Richard Wayne Bandler (born 1950) is an American writer, consultant, and public speaker in the field of self-help.
[1] With John Grinder, he founded the neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) approach to psychotherapy in the 1970s, which is considered pseudoscience.
[2][3][4] Richard Wayne Bandler was born in Teaneck, New Jersey and attended high school in Sunnyvale, California.
[citation needed] Bandler and Grinder claim to have later codified some of the foundational models for neuro-linguistic programming in part by studying the methods of Milton Erickson and Virginia Satir.
[9][non-primary source needed] 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.