What Is Ericksonian Hypnosis & Who’s Milton Erickson?

Good question. Most people, even in the field of psychology, hear the name “Erickson” and immediately let fly, “Oh, you mean Erik?” And inevitably, I reply, “No, Milton.” They often think I’m being sarcastic. Of course, I’m not and I move quickly to try to acquaint them with thec work of this brilliant, benevolent master of communication. 

Called the “Svengali in Arizona” (TIME, October 22, 1973), his early personal life was a tapestry of tragedy and triumph. Paralyzed by polio at a young age, he went to bed with fever one evening and awoke the next morning to find he could only move his eyeballs.  With only his vision and his determination to survive and heal intact, the young Erickson committed himself to his own destiny. Utilizing his one remaining physical skill, he watched and observed everything. By focusing on his little sister (a toddler then), he committed to memory the exact motions necessary to learn to walk. By watching people’s behavior, he became acquainted with the language of the body. By keeping an even closer eye on his own inner struggle, he became conscious of his own unconscious motives and strivings so that he could heal himself and go on to help heal others.

He was a most amazing man with even more astounding skills of communication and empathy. There is one famous anecdote of his work with a chronically schizophrenic patient when he was a resident at a psychiatric hospital. The patient spoke  gibberish (called “word salad”) and most of the staff had given up on him a long time before Erickson had come on board. He tried every expectable modality of intervention. Needless to say, they didn’t work. So, one day, he decided to write down everything the patient was saying—transcribing it literally, word by word, only to pour over it later, looking for hidden patterns of communication. After extracting some semblance of a syntax from pages and pages of transcript, he took a seat near the patient and waited for him to start speaking. After the patient had said something typically unintelligible, Milton shocked the patient by responding to him in kind.  The long and short of it: the patient regained his function.