect more that aspect of the growth move-
ment that became known as the ‘me generation’. This also reflects
the American ethos of self-improvement that can be traced back to

Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’. Carnegie

(2006), for example, prefigured NLP’s emphasis on changing one’s
own response in order to influence other people.
The packaging and selling of NLP as a commercial product may

lend weight to the view that NLP, at least in one of its guises, is part
of this movement. Many of the products and artefacts of NLP tend
to ‘sell’ solutions and appeal to individual desires for success and
happiness (which are themselves values particular to Western cul-
tures), more than to self-understanding, wisdom and the ‘greater
good’. Thus we are offered ‘Instant Confidence’ (McKenna 2006),
a book that is subtitled ‘the power to go for anything you want’;
‘Managing with the power of NLP’ for ‘comparative advantage’
(Molden 2003); and ‘effortless and lasting change’ (Bandler 2008).
This self-help ethos is now characterised as the ‘makeover’ culture
that is the subject of critiques by authors such as McGee (2005).
Included in McGee’s analysis is a discussion of Tony Robbins (McGee
2005:60), a figure sometimes associated with NLP. Robbins, author of
books like ‘Unlimited Power’, has a distinctive approach to moti-
vation and success, using large group awareness training with audi-
ences of thousands. Robbins readily acknowledges the influence of
NLP on his approach and its contribution to his success, and he
appears to use NLP in some aspects of his work – he attended NLP
courses before branching out on his own – but he does not offer
NLP trainings or certificates, nor does he associate himself directly
with NLP.
As useful as self-improvement can be, it can also peddle the delu-
sion that we can control every aspect of our lives. A related facet
found in NLP is that of the extent of personal responsibility for
one’s experience. NLP, as a constructivist approach, assumes that
we can influence the meaning we make of any events and how we
respond to them; we can also influence the attitude with which
we approach life.
We have heard accounts of practitioners extending this idea
into glib assertions that suggest, for example, that each person is
directly responsible for, and in effect has chosen, any misfortune
that befalls them, even violent assault. While there are belief systems,
and personal growth methods, that see the world in this way, there
is nothing in NLP or its philosophical roots (e.g. in Bateson’s work)
that gives rise to this stance.

This type of belief may well reflect Fritz Perls’ typical injunction to
develop ‘response-ability’, by which he meant that we can choose
how to respond to events in our lives; and thus we are responsible for
our responses. In that sense, while events happen that are outside

our personal control, nobody is compelled to behave as a ‘victim’.
A classic illustration of this is Victor Frankls’s (1965) analysis of the
beliefs that distinguished those who survived concentration camps.
Did they choose to be in a concentration camp? Of course not.
Where they exercised choice, where the characteristic features of
their behaviour and demeanour appeared, and where Frankl sug-
gests may lie some valuable insights into the capacity of the human
spirit to endure and survive the most terrible of circumstances, was
in the meaning they made of the experience.
Positive thinking
NLP also shows traces of another classic of the self-help movement,
Norman Vincent Peale’s emphasis on ‘The Power of Positive Think-
ing’ (1998). NLP can convey a seemingly relentless emphasis on the
pursuit of individual happiness, as in Losada’s characterisation of
NLP as ‘variations on feeling great’ (Losada 2001). This links to cur-
rent interest in positive psychology, with which NLP shares a broad
interest in health and well-being, and a refusal to base its outlook on
what is wrong with people. This was also characteristic of humanistic
psychology’s emphasis on realising potential.
There is, for example, the principle that a ‘well-formed outcome’
must be expressed as a positive, as something one wishes to move
towards. If taken to an extreme, however, seemingly ‘negative’ emo-
tions can become repressed. Outsiders sometimes remark on a drive
in NLP to maintain a positive outlook, with so-called ‘negative’ emo-
tions regarded as something to avoid, or to be altered with a quick
‘state change’, rather than as part of the full emotional spectrum of
human experience.
NLP can, often does, and in fact must, work with emotions. Early
NLP acknowledged the importance of emotions and there is regular
reference to the role of feelings in NLP work in, for example, ‘Frogs
Into Princes’ (e.g. Bandler & Grinder 1979:95, 118, 151). Indeed Bandler
and Grinder stated in ‘The Structure of Magic’ that ‘therapists may be
sure that the reference structure is incomplete, or, in the terms we
have developed in this book, not well formed, if the client’s feelings

are not represented in the reference structure. This is equivalent to

saying that human emotions are a necessary component of human
experience’ (Bandler & Grinder 1975b:160).
Yet NLP did not develop the same type of emphasis on emotion

that characterised the work of Perls and Satir. Unlike some modes of
counselling and psychotherapy, NLP does not employ the principle
that the release of distress produces insight. In therapeutic work
using NLP, catharsis is much more likely to be a by-product, some-
thing experienced as a result of insight or change.
There is a positive intent to this, and it can make sense when
we consider what NLP was reacting against. Bandler and Grinder
noticed that some people would wallow in their feelings, seemingly
more interested in doing that than in achieving the change they
said they desired. They also noticed that some practitioners would
be distracted by emotion and thus stop attending to process. One
side-effect of this, however, is that it may have encouraged a some-
what robotic and non-empathetic approach to NLP.
A related question is why NLP practitioners appear to avoid ‘nega-
tive’ emotions. There are, again, sometimes very good reasons for
this. Chief among these is that NLP has identified how a person can
go into a disabling place, characterised (for example) by a slumped
posture, downward gaze, shallow breathing, lifeless tone of voice
and kinaesthetic predicates. In this case the practitioner knows how
to facilitate a state that is more likely to be helpful to that person for
their particular purpose (desired outcome). State changes, though,
need to be appropriate to a particular context. For example, just
before giving an important business presentation, it is probably
useful not to be immersed in anxiety about everything that could
go wrong. Knowing how to access feelings of confidence and to
keep one’s attention on the audience is likely to be helpful. At
other times it may be entirely appropriate to experience and to
acknowledge one’s feelings.
From a cybernetic perspective, any emotion a person experiences
is neither good nor bad. It provides information, and it has utility
(or not) in relation to that person’s desired outcome. NLP’s view
is that a practitioner needs the ability to notice the emotion, to
register it as information, and to decide how to act in a way that is
appropriate for the person. The appropriateness of a person’s state
is therefore context-dependent.

The insight that NLP offers is that many psychological therapies

focus on problems not solutions. There is nothing to be gained,
however, through promoting a ‘happy clappy’ culture that uses
artifice to avoid anything apparently ‘negative’. Authentic emo-

tional states are invaluable information, ‘feedback not failure’.
To assume that ‘negative’ emotion should always be avoided is,
obviously simplistic, as well as disrespectful to a client.
In this respect it is interesting that the pre-eminent European psy-
chologists, Freud and Jung, are scarcely mentioned in NLP, apart
from Dilts and DeLozier’s surprising view that ‘many of his (Freud’s)
principles constitute the foundations upon which NLP has been
built’ (Dilts & DeLozier 2000:430). Elsewhere Freud is regarded
as epitomising the psycho-archaeological approach to change that
NLP so firmly rejects; American psychology as a whole has tended
to reject Freud’s dark view of the unconscious. That Jung scarcely
figures in NLP3 may seem even more strange, given his emphasis on
imagery, dreams and symbols. Jung, of course, was deeply concerned
with the meaning of symbols, whereas NLP emphasises the form and
structure of imagery, and its place in various ‘programmes’, over its
content.
Excellence
Another term that appears frequently in NLP is that of ‘excellence’.4
This idea did not figure in the earliest NLP books, nor does it appear
to have been defined. It may stem from its entry into popular
consciousness in the 1980s through the publication of Peter’s and
Waterman’s business book, ‘In Search of Excellence’ (1982).5
The idea of excellence may have worked a subtle shift from NLP’s
populist value of ‘sharing the resources of all those who are involved
in finding ways to help people have better, fuller and richer lives’
(Bandler & Grinder 1975b), to one that is more elitist. Originally,
while NLP certainly drew from exemplars – who were referred to as
‘charismatic superstars’ in The Structure of Magic (Bandler & Grinder
1975b:5) – it emphasised the purpose of developing effective skill
or competence. The focus was on healthy human functioning, as a
reaction against the pathology-focused psychological establishment.
The subsequent emphasis on achieving excellence probably resonated
with the commercial potential of NLP. In the 1980s we also find an
emerging focus on ‘genius’. Robert Dilts, (Dilts 1994a; Dilts 1994b)

studied ‘strategies of genius’ based on people such as Einstein, Jesus

and Walt Disney. The sub-title to ‘Turtles All The Way Down’ is
‘Prerequisites to Personal Genius’ (DeLozier & Grinder 1987:vii).
As Derren Brown comments, ‘the shining stars of the field are

tagged with another buzzword, “genius”, and become the sum of
their anecdotes’ (Brown 2007:131).
The shift is from the usage of ‘excellence’ as a descriptive term, to
one that is aspirational, to one that is normative. In other words we
start by noticing that Satir (say) is an exemplar with excellent skills,
and therefore is worth modelling; to offering the hope that other
people can therefore become excellent; and eventually to imply-
ing that everyone should achieve excellence because it is within
everyone’s reach.
The problem this leaves is that, in a field that professes to believe
that the acquisition of virtually any human achievement is open to
any individual, and which claims to have identified the means
by which excellence can be attained, how does one explain ordinar-
iness? It appears that everyone can be a genius and everyone can be
excellent; everyone can be powerful and happy. By implication, the
ordinary individual must either lack the intelligence to recognise
and use those tools, or lack the motivation or will to realise their
full potential.
The Wild West: Mavericks and pioneers
If NLP reflects some of the values associated with the American

Dream, it also seems to embody more than a hint of the culture of
the ‘Wild West’. Thus the founders are characterised as ‘mavericks’
(McNab 2005:19), prepared to act outrageously in order to achieve
results. Grinder has quoted George Bernard Shaw several times as
saying:
Reasonable men adapt themselves to the world, unreasonable

men attempt to adapt the world to themselves. That’s why all
progress depends on unreasonable men.
(DeLozier & Grinder 1987:iv)
Like the ‘ruthless opportunists’ (Feyerabend 1993:10) who can inno-

vate by disregarding convention, Bandler and Grinder offered a

brave alternative that challenged the entrenched orthodoxy of ano-

ther belief system. They criticised psychoanalysis for being a system
which kept clients in their problems for years (whilst continuing
to take their fees), and specifically for the assumptions that the roots

of experience have to be uncovered; that insight has to come
through conscious awareness; and that this process can only be
managed by professional practitioners (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder
2001:2–3).
They have revelled in the notion of adventure; ‘These two
men… have set out to make a coherent story out of an out-
rageous adventure’, states Grinder (O’Connor & Seymour 1990:15).
They are pioneers opening up new territory; if NLP were a
car, then it would be an off-road vehicle. Lewis and Pucelik
(1990:i) call Bandler and Grinder ‘two exciting and charismatic
individuals’.
Grinder acknowledges that he and Bandler may have shared
certain characteristics:6 ‘Arrogant; Curious; Unimpressed by author-
ity or tradition; Strong personal boundaries – well-defined sense of
personal responsibility for their own experiences and an insistence
that others do likewise; Willingness to try nearly anything rather
than be bored (or boring); Utterly lacking in self-doubt – egotistical;
Playful; Full capability as players in the Acting As If game; Full
behavioural appreciation of the difference between form and
content’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:121–122).
Grinder notes that ‘such characterlogical (sic) adjectives leave
much to be desired – namely the entire set of contexts in which
they occur’ (2001:122). Nevertheless the list is interesting, especially
because it may help to differentiate between the influence of cyber-
netics and constructivism on NLP, and the particular spirit injected
by its founders.
Let us be clear that we do not imply any judgement about this
‘characterology’. Indeed we are concerned to point out the risk of the
classic ad hominem argument, whereby a theory or practice is judged
according to the characteristics or behaviours of the person who
created them. The flaws of this type of argument are easily demon-
strated. For example, a well-known figure was a smoker, gave up his
first child for adoption, is alleged to have had numerous affairs, and
his work encouraged the development of the atomic bomb. His
name was Albert Einstein – one of the geniuses studied by Robert

Dilts. Yet scientists do not reject Einstein’s theories of relativity

because of his behaviour as a human being.
Fritz Perls’ behavioural repertoire included a strong streak of out-
rageousness, which he would readily use if he felt it would be

helpful. Bandler’s deep immersion in Perls’ work, to the extent that
he began to mimic his behaviour, may have involved affinity as
well as curiosity. Erickson was also unorthodox in many ways, and
not regarded as mainstream in hypnotherapy circles. Bateson was a
non-conformist in terms of any academic discipline, and would
often challenge but did not seek to shock. Even cybernetics, which
now may sound technical and unexciting, represented a profound
challenge to established ways of thinking, based on linear notions
of cause and effect.
A certain mischievousness is part of the culture, and part of the
appeal, or one might say charm, of NLP. Its refreshing, invigorating
quality attracted many people to it, thus; ‘in our early studies of NLP
we noticed and enjoyed the ways in which more traditional forms
of therapy were held up to question on the grounds that they
had replaced reference to processes with nominalizations’ (McKergow
& Clarke 1995:53). Without a readiness to break the rules and
‘think outside the box’, it is difficult to innovate. The experi-
mental spirit of NLP, and its refusal to be constrained by estab-
lished views about personal development, enabled it to be creative
and mercurial.
Is NLP a cult?
Especially in the transient entries about NLP on the internet, the

suggestion that NLP has cult-like characteristics sometimes appears.
Dowlen refers to NLP’s ‘almost cult following’ (Dowlen 1996:32).
Seen by some as a pseudo-science, NLP is apparently perceived
by others to be a pseudo-religion. Brown refers to his experience
as ‘highly evangelical in its tone’ (Brown 2007:186), and Hayes
notes that:
I have heard several people liken it to a modern secular religion…

There are founding father figures of the Moses type…There is a
version of the Ten Commandments (the NLP presuppositions).
There is certainly something resembling a priesthood, and some

of the more flamboyant trainers have begun to resemble prophets

and gurus with cadres of ‘disciples’ in tow (Hayes 2006:12).
This religion, presumably, would have Bateson as its god.

To consider NLP as a movement could provide an interesting
perspective. There is literature that compares human potential move-
ments in general with religion (Fromm 1950), and sociological
literature, such as that by Robbins (1988) and Westley (1983) that
examines ‘new religious movements’. Is there any basis for consider-
ing that NLP might be a cult, though?
One prominent body working in this field, The International
Cultic Studies Association (ICSA),7 acknowledges that the term ‘cult’
is highly problematic, difficult to define, and prone to be used to
imply disrepute. Usage of the term in relation to NLP may be an
attempt to discredit it, or to express disapproval of the field. Are
there more specific concerns?
One is the suggestion (e.g. Drenth 1999) that NLP had links with
Dianetics, which later developed into Scientology. These purported
links (setting aside the question of what they would signify) are
either non-existent, or tenuous, based mainly on contemporaneity.
Drenth, who is one of the authors who accuses NLP of being a
‘pseudoscience’, alleges that NLP uses the concept of ‘engrammes’, a
notion that is apparently used in Scientology. This notion does not,
to our knowledge, appear anywhere in NLP; it certainly plays no
part now in the technical vocabulary of the practice. There is some
evidence of the cross-fertilisation of ideas in NLP with Landmark
Education, which developed from Werner Erhard’s ‘est’. For exam-
ple, presumably due to a shared interest in Korzybski’s ideas, one
finds the expression of being ‘at cause’ in both fields. There was
some evidence of people being encouraged to use Est’s notion of
‘personal editing’ formats in NLP in the early 1990s. However, these
overlaps represent no more than the type of cross-pollination one
would find in contemporaneous fields.
Another concern is about the format of trainings. Est and Land-
mark Education are among the best known examples of what is
often known as ‘Large Group Awareness Training’. While NLP train-
ings do not routinely use this format, the four hundred or so people
participating in the training experienced by Losada (2001:185) and
Derren Brown clearly constitutes a large group setting. Despite

concern expressed in the usual array of internet articles, research

does not appear to suggest that the format itself has any harmful
effects. For example, Fisher et al (1989) concluded that participants
experienced no significant effects, either positive or negative.

Brown does say that: ‘Both Bandler and Anthony Robbins8 pack-
age their goods primarily as an attitude, and clearly use the evangel-
ical hype to render us as emotional and suggestible as possible
in order to make sure that a) the message hits home and b) we
want to purchase further courses’ (Brown 2007:187). The fact
that NLP trainers can engender enthusiasm and an attitude of
curiosity in their listeners, and make the practice appealing, is
one of the attractions of the trainings. On the other hand, Hayes
(2006:13) says:
… there is no doubt that on some of the large scale training events

you experience manipulative techniques such as powerfully sug-
gestive music used specifically to trigger certain planned types of
responses. I also have concerns about the patent personal inauthen-
ticity of some of these ‘guru’ trainers – there are times when they
seem deeply incongruent in their behaviour… There is no doubt,
however, that these large scale events represent a successful busi-
ness model – some courses have hundreds of participants, each
paying thousands of pounds. Sometimes it is hard not to think of
parts of the NLP industry as get rich quick schemes.
Clearly, it is important for participants to remain discerning about

what to buy into, be it new ideas or further courses. Anyone attend-
ing an NLP training course can enquire in advance about the pro-
posed format, and can inform themselves about the psychological
and educational advantages and disadvantages of that format,
whether it is large group, small group, or distance.
Taking a slightly left-field approach to this, let us pretend for a
moment that NLP actually aspired to becoming a ‘cult’. What would
have to happen? The central characteristics of cults, according to
Lalich and Langone (2006), are concerned mainly with influence
and control, and the extent to which members of a movement may
be manipulated, exploited, or abused. It would seem, therefore, that
NLP practitioners have far too much freedom to come and go as
they please, and to determine how they spend their lives and with

whom. There is no question of people who train in NLP being

required to cut ties with family and friends, for example.
What needs to be recognised, however, is that NLP courses offer
more than a training in skills; they also offer membership of a com-

munity of people identified as ‘NLP practitioners’, with its language,
social networks, leaders, events, and potential for psychological
support. It is important to acknowledge that NLP could fulfill some
people’s desires for belonging, belief and guidance. Even though
NLP may not set out to be a pseudo-religion, some people may use it
to meet equivalent needs. Ponting’s findings (2006), that the main
outcome reported by participants is that they gain confidence,
might hint at this possibility.
One characteristic cited by Lalich and Langone (2006) that seems
relevant to NLP is, ‘The leader is not accountable to any authorities’.
As noted in previous chapters, there is no formal system of account-
ability in the field unless within specified professions such as Neuro-
linguistic Psychotherapy. There are also adherents who sometimes
appear to display ‘unquestioning commitment’ to their leader
and regard his or her ‘belief system, ideology, and practices as the
Truth, as law’ (Lalich & Langone 2006). Some trainers insist that
they alone follow the true party line; this makes NLP into an ideo-
logy rather than a set of practices and an attitude of curiosity.
Illustrating one of the ways in which allegiance can be secured,
Losada (2001:185) describes being given a ‘contract’ to sign when
attending her training. This, which is not a universal practice
in NLP, requires the signatory, among other things, not to teach
NLP themselves unless they become a certified trainer.9 As one
example, we have heard people in the NLP community express fear
of litigation over intellectual property rights, whether this prospect
is real or perceived.
Any movement or organisation, however loosely knit, has norms
to which people tend to conform. This is as true of academic and
business communities as it is of the personal growth movement,
and expecting any organisation or association to be benign and
devoid of issues of power is naïve. Freud had difficulties with people
questioning his authority, and his splits with Adler and Jung are
well-documented. Walker (1996) recounts how Freud also rejected
Perls, not even allowing him over the threshold of his study when
Perls wanted to visit him. Perls was apparently heartbroken.

In relation to this last point, Bandler and Grinder’s criticism of

psychology, with its ‘different religious belief systems with very
powerful evangelists working from all these differing orientations’
(1979:5–6) may now appear ironic. While we can reject the alle-

gation that NLP resembles a cult, perhaps more pertinent are the
ways in which it may have come to resemble the very ‘theology’
that the founders originally challenged.
Fazit
NLP, like any other system of ideas, inevitably absorbs influences

from its culture and circumstances, and develops its own patterns
of power and discourse. Here we have discussed those of the ethos
of self-help, the theme of freedom from authority, an emphasis on
individualism, the search for excellence and empowerment, and an
outrageous streak in pursuit of innovation. Concerns voiced about
NLP as a ‘cult’ wither in the face of serious scrutiny. Yet it can
also be seen as a system of belief in which guru-like figures hold out
the promise of changing lives and the hope of acquiring wealth
and happiness, and may expect allegiance to their authority and
their own brand of truth. As such it is appropriate to consider the
relevance of critiques of the self-help movement.

Part IV


14
Synthesis

What are the answers to our core questions?
In this chapter we summarise our conclusions about the questions

we posed in the opening chapter. Those were:
• What is NLP?
• Where and for what can I best use it?
• What is it based on?
• Where did it come from?
• Why is it sometimes so hard to grasp what it’s about?
• Is there any research behind it?
• How can the claims made by practitioners be assessed?
• Does it have any theory?
• Is it ‘pseudoscience’?
• Why doesn’t NLP seem to be interested in emotions?
• Is it manipulative?
• Is NLP a cult?
• What does it offer to HRD?
What is NLP?
NLP has been remarkably successful in promulgating itself from its
psychotherapeutic origins; its use is now widespread in business, espe-
cially in coaching, as well as education, healthcare and other sectors.
We regard NLP as concerned centrally with what Watzlawick et al
(1967) called the pragmatics of human communication.
We have portrayed NLP as having six ‘faces’, any combination of
which may be apparent, and between which tensions may exist. The
177

six are a function of three underlying aspects of NLP, as a practice;

as a philosophy; and as a product. These six faces are:
1. ‘Practical magic’, or naturally occurring patterns of excellent

communication;
2. A methodology – as used in the original NLP studies, and
reflected in the various approaches to ‘modelling’ that are used to
reverse engineer human capabilities;
3. A living philosophy, or set of beliefs about the world, as repre-
sented by the NLP presuppositions;
4. A technology – behavioural techniques to enhance the way
people communicate in practice, represented in a codified ‘body
of knowledge’ comprising the frameworks and techniques described
in NLP literature;
5. A commercial product, part of the ‘self-help’ industry, reflected in
the many artefacts and events available to be consumed;
6. A range of services provided by professionals, including coaching,
consulting, training, psychotherapy and more.
Our working description of NLP is:
NLP is interested in how people communicate, perform skills and

create experiences through patterns of thought and behaviour,
mediated by language. NLP helps people create more preferable and
useful (to them) experiences in the world, typically by attending to
and modifying those patterns of thought and behaviour.
Where and for what can I best use it?

As a pragmatic form of knowledge, NLP offers a versatile toolkit that
can help any person towards accomplishing the things they wish to
achieve, whether it is chairing a meeting, writing a proposal, selling
an idea, finding out what is really important to another person, and
so on. These tools are ‘heuristic’, meaning that they may be used as
if they were true, without commitment to belief in their validity.
Applications are, in that sense, without limit. NLP has been used
in HRD for the following categories of need or development:
• Modelling ‘excellence’; this is a way of ‘reverse engineering’

human capabilities, that can identify the keys to excellent prac-
tice and enable others to learn how to do it themselves;

Synthesis 179
• Designing and refining outcomes, ranging from broad visions to

very specific goals, and understanding the resources needed to
achieve them;
• Exploring and improving communication skills (verbal and non-

verbal; spoken and written);
• Increasing self-awareness (e.g. of one’s behaviour patterns, of one’s
internal world of imagery and self-talk, and so on);
• Coaching for performance, for example to improve specific
behaviours and skills, and to increase confidence and flexibility;
• Overcoming limiting beliefs, perceptions and/or patterns of
behaviour; as Derren Brown says, the value of methods like
NLP is that they ‘tend to undo the general feeling that we have
to be “stuck” in unhelpful patterns of thought’ (Brown 2007:
214–215).
According to this description, people who use NLP as practi-

tioners have been introduced to both (a) a systematic approach to
communication, and (b) methods through which it is possible to
understand and influence the way people create their experience.
Accordingly NLP practitioners, in whatever field they may operate,
can be thought of as offering two generic services. The first is to
identify how an existing outcome or effect is achieved through par-
ticular combinations of people’s language, thought and behav-
iour. The second is to facilitate people who wish to enhance their
existing behaviour and skills, or to change something they dis-
like about their experience, to learn relevant new combinations
of thought and behaviour that will be both effective and respectful
for the client and their environment. Practitioners achieve this by
using language and communications skilfully and flexibly.
What is it based on?

The substantive contents of NLP are based on insights into observed
human communication; initially, into the verbal interactions between
psychotherapist and client as gleaned from Richard Bandler’s fam-
iliarity with the practices of exemplar psychotherapists, Fritz Perls
and Virginia Satir. Bandler found he could reproduce their behaviour
and achieve similar results.
Bandler and Grinder went on to propose that there were certain
patterns of communication that appeared to distinguish Perls and
Satir from other, apparently less effective therapists. They challenged

the belief that effective therapy relied upon the innate qualities
of charismatic therapists, showing that the ‘structure’ of this
apparent ‘magic’ could be mapped out and learnt by other
people. Grinder linked these observed language patterns to his

knowledge of contemporary ideas about transformational lin-
guistics. This resulted in the original ‘meta-model’ of language
patterns.
NLP then grew by applying the same principle of identifying
and testing patterns in observed behaviour – in other words, by
reverse engineering or ‘modelling’ – to other aspects of commun-
ication. Notably, at Gregory Bateson’s suggestion, they studied a third
influential exemplar, Milton H. Erickson.
Where did it come from?

NLP itself emerged from the Santa Cruz area of California in the
early 1970s. Robert Spitzer, publisher of Science and Behavior
Books, employed Bandler and encouraged his early explor-
ations of Perls and Satir. This developed into a creative collabor-
ation between Bandler, Grinder and others associated with the
educational experiment that was taking place at Kresge Col-
lege, University of Santa Cruz. At Kresge they also encoun-
tered Gregory Bateson who, from the summer of 1974, lived
close to Bandler and Grinder and some of their friends and
colleagues.
There is relatively little in NLP that is wholly original; we have
shown, for example, that all its presuppositions can be traced
back to prior sources. Indeed the extent of innovation in NLP
may have been obscured by overemphasising its uniqueness
and downplaying its place in a stream of ideas and traditions.
As with many fields of emerging practice, it has built upon and
added fresh insights to previous work. The ideas underlying NLP
are influenced by intellectual developments and practices such
as the work of the Mental Research Institute and the outcomes of
the Macy Conferences. There are many other social, cultural and
historical ingredients in the melting pot from which NLP emerged.
We have suggested that the ethos of the self-help movement, the
counter-culturalism of the 1960s and early 1970s, and the 1980s
notion of the pursuit of ‘excellence’, have all shaped NLP as a
movement.

Synthesis 181
Why is it sometimes so hard to grasp what it’s about?

If it remains hard to grasp, in our view there are various possible
reasons. Among these:

1. It has multiple ‘faces’ or identities, as described above;
2. It is often easier, and probably much more effective for clients, to
experience how NLP can be used than it is to define it in words;
3. NLP is eclectic, drawing from many practices and cutting across
academic disciplines. It can be hard to label, and sometimes it
can be hard to reconcile its diverse contents;
4. Its theoretical roots (which we have suggested lies in cybernetics
and the MRI form of constructivism) are seldom made clear or
explained in detail;
5. The drive to sell NLP as a commodity can mean that information
about it serves the purpose of promotion more than that of, say,
education.
Is there any research behind it?

Three main types of research are relevant to NLP:
1. Research findings from relevant disciplines.

2. Direct, independent research into NLP’s claims.
3. Evaluation from within NLP.
Of these, the first is the area that may offer most support to NLP’s
pragmatic knowledge. We have described for example the work of
Lawrence Barsalou on the role of the senses in cognition, which
supports NLP’s ideas about the role and significance of internal rep-
resentations, and that of Robert Goldstone on categorisation, which
supports NLP’s stance on the relationship between language and
thinking. NLP authors such as Richard Bolstad (2002), Susie Linder-
Pelz and Michael Hall (Linder-Pelz & Hall 2007) and Richard
Churches and Roger Terry (2007), have identified relevant research
findings from mainstream psychology and other disciplines. This
work counters a tendency for NLP training courses and literature to
rely on knowledge that was current in the 1970s, which needs to be
updated.
There has been little direct research into NLP. The findings that do
exist, whilst not favourable to NLP on the whole, were from a narrow

vein of experimental research. They may be treated, in the terms

Michael Heap used in 1988, as an interim verdict, which requires
further studies. To date, few further studies have materialised.
The evidence base created from within NLP remains in need of

development. Even acknowledging that NLP is by no means alone in
this among practices found in HRD, the ‘trail of techniques’ left in
the wake of the early developments in Santa Cruz has been over-sold
and under-tested. In the final chapter we indicate eight types of
research projects that would help to address this issue in relation to
HRD. There is evidence of an emergent wave of NLP practitioners
engaging in research, including some at doctoral level in universities.
How can the claims made by practitioners be assessed?

In response to any practitioner’s claims about the effectiveness of
NLP it is appropriate to ask the classic NLP question, ‘how do you
know that?’ In other words, how do practitioners satisfy themselves
about the validity of their claims? The response, ‘I know it works,
I’ve experienced it myself’, is of very limited value, and for various
reasons may be unreliable.
To become more widely accepted, as many practitioners seem to
desire, and to give non-NLP people greater confidence of its efficacy,
NLP needs an evidence base. To achieve this, NLP’s procedures,
principles and models may need to be held more open to doubt
within the field, and tested so that they can be re-evaluated and
modified. For all its emphasis on curiosity about the uniqueness of
each individual’s experience, the risk is that, in the absence of open-
ness to evaluation, the contents of NLP become taken-for-granted
perceptual filters through which practitioners create an essentially
self-sealing system.
Does it have any theory?

No human endeavour that formulates ‘if-then’ propositions and
proposes systematic relationships between actions and effects can
avoid using theory. It is surely self-evident that a field that offers
participants the opportunity to learn a way of practising that is
claimed to be effective must have some kind of theory about what
makes the difference between effective and ineffective practice.
Some practitioners seem, paradoxically, to believe that theory and
NLP do not mix. Through unravelling this belief we have identified

Synthesis 183
some supportable and worthwhile principles that can challenge

conventional ideas about knowledge.
In other respects the nature of theory may have been stereotyped
in NLP, and its value. We have argued that its central ideas are based

in cybernetics, a pivotal intellectual development of the twentieth
century that rejected explanations for human behaviour that relied
on simple notions of cause-effect and ‘forces’, and developed an
alternative theory in which circular causality and feedback play the
central role.
We have also argued that it is important to take into account
‘second-order cybernetics’ (Von Foerster & Poerksen 2002), which
regards a practitioner as a participant in the systems they are
attempting to facilitate. This yields a quite different ethical view
from that of ‘first-order’ cybernetics which, conceptually, treats
people as equivalent to mechanisms, the paradigmatic example of
which is the thermostat. The persistence of metaphors derived from
computing in NLP may reflect a first-order cybernetic perspective.
NLP can also be understood as a form of constructivist theory, in
the sense that it is interested in how people create their reality
through communication. In its early days NLP was influenced, to
varying degrees, by the work of the Palo Alto group, by Chomsky
and other transformational linguists, and by psychologist George
Miller. Today, it can potentially draw on knowledge about language,
cognition and perception from disciplines such as cognitive linguis-
tics, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology.
Is it ‘pseudoscience’?
The charge of being a ‘pseudoscience’ can be used merely as a
term of abuse. If we were to use ‘pseudoscience’ in its strict, original
Popperian sense, we could expect NLP, along with many ‘people
development’ practices in HRD and psychotherapies, to be regarded
as unfalsifiable and therefore pseudoscientific.
NLP may attract this charge more than most practices because of
its name, which suggests connotations of an academic discipline,
and therefore may be thought misleading. As a movement primarily
concerned with practical knowledge, it would make little sense for
NLP to aspire to become a field of formal academic study.
More relevant is the risk that NLP could be considered as pseudo-
scientific by virtue of rejecting the relevance of theory and research,

relying on knowledge that is out of date, and neglecting the need

to establish a credible evidence base. These features could be coun-
tered by linking to other research and practice communities, and
by articulating NLP’s theoretical links to cybernetics, which is an

established discipline.
Why doesn’t NLP work with emotions?

NLP can, often does, and in fact must, work with emotions. Yet NLP
did not develop the same type of emphasis on emotion that charac-
terises the work of Perls and Satir. NLP does not, for example,
employ the principle that the release of distress produces insight.
One side-effect of this, however, is that it may have encouraged
a somewhat robotic and non-empathetic approach to the practice
of NLP.
The appropriateness of a person’s state is therefore context-
dependent. NLP’s view is that a practitioner needs the ability to
notice emotion, and to decide how to act in a way that is appro-
priate for the person. To assume that ‘negative’ emotion should
always be avoided is far too simplistic.
Is it manipulative?
In our view there is nothing inherently manipulative or unsafe
about NLP; for example there is nothing in NLP that makes it
impossible to apply standard principles found in professional codes
of conduct. Furthermore, codes of ethical conduct exist within NLP
that are comparable in their contents to those of helping profes-
sions generally. Ultimately, adherence to these codes is voluntary,
hence the ethical stance and capability of the individual practitioner
is significant.
We have argued that NLP literature refers to three main types
of ethical judgements in the practice; that of the ‘ecology’ of the
client’s outcome, that of whether the end justifies the means (i.e. the
intervention chosen by the practitioner); and that of the practi-
tioner’s integrity. More detailed exploration of these issues within
NLP could promote debate about ethics, and could help to assuage
the concerns of those who perceive the practice to be ‘manipulative’.
NLP’s understanding of the inevitability of communicating with
the unconscious has implications for all forms of development. For
example, any practitioner in any field is likely to influence other

Synthesis 185
people through ‘hypnotic language’ because these language patterns

are naturally occurring in everyday talk. Furthermore, normal every-
day experience involves a range of what may be considered ‘altered
states’ or trances.

Finally, we have raised the question of whether it is time to review
the designation of people as ‘practitioners’ based on completion of a
basic training alone.
Is NLP a cult?
There is no basis for regarding NLP as a ‘cult’. There are, nevertheless,
aspects of the field about which practitioners could usefully be more
reflexive. For example, the extent to which NLP training offers mem-
bership of a community, with its social networks and the potential
for psychological comfort, could be acknowledged. As a commer-
cialised system of belief in which guru-like figures hold out the
promise of changing lives and the hope of acquiring wealth and hap-
piness, it merits critical review. It could also be useful to examine
NLP as a social phenomenon, including ways in which it may have
come to resemble the very ‘theology’ that the founders originally
challenged.
What does it offer to HRD?

What NLP offers is an innovative synthesis of existing and newly
discovered practical knowledge. It is characterised by insights into
perception, cognition (including internal imagery), language, emo-
tional state and behaviour that people can use in everyday life and
professional practices. It is probably most distinctive in its insights
into the practical relationships between language, thought and
behaviour, and its understanding of how to utilise these insights to
help people achieve their goals.
NLP is democratically inclined, in the sense that its tools are
in principle available to everyone, not just to specialist profes-
sionals. It challenges orthodoxy and provides an alternative to
professional monopolies over knowledge. It has generated a great
variety of tools and techniques that may be helpful to people
wanting to achieve improvements in their lives. In particular,
NLP was originally conceived as a way for people to comple-
ment and enhance their existing knowledge and practice, whe-
ther it be in personal or professional domains. That remains, in

our view, the most worthwhile and viable position for NLP to
occupy.
We end this chapter by highlighting six ‘landmarks’, those aspects
of NLP that we think are of the greatest value to people in HRD, and

which can provide reference points when navigating the complex
terrain of this field:
1. First, there is the enduring and detailed focus on language that

runs through the major NLP literature, which has extended the
research themes pursued by Bateson and the Palo Alto group. The
meta-model patterns, sensory predicates, the Milton model pat-
terns, reframing, and more can all be found in everyday language.
Today, NLP developers like Christina Hall, Steve Andreas and
Charles Faulkner are continuing to advance this type of work.
2. Second, there is its emphasis on the importance of a whole body-
mind approach to performance and learning. This includes NLP’s
ideas about, for example, the significance of physiological state,
the value of having fun, and the use of multiple senses, percep-
tual positions, imagery and stories. We have seen that mental
rehearsal, for example, is an area of practice that receives support
from the research literature.
3. The ways in which NLP frameworks can facilitate the exploration
of inner worlds are significant. These include the ways in which
‘modelling’ can be used to map the structures, sequences and
patterns involved in experience, using frameworks such as sub-
modalities. Applications range from coaching and organisational
consulting (e.g. mapping a process or skill) to formal research, as
represented by Vermersch’s ‘psycho-phenomenology’.
4. The framework of metaprogrammes has been applied within
coaching, recruitment, market research and more. The accep-
tance by the British Psychological Society of an instrument based
on this framework demonstrates its potential.
5. The very fact that NLP provides managers and developers with
immediate, pragmatic knowledge in the form of tools, techniques
and models is itself significant – even if that knowledge must be
held open to revision. We have cited Karl Weick to support the
importance for managers of having maps and tools to precipitate
action. The disadvantages of insisting on formal research evidence
before making use of knowledge are, first, that this is typically a

Synthesis 187
long term process – people need to take action today – and

second, that such knowledge can then become owned by, and
only accessible through, specialised groups of people.
6. Finally, we value NLP especially for the extent to which it con-

tinues to put forward a cybernetic perspective on human com-
munication. At a practical level this gives people a working
appreciation of the systemic nature of human interaction, which
still runs counter to the dominant paradigm of ‘cause-effect’
thinking. It is reflected, for example, in NLP’s emphasis on
attending to form, process and structures, rather than to content.
At a more conceptual level, this maintains the legacy of Gregory
Bateson’s work, and his significant insights into epistemology
and ecology.
In the final chapter we address one final question, what does the
future hold for NLP?

15
Quo Vadis?

At a crossroads
We have acknowledged that NLP is a widespread and internationally-

known field of practice. It can be regarded as a commercially suc-
cessful, diverse, and eclectic system of practical knowledge. It
has survived for more than 30 years, and has been an established
form of psychotherapy in the UK for more than 15 years. There are
copious NLP books on the market and more than 50 organisations
offering NLP training in the UK. A Google search yields 1.5 million
hits.1 Many executive and life coaches cite NLP as a method they
use, and managers identify NLP as part of their working knowledge.
It is a practice that emphasises fun, healthy functioning and the
achievement of potential. Organisations like the ANLP and the Pro-
fessional Guild are seeking to support shared standards, and there
are increasing signs of research activity in Europe, the USA and
Australasia.
At the same time NLP has failed, so far, to become accepted as a
‘mainstream’ practice, which is the desire of many of its practition-
ers. We have elaborated on the issues throughout the book. NLP’s
six faces make it difficult to define. It has no significant presence in
the academic world, and some people regard it as a ‘pseudo-science’.
It has yet to create an established, public evidence base, and it con-
tinues to rely heavily on practitioners’ assertions that it is effective.
Its models and frameworks, originally designed to enhance curiosity
and sensory awareness, risk becoming a dogma handed down
through training courses. As McKergow and Clarke (1995:48) have
188

Quo Vadis? 189
said, ‘NLP has itself become a nominalization’, an object rather than

a process. Bateson’s ideas are sometimes treated as almost biblical
pronouncements. The principal attempt at a scholarly journal for
NLP, ‘NLP World’, ceased publication in 2001 and neither of the

two scholarly reviews of the field (Esser 2004; Walker 1996) is avail-
able in English. Its structure of training courses and ever increasing
levels of certification appear to be driven by commercial needs.
It has acquired an unfortunate reputation for potentially being
‘manipulative’ and its maverick quality is often regarded with sus-
picion. It remains an underground movement in the sense that,
as we have heard from numerous fellow practitioners, in their
work as coaches, managers, trainers and so on, they use many NLP
insights and techniques, but do not reveal that what they do comes
from NLP.
All this together makes sense of the ambivalence that charac-
terises the attitudes of several commentators, including Anthony
Grant, Isabel Losada, Charles Tart and ourselves, who perceive that
there is value in NLP yet remain wary of other aspects. As another
example, Hayes (2006:12) comments as follows:
The picture I have of the NLP ‘industry’ is one of something

dynamic and positive but also tainted in places by perceptions of
factionalism, ego-driven conflict, legal disputes and commercial
greed… Even as a fan and practitioner myself I would certainly
caution anyone against swallowing NLP uncritically.
Given all this, we think NLP is at a crucial time in its development,

and stands at a metaphorical crossroads. Which road will this know-
ledge system take? While many possible futures exist, the themes we
have explored in this book suggest three possible scenarios.
Entropy?
Entropy, in general terms, refers to the way the energy in a system

disperses over time, such that disorder increases. In this scenario,
NLP is losing momentum.
Some of the things that fuelled the emergence of NLP, such as the
rebellious, experimental counter-culture of the post-Vietnam years
and the booming human potential movement, are long in the past.

The energy that attracted many people to the field seems to have
disappeared, and its knowledge base is being recycled more than
it is being extended. Several of NLP’s key ideas are rooted in the
1970s. NLP’s ‘story’ of human development was infused, and in

some respects still is, with the metaphor of man-as-computer, for
example with its notion of ‘programming’. This seems anachronistic
in the age of bio- and nano-technology.
Despite burgeoning electronic materials and discussion groups,
NLP publications are dominated by secondary takes on the field.
While books are not the be-all and end-all of the field, and while the
founders of a field are of course perfectly entitled to publish or not,
the appearance of a new volume by Bandler and Grinder used to
engender a sense of excitement about their latest revelations and
inventions. That creative stream of books, whether joint or separate,
describing new models and applications, ended well before the
1990s.
Looking at NLP publications in recent years, Dilts and DeLozier’s
‘Encyclopedia of Systemic NLP and NLP New Coding’ (Dilts &
DeLozier 2000), was undoubtedly a major publication, if one
that sometimes offers an idiosyncratic view of the field.2 ‘Richard
Bandler’s Guide to Trance-formation’ (Bandler 2008a) updates
and refreshes material that appeared in the first decade of NLP’s
existence (e.g. Grinder & Bandler 1981), and does so effectively.
However, it also exemplifies the way that many new books in the
field appear to be re-packaging material that has existed for twenty
years or more.
John Grinder’s major recent contribution has been ‘Whispering in
the Wind’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001). This is an important
document, especially for researchers because of its expanded account
of the ways in which NLP developed (a self-published volume, it
could surely be improved through editing, indexing and compre-
hensive referencing). The main difficulty is that the book is effec-
tively not in the public domain – for example, it is not available for
purchase through Amazon,3 unless occasionally as a second-hand
item, or through the major UK distributors of NLP books, Anglo-
American.4 The apparent reluctance to distribute the book symbol-
ises the inward focus of the NLP community.5
In this scenario, therefore, NLP’s clock is running down. Feed-
ing on itself, in effect, is not sustainable, so the energy of NLP

Quo Vadis? 191
dissipates. As the knowledge system cycles and recycles the same

ideas, NLP resembles an established rock band that is past its cre-
ative peak and has come to concentrate more on income generation
than on its initial energy and idealism. For the time being the fans

continue to attend world tours and buy merchandise – but for how
much longer?
The seeds of its own destruction?
NLP in its present form appears to contain within it not only the
potential for further adaptation and survival, but also the seeds of
its own destruction.
Any field inevitably has, and needs, diversity of opinion and
dissent in order to grow. Is it undergoing a crisis of growth or decay?
Could this simply be a sign of a maturing field, since it is not
unusual for a new movement to experience crises and fractures
as they develop, like an adolescent seeking an identity separate
from that of its parents? Psychoanalysis was an example of
this.
Even so, NLP’s body sometimes seems so fractured that it is dif-
ficult to imagine it recovering from its self-inflicted injuries. Due
especially, we suspect, to the effects of litigation about intellectual
property rights in NLP (Hall 2001), something appears to have
died. The legal matter may have been resolved but its impact per-
sists. To use an English cricketing metaphor, NLP has been knocked
for six.
We have referred to the divisions between those who believe in
the 21 day training, and those who follow a more recent intro-
duction of the accelerated 7 day practitioner course. Another frac-
ture line is the division between the Bandler and Grinder camps,
two different sources of a trainer’s certification. Which one has the
‘true message’ about personal change and improvement? While
there appear to be cordial relations between the founders, many
practitioners identify with one or the other, and adhere to their
individual approaches. We know of trainers with great generosity
of spirit, and yet have also witnessed a culture of backbiting, and of
belittling the efforts of other training establishments.
There is also the significant impending issue of state regulation
in the USA, UK and Europe, which is likely to mean that people

wanting to use NLP openly as an ‘applied psychology’ urgently

need to advocate its legitimacy and demonstrate its efficacy.
Whatever the specific challenges that regulation may bring, they
are likely to need politically astute people in the field who are

prepared to engage in patient dialogue with many external agencies.
However, in this scenario it persists with ostrich-like attitudes
towards issues of theory and research, and with its capacity to create
antagonisms. It could be too late already for NLP to mend the frac-
tures with academic communities. If so, NLP will remain of interest
to researchers only as a social phenomenon, an example of a ‘move-
ment’ that was a child of the counter culture which petered out as
the twenty-first century unfolded; not as a substantive contribution
to human development. As unfortunate as it would be to lose the
most valuable features of NLP, it could share the same fate as Phren-
ology, now dismissed as a quaint movement, led by eccentrics
which came to an end as the nineteenth century drew to its close.
Developments in fields such as neuroscience increasingly seem to
support many of the practices that have been used in NLP for
decades. Those developments could prove double edged, however.
They may lend support to NLP, but also raise the prospect that NLP
could be overtaken by these fields, leaving NLP as a quaint but
archaic conglomeration of knowledge and techniques. Even if NLP
did arrive at some of these insights first, such historical fact will
count for little if those fields are seen as legitimate and NLP is not.
For example, NLP has contributed to the research method devel-
oped by Vermersch, as is acknowledged, but his approach has a new
name, ‘psycho-phenomenology’ (Vermersch 1994). The relatively
new, but already more widely recognised than NLP in academic
circles, interdisciplinary field called Social Cognitive Neuroscience
identifies its areas of research as;
(a) understanding others, (b) understanding oneself, (c) control-

ling oneself, and (d) the processes that occur at the interface of
self and others (Lieberman 2007:259).
In parallel with those developments, already we observe that

related practices such as ‘Clean Language’ (Lawley & Tompkins
2000; Sullivan & Rees 2008) and Solution-Focused Work (Jackson
& McKergow 2007) are attracting people because, among other

Quo Vadis? 193
things, they are less complicated, and simply not burdened with
the various forms of baggage that NLP has accumulated (acknow-
ledging that these new areas also need further research into their
claimed efficacies).

In summary, in this scenario the inward tensions, combined with
the inability to make more constructive external connections, lead
to NLP being subsumed within, or overtaken by, more recent emer-
gent fields. The vestiges of NLP may live on, but its identity and
name are lost.
Renaissance?
Christina Hall wrote in 2001 that the splits in the field had been
healed. Could that episode mark a rebirth such that NLP could rise,
phoenix-like, from its own ashes? Are those court judgements a
stepping stone on the path to a flourishing new phase in NLP’s
development?
In this scenario NLP rediscovers and reasserts its identity as essen-
tially a pragmatic system of knowledge; one that is designed to be
used, and one that is best suited to complementing other practices,
particularly through the ‘landmarks’ identified in Chapter 14.
It is then recognised for its contribution to enabling the applic-
ation of knowledge from other fields, and potentially making
interesting new discoveries from the field of practice. Far beyond
the goal of NLP as personal liberation, which is redolent of its 1970s
Californian aspirations, it is appreciated as a powerful tool for
understanding the mysteries and limitations of our inner worlds
and how they guide action, based on Bateson’s thinking and assim-
ilating contemporary ideas about complexity and emergence.
Someone may synthesise NLP with work in other fields, so that
it becomes less imbued with the 1970s metaphor of computer
programmes, and reflects instead the new cybernetics of people
like Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. The idea that
by itself it constitutes a new paradigm of psychology would be
abandoned.
Among NLP books that have fresh ideas and show where the
field could be heading we would cite, perhaps, Steve Andreas’
work elaborating and refining aspects of NLP’s language models
(Andreas 2006b; Andreas 2006c); and Lucas Derk’s ‘social

panoramas’, which shows how NLP can address the social and
group dimension of experience (Derks 2005).
The relationship between NLP and formal research would play a
central role in this scenario. One area for engagement that we have

identified is cognitive linguistics, which has produced many new
insights on the relationships between language structures and our
particularly human ways of knowing and making sense. A glance
at the bibliography of one of the latest authoritative text books
(Evans & Green 2006) is fascinating, not only because of what is
there, but also because of what is missing. There is, for instance, no
reference to Bateson, or to anyone from the Palo Alto Group. What
could happen if the fields of NLP, with its supremely practical
approach, and cognitive linguistics, which is more academic and
cerebral, began to cross-fertilise each other? Together they could
make a vigorous hybrid.
As a first step towards this scenario, it is more important for
NLP to be talked about and investigated in a community of inquiry
than to be ‘proved’. By opening up to inquiry, and by engaging
in dialogue with the academic world, NLP can share its many
gifts and insights. What are some ways in which this could
happen?
One of our purposes in this book has been to indicate a research
agenda for NLP. While some practitioners long for proof of its effi-
cacy, in the hope that this will confer legitimacy and respectability
on them and their practice, it is based on a narrow conception of
the nature of research. Certainly there are fields of practice in
which a formal evidence base is critical, such that if people want to
use NLP openly it will have to be seen as efficacious and well
researched. Some conventional research of this kind is already
under way, especially in Europe and the USA. Obviously, research
could also disconfirm aspects of NLP, and it is vital that NLP
remains open to being disconfirmed otherwise it would become a
closed system. But research has a wider function than the pursuit of
proof. Another purpose, for example, is that of increasing under-
standing of the field and its approach for the benefit of both practi-
tioners and users.
In our view, research into NLP as it relates to HRD is impor-
tant regardless of one’s beliefs about its validity, by virtue of the
fact that it is a widespread practice. In addition to that conven-

Quo Vadis? 195
tional research into efficacy, therefore, we can identify at least

eight areas of research that are likely to be fruitful:
1. Action research by practitioners, including both managers and

developers, investigating the ways they have used NLP in their
practice;
2. Case studies and evaluations (which may be qualitative) of NLP
in (for example) coaching, consulting and training programmes
and more, especially by taking into account users’ experiences;
3. Modelling projects into individual and organisational capabilities
(obviously with systematic evidence procedures);
4. Review and testing of specific NLP models and techniques, both
empirically and conceptually in the light of developments in
cognate fields;
5. Surveys of the incidence of NLP – how many people use it, where
it is applied, and so on;
6. Elaboration and critique of the underpinning philosophy and
epistemology of NLP – for example appraising and updating
Bateson’s ideas;
7. Sociological, historical and other studies of NLP as a social
phenomenon, analysing and understanding its discourses and
values;
8. Use of NLP to enhance existing research methods, as in Vermesch’s
psycho-phenomenology.
In conclusion, we set out in this book to explore the simplicity and

the complexity of NLP by addressing numerous questions that are
asked about this field of practice. Our aims were to inform readers
in order to help them make their own choices about NLP, and to
contribute to constructive dialogue about the field. We hope you
feel you have been informed in this way.

Appendices

A timeline of NLP
Precursors
1890
Publication of William James’ ‘The Principles of Psychology’.
1893
Fritz Perls is born on 8th July in Berlin.
1901
Milton H. Erickson is born on 5th December in Aurum, Nevada.
1904
Gregory Bateson is born on 9th May in Grantchester, England, the son of
geneticist William Bateson.
1916
Virginia Satir is born on 26th June on her parents’ farm in Neville, Wisconsin.
1933
First publication of Alfred Korzybski’s ‘Science and Sanity’.
1940
John Thomas Grinder is born in Detroit, Michigan.
Gregory Bateson enters the USA as a resident.
1942
Milton Erickson addresses the precursor to the Macy Conferences, which
Gregory Bateson attends.
1946
The inaugural Macy Conference (8th & 9th March 1946, New York), entitled
‘Feedback Mechanisms and Circular Causal Systems in Biological and
Social Systems’. Gregory Bateson is a member of the core group.
1950
Richard Wayne Bandler is born on 24th February in New Jersey, USA.
1956
Publication of Miller’s ‘The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two’
(Miller 1956).
196

Appendices 197
1959
The Palo Alto Mental Research Institute is founded.
1960
Publication of Miller, Galanter and Pribram’s ‘Plans and the Structure of

Behaviour’ (Miller, Galanter & Pribram 1960), source of the TOTE model.
1964
Fritz Perls, co-founder of Gestalt therapy, arrives at Esalen.
1966
The Brief Therapy Centre at Palo Alto is formed.
Origins
1967
Robert S. Spitzer meets Richard Bandler (Spitzer 1992:1).
Publication of ‘Pragmatics of Human Communication’ (Watzlawick, Beavin
& Jackson 1967).
1968
Publication of ‘The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge’ by
Carlos Castaneda.
Grinder enrols at the University of California, San Diego, as a graduate
student in the department of Linguistics.
1969
Grinder begins an academic year as a guest researcher in George Miller’s lab
at Rockefeller University.
1970
Grinder gains his PhD, titled ‘On Deletion Phenomena’ (Grinder 1971) from
the University of California, San Diego.
Grinder takes up position as assistant professor at the University of California,
Santa Cruz in the fall of 1970.
Kresge College (University of Santa Cruz) is founded.
Fritz Perls dies on 14th March.
1972
Bandler attends Satir’s month-long workshop in Canada
Publication of Gregory Bateson’s ‘Steps to an Ecology of Mind’.
Bateson is appointed Visiting Professor, University of California at Santa
Cruz.
Bandler starts to give workshops in Gestalt Therapy at Kresge College.
1973
Gregory Bateson joins Kresge College (at the end of 1973).
Spitzer publishes ‘Eyewitness to Therapy’ (Perls 1973).

198 Appendices
1974
Gregory Bateson, his wife Lois, and their daughter Nora move into the
community near Ben Lomond.
Bateson makes Bandler and Grinder aware of Milton Erickson’s work.

1975
Publication of ‘The Structure of Magic’ (Bandler & Grinder 1975b), and ‘Pat-
terns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. Volume I’
(Bandler & Grinder 1975a).
1976
According to Robert Dilts, the title ‘Neuro-linguistic Programming’ first
appears in print.
Publication of ‘Structure of Magic II’ (Grinder & Bandler 1976) and of
‘Changing with Families’ (Bandler, Grinder & Satir 1976).
1977
Publication of Bandura’s seminal paper on self-efficacy (Bandura 1977a).
Publication of ‘Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson,
M.D. Volume II’ (Grinder, DeLozier & Bandler 1977).
Steve and Connirae Andreas are first introduced to NLP (Bandler & Andreas
1985b:2).
Development
1978
Bateson leaves Kresge College.
‘Not Ltd.’, run by Richard Bandler, Leslie Cameron-Bandler and asso-
ciates, offering training and developments workshops (McLendon 1989:113).
Bandler and Grinder go their separate ways (McLendon 1989:117). Bandler
buys Grinder out of the Society of NLP.
Grinder and DeLozier form Grinder, DeLozier & Associates.
1979
‘Frogs into Princes’ (Bandler & Grinder 1979) is published – the first time
Bandler and Grinder use the term ‘Neuro-linguistic Programming’ in a
book.
1980
Milton H. Erickson dies on 25th March.
Gregory Bateson dies on 4th July.
Publication of ‘Neuro-Linguistic Programming: volume 1, the study of the
structure of subjective experience’ (Dilts, Grinder, Bandler & DeLozier 1980).
1981
Publication of ‘Trance-formations’ (Grinder & Bandler 1981).
‘In October of 1981, John Grinder and Richard Bandler signed an Agree-
ment governing the specific commercial use and rights involved in their

Appendices 199
joint creation – the technology of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.’ (Hall

2001:16)
1982
Publication of ‘ReFraming’ (Bandler & Grinder 1982), Bandler and Grinder’s

last joint publication).
1983
Publication of ‘Roots of NLP’ (Dilts 1983).
NLP training begins in Vienna.
1985
Publication of ‘Using Your Brain’ (Bandler & Andreas 1985b).
John Seymour Associates is formed in the UK.
Association for NLP (now ANLP) is formed in the UK.
First issue of Rapport magazine is published.
1987
Publication of ‘Turtles All The Way Down’ (DeLozier & Grinder 1987), which
marks the development of ‘New Code’ NLP.
1988
Virginia Satir dies on 10th September.
Publication of ‘An Insider’s Guide to Submodalities’ (Bandler & MacDonald
1988).
1993
In the UK the first National Register of Psychotherapists is presented to
the Government. It contains ‘around 3000 names, of which 52 are NLP
Psychotherapists’ (Lawley 1994:43).
1994
The first issue of ‘NLP World: the intercultural journal on the theory and
practice of neuro-linguistic programming’, appears in March 1994, created
and edited by G. Peter Winnington.
At a crossroads
1996
Bandler files a suit against Grinder.
1997
Bandler and co-plaintiffs file their civil action.
1998
The UK Patent Office removes Richard Bandler’s registered trademark on
10th September following a legal challenge by Tony Clarkson.

200 Appendices
2000
The trial for Bandler’s civil action takes place in the Superior Court of
California, County of Santa Cruz, January 31st–February 10th.
Publication of the ‘Encyclopedia of Systemic NLP and NLP New Coding’
(Dilts & DeLozier 2000).

2001
Publication of ‘Whispering in the Wind’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001).
‘NLP World’ journal is taken over and relaunched as a magazine (retaining
the title).
2004
Gregory Bateson’s centennial.
2007
Paul Watzlawick dies on 31st March.
2008
Publication of ‘Richard Bandler’s Guide to Trance-formation’ (Bandler 2008a).
NLP training levels

While there are no unified standards for NLP training or its assessment, there
is a broad consensus about the content and standards of NLP training. There
is no universally accepted overarching body responsible for standards in the
field of NLP.
The structure of NLP training and certification (there are exceptions) is as
follows. Examples of the contents and criteria for these levels are sometimes
posted on websites.1
Diploma or Foundation: despite what may be suggested by the title
‘diploma’, this is the most basic level of NLP training. It may involve an
introductory course of a few days.
Practitioner: an NLP Practitioner training course covers the main prin-
ciples, frameworks and techniques of NLP. Practitioner trainings offered in the
UK mostly conform to one of two models, one of around 20 days and one of
around 7 days. The relative merits of these models are contested within the
field. In fact it is now possible to gain NLP certification online, by distance
learning, meaning that face to face attendance at a training course may not
be required.
Master Practitioner: this level is a more in-depth understanding of NLP,
with advanced material. Many Master Practitioner trainings require parti-
cipants to do an NLP ‘modelling’ project.
Some organisations also offer advanced Trainer Training and Master Trainer
courses.
Trainer: a further level of training that is effectively a prerequisite for anyone
wishing to offer public training course in NLP and to issue certificates for
Practitioner and Master Practitioner levels.

Appendices 201
Some organisations also offer advanced Trainer Training courses.

A recent development is in specific NLP training and certification for coach-
ing. A course offered by UK NLP training organisation ITS, for example, is an
accredited coach training programme under the International Coaching
Federation.

Weblinks2
The American Society for Cybernetics: http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/
Anchor Point (including Anchor Point magazine): http://www.nlpanchorpoint.
com/
The Association for NLP International: http://www.anlp.org/
The Bateson archive, University of California, Santa Cruz: http://www.oac.cdlib.
org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt029029gz
Christina Hall (The NLP Connection): http://www.chris-nlp-hall.com/
Encyclopedia of Systemic NLP and NLP New Coding, by Robert Dilts and
Judith DeLozier: http://nlpuniversitypress.com/
The Esalen Institute: http://www.esalen.org/
The European Association for NLP Therapy (EANLPt): http://www.eanlpt.
org/
The Institute for Intercultural Studies (includes information about Gregory
Bateson): http://www.interculturalstudies.org
The International NLP Trainers’ Association (INLPTA): http://www.inlpta.
com/
La Programmation Neuro Linguistique: http://www.pnl.fr/
The Mental Research Institute, Palo Alto: http://www.mri.org/
The Milton H. Erickson Foundation: http://www.erickson-foundation.org/
NLP Comprehensive: http://www.nlpco.com/
The Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy and Counselling Association: http://www.
nlptca.com/
The NLP Conference (includes listing of most UK NLP training organisa-
tions): http://www.nlpconference.co.uk/
The NLP Research and Recognition Project (USA): http://nlprandr.org/
The Neuro-Linguistic Programming Research Data Base, University of Bielefeld:
http://www.nlp.de/cgi-bin/research/nlp-rdb.cgi
NLP Research (University of Surrey): http://www.nlpresearch.org
NLP World (Journal edited by G. Peter Winnington): http://theletterworth-
press.com/nlpworld/
The Professional Guild of NLP: http://www.professionalguildofnlp.com/
The Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming: http://www.purenlp.com/society.
htm
Steve Andreas: http://www.steveandreas.com/
The Virginia Satir Collection, University of California, Santa Barbara: http://
www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/ft6q2nb44m
The Virginia Satir Global Network: http://www.avanta.net/

Notes

Chapter 1
1 http://www.flyingwithoutfear.info/questions.htm, accessed 28th February
2009.
2 ‘This book is also the written record of a mystery story of sorts’ (Bandler
& Grinder 1979:1).
3 In the legal agreement reached between them in 2000, which is reproduced
in full in ‘Whispering in the Wind’ (Bostic St. Clair and Grinder 2001:
376–381) Bandler and Grinder formally recognised each other as ‘co creators
and co-founders of the technology of Neurolinguistic Programming’.
4 NLP Comprehensive, www.nlpco.com/pages/about, accessed 28th February
2009.
5 Charles Faulkner, personal communication (September 2007). See also;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Faulkner, accessed 28th February
2009.
6 http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/feb/26/schools.teaching
accessed 28th February 2009.
7 As Jane reads both French and German, we have been able to consult
these sources.
8 Paul as Master Practitioner (1992) and ANLP member; Jane as a Master
Practitioner (1990) and Trainer (1992).
9 This book is a project within our research investigating issues and prac-
tices of adult learning. The wider aim is to contribute to the theory and
practice of ‘transformative learning’, which means learning that involves
significant change or development for the learner (e.g. Mezirow 1991).
Our recent research has three main aims:
1. To support the emergence of an NLP research community, increasing
dialogue between academic and practitioner communities.
2. To developing a critical appraisal of the field (i.e. this book).
3. To progress our work on transformative learning and teaching.
Chapter 2
1 Bostic St. Clair and Grinder (2001:50–52) identify three aspects, NLP
modelling, NLP application, and NLP training.
2 Robert Dilts claims to have used the title in 1976. It does appear in the
foreword to Dilts’ ‘Roots of Neuro-Linguistic Programming’, which is
dated 1976, although this volume was not published until 1983.
3 From Lankton (1980).
4 http://www.john-seymour-associates.co.uk/whatisnlp.htm, accessed
28th February 2009.
202

Notes 203
5 Reference to the study of subjective experience sounds, to researchers, like

the long-established methodology (and philosophy), called ‘phenomeno-
logy’, which is also concerned with studying the way people experience
the world. Apart from an isolated entry in Dilts and DeLozier (2000:951),
who say that NLP is ‘phenomenological in the sense that it considers a

person’s sensory experience, or primary experience, to be the basic mate-
rial from which he or she builds their model of the world’, there is little if
any evidence in NLP publications of familiarity with phenomenology. It is
unclear why NLP has not drawn more from that field. The potential for
modelling as a formal research method is being explored in France, where
Pierre Vermersch has drawn extensively on NLP as an investigative tool
in his ‘Psychophenomenology’ (Vermersch 1994), and through our own
research (e.g. Mathison & Tosey 2008).
6 While the authors do not describe their book as an NLP publication,
their involvement in and contribution to the field of NLP is acknow-
ledged (e.g. through their biographies on the book jacket).
7 This and other articles on modelling are available online at http://www.
steveandreas.com/, accessed 28th February 2009. Andreas, who was for-
merly known as John O. Stevens, has worked in the NLP field since the
late 1970s.
8 Sociologist David Silverman (1975) has pointed out that these books
are of interest primarily because of the questions they raise about
knowledge.
9 In this book, references are to the 2000 edition of Bateson’s classic
‘Steps to an Ecology of Mind’.
10 Details of a series of audio tapes by ‘Grinder & Associates’ appear at the
back of Grinder, DeLozier & Bandler (1977).
11 ‘Rapport’ magazine, issue 10 page 20 Winter 2007.
12 John Seymour Associates, founded in 1985 (O’Connor & Seymour
1990:239); PPD (formerly Pace Personal Development), founded by
Julian Russell and Roy Johnson in 1987 and now owned by Judith
Lowe; ITS (International Teaching Seminars), founded in 1998 and
still run by Ian McDermott; and Sensory Systems, founded in 1987 and
still run by John McWhirter.
13 According to the listing on the NLP conference website http://www.
nlpconference.co.uk/organisation, accessed 11th January 2008.
14 The figure is based on an average of 500 practitioner trainees per year
for the 10 years from 1987 until 1996 (5,000); plus 2,000 trainees per
year for the 5 years from 1997 until 2001 (10,000); plus 3,000 trainees
per year for the 5 years from 2002 until 2007 (15,000). Numbers of
trainees are estimated based on claims from UK NLP training providers
(e.g. John Seymour Associates; http://www.john-seymour-associates.
co.uk/nlpcourseswelcome.php, accessed 9th March 2007; PPD Learning
http://www.ppdlearning.co.uk/, accessed 9th March 2007), on known
increases in the numbers of training providers (especially since the mid
1990s) and on increased capacity of some courses (as mentioned, for
example, by Derren Brown and Isabel Losada).

204 Notes
15 http://www.thenlpgroup.ie/nlp_group_djg.htm, accessed 28th February

2009.
16 Jo Hogg’s ‘NLP Conference’ website http://www.nlpconference.co.uk/,
accessed 28th February 2009, includes a database that identifies the
affiliations of all the current training organisations.

17 There are distinct bodies and accreditation arrangements for NLP
psychotherapists. The Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy Counselling
Association (NLPtCA) is a member organisation of the UK Council
for Psychotherapy (UKCP); http://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/index.
html, accessed 28th February 2009. In mainland Europe there exists
the European Association for NLP Therapy (EANLPt): http://www.
eanlpt.org/, accessed 28th February 2009.
18 http://www.inlpta.com/, accessed 28th February 2009.
19 www.nlpco.com/pages/articles/nlp/GoodTraining.php accessed 28th February
2009.
20 http://www.anlp.org/: accessed 28th February 2009.
21 The initiator of the ANLP was Frank Kevlin, a trainer and psycho-
therapist. It was formed so that NLP could become a member of the
UK Council for Psychotherapy, and originally had charitable status.
Subsequently the Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy Association (NLPtCA)
was developed as a separate association that could focus exclusively
on psychotherapy. In 1999, ANLP changed its status and became a
limited company, becoming a community interest company in
2008.
22 Naturally, copyright laws continue to apply to all published
works.
23 A course offered by UK NLP training organisation ITS, for example, is
an accredited coach training programme under the International
Coaching Federation.
24 NLP community events include an NLP practitioner conference is
held in London every November, organised by Jo Hogg, who has served
the NLP community for many years. There are several other regular,
smaller NLP conventions in the UK. In Europe, regular conferences
and other events with a psychotherapeutic emphasis are organised
by the European Association for Neurolinguistic Psychotherapy
(EANLPt). The privately-sponsored Institute for the Advanced Studies
of Health (IASH), based in the USA, runs a World Health Conference.
In 2008 there was also an NLP practitioner conference in Brasil.
The inaugural International NLP Research Conference was held at the
University of Surrey, in the UK, in partnership with ANLP, on 5th July
2008.
25 The role of language is multi-faceted. It is difficult to mention
in only one part of the description because language is treated as
part of thought as well as part of behaviour (e.g. spoken and written
behaviour). Language is also a principal medium used by practitioners
when facilitating change.

Notes 205
Chapter 3
1 http://www.anlp.org/, accessed 11th April 2007.
2 September 5th 2001 p. 4, ‘Boost your skills with emotional intelligence;
learning curves’.

3 ‘Learning? It’s All in the Mind’, Times Educational Supplement,
21st May 2004.
4 http://www.cipd.co.uk/default.cipd, accessed 28th February 2009.
5 Personal communication, 1992.
6 The title ‘cdaq’ is used alone, not as an acronym.
7 http://www.cfbt.com/, accessed 28th February 2009.
8 An INLPTA accredited Diploma level course.
9 Also personal communication, Richard Churches, CfBT Educational
Trust, December 2008.
10 http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/maneco/general/nlp.htm?IsSrchRes=1,
11 Spechler explains that he used modelling for this study in an article in
NLP World (Spechler 1995).
12 http://www.anlp.org/, accessed 28th February 2009.
Chapter 4
1 See for example the review by Steve Andreas (2003) available online at http://
www.steveandreas.com/Articles/whispering.html, accessed 28th February 2009.
2 Personal communication, Dr John Martin, Open University, UK, 1st February
2009.
3 Esalen continues to be a leading centre for alternative and experiential
education today.
4 The first three of these mirror the three stages of development described
by Bostic St. Clair and Grinder (2001).
5 Not to be confused, however, with Dr Robert L. Spitzer, a Professor of
Psychiatry at Columbia University, who chaired the task force producing
the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental and
Psychiatric Disorders.
6 Foothill College website: http://www.foothill.fhda.edu/index.php accessed
28th February 2009.
7 Spitzer (1992:2) appears to suggest that this meeting took place about the
time that Fritz Perls died (i.e. in 1970). However, Banmen (2002:4) refers
to Satir spending three months in Manitoba, Canada in 1972. This date
is supported by a listing in the Virginia Satir archive, University of
California, Santa Barbara, of an item ‘Claive Buckland’s Notes to
R. Bandler for Monthlong, 1972’; http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=
ft6q2nb44m& chunk. id= c02-1.7.6.7.5&brand=oac, accessed 28th February
2009. 1972 is the date given by Walker (1996:31).
8 ‘Alba Road’ is identified on Google Earth.

206 Notes
9 ‘In 1975, Bandler, Grinder and Bateson all had their individual residences
at 1000 Alba Road, Ben Lomand (sic), California’ (Bostic St. Clair &
Grinder 2001:173).

Chapter 5
1 From Watzlawick (1978).
2 Elgin went on to develop her own practical, language-based model of
communication, which she called ‘Syntonics’ (Elgin 1989:v). In its
emphasis on ‘verbal self-defence’ it has some similarities with a later
model developed in NLP called ‘sleight of mouth’ (Dilts 1999).
3 Pucelik now works as a business consultant in the Ukraine: http://eng.
frankpucelik.com, accessed 28th February 2009.
4 ‘Bill was the founding editor of the first NLP Newsletter (1978–1980)
and did his master’s thesis… on Bandler and Grinder’s “Patterns of
Communication and Change.” (The term NLP had not yet been
invented.) NLP had (and still has) a profound influence on him, his
work and his life. Bill studied with Dr. Milton Erickson in the midst of
his NLP studies (he was certified in NLP in 1978 in New Orleans, in the
same graduating class as Steve and Connirae Andreas, by Richard
Bandler, John Grinder, Leslie Cameron-Bandler and Judith de Lozier).
http://www.anlp.org/index.asp?PageID=361, accessed 28th February
2009.
5 We are especially grateful to Judith Lowe, PPD Learning, for her views
on this subject.
6 For example, no article in the Letterworth journal, NLP World, has
addressed this theme. The term does not appear in the title of any
article, nor is the topic addressed substantively in any contribution.
7 Others include Connirae Andreas, Lara Ewing and Charlotte Bretto.
8 Judith DeLozier, personal communication, 21st November 2007.
9 A footnote in ‘Changing With Families’ (Bandler, Grinder & Satir
1976:176) refers to the (presumably then forthcoming) title as ‘The
Magic of Patterns/Patterns of Magic’.
10 The painting was chosen by Bandler (Spitzer 1992:3).
11 See the Transport for London website, http://www.tfl.gov.uk/, accessed
28th February 2009.
12 See also ‘Changing with Families’ (Bandler, Grinder & Satir 1976:186).
In both places Karttunen is misspelt as ‘Kartunnen’.
13 See for example: http://www2.parc.com/istl/members/karttune/, accessed
28th February 2009.
14 The significance of mirror neurons for understanding of issues of learn-
ing was noted by Guy Claxton in his keynote speech to the British
Educational Research Association in 2006 (Claxton 2006).
15 Most recently the hypnotic state, and its induction, has also been
shown to have neurological correlates (Jamieson 2007). Even our under-
standing of time and its passage may be the result of certain processes

Notes 207
in our cortex (Mauk & Buonoman 2004). Sense making takes on yet
another dimension; both skilful and unskilful communicators are
producing neurological effects in others.
Chapter 6

1 This idea has been contested by empirical research, which we discuss in
Chapter 11.
2 The original formulation of the 4-tuple, in Grinder et al (1976), was based
on interest in notating a client’s present-time experience. This comprised
visual, kinaesthetic, auditory tonal, and olfactory elements, plus an indi-
cation of the source of that experience (the referential index) ‘as a way of
distinguishing hallucinated or projected experience from experience orig-
inating in the external world’ (Grinder, DeLozier & Bandler 1977:12). The
4-tuple is of course a simplification of the sensory apparatus.
3 Personal communication, Christina Hall, April 22nd 2008. Jane is parti-
cularly indebted to Christina Hall, who collaborated with Richard Bandler
for some years, for demonstrating the ways in which language and sub-
modalities interacted.
4 We acknowledge Ranjit Sidhu for sharing her enquiries into this
topic.
5 See for example the review by Dave Allaway at http://www.nlpand.co.uk/
resources/review8.shtml, accessed 28th February 2009, which says they
fall into the Cartesian trap and distinguish between First Access and the
‘real’ world.
Chapter 7
1 Surprisingly, therefore, Grinder comments that ‘My… memory is that
the only portion of the book… that Gregory was interested in dis-
cussing at any length was the syntactic processes underlying… nom-
inalization’ (Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2001:193).
2 ‘Steps to an Ecology of Mind’ documents communication between
Erickson and Bateson in 1955 (Bateson 2000a:223), and Bateson refers
to Erickson in a 1951 publication (Ruesch & Bateson 1951:237).
3 History of Cybernetics, American Society for Cybernetics, http://www.
asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/history2.htm, accessed 1st March 2009.
4 McCue’s critique appears in the same volume as the review of research
into NLP (Heap 1988), which we discuss in Chapter 9.
5 Judith DeLozier, personal communication, 21st November 2007.
6 Bateson’s usage of ‘metalinguistics’ dates back to 1954 (Bateson
2000a:178); Michael Hall’s unpublished ‘Bateson Report’ also cites a
lecture given by Bateson in 1959 (Bateson 2000a:248).
7 We acknowledge, but do not attempt to discuss here, that there are many
and diverse versions of ‘social constructionism’, ‘constructionism’, and
‘constructivism’.

208 Notes
8 Poerksen interviewed Von Foerster, and reports the following convers-

ation (2002:43):
Poerksen to Von Foerster: But you are a constructivist […] you claim
that every person constructs his or her reality, […]
Von Foerster: No no, I am Viennese. That is the only label I have come

to accept.. […] Of course you are correct when you say that there are a
few people who claim that I am representative of a particular epistemo-
logy. But that just isn’t right. I don’t have any epistemology at all.
9 See papers at: http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu/, accessed 1st March
2009.
10 From Greenburg, D. (1964).
11 See Michael Hall’s article, ‘Not Quite Everything About Everything You
Want to Know About the New Field’, at http://www.neurosemantics.
com/, accessed 1st March 2009.
Chapter 8
1 Kybernetes, Volume 34 no. 3–4.
2 Cybernetics and Human Knowing, Volume 12 no. 1–2.
3 Bateson’s theory of learning is cited in literature in education, e.g.
(Bloom 2004; Brockbank & McGill 1998; McWhinney & Markos 2003;
Peterson 1999), psychotherapy and personal development, e.g. (Keeney
1983; Watzlawick, Weakland & Fisch 1974) and organisational learn-
ing, e.g. (Argyris & Schön 1978; Bartunek & Moch 1994; Engeström
2001b; Engeström 2001a; French & Bazalgette 1996; Roach & Bednar
1997; Tosey & Mathison 2008; Visser 2003; Wijnhoven 2001).
4 Lipset does not say whether this refers to the academic or calendar year.
5 From the Bateson Archive at the University of Santa Cruz. Three docu-
ments were identified and copies kindly supplied by the Archive admin-
istrator in response to our request for any information that pertained to
NLP. The most useful of these is the letter discussed here.
6 We are grateful to Michael Hall for supplying us with a copy of this
report.
7 As Bateson’s daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, comments: ‘The
processes with which Gregory was concerned were essentially processes
of knowing: perception, communication, coding and translation…’
(in Bateson 2000a:5).
8 At the time of their encounters in Santa Cruz Bateson was working on
‘Mind and Nature’, published in 1979.
9 Personal communication, Mary Catherine Bateson (by e-mail), 23rd March
2007.
10 Intriguingly, Karen Pryor, who directed the dolphin trainers in Hawaii,
commented that Bateson ‘hated the thought of bending creatures to
one’s will’ yet ‘goes around bending people to his will all the time’
(Lipset 1980:248).
11 American Society for Cybernetics, http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foun-
dations/history/MacySummary.htm, accessed 1st March 2009. Although

Notes 209
Walker (1996:206) suggests that Milton Erickson participated in the

later Macy conferences too, there is no evidence for this according to
the American Society for Cybernetics website. It is possible that Walker
is confusing Milton Erickson with the psychoanalysts Erik Erikson, who
addressed the third conference in 1947.

12 It still exists today: http://www.josiahmacyfoundation.org/, accessed
1st March 2009.
13 The final conference was held in New Jersey.
14 Via: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Wiener_
Norbert.html, accessed 1st March 2009.
15 http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/history2.htm, accessed 1st March
2009.
16 http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/history2.htm, accessed 1st March
2009.
17 http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/history2.htm#MacySum,
accessed 1st March 2009. The middle section of this quotation notes
that; ‘The historical records for the field’s birth have never been readily
accessible, owing to an almost total lack of documentation for the first
5 conferences and the obscure status of the last 5 events’ proceedings.
This resulted in a reliance on personal recollections and anecdotal
evidence in exploring how that process occurred’.
18 Bateson uses the term ‘lineal’ (Bateson 2000a:451) rather than ‘linear’.
19 Some people have suggested that every system shares a basic goal, that
of survival (Beer 1974). This view has been challenged and it may be
more helpful to think of every human system as maintaining its own
integrity (meaning its wholeness, not its honesty).
20 To which Keeney (1983:76) refers as ‘cybernetics of cybernetics’. Some
theorists nowadays are also discussing third-order cybernetics, which
has some resonance with Dilts’ notion of meta-position (Dilts & DeLozier
2000:754).
21 Von Foerster, a physicist, was also a magician, and was intrigued by
the ways that perceptions of reality can be based on misdirection and
illusion (Von Foerster & Poerksen 2002:124–127).
Chapter 9
1 The term ‘presuppositions’, as used to refer to axioms, may have entered
NLP from Gregory Bateson. The statement that; ‘Science, like art, religion,
commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions’ (Bateson
1979:32) appears to predate the appearance in NLP literature of this
term.
2 Dilts (http://www.nlpu.com/Articles/artic20.htm, accessed 1st March
2009) calls these ‘epistemological presuppositions’ in order to distin-
guish them from a ‘linguistic presuppositions’, which are described in
The Structure of Magic I.
3 For example, ‘if what you’re doing isn’t working…’ (Bandler & Grinder
1979:13, 73) also p. 73; ‘the map is not the territory’ (Bandler & Grinder

210 Notes
1975b:7) ; ‘the meaning of your communication…’ (Bandler & Grinder

1979:61); ‘you can treat every limitation that is presented to you as
a unique accomplishment by a human being’ (Bandler & Grinder
1979:67); the law of requisite variety (Bandler & Grinder 1979:74).
4 Translation by Jane Mathison.

5 Bostic St. Clair and Grinder have published an article (which makes no
mention of NLP) in the academic journal ‘Cybernetics and Human
Knowing’ (Malloy, Bostic St. Clair & Grinder 2005).
6 This principle has also been linked to the work of Feldenkrais (Cameron-
Bandler, Gordon & Lebeau 1985:322).
7 http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/HvF.htm accessed 1st March
2009.
8 Gregory Bateson distilled his ideas down to four components in a ‘sketch
of an epistemology’ (Brockman 1977:243):
1. That message events are activated by difference.
2. That information travels in pathways and systems that are collater-
ally energised…
3. A special sort of holism is generated by feedback and recursiveness.
4. That mind operates with hierarchies and networks of difference to
create gestalten.
9 From the long-running UK TV series Dr. Who.
10 See Capra (1996:67).
11 It could reflect Virginia Satir’s early (but later rejected) exposure to
Christian Science, to which her mother was attached (Walker 1996:157).
12 See also DeLozier (1995).
13 For example, ‘Style, Grace and Information in Primitive Art’ (Bateson
2000a:128–152).
Chapter 10
1 This idea itself states a theory.
2 See for example Kahneman’s Nobel prize-winning lecture at
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2002/kahne-
mann-lecture.pdf, accessed 1st March 2009.
3 As defined by Heron.
4 Bateson archive, University of Santa Cruz, letter dated 10th January
1974.
5 A book published at this time called ‘Paradigms and Fairy Tales’ (Ford
1976) had a fairy-tale scene on the cover, and was a serious work on
research methods.
6 This was the first of a series of books based on workshop transcripts that
included ‘Trance-formations’ (Grinder & Bandler 1981) and ‘Reframing’
(Bandler & Grinder 1982), the latter being the last instance of co-
authorship between Bandler and Grinder. Steve and Connirae Andreas,
separately or jointly, edited all three. Steve Andreas, known at that time
as John O. Stevens, had previously published Perls’ transcript-based

Notes 211
‘Gestalt Therapy Verbatim’ (Perls 1969). ‘Frogs Into Princes’ used a

similar format, being based on transcripts of workshops that took place
at the Andreas’ NLP Comprehensive.
7 ‘Frogs Into Princes’ diverges interestingly from some other NLP books of
this era, particularly those involving Robert Dilts (e.g. Dilts, Grinder,

Bandler & DeLozier 1980; Dilts 1983), which retained a more concep-
tual approach.
8 As, for example, in the polemic by Beadle (2008a).
9 There is a potential paradox here in that, if NLP is a ‘pseudoscience’, as
some allege, it cannot effectively manipulate anyone, which is one of
the common concerns expressed about the practice.
10 As noted earlier, Brown levels the same charge at Ericksonian hypnotic
techniques.
11 See also, for example, Lazarus’ foreword in Henwood & Lister (2007:xiii).
12 NLP practitioners might like to analyse this claim as a ‘convincer strategy’.
13 Nisbett and Ross (1980) have examined a wide range of beliefs, pre-
suppositions and cognitive strategies that make inferences unreliable.
14 ‘What Other People Say May Change What You See’, Sandra Blakeslee,
The New York Times (Science), 28th June 2005 http://www.nytimes.
com/2005/06/28/science/28brai.html?_r=2, accessed 1st March 2009.
Chapter 11
1 ‘Learning? It’s All in the Mind’, Fran Abrams, Times Educational Supple-
ment , 21st May 2004.
2 One must also exercise some caution when citing research from other
fields of study. It is easy to latch on to a finding from an unfamiliar
field and interpret it as supporting something in which one believes,
forgetting that one is treating this in isolation from the complexities
and subtleties of work in the whole field.
3 See also studies cited on the EANLPt website’s ‘Research’ page: http://
www.eanlpt.org/, accessed 1st March 2009.
4 One example often cited in NLP trainings is the notion that communi-
cation is 7% verbal, 38% tone of voice, and 55% visual. This is based on
the work of Albert Mehrabian, a psychologist who has specialised in the
study of nonverbal communication (Mehrabian 1981). While the per-
centages cited are correct, Mehrabian stresses that they should not be
generalised to all face-to-face communication; ‘this and other equations
regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were
derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and
attitudes (i.e., like-dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their
feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable’: http://www.
kaaj.com/psych/smorder.html, accessed 2nd March 2009.
5 The same observation probably applies to many other practices found
in HRD.
6 Personal communication, Judith DeLozier, 21st November 2007.

212 Notes
7 That quote is from the transcript of a workshop in the 1970s. It was

part of an introduction through which the presenters, Bandler and
Grinder, were setting a frame of relevance and interest for the parti-
cipants. It was probably intended as a way to direct participants’ atten-
tion towards their own sensory experience, and away from other

people’s espoused theories, not as a definitive statement of NLP’s pos-
ition on research. Nevertheless we would argue that statements like this
have been influential in the latter way (remembering the NLP pre-
supposition ‘the meaning of your communication is the response that
you get’).
8 See Web links (appendix).
9 For example, Slater and Usoh (1994), of the University of London, used
NLP in a study of Virtual Reality. Kauppi et al (1995) describe exactly
the kind of empirical investigation of an aspect of NLP’s language
models (in this instance, modal operators) that could ‘backfill’ the NLP
evidence base. Derks (1995) describes empirical work contributing to
the development of his ‘social panoramas’ concept. Hancox and Bass
(1995a) report a classic experimental study that supports the NLP prin-
ciple that submodality changes can have physiological effects.
10 Of a total of 110 articles in NLP World, 40 are authored or co-authored
by someone who cites a PhD as a qualification.
11 From an online article attributed to John Grinder: http://www.repere-
pnl.com/site/A_Review_of_an_interview_by_Robert_DILTS_par_John_
GRINDER_29032006-234.html, accessed 1st March 2009.
12 See weblink in Resources section. This database is of considerable value
to anyone researching NLP. For several years it appeared to be dormant;
until early in 2008 it listed 180 publications. It was then updated by
Dr Frans-Josef Huecker, who added more than 100 new publications.
13 Based on the observation that Heap’s bibliography refers to these
abstracts, not to the full studies.
14 Baddeley and Predebon could still be criticised for aspects of their ques-
tion formats. For example, they designed the question, ‘Imagine in
detail looking at a painting you have never seen before’ (Baddeley &
Predebon 1991:21), as ‘Visually Constructed’. What the question asks
the respondent, to be precise, is to imagine the act or experience of
looking. This could elicit a different response from a question that asks
a person to imagine what the painting looks like.
15 As reviewed by Ehrlichman and Weinberger (1978).
16 On internet sites this study is widely attributed to an apparently non-
existent researcher, one ‘Dr Blaslotto’.
17 Including calibration and matching; internal representations and sub-
modalities; the NLP phobia cure; and a technique known in NLP as the
‘swish pattern’.
18 September 5th 2001 p. 4, ‘Boost your skills with emotional intelligence;
learning curves’.
19 We are grateful to Dr John Martin for bringing this example to our
attention.

Notes 213
Chapter 12
1 ‘A Google search on 20th December 2008 produced 398,000 results
for the terms Obama and NLP’ (Richard Churches, unpublished paper,
12th January 2009).

2 It is ironic that in order to make this claim about the ethics of NLP,
Megginson and Clutterbuck use, presumably unwittingly, a linguistic
device called (in NLP) ‘the verbal swish pattern’, in which the sudden
replacement of one image with another, more powerful one can result
in a change in the listener’s perception due to the new association that
is suggested.
3 The same quote points out that they would, at the same time, purposely
state the counterview that ‘nothing is hypnosis, hypnosis doesn’t exist’.
4 See for example Tettamanti et al (2005); Rizzolatti and Craighero
(2004); Yokoyama et al (2006).
5 For example, the Professional Guild’s commitment to a common stan-
dard, the ANLP’s ‘What Questions Could I Ask A Trainer?’ feature, the
Global Organisation of NLP’s ‘Guide to Trainings’, and NLP Comprehen-
sive’s ‘Good Training Guide’.
6 http://www.anlp.org/index.asp?PageID=79, accessed 1st March 2009.
7 For example, the NLPtCA code of ethics http://www.nlptca.com/ethics.
php, accessed 1st March 2009.
8 NLP practitioners will recognise that this posits a ‘complex equivalence’
between compliance and ethical conduct.
9 The ANLP currently recommends ‘a minimum of 50 attendance hours
for Practitioner level and 90 attendance hours for Master Practitioner
level’. These minimum hours form part of the ANLP Terms and Con-
ditions of membership (section 2.1), which can be accessed via http://
www.anlp.org/index.asp?CatName=Membership&CatID=8&PageID=253.
10 Isabel Losada’s website includes the comment that; ‘The course is
expensive and to get the ‘qualification’ all you have to do is stay in the
room’. http://www.isabellosada.com/, accessed 1st March 2009.
11 http://www.steveandreas.com/Articles/doingtherapy.html; accessed 1st March
2009.
12 The biography of Frank Pucelik (Lewis and Pucelik 1990:161), who par-
ticipated in early NLP, refers to his ‘extensive training in a variety of
communication techniques and their scientific basis’.
Chapter 13
1 Such an analysis could make a valuable contribution to understandings of
the field.
2 Heard by Jane Mathison at two different trainings at which she assisted.
3 There is substantial reference to Jung’s psychological functions in James
& Woodsmall (1988).
4 For example, http://www.nlpexcellence.com/, accessed 2nd March 2009.

214 Notes
5 An early, if isolated, appearance of ‘excellence’ in NLP appears in Cameron-

Bandler et al (1985:3).
6 We note the clear statement in that source that these represent Grinder’s
personal view – there is no suggestion that Bandler would concur.
7 http://www.icsahome.com/, accessed 2nd March 2009.

8 As pointed out in Chapter 2, Robbins does not offer NLP practitioner
training.
9 Jane can vouch from personal experience that practitioners and trainers
licensed by Bandler sign a licensing agreement.
Chapter 15
1 A Google search on Neuro-Linguistic Programming yielded 1,490,000
hits; a search on NLP yielded 16,400,000 hits; searches on 1st March 2009.
2 It is accessible via the internet: http://www.nlpuniversitypress.com/,
3 Neither Amazon.co.uk nor Amazon.com, accessed 1st March 2009.
4 http://www.anglo-american.co.uk/, accessed 1st March 2009.
5 One of Bandler’s most recent books, ‘Conversations’ (Bandler & Fitzpatrick
2005), also appears to be available only to trainees.
Appendices
1 For example the INLPTA website: http://www.inlpta.org/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=84, accessed 28th February 2009.
2 All links active at the time of going to press.

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Index

alternative, 26, 38, 45, 47, 87, 121, calibration, 58, 146
128, 169, 185 Cameron-Bandler, Leslie, 17, 20, 49,
Andreas, Connirae, 22, 83, 198 198
Andreas, Steve, 17, 22, 78, 83, 158, Castaneda, Carlos, 19, 109, 121,
186, 193, 198, 201 122, 197
Ashby, Ross, 99, 102, 103 categorisation, 27, 52, 65, 76, 77,
as-if, 20, 97, 135, 158 78, 79, 81, 82, 129, 130, 132,
Association for NLP (ANLP), 22, 26, 139, 154, 156, 181
33, 150, 158, 188, 201, 202 causality
auditory, 29, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, circular, 92, 93, 139, 140, 158, 183
135 change, 5, 15, 24, 27, 39, 47, 50, 61,
63, 69, 72, 73, 74, 75, 78, 82,
Bandler, Richard, 3, 9, 12, 14, 20, 88, 95, 99, 102, 107, 109, 125,
22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 37, 38, 127, 128, 139, 140, 152, 153,
39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 154, 155, 159, 163, 164, 165,
48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 166, 167, 179, 191, 202
57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 67, choice (is better than no choice), 99,
68, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 80, 81, 102
82, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89, 93, 98, Chomsky, Noam, 51, 54, 55, 74, 183
101, 106, 116, 117, 120, 121, coaching, 4, 8, 23, 25, 30, 31, 32,
123, 126, 132,134, 135, 136, 33, 34, 52, 98, 100, 121, 134,
144, 163, 166, 168, 169, 170, 140, 141, 149, 151, 177, 178,
172, 174, 179, 180, 190, 191, 186, 195, 201
196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 202 cognition, 51, 55, 65, 66, 67, 76, 78,
Bateson, Gregory, 9, 13, 18, 19, 26, 104, 107, 108, 119, 129, 181,
41, 45, 47, 50, 60, 66, 67, 70, 183, 185
71, 74, 76, 77, 79, 81, 82, 85, Cognitive Linguistics, 10, 55, 64,
86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 138, 183, 194
95, 96, 98, 100, 104, 108, 109, communication, 5, 10, 13, 14, 15,
114, 116, 119, 120, 122, 123, 18, 19, 24, 25, 27, 29, 41, 47,
127, 140, 151, 153, 154, 157, 50, 51, 53, 55, 58, 61, 63, 67,
164, 170, 171, 180, 186, 187, 68, 69, 72, 74, 76, 77, 79, 80,
189, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 84, 86, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 98,
198, 200, 201 99, 100, 101, 103, 114, 116,
Bateson, Mary Catherine, 89, 154 119, 144, 147, 148, 149, 159,
beliefs, 6, 18, 23, 32, 34, 51, 75, 97, 160, 177, 178, 179, 180, 183,
103, 108, 120, 138, 142, 153, 187, 202
164, 165, 169, 173, 174, 178, non-verbal, 19, 39, 41, 56, 59, 155
180, 182, 185 communication model, 67, 68, 69
limiting, 20, 179 community of practice, 5
body language, 28, 59, 107, 137 complexity, 4, 68, 89, 193, 195
229

230 Index
computer, 42, 104, 107, 122, 190, ethics, 10, 95, 110, 144, 145, 150, 151,
193 152, 153, 156, 157, 158, 160, 184
constructivism, 9, 11, 18, 38, 70, 75, evidence, 6, 17, 20, 25, 26, 53, 54,
76, 80, 83, 84, 125, 142, 169, 63, 65, 73, 74, 76, 88, 90, 117,
181 119, 125, 126, 127, 130, 131,

counterculture, 162 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143,
cult, 5, 162, 170, 171, 172, 174, 177, 145, 148, 171, 182, 184, 186,
185 188, 194, 195
cybernetics, 9, 11, 18, 38, 41, 84, 85, excellence, 11, 12, 15, 19, 28, 31,
86, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 162, 167, 168, 174, 178, 180
99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, circle of, 28
107, 108, 109, 139, 142, 169, eye accessing cues, 62
170, 181, 183, 184, 193, 201 eye movements, 62, 63, 133, 135,
first-order, 95, 98, 104, 108, 158, 136, 137, 140, 141
183
second-order, 94, 98, 104, 108, Farrelly, Frank, 75, 124, 154, 155
109, 139, 183 Faulkner, Charles, 31, 63, 186, 202
feedback, 18, 92, 93, 94, 97, 99, 100,
deletion, 45, 51, 52, 72 103, 105, 149, 167, 183
DeLozier, Judith, 19, 41, 44, 45, 48, frame, 76, 82
49, 50, 62, 74, 85, 87, 88, 97, freedom, 10, 162, 163, 172, 174
105, 109, 116, 121, 130, 131, Frogs Into Princes, 12, 29, 98, 102,
138, 140, 144, 156, 167, 168, 121, 123, 135, 165, 198
190, 198, 199, 200, 201
Dilts, Robert, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, generalisation, 51, 52
25, 26, 44, 48, 49, 62, 74, 86, Gilligan, Steve, 49, 72
87, 88, 97, 98, 100, 104, 105, goal-setting, 28
109, 114, 116, 130, 137, 138, Gordon, David, 20, 48, 63, 64, 72
140, 144, 167, 170, 190, 198, Grinder, John, 3, 9, 12, 13, 14, 17,
199, 200, 201, 202 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29,
distortion, 51, 52, 100 31, 37, 38, 39, 41, 44, 45, 46,
double bind, 79, 80, 86, 89, 155 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54,
dual process theories, 119 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62,
64, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75,
ecology, 95, 152, 153, 154, 184, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88,
187 89, 93, 98, 101, 104, 105, 106,
education, 3, 7, 30, 44, 46, 47, 107, 109, 110, 116, 117, 118,
119, 120, 128, 132, 177, 181, 120, 121, 123, 126, 131, 132,
202 134, 135, 136, 140, 144, 153,
emotion, 24, 119, 166, 167, 184 166, 168, 169, 174, 179, 180,
epistemology, 18, 66, 77, 88, 95, 190, 191, 196, 197, 198, 199,
109, 121, 157, 187, 195 200, 202
Erickson, Milton H., 9, 18, 41, 50, gustatory, 61
59, 62, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 83,
84, 88, 90, 98, 99, 108, 122, Haley, Jay, 70, 71, 73, 74, 83, 86
148, 149, 151, 153, 155, 156, Hall, Christina, 22, 49, 61, 63, 186,
157, 170, 180, 196, 198, 201 193, 201

Index 231
Hall, Michael, 82, 87, 181 linguistics, 13, 15, 45, 48, 55, 56, 74,
history, 37, 90, 124 81, 109, 122, 194
hypnosis, 10, 29, 71, 73, 133, 147, transformational, 50, 123, 180,
148 183
logical levels, 77, 79

imagery, 16, 19, 24, 28, 60, 64, 65,
66, 120, 133, 167, 179, 186 Macy Conferences, 9, 39, 70, 76, 86,
INLPTA, 22, 30, 201 90, 91, 94, 180, 196
inner world, 5, 24, 67, 186, 193 magic, 114, 123, 124, 180
internal representations, 13, 60, 61, practical, 14, 178
62, 64, 68, 69, 76, 105, 106, Magic
129, 136, 181 The Structure of, 15, 20, 48, 49,
50, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 70,
James, William, 62, 116, 196 72, 74, 87, 88, 89, 121, 123,
161, 165, 198
kinaesthetic, 29, 57, 58, 60, 61, 135 manipulative, 5, 6, 10, 145, 172,
knowledge, 5, 9, 16, 19, 21, 27, 34, 177, 184, 189
56, 68, 74, 77, 82, 113, 115, map
116, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, is not the territory, 51, 68, 81, 82,
125, 128, 130, 141, 142, 178, 84, 99, 106
181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, of the world, 80, 83, 95, 99, 106
188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193 mental rehearsal, 28, 137, 186
Korzybski, Alfred, 13, 61, 81, 82, 84, metacommunication, 74, 78, 79,
99, 106, 171, 196 140, 155
Kresge College, 9, 39, 46, 47, 56, 87, meta-model, 9, 39, 48, 50, 51, 52,
88, 89, 180, 197, 198 53, 54, 56, 58, 71, 72, 74, 87,
126, 133, 144, 180, 186
Laing, Ronnie, 88, 161 meta-programmes, 29, 30, 132, 187
Lakoff, George, 55, 74, 77, 78, 119 meta-states, 34, 74
language, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 15, 24, 26, Miller, George, 13, 30, 44, 104, 105,
27, 34, 39, 44, 48, 54, 55, 56, 106, 132, 139, 183, 196, 197
58, 61, 63, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, Milton model, 72, 149, 186
78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 88, 91, 117, mind, 44, 48, 64, 66, 81, 98, 100,
118, 120, 129, 137, 142, 144, 106, 107, 108, 119, 122, 140,
147, 148, 159, 178, 179, 181, 144, 153, 154, 186
183, 186, 193, 194 mirror neurons, 56, 129
hypnotic, 29, 41, 60, 72, 73, 146, modelling, 16, 17, 31, 32, 43, 44,
185 52, 71, 117, 121, 131, 137, 161,
patterns, 16, 17, 19, 27, 29, 41, 168, 178, 180, 186, 200, 202
53, 55, 71, 144, 160, 180, 185
leadership, 25, 27, 30 neuroscience, 10, 13, 119, 129, 183,
learning, 5, 6, 8, 15, 23, 25, 26, 33, 192
34, 43, 46, 59, 69, 118, 128, neuro-semantics, 82
131, 138, 140, 146, 154, 161, New Code, 41, 49
186, 200, 202
levels of, 86, 88, 109 observation, 52, 58, 59, 127
learning style, 23 olfactory, 61

232 Index
outcome, 13, 22, 24, 27, 28, 29, 61, representation, 13, 27, 51, 56, 60,
89, 105, 106, 128, 152, 153, 61, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 76
154, 155, 157, 166, 173, 179, representational system, 64, 133,
184 136
well-formed, 165 representationalism, 66, 69

requisite variety
Palo Alto Mental Research Institute, the law of, 99, 102, 103
9, 18, 39, 42, 43, 60, 70, 74, 75, research, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 20, 21,
77, 78, 79, 83, 84, 86, 88, 89, 30, 48, 52, 53, 54, 62, 63, 64,
116, 155, 180, 181, 183, 186, 65, 75, 79, 90, 113, 123, 125,
194, 197, 201 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132,
perceptual position, 88, 127, 141, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139,
159, 186 140, 141, 143, 145, 159, 172,
Perls, Fritz, 9, 18, 38, 41, 42, 43, 47, 177, 181, 182, 183, 184, 186,
48, 59, 98, 99, 118, 123, 147, 188, 192, 193, 194, 195, 201,
151, 154, 155, 157, 165, 166, 202
170, 173, 179, 180, 184, 196, Rogers, Carl, 46, 147, 161
197
phobia cure, 61, 141 Santa Cruz, 9, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 45,
positive intention, 99, 102 46, 47, 49, 50, 54, 56, 74, 86,
pragmatics, 74, 75, 84, 89, 116, 177 87, 88, 131, 180, 182, 197, 200,
predicates, 57, 62, 133, 135, 136, 201
186 Satir, Virginia, 9, 14, 18, 38, 41, 43,
presuppositions, 10, 18, 54, 55, 82, 45, 47, 53, 59, 74, 83, 98, 99,
92, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 108, 121, 123, 148, 151,
102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 156, 157, 159, 166, 168, 179,
109, 110, 114, 149, 150, 153, 180, 184, 196, 197, 199, 201
158, 170, 178, 180 self-help, 12, 39, 162, 164, 165, 174,
Professional Guild of NLP, 22, 158, 178, 180
188 self-improvement, 39, 127, 163, 164
programme, 95, 106, 146, 147, 167, selling, 27, 28, 29, 144, 178
193 sense-making, 24, 55, 76
pseudoscience, 4, 5, 10, 113, 124, sensory mode, 41, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63,
125, 128, 171, 177, 183 64, 65, 69, 133, 135, 136
psychophenomenology, 63, 186, sensory system, 57, 63
192, 195 social movement, 5, 39
psychotherapy, 3, 7, 23, 80, 89, 101, Solution-Focused Therapy, 49, 130,
125, 130, 140, 141, 150, 155, 192
166, 178, 188 spelling strategy, 16, 17
Pucelik, Frank, 6, 20, 47, 48, 49, 50, Spitzer, Robert, 9, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45,
53, 146, 147, 169 48, 59, 70, 74, 180, 197
state, 31, 34, 88, 166, 167, 184, 186
rapport, 28, 58, 129, 133, 145, 146, structure, 11, 12, 15, 16, 31, 48, 53,
147 80, 82, 88, 114, 123, 165, 166,
recursion, 95, 104 167, 180, 189, 198, 200
reframing, 27, 34, 74, 76, 81, 82, 83, deep, 50, 51, 54
84, 153, 186 surface, 50, 51, 54

Index 233
subjective experience, 12, 16, 198 178, 181, 185, 188, 189, 191,
sub-modalities, 63, 64, 69 195, 198, 199, 200, 201,
202
technology, 19, 20, 26, 106, 156, transderivational search, 72
178, 190, 199 transformational grammar, 48, 54

theology, 23, 120, 174, 185
theory, 5, 6, 10, 16, 18, 23, 27, 34, unconscious, 6, 17, 31, 41, 61, 66,
41, 54, 55, 74, 75, 79, 81, 84, 72, 83, 84, 88, 100, 106, 107,
86, 89, 97, 98, 105, 110, 113, 108, 144, 148, 149, 153, 155,
114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 161, 167, 184
122, 123, 124, 128, 130, 136,
169, 177, 182, 183, 192, 199, visual, 18, 28, 29, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62,
202 63, 64, 65, 68, 135
thermostat, 93, 94, 100, 101, 104, visualisation, 16, 61, 137
110, 183 Von Foerster, Heinz, 67, 76, 90, 91,
TOTE, 44, 104, 105, 197 92, 94, 95, 108, 183
training, 6, 7, 8, 11, 19, 21, 22, 25, Von Neumann, John, 90
26, 30, 34, 42, 43, 44, 46, 50,
58, 64, 98, 125, 128, 130, 132, Watzlawick, Paul, 74, 76, 77, 80, 83,
133, 134, 138, 154, 157, 158, 200
160, 164, 168, 171, 172, 173, Wiener, Norbert, 90, 91, 92, 93

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10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

Chapter 2 What is NLP? The ‘Six Faces’ of the Field 12

Chapter 3 Organisational Applications of NLP 25

Chapter 5 Discovering the Language of Change 46

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

Chapter 8 Gregory Bateson and Cybernetics 85

Chapter 9 The Presuppositions of NLP 97

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

Part III 111

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

Chapter 11 What Does Research Say About NLP? 129

Chapter 12 NLP and Ethics – Outcome, Ecology and Integrity 144

Chapter 13 NLP as a Movement – Values and Discourse 161

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

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Chapter 15 Quo Vadis? 188

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

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10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

Mary Catherine Bateson; Tony Clarkson; Judith DeLozier; Christina

To Richard Bandler and John Grinder – without your efforts we would

Suzanne Henwood, Richard Churches, Karen Moxom, Judith Lowe,

The University of Surrey and the Higher Education Academy have

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

What are the aims of this book?

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

• What is it based on?

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

By addressing these questions we examine the contemporary issues

Overall we develop a view of NLP as an emergent, practical, and

• NLP offers a highly pragmatic and accessible approach to com-

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

• Contrary to what many NLP practitioners espouse, NLP is based

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

There are a number of things this book does not attempt:

• It is not an introductory text. There are many books available

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

• It is neither a polemic against NLP, nor a defence. We seek to be

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of California-CDL - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-19

Our own field of research is people development in business and

• Human resource development (HRD) professionals, including con-

What is our stance, and what qualifies us to write this

Who are we to offer these views?

We are academics who have extensive training in and experience of

10.1057/9780230248311 - Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Paul Tosey and Jane Mathison

learning and human resource development (HRD), as teachers and

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