It was Monday, August 10, 2020. The weather began to worsen. It was nearly 2 p.m. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa when strong winds began to bend trees dramatically and the noise got louder and louder. It was time to go downstairs to the basement – a safer place – to wait out the storm. When it finally passed, I went upstairs to survey the damage. It was huge. According to the meteorological service the wind reached 140 mph. I ventured outside to see how the neighbors were doing. People were walking around in awe and disbelief…

Milton and Elizabeth Erickson’s professional collaboration didn’t stop with their early papers on time distortion. During Milton’s last seven years, when I was a frequent visitor to the Erickson household and office, Betty was very much involved in all aspects of his work. After I had my first baby and was pregnant with the second, Betty took care of my daughter…

For two years, teachers from the Milton H. Erickson Institute of the San Francisco Bay Area have conducted masters degree classes in strategic family therapy and Ericksonian hypnosis at Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno (UAGRM), the largest Bolivian university. Recently, it was my turn to teach.

It was Saturday, January 22, 2022, when I received the call letting me know Carl Hammerschlag had passed peacefully in his home. I sat quietly, reflecting on this news, letting my mind and heart wrap itself around the enormity of this loss. I then replayed his last phone message to me from the evening before: Sweet sister love, Shabbat Shalom! This is the last Shabbos call before I leave my office …I love you. I send you my blessings always, Carl.  

Several months ago, I found myself in the midst of a terrible conflict. Two people, with whom I had close professional and personal ties, and with whom I shared a common project, fell into a serious dispute — one accusing the other of a crime. Worse than that, each party represented powerful institutions, with which I had important connections.

During the December 2011 International Congress, we took a taxi to visit the Erickson home and on our way had a conversation with our driver. At first, it was pleasant chitchat, but then we engaged on a deeper level and asked the driver how he came to live in Phoenix. He told us about his unhappy divorce–how several years earlier his wife, who he thought was the love of his life, had abandoned him in order to take a job in another state. When he admitted he felt “puzzled and sucker-punched” the atmosphere in the taxi became tense and quiet.

A concerned father brought his 7- year-old daughter to psychotherapy because she had recently started to have tantrums, was very unhappy and moody, and answered badly when spoken to. She was not sleeping well and she refused to go to school. During the first play therapy session, she told me that before she had always liked school where she sang, laughed, and enjoyed playing with her friends. Now she felt sad and scared. She said, “My father would not love me anymore.”

Perhaps the most useful of Erickson’s remarkable techniques is the concept of utilization. Utilization harnesses the language and experience of the client. It allows clients to use their own knowledge, strengths, and skills to explore useful solutions to their own problems. As such it is well suited to working with clients like the adolescent described below, who may not be particularly interested in “therapy” or in “self-examination.”

A middle-aged man came to see me under pressure from his wife. She had told him she would leave if he didn’t make some life changes. Both husband and wife expressed that their marriage was very important to them, but it was clear to us all that their marriage was near collapse. He told me he did not know what the problem was even though his wife had complained about his commitment to his work for many years.

The 21-year-old client did not want to be in therapy. Charged with assault on his girlfriend, he had been ordered to counseling as a condition of probation. The intake, conducted by another therapist, noted, “Client is reluctant to focus on violence-related issues.”

The client, muscular and sullen, entered the first session in silence and sat slouched in his chair with a cap concealing most of his face. He had described himself as “a boxer” and had explained that counseling should not interfere with his “career,” which consisted solely of daily sparring at a local gym.

The following is in the words of John Grinder: One of my favorite episodes with Erickson was when Bandler [Richard] and I were dazzled with the elegance and effectiveness of the Ericksonian patterning somewhere in the mid to late ’70s. In our obsessive quest for the testing of patterns we …

Several weeks ago, while researching an article on T.E.A. von Dedenroth, I came across a folder containing 85+ pieces of correspondence between Milton Erickson, M. D. and Eric M. Wright, Ph.D., M.D. of the University of Kansas covering the period from 1964 to 1966. In 1965, Wright was the president of …

Routines can help us structure our time, keep us focused on the task at hand and facilitate goal attainment. Yet routine can also get us into rigidity. In Phoenix, David Gordon and Mary-Beth Anderson recount Erickson’s experience eating breakfast with a colleague: “And we ALL have our …

Subsequent to the posting of “Say What? What’s in a Name?” we are following up with additional information about T. E. A., one of the more colorful people who studied with Erickson. T.E.A. was an internist who became a forensic psychiatrist after he studied with Erickson. He was Erickson’s personal physician and went on to testify in some high-profile cases as an expert witness.

Several weeks ago, while researching an article on T.E.A. von Dedenroth, I came across a folder containing about 80+ pieces of correspondence between Erickson and M. Eric Wright, Ph.D., M.D. of the University of Kansas covering the period from 1964 to 1966. In 1965, Wright …

Laskarri had been diagnosed in the psychiatric ward as suffering from schizophrenia of the mixed catatonic-hebephrenic type. He was moderately disturbed in his behavior; several times a day he would shout gibberish apparently at hallucinatory figures and race back and forth …

Introduction I am blessed to have had personal contact with masters whose work immeasurably advanced psychotherapy in both the latter part of the 20th century and in this century. These notables include Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, Milton Erickson, Viktor Frankl, Bob and Mary Goulding, Jay Haley, Cloé Madanes…

I recently had a short but effective experience with Dr. Greenleaf that impacted me both personally and professionally. At the end of a workshop on hypnotherapy, I asked Dr. Greenleaf if he could help relieve my symptoms of allergic rhinitis with hypnotherapy.

Every boy has heroes. Growing up, I found mine on TV and in comic books, but what I didn’t realize then was that my biggest hero was an arm’s length away.

Ben was referred to me by a local hospital for the treatment of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) behavioral disorder. Due to aging, a part of his brain had degenerated, resulting in loss of muscular control during REM…