As an independent integrative field of knowledge, NLP has grown out of various models of practical psychology, incorporating all the best from an applied point of view.

Initially, NLP was very eclectic, but over time it acquired a powerful methodology, largely based on the epistemology of Gregory Bateson and his theory of transformations, works on the ecology of the mind, communication theory, as well as the theory of logical types of Bertrand Russell, which became the prototype of logical levels in NLP.