The amazing Milton Erickson (hypnosis)

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to do a thread on the late great Milton H. Erickson, of course there is lots written about him on the 'net and you can do google and wiki searches to learn more, and there are some videos on youtube which show him working.

The book I enjoyed reading the most was by Henry Rosen and is called 'My voice will go with you' which is a collection of stories that show how Milton worked in the field of hypnosis. www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276016533&sr=8-1

So if anyone wants to share stories about meditation, auto-suggestion and the role of the subconscious, just leave a reply...

Peace

Just thought I would add a little to this:

MILTON ERICKSON ON FREUD AND FREUDIAN PSYCHOANALYSIS: JEFFREY ZEIG: A TEACHING SEMINAR WITH MILTON ERICKSON: BRUNNER/MAZEL: NY: 1980: You see, I don't believe in Freudian psychoanalysis. Freud did contribute a lot of good ideas to psychiatry and psychology. A lot of ideas that psychiatrists and psychologists should have found out for themselves and not waited for Freud to tell them. And he also invented that religion called "psychoanalysis"-wherein that religion or therapy fits all people, of both sexes, at all ages, in all cultures, in all situations. And situations where Freud himself didn't know what those situations were.

Psychoanalysis fits all problems in all times. Freud analyzed Moses. And I am willing to bet anything that Freud never had any contact of any sort with Moses. He didn't even know what Moses looked like, yet Freud analyzed him. And life in the time of Moses was far different from life in the time of Freud. And Freud analyzed Edgar Allen Poe from his writings, his letters and newspaper stories. I think any doctor who tries to diagnose appendicitis from an author's stories and his letters to his friends and newspaper stories about him ought to be committed. (Erickson laughs.) Yet Freud analyzed Edgar Allen Poe on gossip, hearsay and Poe's writings. He didn't know a thing about the man. And Freudian disciples have analyzed Alice in Wonderland. And Alice in Wonderland is entirely fictional. The analysts analyzed it, though. And in Freudian psychology, whether you are an only child or one of 11, the only child has as many sibling rivalries as a child with 10 brothers and sisters. There is the father fixation and the mother fixation, even if the child never knows who his father was. There is always an oral fixation, anal fixation, Oedipus complex, Electra complex. The mere truth doesn't really mean anything. It's a religion. And I am very grateful to Freud for the concepts he contributed to psychiatry and psychology.

and

Milton Erickson was once visited by a psychiatrist who complained that several other therapists had tried and failed to cure his ailments. He asked Erickson to treat him, but only as "a fellow psychiatrist, with none of that funny hypnosis stuff." Though Erickson agreed, he had other plans: Erickson met his client's gaze with unwavering eyes. "Now," he declared in his hypnotic southwestern drawl, "it is fine for you not to want to undergo hypnosis and I will treat you as a psychiatrist, but for now please kindly fix your eyes on that clock on the wall over there..."

Sure enough, Erickson's masterful technique (combined with the patient's fragile state and suggestibility) soon lulled the man into a deep trance. Moreover, according to legend, the clock on the wall was merely a figment of Erikson's imagination.

We all know more than we think we know, don't ya know.

reply to post by yyyyyyyyyy


Just to add www.scribd.com...

A long document, its lots of articles about hypnosis and especially interesting is the auto-hypnotic experiences article which starts on page 98.

To the MODS, I think this is a free article cause its on Scribd but if not please remove.

Peace

I ve always been a fan of Milton H. Erikson. He was a fascinating guy; sometimes I wonder why the mainstream doesnt pick up on him more. He is to psychiatry what Tesla was to physics. My Voice will go with You is a great book, a great read. I have the collected papers of Milton H. Erikson. My favorite story was about the time that he had three patients, all with a Christ complex, and in order to treat them, he sat them all down together. Too funny. Or the patient who didnt believe he had intestines or some such - he just locked the door to the bathroom. He once hypnotized Aldous Huxley. I know that the NLP movement is largely based on principles derived from his work (Bandler and Grinder) but I sometimes have my doubts about NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming).

reply to post by liquidself


Yosh! Great points, I've been thinking the same myself recently, I can only guess that because Milton actually had some answers then the MSM must ignore him in favor of just printing rubbish articles that have no intelligence, I understand the transfer of LeBron James was a big story, but not how the human body can produce its own natural anesthesia, so much so that people (well women) give birth using hypnosis for pain control.

I've written about hypnosis but it seems there is little interest in the subject, even though it explains astral dreaming/lucid/ Out of body experiences, past live regression and Reiki in a most satisfactory way. People here think they have invented the wheel.

The story of the guy who didn't have a belly is awesome, Milton got a cook to prepare a huge amount of food and presented it to the patient and said you can't have any, well after a while the guy starts drooling and wants to eat - even though he claimed he didn't have a belly.

there's a really good book by Melvin Powers which is free on the net, its on gutenburg and manybooks.com and also an audio version

www.archive.org...

Peace out and don't think about being the most happy you have ever been

PS in regards to NLP, its basically waking hypnosis and really works and is very good for people who have a block against hypnosis, the thing with NLP is someone has to (or you yourself) explain how the pattern works and its best if you do a whole set of different patterns to get a good idea and most of the books are not explained well.
Swish patterns, reframing and sub-modality changing are helpful but I am not an expert boy-howdy.

There was another excellent communicator mentioned I believe by Bandler and Grinder - Virginia Wolf. She seemed to use Eriksonian - like techniques. I ve always wanted to find out more about her. Also Fritz Perls (Gestalt) - sometimes he seems to be something of an Esalen type Erikson. These people got results. I have a feeling at times that 'hypnosis' might be the wrong word for what is done, it does cover the area but at the same time you get these Raveen (entertainment hypnosis) type associations - I guess thats why NLP came up with NLP. It always got me how you could read an Erikson case, understand why it worked, but not be able to explain why it worked. I ve never really tried any of this work consistently myself (consciously lol) but I always notice a reframe - its amazing how well a given person might do it but not be aware that they have this skillset. Consciously trying to do reframes on the fly is almost impossible for me. I dont know what swish or sub-modalities are. I did put a friend into a trance, once, just once, deliberately, and got so scared that i ve never done it again (though they were fine and even refreshed at the end).

reply to post by liquidself


Thanks for the reply 'consciously trying to do reframes on the fly is almost impossible for me' shows that it is possible, maybe its just a skill you just need to work on, you did say its possible! Reframes work well on others in real-time and for myself they work well when thinking of the past. There are youtube videos of Virginia Satir, she was one of the models for NLP, she seems really interesting but I don't know enough about her to comment

'I dont know what swish or sub-modalities are' sub-modalities, image in your minds eye an apple, make the apple big, make it small, make it red, green, polka dots, give it a mouth, make it sing Thriller, make the apple spin around, that is basically sub-modalities, the classic example is say someone suffered some trauma, have them image themselves in a cinema seeing the event on the screen, or even better, see themselves seeing themselves at the cinema, then let them watch the event but add silly clown music over the top and make it all black and white and out of focus. It should be that the emotional impact is reduced, say on a scale of 1-10 the event was a 10 and after this its a 9, well that is some improvement straight away.

The Swish is well covered on youtube, it's a really flexible exercise and if I give an example it will do the technique some injustice because you tend (well I do) to focus on the example - but here goes, look at you hand, imagine when you've been really happy, look at you hand, imagine being really happy, remember where you were, what clothes, what smells, use your sub-modalities, look at you hand, make an association with your hand and happiness. Test by looking at your hand and see if your physiology changes, ie a smile, relaxed eyes, mental calmness, if it does not work you might need to set up stronger associations. it's really about setting up new mental pathways in the brain - there are no limits to how you set up a swish, now everytime you see your hand, your brain can respond with happiness or whatever emotion you want.

As for putting a friend in a trance, I put myself in a trance daily now, I want to develop a full hypnotic state by myself but its not easy. If you put yourself in a trance its much easier to understand how others are going to experience it. When you recognize the signs its easy to notice when others are going into a trance, just watch others watching TV or reading a book to get a feel - so much of it has to do with physiology. I saw a diagram of the human body and how it responds to fear, well trance is basically the opposite of that.

Peace out now and forever

Only one more thing, I little NLP, if you have a negative belief about something 'I'm not good at X' just add yet or at the moment to it ' I'm not good at making really interesting ATS threads AT THE MOMENT but I can be in the future