RE-BRANDING RICHARD BANDLER Or, Epiphanies by Owen

If, as Richard Bandler says, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood,” then all Richard himself would need is a bit of the Change Personal History pattern and a new writer to create a new brand for himself. And if you want to read the results, try Conversations with Richard Bandler (2009). Now while you may think the book is written by Bandler because his name is boldly presented on the front cover, it is not. It is written by Owen Fitzpatrick. And it is also mostly about Owen, his “world tour” stories, his occasional talks with Richard, and his constant epiphanies! While the sub-title is: “Two NLP Masters Reveal the Secrets of Successful Living” the book is Owen’s reflective insights from his constant epiphanies.

And what do these epiphanies cover? How about everything! A short list includes freedom, choice, power, trance, success, change, goals, perspectives, humor, self-image, perfectionism, love, loneliness, friendship, spirituality, hope, problems, solutions, wealth, financial freedom, eating disorders, failure, rejection, world peace, death, lost of a loved one, intimacy, etc.

Personally I think the book is a conspiracy. I think it is Richard and Owen’s attempt to reframe Richard and create a new brand for him— to portray Richard Bandler as a loving, kind, congruent, gentle, concerned, caring, ethical, and spiritual person. Bandler, according to Owen, is “the most ethical change worker I have ever experienced” (p. 34).

Really! That’s what he says! Don’t laugh. If a person read this book without having any prior knowledge of the history of NLP or Richard Bandler and did not let that information influenced him or her, you would walk away thinking that here is a misunderstood genius, “the Einstein of the mind,” (p. 16), “the creative artist” on the order of Gandhi, saving the world from the sources of human misery.

“There’s way too much violence on TV. I don’t think we should censor it. I think we should beat it with something better.” (p. 66)

Owen presents Richard as a model of friendship (honestly and loyalty (p. 233), loving relationships (pp. 248-251), and even committed to one woman for 30 years (p. 249). Here Richard says, “I don’t put up with self-indulgence. I don’t put up with it in myself, and I don’t put up with it in my clients.” (p. 149). Now get that smirk off your face. Pretend that you don’t know any Bandler history, then you’d be impressed, really impressed! Of course, some of us know that history. Later he brings up the subject of gurus and writes a chapter about gurus. So when he asked Richard about gurus, Richard said: “Gurus have followers. People have said to me, ‘Are you a guru?’ I’m not, because I’m not that social.” (p. 284). “I ‘m not sociable enough to be a guru. I don’t want people

following me. I don’t mind if the visit me from time to time...” (296)

But then Owen ended the book with words that seem to treat Richard as a guru, even calling him “Dr.” when Richard never earned a doctorate, but only a Masters Degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Yet Owen perpetuates that misunderstanding throughout the book.

“I owe an awful lot to my friend and mentor Dr. Richard Bandler. His genius enables me to have the wisdom to make a difference. I always had heart. He has given me a mission upon which to focus that heart. There is no better person to lead us into a heaven on earth.” (339)

Leads us into a heaven on earth! Really?! So that is “NLP according to Owen!” Silly me, and I thought it was a Communication Model based on Transformational Grammar distinctions, General Semantics map/territory difference, and the language patterns of Perls and Satir. All my years in NLP and I didn’t know it was it was really about! Owen, where can I go to make amends to the guru who will lead us into a heaven on earth?

Good Stuff While I’m being a bit facetious, there are things I like about the book. This was expressed very well: “NLP should be used first to ensure that nobody could affect your emotional state in a negative way. We learned about how to control the way we interpret our experiences more usefully and respond to the world more effectively.” (p. 34)

And this is an excellent statement: “NLP focuses on helping people realize that it does not matter why they do something, it only matters how. Sigmund Freud got some things very, very wrong. Its not what happens to you; it’s how you deal with it. The cause is not the event that happened. It is the way you think about it.” (p. 40)

Hidden Meta-States And there were all of the meta-states in the book, but always unacknowledged meta-states so that neither Richard nor Owen seemed to be aware of what they were saying at the structural level: “Once we become aware [a state] of how we formulate our thoughts [about another state], we gain the ability to change them. ... the trick is to begin to be aware of how you make images when you are feeling bad and to change how you represent the images.” (p. 47-48)

Owen asked Richard, “How do you help people who feel sorry [primary state] for themselves [a meta-state about one’s ‘self’]? Richard responded: “Well, to feel sorry for yourself, you first have to ‘feel sorry,’ which is a complicated set of sensations. Then you have to know when to do it, and then you have to make a set of pictures that blame your problems on other people.” (p. 138)

When asked about what he thought about the concept of self-esteem, he said,

“Well, I think it’s just a stupid concept because it’s self-referential.” (141)

And, of course, that is to a great extent why Richard Bandler cannot acknowledge the Meta- States Model. Owen wrote this about meta-states without apparently understanding meta-states: “This whole notion of feeling bad about feeling bad causes [a meta-state structure] many people massive problems. People who suffer from problem such as panic, actually panic at the thought of panicking [a meta-state structure]. It’s the thought of the problem that feeds the problem. In other words, the biggest problem is not the original problem; it is the problem you have with the problem.” (p. 148)

Thinking about this, Owen presented this to Richard: “... [P]eople’s problems are not the problem; it is their problem about the problems. I worked with a client who was depressed because he was depressed, and yet he had the NLP skills to get himself out. How do you help people like this?” (149)

Then Richard responded by saying: “That’s just meta-stupidity. I mean, to begin with he was lying. He didn’t have the skills, because he wasn’t using them. ... they’re saying, ‘I have these skills, but I can’t use them on myself.’ Well then, they don’t really have the skills.” (p. 149)

Then later he is “if you are not using a skill, you don’t have it. You only have skills when you use them because if you are not using them, they are not there.” (151)

Really! And silly me, I thought that learning about a skill and developing it was one step, and that applying your learning to implement was another. I always thought a person could know and not do, that there could be a knowing-doing gap. Actually, that’s why I designed the Mind-to- Muscle pattern. Foolish me, I was assuming that they knew and had the skill but somehow were blocking themselves from implementing the skill.

But wait. In the next paragraph, Richard contradicts himself again.

“Sometimes, I felt that these skills where just sorting things out at the surface level, and I needed to deal with the problems more deeply. So I began to write out everything I could about a problem and what I needed to do. Once I engaged in this exercise I found myself feeling comfortable with being able to use all the skills and mantras because I had deal with it as fully as possible.”

Okay, so what is it?!! A person does not have a skill because he or she does not use it; or a person does and they just have to “write out everything” and then feel comfortable using all their skills?

Over-Simplifications One challenging aspect of the book for me was the over-simplified statements that abound in the book, over-simplified statements like these: “NLP was originally a reaction to the field of psychology which failed to present effective

ideas to help people change.” (p. 15)

Really and I thought it arose from modeling several psychologists and psychotherapists who were effective in helping people to change— like Virginia, Fritz, and Milton!

“To be free you have to be moral, because then you won’t have dilemmas about what’s good and bad.” (p. 29)

Hmmm, so that’s it! No more dilemmas! Just “be moral.” Why didn’t I think of that?! “Very few people realize the importance of attitude and beliefs in any kind of change. They think the technique is what is important.” (p. 61)

Really, that’s the problem with people who work in the field of change? They don’t “realize the importance of attitude and belief.” This is not something they ever write about, speak about, or address? That’s amazing! Someone should tell them to notice attitudes and beliefs!

Ridiculous Then there are some other things that just have to fall under the category of the ridiculous, things like forgiveness. When asked about forgiveness, Richard said: “I don’t deal with the concept of forgiveness. I don’t have to forgive people for what they do because I either forget about it because they’ve stopped and are doing other things, or I remember it so I don’t get taken again. ... I think this whole forgiveness things comes out of Christian nonsense.” (P. 239). “I think that’s wrong that I have to say, ‘I forgive you,’ so that they can feel okay when they screwed me.” (p. 240)

Hmmm, forgiveness is for people to “feel okay when they screw” you. I didn’t know that. And what about when you do the screwing? Oh, perhaps that explains why you never ask for forgiveness.

Then there is the thing about emotions “spinning” and intentionally “spinning” emotions (whatever that means). Richards says that when feelings are a problem, simply “spin the feeling” in the opposite direction and create an altered state (p. 145). (I wrote about this non-sense about spinning emotions, which comes out of DHE or Hypnotic Repatterning in the article, “Reviews of Richard Bandler’s 2008 Books.)

“You have to learn to take your good feelings and spin them around inside your body, so they don’t spin off into space.” (p. 131)

Oh my goodness! My good feelings are in danger of spinning off into space? By God we better “anchor” them down to the earth, and quick! I certainly don’t want my good feelings spinning off into space!

“When you are doing worthwhile things you should feel good, but they make up a bad feeling and start spinning it inside themselves till it becomes a habit.” (142)

Doubtful Then there are the things I really doubt very much. For example, toward the end of the book,

Richard said: “I met Fritz perls, Virginia Satir, Abraham Maslow, Moshe Feldenkrais, and the top physicists on the planet.” (288)

Well, Fritz Perls died in Jan. of 1970 and Maslow died in June of 1970. So given that Perls had moved from Esalen in June/ July of 1969 to Canada where he died. One website gives Bandler’s birth as April 1950 and another Sept. 1950. So in 1969 Richard would have been 18 or 19 when he met them. And what was he doing at 18-19 years of age? Just beginning his first years of College. And that was before Dr. Robert Spitzer of Science and Behavior Books hired him to transcribe the tapes of Perls. It was after Perl’s death that tapes of sessions were sent to Spitzer and later he hired Richard to begin transcribing them which was Richard’s first exposure to Fritz, probably 1971.

There is Richard’s claim to have been a musician. “When I was a musician.” (p. 228). Hmm. I wonder when that career was supposed to have taken place? That’s like all the stories in Persuasion Engineering when Richard spent years in his profession as a Car Salesman!

When asked about being happy, Richard responded in part: “I’ve seen people switch from having prestigious jobs where they were running corporations to become a school janitor and be happy for the first time in their lives.” (307)

Really? Like specifically who? What CEO in what company became a school janitor? I never heard about that one. Who did that specifically? When? In what company? Will one of the co- developers of the Meta-Model tell us specifically who?

Then there was Bandler on scarcity: “People ask me about the different NLP trainings out there. People need to move away from scarcity. Instead of saying we have one pie, and we can divide it up, what we really need to do is to create more pies. Everybody should really go through twenty-five practitioners.” (324)

That’s great! But, oh by the way, why is every book by Bandler, including this one, only mention his books in the bibliography and never mentions anyone else’s? Is that abundance or scarcity? It’s a little hard to swallow the stuff about abundance from a book that clainms to be the only source of pure NLP!

Anyway, if you’re looking for something new in NLP, anything new, you won’t find it in this book, well, except for the re-branding of Bandler into a Gandhi like genius leading us into a heaven on earth.