NLP's History
How it all Started
NLP began in the early 1970's when John Grinder a Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Richard Bandler a mathematician, began to question why it was certain individuals were consistently able to produce superb results. They set out to study and model (duplicate) this excellence.
Fritz Perls originator of Gestalt Therapy, Virginia Satir renowned Family Therapist and Milton Erickson the remarkably successful Psychiatrist and Hypnotherapist were the first people Grinder and Bandler studied. After learning what these modern day geniuses were doing naturally in the field of communication, change and therapy, Grinder and Bandler found they could achieve similar results. Gradually different language patterns, techniques and principles emerged which were then taught to others.
Modelling is at the core of NLP. For example take something you are very confident at doing, you can learn what steps you go through in your mind and body to get into that state of confidence and then apply them to any situation you'd like to be more confident in.