Why are Richard Bandler and John Grinder not talking to each other?”
In July of 1996 Bandler filed suit against John Grinder and again in January 1997 against Grinder and numerous prominent members of the NLP community including, Carmen Bostic-St. Clair, Steve and Connirae Andreas. Bandler claimed trademark infringement, intellectual property ownership of NLP, conspiratorial tortious interference and breach of settlement agreement and permanent injunction by Grinder. On February 2000 the Superior Court found against Bandler stating that “Bandler has misrepresented to the public, through his licensing agreement and promotional materials, that he is the exclusive owner of all intellectual property rights associated with NLP, and maintains the exclusive authority to determine membership in and certification in the Society of NLP.” Sounds from the article like Bandler went through a rather difficult time in the 90s, leading to his estrangement from not just Grinder, but many other people around him.
Probably because they are two very strong personalities – too strong to co-exist in close proximity for any extended period of time.
Bandler was the most creative member of the partnership, and – if the stories are to be believed – constantly wanted to move on to explore new possibilities. Grinder, on the other hand, was the one who took the time to translate the team’s work into coherent processes which could be passed on to others. (Which is why he was approached by Bandler and Pucelik in the first place – to help them to create a model of what they had learned about Fritz Perls and his work which they could then teach to other people).
The information about the court case above is basically accurate, but that happend long after the split and was not the cause.
