Milton H. Erickson
When I was in London in late sixties and early seventies there were many graffiti with the statement Clapton is God, meaning of course that Erick Clapton was a guitar God. In that vain if there was a single Hypnosis Titan it would have be Milton H. Erickson.
Milton Erickson is the father of modern hypnotherapy. He had an attack of poliomyelitis in 1919 and was almost totally paralyzed for several months but with his hearing and thinking unimpaired. This fact of his lack of mobility allowed him to use his mind to examine human behavior and eventually become one of the greatest hypnotherapists ever. He had, the idea of using the personal experiences and perceptions of the individual in getting the person into a trance and healed. He thought, hypnosis was most likely to be successful if the suggestions were meshed with words, symbols, and images to which the individual could best relate.
Milton Erickson used a non-directive approach to hypnotherapy. He would just tell stories and his clients would just enter into a deep trance.... Once in this altered state they listened to metaphors.... They often did not feel any different and did not imagine that they had been in a trance.... The session would come to an end..... And the client would find the problem has disappeared.... Many a time they would not even realize they had been hypnotized and at times claimed they had never had the problem...
Erickson believed we all have the all the inner resources needed to produce our own healing. He believed that problems arise when a person is not in rapport with her unconscious. Thus a person may go to an appropriate therapist and get in rapport with her unconscious and change herself as needed under the guidance of the conscious mind. According to Erickson the job of the hypnotist is just to be a guide.
Erickson believed that trance is a state of heightened suggestibility “in which learning and openness to change are most likely to occur.” He believed that the depth of the trance was not important and change was possible under any type of trance state.
Erickson stood on the line between healer and poet, scientist and bard. By use of the teaching tales Erickson communicated on many levels to different parts of the psyche. He believed that if the listener forgot a story – developed an amnesia for it – its effect could be even more potent. He would include humor (like the Zen and Sufi tales) and would include interesting facts (from medicine, psychology, anthropology). The stories are real stories (I.E. have beginning, middle, and end – plot and structure). They often build to a climax with a surprise ending which gives a feeling of relief or success.
Erickson believed that most of human life is unconsciously determined. However this does not lead an unconscious predeterminism as proposed by Freud and whereas the latter believed that the unconscious (whether the Id or Superego) was the problem, the former believed with C.G.Jung that the unconscious was the source of the solutions to our daily problems. He agreed with Rosen that one may change “most effectively and permanently when the therapist focuses on influencing his patient’s unconscious patterns,” including his frames of reference (reframing).
Erickson himself mentioned “Unconscious Learning” in one of his books: in a lecture he said this, “Your unconscious can learn without letting you know it is learning: but at the right time and in the right situation it will shove up into the conscious mind the essential knowledge”
Erickson often used paradoxical therapy where he might prescribe the symptom and use double binds to help show the patient that she had control of her behavior.
Another aspect of Ericksonian therapy drives from his belief that the resources which the client needs to effect the change he desires are already available within him. He believed that we are each perfect (in as much as we chose the best of our currently available options) and the solution to our problems lies within our unconscious and an expansion of our choices. Thus, we may help our clients grow by use of positive, optimistic “teaching tales.”
These tales may be considered as triggers which stare up the unconscious and put in motion intrapsychic forces which have effects long after the therapy session is over.
For example: In a case involving menstrual pain Erickson described how he both allowed the patient be free of the pain even after periods of time without menstruation (e.g. pregnancy) but also have the right to have the distress if needs be. He “had given her the privilege of keeping available a sort of reserve in her bank of life experiences – a reserve of menstrual distress to be used any time she wanted to use it.” As it happened six month later she had a great need to feel the distress and ended up getting a decent raise from a miserly boss.
Similarly, according to C.G.Jung the characters of fairytales are representations of the archetypes of the collective unconscious. The different characters and elements in these tales are different parts of the listeners psyche (a child may represent an inner child) and their interactions lead to inner changes leading to greater flexibility and “trance-formation.”
A parent in these stories may represent a guide, and source of love thus helping to cause change by a process of “reparenting” which is the term Erickson applied to his “method of replacing previous ‘parental’ injunctions with new ideas, which he instilled by means of posthypnotic suggestions.”
These “interventions were more likely to lead to changes that were self-reinforcing and led to further changes.” From this we get the need for expanding choice and flexibility in NLP and to trust our own and our clients inner resources.
Thus I do most of my therapeutic interventions in a trance for two reasons. First it is impossible to be in the presence of another in a trance without entering at least a light trance. Second and more importantly, I trust my unconscious mind much more than my conscious. I have come up with solutions to some of my client's issues under trance which have pleasantly surprised my conscious mind.
Another important belief of Erickson was that the client enters your office with both her conscious and unconscious mind and the unconscious will always hear everything the therapist says.
Recently it has been established that patients under anesthesia in operating theatres do register what is being said by the hospital staff at least on an unconscious level and will be effected by the suggestions given inadvertently by the doctors. Therefore it is best that the operating room personnel always talk optimistically and treat the patient respectfully.