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• Interview with John Grinder
• By John Grinder

Interview with John Grinder

Questions from Landsiedel NLP Training

1. How will NLP develope in the next few years?
2. What role did Gregory Bateson play in the creation of NLP?
3. What is it, that you are most proud of in your life, in terms of your past or present occupations?
4. What skillset would you like to model next?
5. Can you name a modeling project, that was really valuable for you? And why?
6. What opinion do you have about Tony Robbin´s lifework?
7. What is „new“ about the NewCode?
8. What is it you love most about NLP?
9. What do you think is needed, to spread the word about NLP even more and maybe pave the way to an application in schools or kindergartens?
10. Do you have a role model, a personal hero, and what is so special about that person?
11. From today´s perspective, would you still use the name „NLP“? Or would you give it another name retrospectively?
12. In terms of „creation of NLP“. What would you have done differntly back then if you had the experience you have today.
13. There was the question from one user: Can you imagine to conciliate again with Richard Bandler?

Question 1:
How will NLP develope in the next few years?

John Grinder:

The answer to your question lies in the future. Clearly, we are not prophets. And, in fact, NLP, is now in the hands of the people who practice it. They (presumably including you, the questioner) will be the people who decide how it will develop.

If, on the other hand, you ask us how we would like to see NLP develop, We can offer some comment which you may find useful. First of all - to ensure that we are talking about the same world, we offer a couple of simple but, to us, essential comments.

1. NLP is a process based set of patterns. The key distinction here is between process and content. Anyone who claims to be using NLP patterning is using process patterning and is actively refusing to engage the client at the level of content during the encounter to create change.
2. There are only two justifications for the application of NLP patterning Classic or New Code:
   
   A. to create choices in those contexts in the client"s life (including self-application) where the client lacks choice
   
   B. to create quality in the experiences that they refer to as their lives
   
   Our impression is that very few people purporting to practice NLP patterning are effective in consistently making this distinction - the process/content distinction. Without a fine appreciation of this distinction and the ability to make this distinction on the fly, it is highly unlikely that a person can do effective, ethical work with NLP patterning.
3. The second distinction that differentiates NLP from other approaches to the art of change work is the sourcing of the patterns. A number of people acting as if they are presenting NLP, perhaps most prominently, Dilts have consistently misrepresented the key distinction of NLP modeling. In Whispering in the Wind (Bostic and Grinder 2001), we offered a simple five step process identifying the phases of NLP Modeling. While on his own website, Dilts apparently accepts the distinction we propose between NLP Modeling and Analytic Modeling, he continues to presents his Analytic Modeling as NLP modeling in his public work. These are profoundly distinct activities.
   
   

Analytic Modeling is a left-brained, conscious mind activity that has little to do with NLP Modeling. It is based, not on the ability to replicate the activities of the geniuses who have inspired NLP patterning, but rather a game of imposing language forms on the behavior of these geniuses. We would have thought that the consistent failure of Analytic based Modeling to create actors who are able to replicate the behavior of the geniuses modeled would offer adequate evidence of its inappropriate application to the capturing of the patterning of geniuses - enough at any rate to allow interested parties to note and appreciate this distinction. But, indeed, Dilts and others continued to babble on without respecting the distinction, confounding the good intentions of people interested in what NLP has to offer.

There is a competency that is essential to participate successfully in NLP Modeling - the ability to choose and sustain a know-nothing state which allows the unconscious assimilation of the patterning of excellence without the filtering of effects of previous knowledge bases. This seems to be a choice well beyond the reach of most "certified" practitioners of NLP. The consequences apparently are a retreat to a known, conscious, left-brain based activity - one common to University-based experiences, the Analytic Modeling approach.

Clearly, there are excellent applications for Analytic Based Modeling; contexts in which an Analytic Based approach offers useful consequences. Unfortunately for NLP practitioners, actual or ones simply with paper certificates, Analytic based modeling plays nearly no part in discovering and coding of patterns of geniuses.

We take this time to present the two key distinctions that differentiate NLP from other approaches to both the discovery and coding of patterning of geniuses and to the application congruent effective and ecological application of NLP patterning. So, given these two key distinctions that distinguish NLP from other approaches, we can now turn our attention to the question as to how we would like to see NLP develop, the direction we would like to see is a deepening of the appreciation of the underlying processes that are so essential to effective NLP practice.

Let's take a simple example. One of the essential and highly useful patterns modeled and coded early in the history of NLP is the set mirroring strategies. This set of patterns (direct mirroring, lateralized mirroring, cross-over mirroring, re-positioning,...) has as its intention the creation of a rapid and deep rapport between the client(s) and the agent of change - such a relationship is an essential element in change work.

It was clear enough to Pucelik, Bandler and myself from the modeling of Satir, among others, that there was something of a bio-feedback loop being established and exploited between the client and the agent of change. If the agent of change arranges their own postures, gestures, voice rhythms, breathing patterns,... to match or to have some systematic relationship with the those of the client, within a very short period of time, the client will come to act as if there is a deep relationship of rapport between the two of them. If the voice and body sensations of the client are matched (or are in some systematic relationship with those of the agent of change), a bio-feedback loop is established by which the client sees in the agent of change precisely those arrangements of the non-verbal components (breathing, movements, voice qualities,...) that they are experiencing directly through their own voice and body sensations. And rapport is established!

It was crystal clear to us through trial and error investigations that this set of mirroring strategies were highly effective in establishing a rapport relationship. We had also worked out that there was an bio-feedback loop involved and that was about it at the time (the early 70's of the last century). A couple of decades plus after we had modeled, coded and tested these mirroring strategies in multiple contexts, a special set of neurons were discovered by researchers, both in chimpanzees and in humans. The researchers named these special sets of neurons mirror neurons - a perfect fit with the original label we had used to refer to them when we coded them for rapport purposes.

My (John) point here is simple enough - we were successful at modeling, coding and testing these patterns (the mirroring strategies) WITHOUT any access to the underlying neurological processes that are apparently responsible for these remarkable consequences.

Through the direct NLP modeling of these patterns, and WITHOUT any deeper knowledge of the underlying neurological processes (the mirror neurons - we had no explicit, conscious or linguistic information about these apparent underlying supporting neurological circuitry), we succeeded in modeling the essential elements of the patterning, tested then contextually, demonstrated their effectiveness and successfully coded them for diffusion to agents of change and influence. However, some decades later, a remarkable break-through in neurology offered us at least a partial explanation for what we had already accomplished. There are two points here of importance:

1. through direct NLP modeling, it is possible to identify and code highly effective patterning without access to the underlying neurological processes involved - that is, without explicit, linguistic, conscious knowledge of the mechanisms involved.
2. once the underlying neurological processes are discovered, such knowledge permits us to explore deeper the use and application of the patterning. For example, this work has led to the discovery of auditory mirror neurons that perform quite similarly to the visual mirror neurons and can be exploited in language acquisition among other domains.

Perhaps a metaphor will serve to make the point here: expert trackers can, from an examination of the track, the scat,... and other behavioral indicators not only identify the animal involved but much about the state of the animal who has passed - its state: hunger, fear, panic, pursuit, ....

Calibration is the mother of all NLP skill sets - without the ability to consistently make fine distinctions in the visual, auditory, kinesthetic,... systems, it is not possible to appreciate the state that the client is in and therefore, impossible to know what patterning would serve to move the client closer to the choices and quality in experience that s/he is seeking. The analogy is a blind pilot - as a private pilot (VFR), few things occur to me as more unsettling than being in the air with an aircraft piloted by a blind pilot.

So, what we hope to see in the decades to come with respect to the development of NLP patterning is a deepening investigation into the underlying bio-chemical,, physiological and neurological processes that are presently the focus of the calibration work that we do as agents of change. We hope to find practitioners who educate themselves deeply about the physiology, neurology and bio-chemical processes so as to appreciate what lies behind those calibration points that we presently use to determine the state of the client and therefore which additional patterning would be useful in moving us to the destination that is the target for the clients we work with.

Question 2:
What role did Gregory Bateson play in the creation of NLP?

John Grinder:

Gregory Bateson was an inspiration to many of the people who participated in the intial events that led to the creation and development of NLP. in particular, he explored the complexities of the relationship between conscious and unconscious processes, or if you prefer, between the left and right hemisphere, the so-called dominant and non-dominant hemispheres. While Bateson did not officially participate in the creation of NLP, it is quite clear that he had a profound influence on many of the original people associated with its creation and development. I (John) had the good fortune to be a professor at Kresge College, University of California, Santa Cruz at the same time that Gregory was a professor on staff there.

In Bateson's introduction to the first in the series of NLP books - The Structure of Magic (volume I) - he offers a strong positive statement concerning his impression of the original patterning of NLP:

It is a strange pleasure to write an introduction for this book because John Grinder and Richard Bandler have done something similar to what my colleagues and I attempted fifteen years ago.

The task was easy to define: to create the beginnings of an appropriate theoretical base for the describing of human interaction........

Grinder and Bandler have confronted the problems which we confronted then and this series is the result. They have tools which we did not have - or did not see how to use. They have succeeded in making linguistics into the base for theory and simultaneously into a tool for therapy. This gives them a double control over the psychiatric phenomena, and they have done something, which as I see it today , we were foolish to miss.

........

In this first volume, Grinder and Bandler have succeeded in making explicit the syntax of how people avoid change and, therefore, how to assist them in changing.

.....

We did not see that these various ways of coding - visual, auditory, etc... are so far apart, so mutually different even in neurophysiological representation, that no material in one mode can ever be of the same logical type as any material in any other mode. ......

This discovery seems obvious when the argument starts from linguistics, as in the first volume of the present series, instead of starting from culture contrast and psychosis as we did.

But, indeed, much that was so difficult to say in 1955 is strikingly easier to say in 1975

May it be heard

Gregory Bateson
Kresge College, University of California, Santa Cruz

On a more personal note, Gregory was a most gracious man; patient, thoughtful and always (yes, always - universal quantifier intended) interested in exploring another way to work an issue, to find an alternative perception or another approach to the many reoccurring puzzles and challenges we found intriguing in our conversations. He was a most delightful mentor.

Readers who are interested in the style and relationship among Bateson, Bandler and myself may find pleasure in the narrative of a meeting among the three of us (Bateson, Bandler and myself) on pages 173 through 178, Whispering in the Wind.(by Carmen Bostic St. Clair and John Grinder, 2001).

Question 3:
What is it, that you are most proud of in your life, in terms of your past or present occupations?

John Grinder:

Pride is not something that I (John) have cultivated in my life: arrogance, perhaps, but not pride - and thus, I find it difficult to respond to your question. I take it that your intention for asking this particular question is to have my perception about what I would pick as the most valuable or possibly personally satisfying accomplishments in my life.

Well, given that distinction, I now have an impossible question to answer: is it the time I saved the life of a young girl buried by an avalanche in a raging snow storm in high Alps, a 5.10 lead I made on a route in Red Rocks with sketchy protection, the time in grammar school when I defended a school mate who was being abused physically by a gang of boys who disliked him, the refusal to accept an order given by my commanding officer while on a Special Forces mission east of the Iron Curtain to perform actions that I judged to be both unethical and inappropriate to context, the creation of NLP patterning, the raising of my two children, MIke and Kathleen, the first dance with the love of my life, a drawing I made as a young boy of a statue of a Chinese warhorse,... Or perhaps, it was a simple question that I carefully and gently asked a tired, depressed old man I met one evening on a path on the outskirts of Mombasa, a question to which he offered a blinding smile as his response that convinced me that life was worth what it was demanding. Or perhaps the sweet sound of a little girl singing a song that she heard me humming,... or perhaps,.........

I honestly find the question that I formulated impossible to answer.

Question 4:
What skillset would you like to model next?

John Grinder:

We will know it when we experience it.

Question 5:
Can you name a modeling project, that was really valuable for you? And why?

John Grinder:

There are so many - remember that NLP modeling is actually complete at the point (completion of step 3) in which the modeler can consistently replicate the actions of the model - the genius. Thus essentially the first three of the five steps in the NLP Modeling process explicated by Bostic and myself in Whispering in the Wind. Whether the NLP Modeler continue with steps 4 and 5 - the coding and testing of the effectiveness of the coding are optional steps.

Given all the above, sure, I (John) can name one - climbing frozen waterfalls.

Question 6:
What opinion do you have about Tony Robbin´s lifework?

John Grinder:

As I have told Robbins directly, I regard his "version" of what he calls NLP unethical. He runs an addiction program. He is an expert at manipulating large groups of people - a fine skill set in itself.

Unfortunately, while he succeeds, in general, in eliciting enjoyable states in the participants who attend his public gatherings, he does not offer instructions in how to make such state shifts to those participants. The consequences of this is that the participants enjoy a period of time (ranging from a few minutes, to a some hours, day or even, in some cases, months in which they enjoy the altered states induced by Robbins at the public event and then they crash; they lose the state. Thus without any instruction in how to do for themselves what Robbins has done for them, they will have to return to another public seminar for a fix, an essential part of the addiction program. This is unethical and at complete variance with the spirit of the endeavor called NLP as I intended and as I practice it.

If the above sounds harsh, it is a simple observation and an examination of the consequences of his approach - perhaps it is useful to point out that with his fire-walking work, Robbins is actually one of the few people to have recognized and actually done an piece of NLP Modeling - well done!!

Question 7:
What is „new“ about the NewCode?

John Grinder:

Strange question - one that requires a comparison between what is referred to as the Classic code of NLP and the New Code. we will select just one of these differences and point out what's new about it. There is a pattern, one that has come to be called The Healer Within. In this format, a balance is developed between conscious and unconscious processes that sets a refined standard for their relationship. The background is the following:

We start with the assumption that there is something to the notion of the wisdom of the body. We are reminded of a very old experiment - one that occurred some 75 or so years ago. In this experiment, the investigator was exploring the possibility that, given an appropriate context, an organism will be able to select those foods and nutritional material that that organism requires for health and balance.

In this particular experiment, the researcher presented a series of babies (roughly 18 months to 2 years with canisters of food (thought at the time) to contain all the elements that a healthy balanced diet would require. The infant was situated in a highchair with various containers of food sitting on the tray of the highchair. The child was encouraged to eat whatever they desired. After a set period of time, the containers were removed and weighed to determine how much of that particular foodstuff was consumed by the baby - how they estimated the weight of the food stuffs scattered about the highchair and the floor around it is still unknown.

These figures were then compared with what was thought at the time to be a balanced and healthy diet. On any single day, indeed, on any single period of 3-6 days, the relationship between what the infant consumed and the "ideal" nutritional performance was not a good match. However starting at about a week, the alignment between what the infant consumed and the ideal diet converged such that in the period around one week to 10 days, the food consumed and the ideal proportions were closely aligned.

Further, and more radically, we have come to perceive symptoms as frozen signals from the body, an attempt by the unconscious processes involved to communicate to the consciousness of the person experiencing these symptoms that there is an imbalance in the body that requires some adjustments in the life style, diet, exercise regimen,... of the person involved.

The idea is simple enough - if pain or discomfort is a warning signal that there is such an imbalance in the body with the intention of capturing the attention of conscious processes of the person having such symptoms so that some adjustment can to made to restore the appropriate balance. Note that if such a warning signal is indeed ignored or medicated such that is is no longer able to gain the attention of the person involved, such a "signal" is no longer a signal but it has achieved the status of a symptom.

In this particular pattern, the maneuver is to transform the signal from its static condition (symptom) back to a dynamic communication (a signal) so that it can be exploited as part of a negotiation method to arrange for a re-balancing and a return to health.

The new that we are pointing at here is a re-assignment, a re-balancing of the responsibilities to be carried out by this two massive entities: conscious and unconscious processes (or if you prefer, left and right hemispheres). Note that "understanding" - in so far as understanding involves a conscious experience - plays almost no role in the effective application of this pattern. At no point in the application of The Healer Within does consciousness play a part. Conscious processes are deeply involved in the sequencing of the steps in the application of the pattern and the knowledge of what the next step in the process is, but otherwise, the responsibility for the actual intervention is entirely the responsibility of the unconscious processes.

This is an example of a new relationship between conscious and unconscious processes - the only other patterns that comes anywhere close to this arrangement are variations of The 6 Step Reframe, also referred to as the Bridge pattern as it is the pattern which is the precursor to the New Code itself.

Question 8:
What is it you love most about NLP?

- the question was apparently forgotten to be answered -

Question 9:
What do you think is needed, to spread the word about NLP even more and maybe pave the way to an application in schools or kindergartens?

John Grinder:

A simple and very important question: the answer, fortunately from our point of view is equally simple: a group of teachers genuinely committed to inducing excellence through the manipulation of states in the students. We are here referring to teachers who congruently commit themselves to mapping the set of applications of the patterning of NLP into the academic context

Question 10:
Do you have a role model, a personal hero, and what is so special about that person?

John Grinder:

No, I (John) actually don't. I have met some remarkable people in my travels and adventures, but as yet, no one who I regard as worthy of serving in the role that you are asking me about.

Question 11:
Would you, from today´s perspective, still use the name „NLP“ or would you give it another name retrospectively?

John Grinder:

The name NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Patterning) is an adequate demonstration that neither Bandler or I (John) had a clue about marketing: that much is for certain. By whatever name it has, it is out there in the world making a difference. The name reminds me of Big Brother out of Orwell's 1984.

Question 12:
In terms of „creation of NLP“. What would you have done differntly back then if you had the experience from today?

John Grinder:

We don't get this question at all - had we known then what we know now, of course, we would have done nearly everything differently. What would have been the point of repeating what we already knew.

Question 13:
There was the question from one of our users: Can you imagine to conciliate again with richard bandler?

John Grinder:

I (John) can imagine a lot of things, including what you ask about. However, this response is misleading - Bandler and I chose to go our own ways, to follow different pathways and explore different parts of the world. I repeat, we did this by CHOICE.

Your choice of the verb conciliate reveals more about you than it does about Bandler and me.