CREDIT NOT GIVEN TO A CO-CREATOR

At the end of 2010, I wrote one of the Meta Reflections (#58) on Frank Pucelik (November 29, 2010). It was number 14 in the History of NLP Series. Number 15 was on Robert Spitzer. And then I stopped writing on the history. Since that time I have exchanged a few emails with Frank and with Ken Winston Caine and especially from the email exchanges with Ken did he help me understand what I now consider a very plausible reason as to why Frank Pucelik was cut out from recognition as a co-creator of NLP, that is, why credit was not given to him. It’s an interesting chapter in our history.

To set that up, a brief description of my initiate meeting with Frank. I first met Frank last November (2010) at the NLP Conference in London. At that time, I was genuinely and actually surprised to find a very friendly, affable, warm, and charming person. I say “surprised,” because those are not the words anyone uses when they meet Richard Bandler or John Grinder. In fact, Richard and John are usually experienced as the opposite— unfriendly, arrogant, smug, closed, etc. John even acknowledged such about his personality in his book on Whispering and there he defended his “arrogance.” That, however, is another story!

But not Frank. Today Frank is very friendly, warm, and someone who brings a joyfulness to the room when he enters. I didn’t know if that was something he put on for the Conference or something developed over the years, but through correspondence with Ken, I have come to think otherwise.

Ken shared with me memories and impressions of the young, pre-NLP Frank Pucelik. He knew Frank and "Judy" (Judith Delozier) when all were students at Southwestern College in San Diego in 1970-71. Frank was student body president that year. Frank and Judith transferred to University of California Santa Cruz's Kresge College which had just opened. And there Frank met Richard Bandler; that was the summer semester of 1971.

“One of the innate talents I saw in Frank — in addition to his affableness and ability to create quick, warm rapport with people — was his role as a deep listener, encourager, and connector.” (Personal correspondence with Ken Winston Caine)

So in terms of meta-programs, I’m guessing that Frank was the matcher and Richard and John the mis-matchers. (Of course they were, and are; their gift and their inability to provide leadership!) Frank was the one who connected Richard with John in the first place to create the synergy out of which came the original NLP model. When I first heard about Frank, Andrei Pligin in Moscow told me that Frank could create energy and motivation in a group. He was

good at that. But that after awhile Frank would tell the same stories and jokes and not get to the depth that they were wanting.

And indeed, when I sat in Frank’s workshop at the Conference, he was excellent in getting group rapport, creating humor, and was a clever comic in numerous ways. His content about applying NLP “state” was good, foundational but solid. And his application of NLP to drug recovery very good, but again, basic.

Ken described Frank in the following way: “I knew him as a catalytic sort of person. He connected people, inspired and encouraged and made things happen. But he didn’t take credit. He gave credit. (Like the teacher who is proud of his/her student— how the student took what was taught and accomplished something great and unique with it versus the teacher who grumbles, ‘I taught ‘em everything he knows.’”)

So here’s a theory regarding the beginning of NLP, inspired mostly by the exchange with Ken and his memory of Frank’s role and person. Frank Pucelik played a key role in that he saw the genius of what Richard was doing and helped to formulate the original group. He then connected John to Richard and by using his gifts of encouragement, was able to bring out the best in both of them and facilitate the synergy between them.

But then there were also several “personal relationships” between all of these key players which got messy. And out of that mess, Frank left. For example, long before Frank came to Santa Cruz, he was with Judith DeLozier and they had a son, Eric. Later they moved to Santa Cruz and then somehow, for some reason, Judith left Frank and got together with John.

Frank was then with Leslie Cameron and again, somehow and for some reason, Leslie left and got together with Richard. The joke Frank tells is that he prepared wives for both Richard and John (although I recall he put it in a little cruder form in his telling it to me!). The truth is probably that being the mis-matchers that they are, both Richard and John didn’t want Frank around. And Frank having the less ego-demandingness of the three just left. I’ve also heard other tales, those of Frank being threatened and that to make peace which he eventually did, he reluctantly left. But that’s, as they say, another story. I like what Ken speculated in one email: “Frank was an active participant, the gracious encourager and ‘the muse’ that made the original chemistry work.”

It took twenty-five more years, but eventually John put Frank back into the story as “the third man” in the history of NLP. He did this in his Whisperings book (2001). So here is some history updating of the story: NLP began through the collaboration of three men, two wild geniuses who were tremendous at mis-matching and seeing what everybody else couldn’t see and one incredible connector, encourager, and unifier. But because the two mis-matchers were as much victims of their gift as users of it, they were unable to welcome and value the gift that Frank Pucelik brought to the mix. And sadly for NLP, this has been perhaps the biggest downfall of the model and the field.

The field of NLP has been sadly missing the kind of integrative genius that was evident in Frank Pucelik— it has lacked the model that he provided, a person who could lead through encouraging, unifying, and inspiring. So I dedicate this entry to Frank and to his contributions and especially to his ability to inspire and connect. May it be viral in the field of NLP.