By: Milton H. Erickson, edited by Ernest L. Rossi, Irvington Publishers, Inc., 1980

Reviewed by: Avner Eisenberg

When a used set of the Collected Papers of Milton H. Erickson became available, I bought them thinking they’d be full of dense scholarly medical papers. Perhaps not easily readable, I reasoned they’d be useful for research some day. I couldn’t have been more wrong! I read volume I straight through and can’t wait to start volume II.

To reach for a comparison, if the literature on NLP is a finely carved ice swan, then The Collected Papers is the well from which the water was drawn to make the ice. One is reminded over and over that NLP is largely based on Erickson’s ideas and practices, and many of the presuppositions and concepts of NLP are hidden in Erickson’s clear and friendly prose.

For example, in an interview with the editor, Erickson lays the ground-work for matching predicates.

"…I’m a visual type, so I use visual memories. [Erickson goes on to explain how he first explores a patient’s early memories to determine whether they are predominantly visual or auditory. He then utilizes these predispositions in later trance work. One patient, for example, was able to distract himself from pain by focusing on the memories of the sound of crickets, which he enjoyed in his childhood." (p. 124)

In another passage he explains the use of sub-modalities in hypnotic anesthesia. “You can also experiment with altering your sensations and perceptions: warmth, cold, color, sounds, etc.” (p.126)

Elsewhere Erickson explains the use of minimal sensory cues, pantomime techniques, respiratory rhythms, and ”my-friend-John” stories.

Volume I, begins with a lengthy discussion of Erickson’s early experiments investigating the nature of hypnosis and establishing the difference between hypnotic and non-hypnotic realities. Though this section is a little long, it gives a clear view of the thoroughness with which Erickson approached the study of hypnosis. There are telling passages that record Erickson’s problems with the methodology and conclusions of Clark Hull, who first introduced Erickson to hypnosis. We see how Erickson carved out his own territory in hypnosis from the beginning o his career.

His thoroughness is illustrated again as Erickson describes his process for developing suggestions.

“In working out various hypnotic approaches, I’ve written them down in detail so that I could understand the actual meaning of the statement that I made. You can rearrange the wording to see the advantage of placing one phrase or one clause first and the other one, second. Years ago I’d write out about 40 pages of suggestions that I would condense down to 20 pages and then down to 10. Then I’d carefully reformulate and make good use of every word and phrase so I’d finally condense it down to about five pages. Everyone who is serious about learning suggestion needs to go through that process to become truly aware of just what they are really saying.” (p. 489)

The following chapters develop Erickson’s groundbreaking work in naturalistic, utilization, and confusion techniques. Also included is an illustrative transcript of Erickson conducting and induction with comments by Erickson, Jay Haley, and John Weakland.

A chapter is devoted to a hypnotic technique for resistant patients complete with discussion of the rationale, case histories, and another annotated transcript of the technique in action. There is also a thorough discussion of arm levitation and other hypnotic phenomena such as amnesia and catalepsy, and their importance in effective trance work.

This seminal volume ends with several papers on the possible dangers of hypnosis. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in practicing Ericksonian hypnosis and NLP. We see clearly the roots of NLP in Erickson’s own words.

To purchase the delux edition of the Collected papers of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. click the following link:

http://www.erickson-foundation.org/collectedworks/