The initial developments of NLP that happened in the 1970’s was followed by another wave spearheaded by Steve and Connirae Andreas in the form of a publication released by the Real People Press. The two were the first to edit Bandler and Grinder’s books entitled ‘Frogs into Princes’ and ‘Reframing and Transformations’.

Not long after, Steve and Connirae Andreas published Core Transformations, Heart of the Mind, and several other titles that are all original contributions. Their works, up to now, remain a source of ingenuity within the field.

Leslie Cameron, Robert Dilts, and David Gordon played key roles in the development of the first NLP Training Protocol, which is known as The Practitioner and Master Practitioner Trainings. Cameron was the first to specify the meta-programs of NLP, and with the help of David Gordon and Michael Lebeau they developed the Emprint Method. Robert Dilts took the responsibility of expounding the NLP approach into strategies. It was David Gordon who endeavoured in writing the use of metaphors in NLP, his work is considered a classic in the field.

Lucas Derks (Private Communications 2013) explained that clinical experimentations followed afterwards and new NLP methodologies emerged. New models were formed out of the original patterns that the first developers discovered.

The second wave opened the way for the full development of the new patterns. Sub-modalities, root patterns, and time lines are some of the important things that came into being and have since been part of the foundational elements of every NLP curriculum.

The new models derived from clinical experimentations had great impact on the application of NLP to the area of health by Tim Hallbom, Todd Epstein, Suzi Smith and Robert Dilts. The NLP application to creativity and patterns of genius were explained further by Epstein and Dilts.

More modelling projects happened and the work of therapists like Martin Orne, Ivan Nagy, Bert Hellinger, Frank Farrelly, Moshe Feldenkrais, Carl Rogers, and many others went through investigative work. The results of that investigative work continued to be a part of the existing body of the practice of NLP although those findings were often unacknowledged.

Michael Hall also made important contributions to the basic patterns of NLP when he introduced the Meta States Model. His rebranded Neuro-Semantics has become the focus of a world-wide coaching enterprise.

In 1988 Wyatt Woodsmall and Tad James came up with their publication entitled ‘Timeline Therapy and Structure of Personality’. Timelines hold a regular part in many NLP Trainings since the release of that publication. Steve and Connirae Andreas also produced timeline processes and can be read in Change Your Mind and Keep the Change.

Tony Robbins, a prominent motivational speaker and trainer in the 1980’s used NLP as his primary skill set. His bestselling book, ‘Unlimited Power’ helped popularize NLP. NLP became a mass market commodity especially to the business community. Many people sought his help and he worked for famous personalities including President Bill Clinton. Despite all efforts to rebrand and combine his work with other motivational teachings, Tony Robbins is acknowledged as the person responsible for popularizing NLP.

Other people brought NLP to the fore front. John Seymour and Joseph O’Connor for example introduced NLP to a larger psychological audience through their book called ‘Introducing NLP’. They also helped in developing NLP training materials and how NLP can be applied to an educational setting.

In the 1990’s, new models of effective therapies appeared in the scene. Penny Tompkins and James Lawley modelled the therapist David Grove. Their work, Symbolic Modeling, is considered as an extension of classic NLP.

The Social Panorama Model by Lucas Derks is another significant model that appeared. This is about the extension of sub-modalities to interpersonal relations. This model used the strategies of mainline Social Psychology to evaluate patterns in problematic and normal social thinking. Multiple people were interviewed by Derks in order for him to discover a general pattern. His procedure was different from the customary model of intensive ideographic analysis.

This investigative method used by Lucas Derks has been used to validate and extend NLP meta-programs in the work of Patrick Merlevede, Shelle Rose Charvet and Rodger Bailey. The model was also considerably extended by the MindSonar program of Jaap Hollander.

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