Who Was this Milton Erickson Guy Anyway?

Anyone who's seriously studying conversational hypnosis – or hypnosis of any kind, really – is going to hear of Milton Erickson at some point. Erickson was an American psychiatrist who founded the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis, and a notable member of several other psychological institutions in the U.S. He is best known for his approach to the unconscious mind (it should be noted that his definition is much different than Freud's) and how it is a creative, solution-generating part of our brains.

Perhaps the most important facet of Erickson's discoveries is his theory of trance and the unconscious mind. His idea was that the unconscious mind is always listening, and that in a trance state, the subject is made aware of (and becomes attuned to) suggestions that they would not normally be receptive to. Sometimes the patient may be aware of this, and sometimes they may not. Erickson's method attempts to make the patient respond to indirect suggestion, usually through hypnotic trance.

Erickson's definition of trance is not what most people associate with the word, however. He believed that trance is an everyday occurrence that happens all throughout our lives, when we are waiting for buses, involved in strenuous exercise, or listening to music intently. Trance, in Erickson's definition, is simply the state our minds go into when we are entirely focused on one thing and all other irrelevant stimuli are ignored.

Erickson pioneered many techniques for inducing trance states in people which have been learned by successful hypnotists all over the world. These techniques require time to practice and master, but with perseverance and the right learning materials, anyone can learn them. Perhaps one reason Erickson's techniques were so successful was because of how accessible he made them to average people as well as trained scholars.