Betsy’s Work with
Dr. Milton Erickson

Posing with Dr. Milton Erickson. The thrill of a lifetime!

Early in my career as a Psychotherapist, I discovered the book: Uncommon Therapy by Dr. Jay Haley about Dr. Milton Erickson. He was able to help people resolve their problems relatively quickly and effectively who had not received assistance from other Psychiatrists. At that moment, I knew I wanted to learn to do what he did.

In 1977, I was in a horrific car accident in which I was physically and emotionally broken and was struggling with thoughts of not wanting to go on with my life. I wrote to Dr. Erickson to get an appointment with him and got a response after six months that he was no longer seeing individuals in therapy. I found out from one of my NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) colleagues that Dr. Milton Erickson offered week-long “teaching sessions” with ten participants at a time. I knew that anytime one was around Dr. Erickson, there would be a great deal of therapy involved.

After another six months of writing him, asking to be a part of a group, I was accepted and travelled down to Scottsdale, AZ where he lived and worked. I stayed with my aunt and uncle who also lived there. I was able to spend an amazing week with Dr. Erickson.  At my first scheduled session, I arrived a few minutes late, having gotten lost on the way. I walked in, still using a cane to get around. He was talking to his colleague, so I walked around behind him and sat in the only chair available, directly to his left. I looked around and greeted the other nine people in attendance with whom I would be spending the next week. Many of them were from around the world, some of whom had been with Dr. Erickson previously. I did not find out until about five minutes later when our session began that I was in the “it” chair: the person who he would use as the demonstration subject for his teaching. When we started, he first turned to his left and looked directly at me (with what I had heard about for years: the Ericksonian stare) and he said: “So how did you get to be Little Miss Innocent?” In my growing up years my friends and family had often considered me somewhat naive.  Dr Erickson’s first words to me struck a deep chord in my core sense of self. I immediately went into a trance, where I spent most of the rest of the week. I knew from my NLP training that being in a trance state helped access the unconscious mind, where true and lasting learning and change could happen.

After having become a Psychiatrist, Dr. Erickson had had polio two different times. While restricted to a wheelchair for years, he developed extremely acute sensory perception. In his therapeutic modality, he did not ask people any personal information about themselves; using hypnosis and metaphors, he would tell stories (he had been known for years as a prolific storyteller) and assess their unconscious responses to the stories based on small changes in their breathing rate, pupil dilation, skin flushing, lip size changes, etc. Then he directed his interventions and continued the stories, to guide people to empowering experiences. People thought of him as a Wizard. Due to his being color blind, he wore purple clothing almost exclusively. It was apparently the only color he could distinguish.

I can’t remember the details of what Dr. Erickson did to create the experiences I had, but I can convey what happened and the amazing transformations I experienced. On the first day, he told a story about climbing Squaw Peak, a local mountain. I remember him talking about how the higher one got, the more clarity and perspective one had. He went on for what seemed to be a long time. We were dismissed from class in the mid-afternoon. I then met up with two of the people in the group I had known from my NLP training in Chicago. We went directly to Squaw Peak and trekked up to the top. I was barely getting around with my cane on the flat ground at the time, still in recovery from an auto accident. Upon reaching the summit, I was incredibly exhilarated, and internalized a whole new conviction about myself and my abilities. I really understood how Dr. Erickson helped me do something I had not known I could, expanding my consciousness and experience with life.

The next day when I arrived at class, the chair to his left had once again been left open. I realized that the other participants wanted to be conscious and learn from observing Dr. Erickson methods, while I really wanted change and healing experientially, a much better way for me to integrate new learning. I sat down in the chair.

Dr. Erickson then told a long story about his daughter having had a flat tire. She had never changed one before, however, she needed to in this case. He talked about her struggle and how it ultimately led to a sense of triumph. I remember little else of the day. The next morning, when I went out to my rental car, sure enough, there it was a flat tire! Dr. Erickson was paralyzed and wheelchair bound. How did this happen? My aunt came out and suggested we call AAA to come out and fix the tire. I insisted that I could do it, I wanted to change the tire myself. I literally was jumping on the tire iron to get the lug nuts off, but finally, successfully completed the task. I felt a new sense of empowerment as I drove off to my third day with Dr. Erickson.

I can only surmise that there was an unspoken agreement that I would be the one to remain in the chair to his left. I was delighted. I wanted nothing more than to experience his work first hand. I have little recall of what happened that day, I was still in a trance, but my friends from Chicago and I got together at the end of the day and they marveled at what had transpired. I found myself talking to the other group participants and any of Dr. Erickson’s assistants who came around after class. Unbeknownst to me, I was organizing a group pot luck picnic for the next day. It apparently went well because afterward everyone was thanking me for doing such a great job pulling it all together. It was something I did with little conscious awareness, yet through this experience, I learned that I could be a Leader. I am the youngest of three in my family of origin and often did well following along with what my older siblings did. This experience helped me break through to being willing and able to take charge of things, in ways I had not known before.

While at the potluck gathering in his backyard, Dr. Erickson asked me to push him in his wheelchair under a tree. When we arrived, he pointed up and told me: “This is a Mistletoe tree” with a glint in his eyes. What could I do but lean over and kiss him on his cheek. He showed me again how he certainly has ways to communicate effectively!

I came away from the week with Dr. Erickson feeling a deep resolve to move on from my tragedy with the newly discovered strength in myself, and to move forward in creating the life I wanted. I knew then it was possible.