John Grinder is a linguist, psychologist, writer, and NLP trainer. He is one of the creators of the method of neurolinguistic programming. Books by John Grinder - “The structure of magic”, “From frogs to princes”, “Turtles to the bottom”, “Whispers in the wind” - are one of the most popular in the field of practical psychology among readers around the world.
Early biography
John Grinder was born on January 10, 1940 in Detroit, USA. His parents, Jack and Eileen Grinder, he was the first child, and there were nine children in the family. He received a Catholic Jesuit education, culminating in a Bachelor of Psychology from the University of San Francisco. In 1962, he married Barbara Maria Diridoni, the same year he entered the US Army and was sent to Germany.
Study of linguistics
In 1967, John Grinder resigned and returned to the United States. The following year, he enters the University of California at San Diego to study linguistics. In 1970, he becomes an assistant professor. Then she begins to work at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Collaboration with Richard Bandler
In 1972, a student at the University of California, Richard Bandler, turned to John Grinder with a proposal to simulate the patterns of the founder of gestalt therapy, Fritz Perls, and then other prominent psychotherapists, the founder of family and systemic therapy Virginia Satire and the founder of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis Milton Erickson. Thus began a fruitful collaboration between Grinder and Bandler, the result of which was a lot of books and the creation of a new direction in practical psychology.
From 1975 to 1977, John Grinder and Richard Bandler wrote five books together:
- “The structure of magic” (two volumes).
- "Patterns of hypnotic techniques by Milton Erickson" (two volumes).
- “Changing with families” - the texts that formed the basis of NLP.
The book “The Structure of Magic” is an exposition of the method created by Grinder and Bandler, a description of its principles themselves. It shows how a person creates a model of the world for himself, relying on his sensory experience, how in the future this model of the world makes him behave in a certain way, and how you can work constructively with it.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming
Created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, NLP incorporates a variety of psychological and linguistic tools. The main thing for this method is the creation of a “working” model, effective practical use, which will lead to the desired result. Therefore, this direction has become the most popular in business: in sales, in training, in management and so on. This system is not based on theory, but on the analysis of the observed and direct use of effective behavior.
Modeling
The cornerstone of neuro-linguistic programming is the technique of modeling (or, otherwise, thoughtful copying). NLP aims to create features inherent in successful people by isolating and describing their verbal and non-verbal patterns. Once the key features have been identified, they can be learned by other people and put into a working model that provides practical and effective application of this information.
Anchors
One of the most popular NLP tools is the so-called anchors. According to Grinder and Bandler, any human behavior is not accidental and has certain patterns, reason and structure that can be realized. Subjective reality depends on objective factors and can be influenced - for example, with the help of "anchors" - stimuli that cause a certain reaction.
They can be positive (giving energy) and negative (taking energy). In the process of our life, various “anchors” appear automatically with us, but NLP says that you can and should work with them (for example, install them intentionally, replace one with another, more acceptable).
Founders of NLP
Developing their theory, Grinder and Bandler began to conduct practical exercises, and gradually around them a circle of like-minded people formed who contributed to the formation of NLP, and subsequently began to develop it in various directions. Among them were people such as Robert Dilts, Judith DeLozier, Leslie Cameron-Bandler, Stephen Gilligan, David Godon.
In the materials of general seminars, Grinder and Bandler in 1979 wrote the book “From Frogs to Princes”. This book is devoted to the practical use of neurolinguistic programming in psychotherapy, and talks about the work of the human consciousness and the unconscious, about the peculiarities of perceiving the world in different people.
It is aimed at improving the life strategies of a person and at gaining flexibility in him, at developing the ability to communicate - not only with others, but also with himself. Its purpose is to motivate to the maximum use of one’s internal resources and to show hidden abilities before.
Despite fruitful work, by 1980 the circle of like-minded people had disintegrated. A serious conflict arose between Bandler and Grinder over the authorship of the works and the theory itself, which led to litigation. Due to these contradictions, the printing of joint books by John Grinder and Richard Bandler was suspended. Bandler tried unsuccessfully to obtain rights to use the term NLP. Subsequently, he created his psychological direction Design Human Engineering.
