Milton H. Erickson, M.D. (1902-80) was a psychiatrist and hypnotherapist practising in Arizona, Phoenix, USA. Milton Erickson is considered the father of modern hypnotherapy and is generally acknowledged as one of the most important contributors to the field of hypnotherapy. The approach he used, now called Ericksonian hypnotherapy, is one of the fastest growing and influential branches of hypnosis today.
The Life of Milton Erickson
Erickson was born in a pioneering and rural farming family in 1902. The education that he and many of his brothers and sisters received was basic and it went unnoticed that the young Milton experienced the world in a rather unique manner: he was tone deaf, colour blind and slightly dyslexic.
Erickson was first affected by polio at the age of 19 (he was affected by it again in later years too), and had his first experience of self-hypnosis by curing his disabled body. While he was recovering Milton kept his active and keen mind occupied by playing mental games with himself. He learned to notice the difference between his family’s verbal and non-verbal communications. He noticed that sometimes people would say “no” with their mouth while their body was clearly saying “yes.”
His parents, who took care of him as best they could, fashioned a crude potty for him and left him strapped into his chair for hours. He was sitting somewhere in the middle of the room, looking longingly at the window, wishing he could be near it so that he could see what was happening outside. As he sat there, seemingly immobile, intensely wishing and imagining being outside playing, the chair began to rock slightly. This excited him greatly and he attempted to make it happen again. He gave himself direct commands: “Move legs! Rock the chair!” Nothing happened. Finally he gave up, sank back into his daydreams, and once more imagined playing outside. Again the chair began to rock! It was the indirect suggestion, that vivid imagining, that produced a response. Using this discovery, over the following two years, Milton taught himself to walk again (aided in the task by closely watching his baby sister who was only then learning to walk), and closely observed how human beings communicate and how the unconscious mind works. Thus one of the hallmarks of Ericksonian hypnotherapy was born: indirect suggestion.
What makes the Ericksonian Hypnosis approach so special (compared to other forms of hypnosis)?
Erickson said, “everyone is as unique as their own thumb print” and he believed in working with each client individually. In his practice, he tailored every intervention to a client’s individual needs and perceptual bias. He believed in the wisdom of the unconscious mind, and in the theory that people have all the resources necessary to make changes inside themselves. He believed that the job of the therapist is to help the client re-establish his/her connection with his/her inner resources and to develop a rapport between the conscious and the unconscious mind. One of Erickson’s famous quotes was that “patients are patients because they are out of rapport with their unconscious minds”.
Erickson and Storytelling
Erickson was known for his use of metaphor and storytelling, both to induce trance and for therapeutic purposes. He famously told stories about the natural world and, in particular, his stories about tomato plants are often recounted. Talking to a group of psychiatrists Erickson told the following story.
“I was returning from high school one day and a runaway horse galloped past a group of us into a farmer’s yard, looking for a drink of water. The farmer didn’t recognize it so I jumped up to the horse’s back, took hold of the reins, said “Giddy-up” and headed for the highway. I was sure the horse would take me to the right direction even though I didn’t know what the right direction was. And the horse trotted and galloped along. Now and then he would forget he was on the highway and would wander into a field. So I would pull on him a bit and call his attention to the fact that the highway was where he was supposed to be. And finally about four miles from where I had met him he turned into a farmyard”
Incidentally, Erickson would often punctuate his stories with other anecdotes and he would sometimes even tell stories within other stories. Often, Erickson didn’t use a formal trance induction. Instead he told stories that had a deeper meaning. Sometimes that meaning was clear, many times it was not (well certainly not to the person’s conscious mind). For example, a twelve-year-old boy was brought in to see Erickson about bedwetting. Erickson dismissed his parents and began talking to the boy about other topics, avoiding a direct discussion about bedwetting altogether. Upon learning that the boy played baseball and his brother football, Erickson elaborated on the fine muscle coordination it takes to play baseball, compared to the uncoordinated muscle skills used in football. The boy listened raptly as Erickson described in fine detail all the muscle adjustments his body automatically makes in order to position him underneath the ball and catch it: the glove has to be opened at just the right moment and clamped down again at just the right moment. When transferring the ball to another hand, the same kind of fine muscle control is needed.
Another of Erickson’s famous quotes was, “You can pretend anything and master it” – he really believed that people had all the resources they needed and that any problem contained within it the solution. As you’re reading this now then you you may not realise just how many possibilities there you have within you until you actually STOP………… and consider this…………………….
Meanwhile, with the boy, Erickson continued saying that when throwing the ball to the infield, if one lets go too soon, it doesn’t go where one wants it to go. Likewise letting go too late leads to an undesired outcome and consequently to frustration. Erickson explained that letting go just at the right time gets it to go where one wants it to go, and that constitutes success in baseball. Therapy with this young man consisted of four sessions that included talks about other sports, boy scouts, and muscles. But bedwetting was not discussed, and “formal hypnosis” was not conducted. The boy’s bedwetting disappeared soon thereafter.
We don’t know if Erickson told that story to the psychiatrists or whether he told other ones. Certainly, when he returned to the story about the horse he completed it, saying: and as the horse turned into the farmyard, the farmer said, “you’ve brought my horse back, where did you find him?” I said, “about four miles from here.” “How did you know he should come here?” I said, “I didn’t know, the horse knew. All I did was keep his attention on the road.” Erickson added, “I think that is how you do psychotherapy.”
Erickson’s Influence today
The hypnotic techniques and life of Milton Erickson have been well documented by a number of authors and Erickson heavily influenced John Grinder and Richard Bandler, the co-founders of NLP. Gregory Bateson is said to have suggested to Grinder and Bandler, that they visit Erickson and learn from him and after modelling Erickson they published several books to teach others the results of their modelling.
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