Science & invention
John Grinder
born 1940 · linguist, author, consultant
Linguist who co-created neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) with Richard Bandler in the 1970s; born in Detroit.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 86- Birth name
- John Thomas Grinder Jr.
- Field
- Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Grinder was born in Detroit in 1940; his education and career took place elsewhere, mainly in California. After studying psychology at the University of San Francisco and serving in the U.S. Army, he earned a doctorate in linguistics at the University of California, San Diego, and taught linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. There, in the early 1970s, he and the student Richard Bandler began modeling the techniques of therapists such as Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson, and out of that work came neuro-linguistic programming, set out in books such as The Structure of Magic (1975) and Frogs into Princes (1979). NLP became popular in coaching, sales and management training, although scientific reviews have found little evidence for its claims and it is widely described as a pseudoscience.
Highlights
- Co-creator of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) with Richard Bandler
- Co-author of The Structure of Magic (1975) and Frogs into Princes (1979)
- PhD in linguistics, University of California, San Diego
- Born in Detroit, 1940