Hi everyone

Thanks to Mark Sherwood for the heads up on this through facebook.

Richard seems to come over really well imo, def worth a listen.

BBC iPlayer - Simon Mayo: 29/04/2009


About 1.06 mins in.

Lenny

Lenny, us outcast North Americans can't watch or listen to BBC iPlayer. If someone had a way to make an MP3, however...

BMcKenna wrote:

Lenny, us outcast North Americans can't watch or listen to BBC iPlayer. If someone had a way to make an MP3, however...

Try using a proxy.

Proxy server - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://proxy.org/cgi_proxies.shtml

Interestingly he never mentioned John Grinder when talking about the origin of NLP.

John

I don't think he ever mentions Grinder at all after the settlement in court back in 2000. And he refers to himself as THE creator of NLP on the grounds that he started out modeling Fritz Perls before the involvement of Grinder or anyone else.

Damian wrote:

I don't think he ever mentions Grinder at all after the settlement in court back in 2000. And he refers to himself as THE creator of NLP on the grounds that he started out modeling Fritz Perls before the involvement of Grinder or anyone else.

He said it was Virginia Satir.

John

z8000783 wrote:

He said it was Virginia Satir.

Sorry, i should had been more precise.

I was referring to the year he edited Perls' book The Gestalt Approach & Eye-Witness to Therapy which was in 1973 according to the inside cover. The first book he wrote together with Grinder wasn't until 1975 (The Structure of Magic Vol 1). Changing with Families was co-written with Grinder and Satir in 1976.

At the evening event, Richard mentioned that he and Grinder created the Meta Model, though he didn't mention Grinder for NLP itself.

Cheers

I haven't got a working home computer, and I'm using somebody else's, but if you're going to grind exceeding small, the sequence of events is this:

1. Richard, while still a student, got asked by Bob Spitzer, a publisher, to edit tapes of Fritz Perls for a book. Out of those tapes, he, RB, extracted the 'model' or sequences of FP's moves.

2. RB started using them on fellow students in a weekly evening "class".

3. John heard of it, and dropped into see what RB was up to (RB's version - JG had some supervisory role/ college responsibility for RB, along with some other college students - and his main concern was: would any of it "blow back" on him? Grinder's version - RB approached him at home with a request for help, 'cos he, RB, couldn't make sense of the language parts of what he had.)

4. Both RB and JG went to work on that model.

5. Then, while JG was away in Africa, Bob Spitzer asked RB to go out on the road with Virginia Satir, act as her sound man - but also come back with tapes that could be turned into a VS "working live" book.

6. Out of that RB made a model of VS's sequences and moves.

7. When JG came back from abroad, RB showed the second model to him.

8. Then, when at a barbeque organized by Bob Spitzer, both RB and JG started to explain their ideas to a neighbour of Bob Spitzer's, Gregory Bateson, and it was he, Bateson, who pointed them in the direction of Milton Erickson, who he, Bateson, knew.

9. Off they both went to Phoenix, AZ, to do a study of ME.

10. Then they jointly started to write about him, AND the other two models, in a series of five books (Structure I and II, and Patterns I and II - all four by RB and JG; Changing with Families - that one by RB, JG, and VS).

So if you wanna quibble:

RB did two lots of modeling all by himself. You need to give him credit for that. Phenomenal at the age of 22.

JG added in some of the intellectual framework, in particular, the As If frame, AND the linguistic usage of the time. You need to give him credit for that.

But JG didn't originate the linguistics, he took what other people had created and applied it to this new context, this new stuff. And when I say "applied it", I mean just what I say. Much of what became the Meta Model was already there, in the 1967 book of Virginia Satir's.

So JG - good on formalism, but low on originality. IMO.

On the other hand, RB - equally good on formalism, but high on originality (both then and now). No question about that.

On the third hand, if the "data" from these three modeling projects hadn't been turned into the formal explanation and notation of Patterns II (1977), nlp wouldn't have had the explanatory power it had then, and which power it has still. And it took BOTH mathematician RB AND linguist JG to turn the data into THAT FORM.

You can say JG did undoubtedly make a contribution. People say, "it couldn't have happened without both" - and they are right. And you can certainly give him credit for what he did put in - and he did put in something - quite a considerable something. But the question is: how much?

The question I think it's fair to ask is this: what proportion did each of the two men contribute to the over-all early model, the over-all early success?

Both RB and JG built their model of ME, and listing out the linguistics of that, using EXISTING LABELS AND CATEGORIES, was a key part in what later became known as the Milton Model. But more important is the range and kind of "mental spaces" you take hypnosis into. And in that respect, RB was then, and is now, much more adventurous. Certainly, and in my experience, by 1983, RB was far better at doing Milton than JG was (in 1983).

And since those early days, RB has got steadily better and better at doing hypnosis - in many ways, surpassing Milton. While JG - IMHO - has stayed pretty much the same as he was then. That is, doing obvious, two-trick pony stuff. Nowadays, made even more obvious by his "no content" rule.

Now, if you really want to have a bone to pick over, or a chewy slipper to pull apart, you could get past the readily-conceded "it couldn't have happened without both", and go after the much more elusive - but much more important - "What was the relative contribution each made, in those days, once you assume it wasn't a 50-50 split?"

In my opinion - which I'm entitled to - "co-creator" does not necessarily mean "co-equal creator", and "couldn't have done it without" does not mean "it was an even, 50-50 split".

And I have sufficient arguments and evidence to support my opinion - that it was 30 per cent from JG, and 70 per cent from RB.

(And I was saying that in 1983 - so no Californian court ruling can make me change my mind.)

But for those arguments, and for lists of the two men's relative contributions since ... well, them's other fish to fry, and on another day.

Eric.

PS, I was at the gig, BTW, and Richard was in great form.

I went to the event last night and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I realised that I have learned immeasurable amounts in lifes journey and I also realised that watching masters on stage... 'yep' they have done a fantastic job.

I don't claim to know what was being 'done' on stage in certain/plenty of aspects but I did think that I was addressed on a couple of occasions. Got me pondering on a few more "can they see something I cant?" What a feat with an audience of about 5/600 people... I'll have some of that...

I walked away thinking thank fuck for people like them who come on this planet and give their gift for others to use. Spend their knowledge like a person intent on going skint and share the complexity, simply of the tools of NLP.

Tracking stories elegantly and... then... made a couple of mistakes, or were they? a few mathmatical equations that didn't equate from a mathematicion? but hey, I know my coco's and well it was probably done on purpose. After the break I was hammered, beleive me I talked to two people whom i've trained with as if I didnt know them... Because...

I have a great state to enter when it comes to training... I was taught it by Someone else... He said, when he introduced modelling to 'swallow the melon whole'...

I did... and I got exactly what I wanted for the life 'I' Want...

Then I spat out the pips....

I am more receptive to the words/gestures etc that people around me offer and I utilise my filters like a musician tuning his instruments...

They put some real meat on the bone for people with hunger to eat. You can pick at the bone or take a big bite... it's your choice. One says NLP wouldn't have been created had it not been for the 'two' of them... The other says.........

Is that true?

Maybe...

There are some brilliant folk around that sometimes, like a child that sits on his daddy's shoulders... Now Daddy I can see further than you... Let them see...

All in all an experience i'll not forget... I like them... experiences. Gunna keep getting more.

Wayne

P.S Every night I tell my son a bedtime story off the bat... Tonight it was ~Freddie the frog who was really a prince...

I saw bandler last night, and he mentioned grinder once or maybe twice. Oh and on his book jacket he is billed as 'co-creator of nlp'

BMcKenna wrote:

Lenny, us outcast North Americans can't watch or listen to BBC iPlayer. If someone had a way to make an MP3, however...

I have a 26meg mp3 of the interview will try to upload it and put url up

I was there too and I have to say I lost some respect for Bandler when he sidelined John Grinder like that.

What an interesting report from our resident historian Mr Robbie. As one of the ones who've trained with both camps, Bandler/Grinder, I wish they'd spend less time squabbling and get on with their job of teaching. I sat listening the other evening and more than half Mr Bandler's stories seemed to be about positioning himself as the sole creator and making sure he gets the credit. I enjoyed his performance but was it necessary to dedicate such time to proving he's the father of the field? Why be so defensive when he'd already won people over or they wouldn't be there spending £45 for a two hour talk?

Were we at the same event?!

I listened carefully and it actually seemed to me that RB was shedding his old NLP skin and promoting himself as an individual. Remember the structure of the evening? He mentioned NLP once, right at the beginning, and then he linked straight away to a story about Timothy Leary, who did lots of interesting things throughout his life but mostly gets remembered for a few things to do with LSD. Leary's later work with computer science probably had more cultural impact than his LSD research, but he captured the public imagination for one thing and his essence got stuck there. I thought Bandler was really explicit that he didn't want that to happen to him too, and then he didn't mention NLP for the next hour and hardly at all for the rest of the evening. He mentioned the Society of NLP about two-thirds of the way through, for example, but he didn't talk about NLP as a field. He identified himself as a mathmatician, a chemist, a physicist, a hypnotist, a child of the 60s, a polarity responder... but only once did he identify himself as the person who made up NLP, and that was within a quotes pattern. If you were listening between the lines, he actually reframed his whole career from Frogs into Princes onward. He acknowledged Grinder's help with the meta model, but mostly he talked a lot about how he (Bandler) came up with the stuff he does now (stuff that Grinder doesn't do) and he used talking about it as a device to install it.

There are plenty of things you could criticise Bandler for but I really don't think it's true or fair to say he used the event to position himself as the sole creator of NLP. That squabble is old now - and Bandler, at least, has moved on.

Interesting you thought Richard was being defensive. What do you think he was being defensive against what what gave you that impression?

I personally don't remember him criticising Grinder, squabbling about Grinder, nor do I recall him being defensive. (I know you didn't say Bandler did any squabbling on Wednesday evening, but people who weren't there might have got that impression from your post.)

My recollection is he simply told lots of stories to positively promote his ideas about personal change - and made them funny too.

Yes, he only mentioned Grinder once. (And not in a critical way, by the way.) And, yes, he does speak as if he is the sole creator of NLP. You might consider that inaccurate and dislikable.

It was quite a positive, energising and entertaining promotion - it's just that it was a promotion purely of himself, his ideas and his book. (Remember, the evening was not a lecture in the development of NLP, it was a presentation about ideas in personal change in promotion of the book.)

Incidentally, as I think about it, I don't think I've every heard Bandler actually bad mouth Grinder or argue. I'm not saying he hasn't, it just hasn't happened on any of the events I've attended or any of the DVDs/CDs/tapes I've had. I have heard him credit Grinder and sometimes acknowledge their work together. What he actually does is simply not mention Grinder at times where you might have thought he would. And that's what happened on Wednesday night.

Now, I'm not saying it was right or wrong to only promote himself. And I'm definitely not saying you were right or wrong to like it or not. I'm simply saying, let's not give the folks a false impression about what happened on Wednesday evening.

Cheers

A friend who knows I am into NLP and who fancies himself as a rationalist texted me about the Radio 5 appearance, then commented that 'He started off well then got a bit blustery when challenged. And said some silly things about Einstein.'

I listened to the piece, and found zero reference to Einstein, and no bluster. Perhaps 'bluster' is my friend's way of describing his sense of how Bandler reacted to questions -- well, fine, but it's one I don't share. Bluster to me has implications of defensiveness and a slight air of the ridiculous, where I heard an intelligent and articulate man being interviewed by someone interested in what he had to say.

Similarly, at the live event on Wednesday, Bandler seemed to me to be in abundantly good spirits, and if he was reinventing NLP history it was done in such a way that it made things straightforward to comprehend. Which is fine by me. If you want to get into the nitty gritty you can, but for an audience of first timers is there really need to go into minute detail when there are so many more things to do?

Interesting that those who are fans of such forensic dissection find reason to fault Bandler for the presentation, clearly valuing their own models of what might have happened in the past over what was happening right there in front of them.

As he and John Grinder developed these ideas together, the decent thing would be to credit him too. I don't care if he calls it a new name now, it's still joint work. Grinder credits Bandler but Bandler doesn't credit Grinder.

Which particular ideas did he develop with Grinder? There's oodles of NLP that owes nothing to Grinder.

It was established in court THEY CREATED NLP TOGETHER

I think it's a mistake is to think of NLP as one set of ideas. Bandler and Grinder each had their own ideas before they teamed up, and they both continued to develop their own ideas afterwards. Grinder developed New Code NLP for example (with Carmen Bostic St Clair), and he doesn't (and shouldn't) attribute that work to Bandler. Grinder gives Bandler credit for the things they did together and not for the things he did without Bandler. Same vice versa. Bandler (with others) developed submodalities after he stopped working with Grinder, for example, and he created many of the techniques after that time too. Since Grinder wasn't involved with those things, Bandler doesn't credit him for those things. Where he considers they did work together (e.g. the Meta Model), he does credit him. Where not, not. That makes logical sense. Richard could be much more generous about crediting lots of people's contributions - but Richard is as Richard is, and John Grinder probably gets a fairer deal than many of Richard's later collaborators. Hogging the credit is one of Richard's less attractive qualities, but if you don't think the good points outshine the bad, why go see him?