Milton H. Erickson

Milton Hyland Erickson, MD (December 5, 1901 – March 25 1980) was an American psychiatrist specializing in medical hypnosis. He was founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis and a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychopathological Association.

Confusion Technique

Many of Erickson's most powerful hypnotic strategies involved confusion, as a way of bypassing the conscious mind. A confused person has their conscious mind busy and occupied, and is very much inclined to draw upon unconscious learnings to make sense of things. A confused person is in a trance of their own making. Erickson claimed that almost all of his hypnotic techniques used confusion in some way.

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James Braid, who coined the term 'hypnosis' claimed that focused attention ("look into my eyes...") was essential for creating hypnotic trances, indeed, his thesis was that hypnosis was in essence a state of extreme focus. But it can be so difficult for some people, distracted as they may be by pain or angst, to focus on anything at all, that other techniques for inducing trance become important, or as Erickson puts it:

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...long and frequent use of the confusion technique has many times effected exceedingly rapid hypnotic inductions under unfavourable conditions such as acute pain of terminal malignant disease and in persons interested but hostile, aggresive, and resistant.

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