Join Milton Erickson at his teaching seminar in the late 1970s. You will encounter his innovative teaching methods prompting students to activate their utilization skills. Learn Erickson's process for creating memorable interventions with clients overly concerned about body image. Encounter his method of using nonverbal methods to evoke adaptive responses. Introduction and annotations by Jeff Zeig, Erickson Foundation Director.
This hypnotherapeutic session took place in 1978, and decades later, it’s just as powerful and engaging. Enhancing the viewer’s learning experience is Dr. Zeig’s discussion of the underlying elements of Erickson’s methods: the ARE model of instruction; the art of parallel communication; targeted utilization; and the use of implication. Erickson’s fluid repertoire, drawn from systematic thinking, includes the use of anecdotes, symbolic communication, and strategic seeding. The elicitation of solutions, based on promoting constructive associations and flexible thoughts and feelings, is an area of particular interest and one in which Erickson was especially elegant.
In our first session, our demonstration subject has recently made a major life change. They have decided to change their career from being a priest, into becoming a therapist. Big life changes like these often induce anxiety in patients, and in this clinical demonstration we see Dr. Jeffrey Zeig exhibit a number of Ericksonian techniques to help the client be in harmony with themselves. Dr. Zeig utilizes some of Ginny’s religious history to help guide her towards transformation.
Demonstration subject Mette is struggling with issues trying to feel an emotional connection to her children. She describes her difficulty with being present for her children, and is looking for guidance. Dr. Zeig exhibits a few simple techniques that help create a powerful therapeutic relationship quickly, through the use of gestures and strategic interview questions. Dr. Zeig is able to utilize this information to create useful suggestions to help Mette with her situation.
Our demonstration subject for session three has two presenting issues - an undercurrent of sadness that seems to be everpresent, and a difficulty communicating about financial situations in her life. Dr. Zeig starts off the session by speaking Spanish, Karina’s native language. This simple technique puts Karina quickly at ease and sets the tone for the session. By inducing a hypnotic state Dr Zeig is able to do a quick age regression, and through utilizing a number of linguistic techniques - recursion, speaking in triplicate, altering tempo and tone of voice - he was able to seed therapeutic goals and create motivation for change.
For the final class in the Utilization series, Patricia joins us to discuss her preference for being in control, and how that relates to her struggles with intimacy. She also requests help alleviating a psychosomatic response from an earlier trauma. Dr. Zeig uses an interpersonal approach to this session, utilizing verbal and body language techniques to help communicate complex concepts. Zeig establishes the theme of appreciate as the through-line for this session.
This presentation poses a brief substance abuse treatment which acknowledges and accommodates the personal needs being addressed by substance use, bypasses perceived resistance and employs the essence of idiosyncratic psychobiological learning to achieve a body-mind gestalt complementary to the client's sobriety. Client self-empowerment and relapse prevention are built into the intervention. This method develops a safe framework for addressing any subsequent mental health themes directly or indirectly related to substance misuse. A particular form of body language known as ideomotor signaling is established in this procedure.
A key idea in Milton Erickson's work was that a person's problematic experiences and behaviors can be skillfully accepted and utilized as the basis for therapeutic change. Self-relations psychotherapy develops this idea further, emphasizing symptoms as indicating the death of an old identity and the impending birth of a new identity. Thus, we don't try to "get rid of" depression, anxiety, or "acting out/acting in" expressions, but instead invite them into a human relationship of "sponsorship", where their healing and helpful nature may be realized. We will see how a therapist can generate a ritual space where symptoms and other disturbing experiences can be "midwifed" into new identities.
Those suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder are convinced that great harm will come if they do not comply with rigidly set rules of safety. The therapist can reframe the nature of the problem and incorporate all interventions within four simple but provocative guidelines. Then, utilization and pattern disruption lead to new experiences that challenge the dysfunctional beliefs of the client.