Richard Bandler - Ericksonian Hypnosis

Richard Wayne Bandler (born February 24, 1950) is an American author on modern psychological techniques. He is best known as the co-inventor (with John Grinder) of Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), a collection of concepts and techniques intended to understand and change human behavior patterns. He also developed other systems known as Design Human Engineering (DHE) and Neuro Hypnotic Repatterning (NHR). Mr Bandler is considered an important figure in the development of the modern self-improvement movement. He once was invited by the psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, to attend, record and transcribe a teaching seminar of family therapist Virginia Satir. He later helped Spitzer edit The Gestalt Approach (1973), based on a manuscript by gestalt therapist Fritz Perls, who had recently died; he also assisted with checking transcripts for Eye Witness to Therapy (1973). According to Spitzer, "[Bandler] came out of it talking and acting like Fritz Perls." While Bandler was a student at University of California, Santa Cruz he also led a Gestalt therapy group. John Grinder, who became one of his students, said to Bandler that he could explain almost all of the questions and comments Bandler made using transformational grammar, the topic in linguistics that Grinder specialized in. They developed a model for therapy and called it the meta-model. It became their first book, The Structure of Magic, Volume I (1975). Bandler was Gregory Bateson's landlord, who taught at UCSC, Kresge College as did Grinder, and had moved to a community on Alba Road near the Santa Cruz mountains community of Ben Lomond. Bateson would have a profound influence on Bandler's future, he introduced Bandler and Grinder to Milton Erickson, which formed some of the foundational models for Neuro-linguistic programming. In 1975 Bandler then formed his own publishing company, Meta Publications, and published Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson Volume I (1975). Bandler and Grinder went on to author The Structure of Magic Volume II (1976), Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson Volume II (1977) and Changing With Families (1976), which was co-authored with Virginia Satir herself. Richard Bandler is the most significant creator of the models and techniques that are now taught in NLP. For example, meta model, Milton model, anchoring, swish pattern, reframing, belief change, nesting loops, chaining states, and submodalities applications. Bandler also modeled Israeli physicist and founder of the Feldenkrais school of body work, Moshe Feldenkrais, and later published his book "The Elusive Obvious". In many of his classes, he has taught elements of this form of bodywork which he modeled. Since that time, Bandler's career has focused on developing and presenting NLP and related concepts as an author, publisher, public speaker, and consultant. Audiences include individuals seeking life improvements, and businesses using these concepts and techniques to improve sales.