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.

Personal History

Erickson's personal history is remarkable, and he drew upon his own experiences many times to provide examples of the power of the unconscious mind. Many of these stories are collected by Sydney Rosen in the book "My Voice Will Go With You".

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Erickson grew up in Wisconsin in a modest farming family, and intended to become a farmer like his father. He was a late developer.

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A lot of people were worried because I was four years old and didn't talk, and I had a sister two years younger than me who talked. And many people got distressed because I was a four-year-old boy who couldn't talk. My mother said, comfortably, 'When the time arrives, then he will talk.'

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- My Voice Will Go With You

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He did learn, of course

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At age 17, however, he contracted polio, and was so severely paralysed that the doctors believed he would die. Lying in what was believed to be his death bed, and unable to speak, he became strongly aware of the significance of non-verbal communication - body language, tone of voice and the way that these non-verbal expressions often directly contradicted the verbal ones.

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I had polio, and I was totally paralyzed, and the inflammation was so great that I had a sensory paralysis too. I could move my eyes and my hearing was undisturbed. I got very lonesome lying in bed, unable to move anything except my eyeballs. I was quarantined on the farm with seven sisters, one brother, two parents, and a practical nurse. And how could I entertain myself? I started watching people and my environment. I soon learned that my sisters could say "no" when they meant "yes." And they could say "yes" and mean "no" at the same time. They could offer another sister an apple and hold it back. And I began studying nonverbal language and body language.

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I had a baby sister who had begun to learn to creep. I would have to learn to stand up and walk. And you can imagine the intensity with which I watched as my baby sister grew from creeping to learning how to stand up.

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- My Voice Will Go With You

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He began to recall 'body memories' of the muscular activity of his own body. By concentrating on these memories, he slowly began to regain control of parts of his body to the point where he was eventually again able to talk and use his arms. Still unable to walk, he decided to train his body further, by embarking -alone- on a lengthy canoe trip. After the trip, he was able to walk with a cane.

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A career in farming now closed to him, he decided that he could always become a doctor, which he did.

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Much later in life, in his fifties, he contracted polio for a second time, and was even more severely paralysed, but having been through the experience once before, he now had a strategy for recovering some use of his muscles.

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In the early 1950s, anthropologist Gregory Bateson involved Erickson as a consultant in his extensive research on communication. The two had met earlier, after Bateson and Margaret Mead had called upon him to analyse the films Mead had made of trance states in Bali. Through Bateson, Erickson met Jay Haley, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, amongst others, and had a profound influence on them all. They went on to write several books about him.

Related Topics:
Gregory Bateson - Margaret Mead - Jay Haley - Richard Bandler - John Grinder

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In 1973, Jay Haley published 'Uncommon Therapy', which for the first time brought Erickson and his approaches to the attention of those outside the clinical hypnosis community. His fame and reputation spread rapidly, and so many people wished to meet him that he began holding teaching seminars, which continued until his death.

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Throughout most of the 1970s, he was obliged to use a wheelchair, and suffered chronic pain, which he controlled with self-hypnosis, as this citation indicates:

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It usually takes me an hour after I awaken to get all the pain out. It used to be easier when I was younger. I have more muscle and joint difficulties now... Recently the only way I could get control over the pain was by sitting in bed, pulling a chair close, and pressing my larynx against the back of the chair. That was very uncomfortable: But it was discomfort I was deliberately creating.

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Milton H. Erickson died in March 1980, aged 78, leaving four sons, four daughters, and a lasting legacy to the worlds of psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, pedagogics and communications.

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