John Grinder (1940) is an author, linguist and co-inventor (with Richard Bandler) of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).
He received a classical education at a Jesuit school.
John Grinder graduated from the psychology department of the University of San Francisco in the early 60s and enlisted in the US Army. He served in South America and Africa as a regimental translator, spoke several foreign languages: Italian, German, the language of the inhabitants of Samoa. Once, during one of the military operations, he ended up in an African village, where he surprisingly quickly learned the Swahili language. John began by learning behavioral language and completed by mastering verbal language. In fact, at that time he was doing what later in NLP would be called «modeling». A year later, he was transferred to work in Europe (Germany), first in the special forces and then in the intelligence service.
In the late 60s, Grinder retired as a captain and returned to college to study linguistics. Soon he received his doctorate from the University of California at San Diego. Then Grinder continued his studies at Rockefeller University. There, Grinder talked quite a lot with John Miller, one of the creators of the T.O.T.E. and the author of the famous work «The Magic of the Number 7+2». While working at a college in San Francisco, he became particularly interested in the theoretical developments of the American linguist Naum Chomsky, who studied various aspects of linguistics and, in particular, syntax.
After graduating from Rockefeller University, he was invited to the position of assistant professor of linguistics at the new branch of the University of California at Santa Cruz. During his academic career, Grinder has shown particular interest in Noam Chomsky’s theory of transformational grammars, and studies the syntax of natural languages. Among his works in linguistics are two books: Introduction to Transnormal Grammars (with Suzette Elgin, Halt, Rinehard and Winston 1973) and On the Phenomenon of Deletion in English (Mounton & Co 1972), as well as numerous papers. While working in Santa Cruz, fate brings Grinder together with his future co-author of NLP, Richard Bandler.
Bandler, being a psychology student at the time, spent a lot of time recording the consultations of Fritz Perls (the founder of Gestalt therapy) and mastered his methods of work on an intuitive level. He approached Grinder to model his (Bandrel’s) skills in Gestalt Therapy. Starting with Perls, they then met such leading experts as Virginia Satir, the founder of family therapy, Milton Erickson — the strongest hypnotist, psychotherapist and psychiatrist. Grinder and Bandler modeled various cognitive behavioral patterns of these gurus. The result of this work was the book «The Structure of Magic» volume 1,2 (1975, 1976); Milton Erickson’s Patterns of Hypnotic Techniques Volume 1,2 (1975,1977) and Changing with Families (1976). These books and modeling techniques formed the basis of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
Bandler and Grinder began to lead workshops and workshops. These sessions provided an opportunity for Bandler and Grinder to practice newly observed patterns while passing on counseling skills to other participants. Several books are based on transcripts of such seminars. During this period, a creative group of students and psychotherapists formed around Grinder and Bandler, who later made an independent contribution to the development of NLP. This group includes Robert Dilts, Leslie Cameron-Bandler, Judith De Lozier, Stephen Gilligan, David Hodon.
Bandler and Grinder disbanded in 1980. Many members of this group went their own way and began to develop NLP in different directions. Printing of Bandler’s and Grinder’s books was suspended due to a dispute between them over who should own the authorship. Bandler even tried to get exclusive rights to the term NLP, but it turned out that such a phrase could not be anyone’s property. This controversy was later resolved and the founders of NLP published a joint statement, which can be found in Appendix A of Grinder and Bostick St. Clair’s Whisper in the Wind.
Influenced by Gregory Bateson’s ideas about the lack of ecology and the involvement of the subconscious in classical NLP, Grinder began to create a «new code of NLP». In collaboration with Judith DeLozier, a series of workshops were held including the «Turtles to the Bottom» workshop, the transcripts of which were published in 1986. John Grinder later founded Quantum Leap Inc. with Carmen Bostic St. Clair. They work together as culture consultants for large organizations and occasionally lead NLP workshops together. In 2001, they published Whispers in the Wind, which attempted to correct the flaws in the classical NLP approach. In this book, Grinder and Bostick St. Clair provide a clear description of the context of the discovery, the epistemology of NLP, and a framework for future research. Grinder urges the NLP community to return to the core of NLP modeling and points out the general low level of current NLP training.