Richard Bandler

Since the early 1980s when Grinder and Bandler stopped working together, Bandler has written Using Your Brain for a Change (1985), Magic in Action (1992) Time for a Change (1995), Persuasion Engineering (1996) (co-author John LaValle) The Adventures of Anybody (1993), and Conversations (2005) (co-author Owen Fitzpatrick). As of 2015 Richard Bandler continues to deliver seminars in NLP, NHR and DHE.

Bandler and Grinder went on to author The Structure of Magic Volume II (1976), Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson Volume II (1977) and Changing With Families (1976), the latter of which was co-authored with Virginia Satir.

While a student at University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Bandler also led a Gestalt therapy group. John Grinder, a professor at the University, said to Bandler that he could explain almost all of the questions and comments Bandler made using transformational grammar. Grinder's specialty was in linguistics. Together, they created what they called a therapist training group. The focus of this three hour weekly group was the use of language as an agent of change. Later on, they focused on the use of language to understand and use "representational systems". Their teaching and coaching of students resulted in the development of a model intended for therapy, and this model was called the Meta-Model. This was the basis for their first book, The Structure of Magic (1975).

Bandler rented accommodation to Gregory Bateson. Bateson taught at UCSC, Kresge College as did Grinder, and had moved to a community on Alba Road near the Santa Cruz mountains community of Ben Lomond. Bateson would have a profound influence on Bandler's future, introducing him and Grinder to Milton Erickson. Together Bandler, Grinder, and Erickson formed some of the foundational models for Neuro-linguistic programming. In 1975 Bandler formed his own company, Meta Publications, and released Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson Volume I (1975).

Bandler was born in Teaneck, New Jersey, where he spent the first five years of his life before moving to California and various other places where his parents shifted. After his parents separated, he moved with his mother and stayed mostly in and around San Francisco. Bandler obtained a BA degree in philosophy and psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1973, and an MA degree in psychology from Lone Mountain College in San Francisco in 1975.

Bandler helped Robert Spitzer edit The Gestalt Approach (1973) based on a manuscript by gestalt therapist Fritz Perls (who had died in 1970). He also assisted with checking transcripts for Eye Witness to Therapy (1973). According to Spitzer, "[Bandler] came out of it talking and acting like Fritz Perls."

In 1986, Corine Ann Christensen (December 8, 1954 – November 3, 1986), a former girlfriend of Bandler's friend and cocaine dealer, James Marino, was shot dead in her Santa Cruz townhouse with a .357 magnum owned by Bandler. Authorities charged Bandler with her murder. Bandler testified that he had been at Christensen's house and was unable to stop James Marino from shooting Christensen. After a short deliberation, a jury found Bandler not guilty.

Richard Wayne Bandler (born February 24, 1950) is an American author and trainer in the field of self-help. He is best known as the co-creator (with John Grinder) of the Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), a methodology to understand and change human behavior-patterns. He also developed other systems named Design Human Engineering (DHE) and Neuro Hypnotic Repatterning (NHR).