Milton H. Erickson

Milton Hyland Erickson (5 December 1901 – 25 March 1980) was an American psychiatrist and psychologist specializing in medical hypnosis and family therapy.

He was the founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis.

He is noted for his approach to the unconscious mind as creative and solution-generating.

He is also noted for influencing brief therapy, strategic family therapy, family systems therapy, solution focused brief therapy, and neuro-linguistic programming.

He received his M. D. degree from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine with an emphasis on Neurology and Psychiatry in 1928.

Between 1929 and 1948, Erickson then took a series of positions at state hospitals that facilitated active research.

He continued research in hypnosis as he refined his practical therapeutic skills.

He was already a prolific writer focusing primarily on case studies and experimental work.

These earlier writings greatly advanced the general understanding of hypnosis and are included in The Collected Works of Milton Erickson, M.D.

During WWII, Erickson conducted physical and mental examinations of soldiers.

Eventually the U.S. intelligence services asked him to meet with other experts in an effort to better understand the psychological and mental factors involved in communications relating to combat.

Biographical sketches have been presented in a number of resources, the earliest being by Jay Haley in Advanced Techniques of Hypnosis and Therapy which was written in 1968 and in collaboration with Erickson himself.

Though they never met Erickson, the authors of The Worlds Greatest Hypnotists wrote a biography.

The following information about his life is documented in that source.

Milton Hyland Erickson was the second child of nine of Albert and Clara Erickson.

He was born in a mining camp in Aurum, Nevada where his father mined silver.

The family moved to the farming community of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin when he was quite young and settled on a modest farm.

The children (two boys and seven girls) all attended the one-room schoolhouse in nearby Lowell.

The family farm demanded a great deal of physical labor.

Erickson was late in learning to speak and had difficulties in reading, which he described as dyslexia.

He was also color blind and tone deaf.

Later in life, when he explained what seemed to be extraordinary abilities, he stated that the disabilities (dyslexia, color blindness, being tone-deaf) helped him to focus on aspects of communication and behavior which most people overlooked.

This is a typical example of emphasizing the positive, which is characteristic of his overall approach.

Though the family valued education, books were scarce.

Erickson's desire to learn led him to repeatedly read the dictionary from front to back, along with the few other texts that the family treasured.

He claimed to have overcome his dyslexia and described the pivotal moments in a paper entitled "Auto-hypnotic Experiences of Milton Erickson," which is found in The Collected Works of Milton H. Erickson, MD. He later characterized his early moments of creative change (which he described as a "blinding flash of light") as an early spontaneous auto-hypnotic experience.

Erickson became interested in hypnosis at an early age when a traveling entertainer passed through the area.

According to his later description, he felt that hypnosis was too powerful a tool to be left to entertainers.

He decided to bring this tool into the realm of scientific evaluation as well as into the practice of medicine.

Erickson already admired the local community doctor and had committed himself to becoming a physician.

At age 17, he contracted polio which left him with additional lifelong disabilities.

Having long been interested in hypnosis, the year of his recovery gave him the opportunity to explore the potential of self-healing through hypnosis.

He began to recall "body memories" of the muscular activity of his own body.

By concentrating on these memories, he claimed to have learned to tweak his muscles and to regain control of parts of his body, to the point where he was eventually able to talk and use his arms.

Still unable to walk, he claimed to have trained his body by embarking on a thousand-mile canoe trip with only a few dollars, following which he was able to walk with a cane.

He continued to use a cane throughout his adult life, requiring a wheelchair only in his last decade of life.

Erickson attributed his own self-healing to giving him additional insight into hypnosis.

After recovering his ability to walk Erickson attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he attained graduate degrees in both psychology and medicine.

There he also embarked on formal studies of hypnosis in the laboratory of Clark Hull.

However, because his ideas were somewhat different from Hull's, Erickson independently embarked upon rigorous scientific explorations regarding the nature of hypnosis.