Newsletter - The Milton H. Erickson Foundation

The Milton H. Erickson Foundation, Inc.3606 N. 24th StreetPhoenix, Arizona 85016U.S.A.RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

T h e M i l t o n H . E r i c k s o n F o u n d a t i o n

NEWSLETTERSM

Vol. 27, No. 2 SUMMER 2007

InsideThis Issue

See TRIBUTE on page 20

TRIBUTE:]ay Haley 1 & 4

CONFERENCE REVIEW:Love & Intimacy: The Couples Conference 6

INTRODUCING THE INSTITUTES:Centro Ericksoniano de La Paz, Baja California Sur 8

FACETS AND REFLECTIONS:Elizabeth Moore Erickson 9

CONTRIBUTOR OF NOTE:W. Michael Munion M.A., L.P.C. 10

TRIBUTE:Albert Ellis 11

THERAPEUTIC FRAMEWORKS:THE LABYRINTH:ANOTHER ROUTE INSIDE 12

IN THE SPIRIT OF THERAPY:Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., Sc.D.13

See CONGRESS on page 2

Visit Our Website:www.erickson-foundation.org

Non-Profit org.U.S.Postage PaidKansas City, MOPermit No. 1932

These interviews originallyappeared in the Milton H. EricksonFoundation Newsletter volumes 9(3)and 20(1). They are presented hereas tribute to the late Jay Haley.

Jay Haley on Jay Haley by

Michael D. YapkoBACKGROUNDJay Haley is one of the most influ-

ential figures of all time in the field ofpsychotherapy. The occasion of thisfestschrift in his honor provides us anopportunity to acknowledge his enor-mously valuable contributions, espe-cially his helping us to understandproblems in interpersonal terms andthe value of intervening actively andstrategically for our clients' benefit.

Haley has written 19 books ontherapy, including Strategies ofPsychotherapy, The Power Tactics ofJesus Christ, Uncommon Therapy,and Learning and Teaching Therapy.

T R I B U T EHe was also the founding editor ofFamily Process. Haley's books havebeen translated into dozens of lan-guages, and he continues to be invitedto present his ideas all over the world.

Haley was the first recipient of theLifetime Achievement Award of theMilton H. Erickson Foundation. Hisanalysis and presentation ofErickson's work were instrumental inmaking Erickson's ideas and methodswidely available to the mental healthprofession.

At the time of the first interviewwith Michael Yapko, Haley was Co-Director of the Family TherapyInstitute of Washington, DC, a lead-ing training center in strategic andinterpersonal approaches to familytherapy. The interview was conductedat the Fourth International Congress,held in San Francisco in December1988. It was published shortly there-after in the Erickson FoundationNewsletter, then under Yapko's edi-torship. At the time of the secondinterview, just over ten years later,Haley had recently married anthro-

pologist Madeleine Richeport-Haley,and moved to southern California.The second interview was conductedin Haley's home in January 1999.

Haley is a modest man with somestrong opinions. His dry wit and abil-ity to sense and articulate the ironiesof the therapy business are simplyunparalleled.

PART IYAPKO: I'd like to get specific

biographical information about you,including when and where you wereborn, your early years, and the thingsthat led you to develop your interest

The Tenth International Congress on Ericksonian Approaches

to Hypnosis and PsychotherapyDecember 6-9, 2007 • Phoenix, Arizona

www.erickson-foundation.org/10thCongress

The Milton H. Erickson Foundation is sponsoring the Tenth InternationalCongress on Ericksonian Approaches to Hypnosis and Psychotherapy,December 6-9, 2007, at the Hyatt Regency, Phoenix, Arizona.

The Law & Ethics Workshop will be held on Thursday, December 6, pre-sented by Steven J. Frankl, Ph.D., J.D. Practice Development Workshops willbegin on Thursday afternoon, following the Keynote Address. BeginningFriday, December 7, the Congress sessions include a Fundamental HypnosisTrack, Short Course presentations, Keynote Addresses, Interactive Events, andClinical Demonstrations (Live).

The faculty for the Tenth Congress include: Jorge Abia, Philip Accaria,

The Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter2 VOL. 27, NO. 2

EDITOR’S COMMENTS

Executive Editor: Richard Landis, Ph.D.

Managing Editor: Sharon McLaughlin, M.A.

Review Editors: C. Alexander Simpkins, Ph.D., Annellen Simpkins, Ph.D.

Institutes: Marilia Baker, M.S.W.

Production Assistant: Karen Haviley

Guest Editors: Betty Alice Erickson, M.S., LPC, LMFT

Contributor of Note: Roxanna Erickson Klein, R.N., Ph.D.

In the Spirit of Therapy Editor: John Lentz, D.Min.

Guest Reviewers: Deborah Beckman, M.S., LPC, Maria Escalante Cortina, Christine Guilloux, D.E.S.S.,

Will Handy, LMSW-ACP

–Board of Directors–Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D.

Roxanna Erickson Klein, R.N., Ph.D.J. Charles Theisen, M.A., M.B.A., J.D.

Camillo Loriedo, M.D.Bernhard Trenkle, Dipl.Psych.

The Milton H. Erickson Foundation, Inc.3606 North 24th Street

Phoenix, Arizona 85016-6500U.S.A.

Telephone: (602) 956-6196FAX: (602) 956-0519

T h e M i l t o n H . E r i c k s o n F o u n d a t i o n

NEWSLETTER

Subscribe to the Erickson Listserv:www.topica.com/lists/EricksonList

This issue is dedicated to thememory and enormous contributionsof Jay Haley who passed away inFebruary of this year. Haley firstintroduced me to Erickson in 1973with his landmark book, UncommonTherapy: The Psychiatric Techniquesof Milton H. Erickson, MD. I remem-ber reading it with both awe and dis-belief. It all seemed like magic to me.Haley started me on a road that tookme to places of which I could nothave even dreamt. In honor of hisenduring contributions to the MiltonH. Erickson Foundation and to all ofpsychotherapy, and to the personalimpact that he has had with so manyof us, this issue features the original1988 and 1999 interviews of Haleyby his friend and colleague, MichaelYapko. As Yapko said in his tributeto Haley in the previous issue,"Providing some facts about Jay's lifeis the easy part of this tribute. Themore difficult part is helping readersget to know the extraordinary manbehind the achievements." In theseinterviews, Yapko offers insight intothat extraordinary man.

We also are celebrating in thisissue the up-coming TenthInternational Congress on Erick-sonian Approaches to Hypnosis andPsychotherapy to be held thisDecember in Phoenix, Arizona. Weare featuring articles by, and about,some of the presenters who will be atthe Congress. Betty Alice Erickson’sCase Report demonstrates an eleganthypnotic intervention that is pureErickson. Marilia Baker’s Facets andReflections presents an intimate por-trait of her experiences in interview-ing Elizabeth Erickson for her book,A Tribute to Elizabeth MooreErickson. In addition to her Facetsand Reflections article, Baker intro-duces us to the Centro Ericksonianode La Paz in Baja California Sur,Mexico. She provides a fascinatingprofile of one of our most active andproactive Institutes.

In his In The Spirit of Therapycolumn, John Lentz interviews

Nicholas A. Cummings in this firstcolumn of two parts to demonstratehow an indomitable spirit can pervailthrough adversity to produce excel-lence. Helen Adrienne introduces acreative use of the labyrinth as a hyp-notic adjunct in TherapeuticFrameworks. Roxanna EricksonKlein solutes Michael Munion as thisissue’s Contributor of Note. Munionis one who is usually behind thescenes, so we are delighted to intro-duce you to him and to his many con-tributions to the Erickson movement.

In addition to our regularcolumns, our review staff has outdonethemselves this issue in presenting amontage of conference, DVD, bookand audio reviews that encompass theErickson Foundation conferences andpresenters ranging from the Evolutionof Psychotherapy, Brief Therapy, andCouple’s conferences and theEricksonian Congresses. It is trulyconcise, comprehensive, and infor-mative.

I hope that you enjoy this edition,and that you will join this issue’s con-tributors at the Tenth InternationalCongress on Ericksonian Approachesto Hypnosis and Psychotherapy oDecember 6-9, 2007 in Phoenix,Arizona.

Rick Landis

Laguna Niguel, CA

Steve Andreas, Philip Appel, Marilia Baker, Norma and Philip Barretta, RubinBattino, Sofia Bauer, John Beahrs, Danie Beaulieu, Cheryl Bell-Gadsby, SonjaBenson, George Burns, Consuelo Casula, Robert Dilts, Yvonne Dolan, JanetSasson Edgette, John Edgette, Betty Alice Erickson, Douglas Flemons, JohnFrykman, George Gafner, Teresa Garcia-Sanchez, Brent B. Geary, StephenGilligan, Eric Greenleaf, Woltemade Hartman, Harriet Hollander, Michael Hoyt,Lynn Johnson, Carol Kershaw, Krzysztof Klajs, Richard Landis, Stephen R.Lankton, Camillo Loriedo, Sharon McLaughlin, Scott Miller, Joyce C. Mills,Michael Munion, Giorgio Nardone, Rafael Nuñez, Marc Oster, Jane Parsons-Fein, Maggie Phillips, Wendel Ray, Michele Ritterman, Teresa Robles, SidneyRosen, Ernest Rossi, Kathryn Rossi, Gary Ruelas, Alan Scheflin, RobertSchwarz, Dan Short, Susy Signer-Fischer, Annellen M. Simpkins and AlexanderSimpkins, Albina Tamalonis, Bernhard Trenkle, Suzi Tucker, Claude Virot, R.Reid Wilson, Michael Yapko, Lilian Borges Zeig, and Jeffrey K. Zeig.

Post-Congress Advanced Training Day – Monday, December 10th!The Erickson Foundation has added a special post-Congress Advanced

Ericksonian Hypnosis Training Day, Monday, December 10, 2007. The morn-ing session, "Advanced Induction" with Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D., will be followedby the afternoon session, "Advanced Indirect Language and Techniques" withStephen Lankton, MSW, DAHB.

The full Congress offers 33.5 Continuing Education hours. Accreditationinformation is available in the Congress brochure and on the Congress web site.The complete brochure with the Congress schedule of events, Online registra-tion, hotel accommodation, presenter bios and workshop handouts also is avail-able Online: www.erickson-foundation.org/10thCongress. To receive thebrochure by mail contact: The Milton H. Erickson Foundation, 3606 N. 24thStreet, Phoenix, AZ 85016-6500; Email, [email protected](please Email complete mailing address; Subject line: Congress brochure); Tel,602-956-6196; Fax, 602-956-0519.

The NEW Foundation Web Site

is Online! www.erickson-foundation.org

CONGRESS continued from page 1

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JAY HALEY: MY TEACHER

Salvador Minuchin

March, 2007

His voice was clear and challeng-ing - and now is silent forever.

Jay and I go back to the late 1960s,when I went to Palo Alto to convincehim to come to work with us at thePhiladelphia Child Guidance Clinic. Isuggested that he come to the clinicand that, for half a year, he could justobserve what we were doing and thendecide what he would like to do. Afterthree months, he said he would be thehead of research - but, in effect, hebecame Resident Teacher.

For years, between 8 and 9 A.M.,while we were traveling to the clinic,Jay, Braulio Montalvo, and I engagedin an impromptu seminar. With theclarity that was his hallmark, Jay pre-sented ideas about systems theory andtypes of intervention that seemed tooesoteric to Braulio and myselfand weresponded with the pragmatism ofclinicians, trying to rein in his certain-ty. In time, the strength of our voicesincreased; we became equal partici-pants in a conversation that morphedinto the ideas that formed, I think, thebasis of my thinking about structuraltherapy and Jay's strategic family ther-apy. As we worked together and ourfriendship increased, we developed apattern in our relationship that thestaff of the clinic jokingly describedas the members of the intergalacticEnterprise. Jay was the intellectual Dr.Spock, Braulio was Dr. Bones, and Iwas Captain Kirk. It was a formidablepartnership.

Jay was forever pushing the enve-lope, testing the limits of new ideas -explorations that bore his imprint ofbeing clear, over-inclusive, and chal-lenging. And I was forever unsuccess-ful in trying to tame his boldness. Jayseemed to need an opponent to honehis thinking and give energy to hisexplorations, but once he was satisfiedwith his own explanations he wouldmellow and become a committedteacher, moving gracefully from ideaslike the homeostatic resistance of asystem to a specific focus on the ther-apist's restricted style of intervention.

He was always available to his stu-

T R I B U T Edents. Even after the end of the day,he could be seen surrounded byyoung people, like a peripatetic Greekphilosopher without a toga. And inhis supervision, there was only onerule: nobody could criticize a thera-pist unless he or she could formulatea clear alternative intervention.

Because he was forever challeng-ing educational institutions, maintain-ing that they inflicted damage on theirstudents, he was excited when we gota grant to train paraprofessionals infamily therapy. Here was an opportu-nity to train people who were notinfluenced by the imposition of nar-row ideas imparted by a college. Jaydeveloped what would be our teach-ing strategy: an inductive approach totraining. Students would have theexperience first, and learn later themeaning of what they did. All familyinterviews were to be supervised live,and it was the job of the supervisor toprotect both the family and thetrainee. A telephone behind the one-way mirror was always ready for cor-recting an intervention. To makepossible such a cold immersion intotherapy and its techniques, Jay pre-pared a detailed map of the first inter-view that the students would use toguide the voyage of the firstencounter. It was the respect,demand, and discipline Jay brought tothis group of students that was instru-mental, I think, in moving them to aprofessionalism equal to that of theiruniversity trained colleagues.

Whether supervising profession-als or paraprofessionals, Jay would sitbehind the mirror with a telephone inhis hand. After a period of observa-tion, he would develop a whole treat-ment plan, with a clear objective anda tentative set of probable interven-tions. It was always interesting towatch this creative process; to noticehow he could see around corners. Hisplans frequently carried both direc-tions and indirection; an understand-ing of logical processes and of theabsurdity of life. There was an explic-it demand for an acceptance of thetask required for change, and animplicit smile acknowledging that inlife there are no straight roads, andthat all goals are temporary. I thinkthis duality - the disciplined scholarcombined with the secretive smile ofthe Cheshire Cat - was his message to

his students, but it was imparted incumulative small doses until, with a"Eureka", it became incorporated intoa new perspective on life; therapy andthe relationships among people seenas both clear ideas and stammering;as soaring and stumbling. There was,in Jay, an unending optimism aboutthe possibilities of therapy. He taughta direct-detouring journey toward amore effective and harmoniousexpansion of relationships. In time,his teaching lost paternity, as hisideas and techniques became part ofthe grammar of the field; a publicdomain trove that we all use. Jay was

Jay Haley

Braulio Montalvo Jay Haley, more than anyone, integrated the therapist's use of empathy with

the use of clever strategy. He oriented therapists to become practical and help-ful by focusing on the person's social-existential situation. He would teach howto listen and observe in order to fashion effective, economic interventions. In hisview, the therapist was not to be a wandering analytic soul companion, but rathera down-to-earth, relief-oriented, context-changing craftsman. His broad roots inthe art of hypnosis and on the minute observation of cognitive and emotionalinteractions within the family allowed him to work inventively with therapistsfrom all kinds of professions. He was at home with all types of therapeutic pro-cedures and ideologies. His illuminating contributions through articles, booksand videos will keep challenging and enriching the field of psychotherapy.

He also knew how to be a good friend.

Scott R. WoolleyI had the great honor to work with Jay Haley during the final decade of his

life during which he served as a Research Professor in our MFT programs.

What stands out for me the most was his deep kindness and compassion inworking with our students, and his passion for helping people change. Our stu-dents come from all over the world, and Jay was particularly interested in work-ing with students from diverse backgrounds. He was fascinated with, andrespectful of, their cultures and perspectives.

Whenever I run into a student who resists my supervision, I think of Jay, andI do my best to follow his example and calmly, patiently and kindly work withthe student. He was a kind, true gentleman and a scholar.

This tribute was also printed in the Journal of Systemic Therapies 26(3)2007and is reprinted with permission.

T R I B U T E

a late-born samurai, his rapier alwaysready to challenge foolishness andabsurdity. He was passionate in hisdefense of children, whom he saw asbecoming addicted to prescribeddrugs, and relentless in his criticismof the psychiatric establishment,whose pronouncements about thehuman condition he consideredpedantic and obscure. Now that heisn't here to fight our battles, we feeldiminished and unprotected.

This piece is also printed in, andpresented with the permission ofFamily Process: www.familyprocess.org

"Jay was forever pushing the envelope, testing the limits of new ideas - explorations that bore his imprint

of being clear, over-inclusive, and challenging."

"He was a kind, true gentleman and a scholar."

The Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter VOL. 27, NO. 2 5


Love & Intimacy:The CouplesConference

April 2007

Orange County, CA

Love & Intimacy: The CouplesConference was held April 27-292007 in Orange County, California.The format allowed participants tohave prolonged contact with a selec-tive group of innovators as they pre-sented their carefully thought-outmethods with practical techniques.The workshops were furtherenhanced by the quality of the partic-ipants, sensitive and experiencedpractitioners as well as intelligentmotivated students, whose thoughtfulquestions led to deeper understand-ings for all. Keynotes and discussionsinterspersed between the workshopshelped to crystallize issues raised.

A full-day pre-conference on Lawand Ethics was offered by StevenFrankel, PhD, JD. He covered impor-tant ethical and legal issues involvingconfidentiality, privilege, and copingwith subpoenas. Frankel turned thistechnical material into an entertainingand enjoyable experience with hisreal-life examples and engaging senseof humor.

The conference began with akeynote address from Terry Real,LICSW, who redefined marriage forthe twenty first century. Modern cou-ples demand more than just compan-ionship: They seek intimacy! Heoffered a skill set for both men andwomen to achieve this. He intro-duced Relationship EmpowermentTherapy and in his workshops devel-oped an understanding of how to usethis method. He offered many practi-cal techniques such as one he calledthe relationship grid, which he usedas a diagnostic tool. His down-to-earth approach taught importantskills, such as for men to open up andfor women to assert themselves lov-ingly. His two workshops showedparticipants techniques to help cou-

C O N F E R E N C E R E V I E Wples get "from where they are towhere they need to be."

Pat Love, EdD gave several work-shops for improving relationships onmany levels: from emotions to hor-mones. In one workshop, she taughthow to deepen intimacy and connectwithout words using second-orderchange. Another workshop dealt withsexuality in terms of client physiolo-gy. Subtly, with warm, friendlyhumor, Love covered challengingphysiologically-driven problems suchas sexual compulsivity, addictions,obesity, and depression, showing howto work with these problems at manylevels.

Ellyn Bader, PhD tackled the per-vasive problems of lies, affairs, anddeception. She offered research andclinically tested insights about whypeople lie and the types and forms ofdeception common to failing relation-ships. She explained her method ofattachment and differentiation withtechniques for creative confrontation.Couples learn to engage intimatelywithout losing their sense of individ-uality and uniqueness. Partners canmaintain contact, even when it isthreatening, building a close and ful-filling relationship.

Stan Tatkin PsyD also presentedan attachment approach. He has inte-grated a developmental understand-ing of the mind/brain/behaviorinteractions. Attachment organizationbegins in infancy, forming brain func-tion as people develop. Arousal, partof any relationship and especially pri-mary ones such as marriage, stimu-lates the autonomic nervous system toinfluence how couples relate. Thequestion an attachment therapistshould ask is, do the partners tend todeal with these autonomic responseson their own (self-regulate) or do theyturn to each other? Therapy helpspartners rely on each other, evenwhen it is uncomfortable, paving theway for satisfying intimacy.

Cloe Madanes, Lic Psic, HDL,presented her effective methods forworking with some of the most seri-

ous and sometimes dangerous prob-lems a couples therapist encounters:spousal abuse. She addressed thisproblem on many levels at once,showing how to prevent any furtherharm from happening while guidingthe whole family system toward heal-ing and change. Madanes’s method,though tough when needed, was alsosensitive. For example, she showedthe poignant uncovering of the tragicorigins of an abuser who had himselfbeen a victim of humiliation andabuse as a young child. With filmsand explanations, participants weretaken through the course of therapy,gaining tools to help chronic abusersmake a complete transformation.

Harville Hendrix, PhD, co-founder of Imago RelationshipTherapy, presented a two-day courseleading to certification as an Imagotherapist. Imago Therapy is a systemthat assumes couples find each otherin order to repair and heal the damageof childhood. The method of treat-ment shifts couples away from per-sonal needs to address relationshipneeds. Conflict is seen as an opportu-nity for partners to help heal the otherthrough connection. The quality of a"sacred space between" is nurturedthrough a method of directed dia-logue in which partners learn how totalk to each other constructively. Theworkshops included didactic teachingplus opportunities to practice the spe-cific techniques that were taught.

Dan Siegel, MD offered an all-day presentation. His keynote addressintroduced the neural basis of mindfulawareness as uncovered by recentneuroscience studies. Neural integra-tion, a coordination and balance in thefunctioning of the brain, is associatedwith mental coherence and empathicrelationships. For Siegel, the neural,subjective and interpersonal,although not reducible to each other,are all interrelated. Thus, improve-ment in one dimension will facilitatethe others. He explained how life-nar-ratives derive from patterns of attach-ment and showed people how tomove beyond these patterns for real

change. Siegel offered specific inter-ventions that participants could learn,to enhance and deepen the interper-sonal integration leading to intimacy.

Jeffrey Zeig, PhD offered severalvaried programs. One workshop pre-sented Erickson working with a trou-bled couple. He showed the film,analyzing sequences of interactionline-by-line, unraveling its fabric totrace the intricate threads of the mas-ter at work. Participants were guidedin understanding key Ericksonianconcepts, such as subtly planting theseed of an idea that would later beharvested as therapeutic responsive-ness and change. Zeig’s passion forthe topic was evident in his fascinat-ing and animated presentation of howErickson brought about results, fur-ther explaining it with personal anec-dotes. Zeig’s workshop on couplessculpting demonstrated his innovativeblend of mind and body both for treat-ing couples and as an indirect form ofassessment. He also participated in athought-provoking discussion sessionwith Pat Love on integrating sex ther-apy into couples counseling.

In our modern culture, the poten-tial for interpersonal closeness is fartoo often dismissed with a pessimisticprognosis for achievability. But thisconference offered a refreshing opti-mism backed up by experienced, test-ed approaches for building intimaterelationships: Natural, health-promot-ing and satisfying relationships canbe achieved. The faculty provided themeans, and the participants left withthe methods to make it happen!

Audio recordings from theCouples Conference are available.See www.ericksonfoundationstore.com.

The 2008 Couples Conferencewill be held in April 2008 in San Jose.Information will be posted onwww.couplesconference.com.

Reviewed by:C. Alexander Simpkins, Ph.D.Annellen M. Simpkins, Ph.D.

JOIN THE FOUNDATION E-MAIL MAILING LIST!Be the first to receive Conference announcements and registration specials; information on audiotape/videotape, and CD/DVD specials

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Co

up

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Au

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CD

sDISCUSSIONS

❏ CC07-D-1 Integrating Attachment and Differentiation-Based Interventions in Couples Therapy Bader, Tatkin❏ CC07-D-2 Integrating Sex Therapy into Couples Counseling Love, Zeig

KEYNOTES❏ CC07-K-1 The New Rules of Marriage: Helping Couples (and Couples Therapy) Enter the 21st Century Terry Real❏ CC07-K-2 Principles and Strategies for the Prevention of Spouse and Partner Abuse Cloè Madanes❏ CC07-K-3 The Marriage of the Future Harville Hendrix❏ CC07-K-4 The Mindful Brain in Interpersonal Relationships Daniel Siegel

LAW & ETHICS - $59.00 ❏ CC07-LE-1&2 Laws & Ethics Workshops 1&2 - Complete 5 CD Set Steven Frankel

WORKSHOPS (includes 2 or more CDís)❏ CC07-WS-1abc Getting to the Heart of It: How to Change Couples Quickly, Dramatically, & Permanently Terry Real❏ CC07-WS-2abc How to Improve a Relationship Without Talking About It Pat Love❏ CC07-WS-3ab Creative Confrontation in Couples Therapy Ellyn Bader❏ CC07-WS-4abc Enhancing Relationships Cloè Madanes❏ CC07-WS-5ab Developmental-Psychobiological Approach to Difficult Couples Stan Tatkin❏ CC07-WS-6abc The Repair Process: Helping Couples Get Back On Track Terry Real❏ CC07-WS-7abc Imago Relationship: A Theory and Therapy of Couplehood-Session I - Overview Harville Hendrix❏ CC07-WS-8abc The Pseudo-Secure Couple (aka False-Self Couple) Stan Tatkin❏ CC07-WS-9abc Ericksonian Methods to Empower Couples Jeffrey Zeig❏ CC07-WS-10abc Affairs, Lies and Deception Ellyn Bader❏ CC07-WS-11ab Imago Relationship: A Theory and Therapy of Couplehood- Session II - Dissolving Conflict Harville Hendrix❏ CC07-WS-12abc The Prevention of Spouse and Partner Abuse Cloè Madanes❏ CC07-WS-13abc Imago Relationship: A Theory and Therapy of Couplehood-Session III - Stages of Relationship Harville Hendrix❏ CC07-WS-14abc Itís Not Him/Her; Itís Your Hormones! Pat Love❏ CC07-WS-15abc An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Intimacy - Part I Daniel Siegel❏ CC07-WS-16abc Imago Relationship: A Theory and Therapy of Couplehood IV- Creating Safety & Passion Harville Hendrix❏ CC07-WS-17abc An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Intimacy - Part II Daniel Siegel❏ CC07-WS-18abc Couples Sculpting Jeffrey Zeig

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April 27-29, 2007 • Garden Grove (Anaheim), CA

adolecents, adults and old.

In January 2006 the Centro Ericksoniano de La Paz wasdistinguished with the honor of housing permanently theBandera de la Pax by Dr. Alicia Rodriguez., This symbol hadits origins in ancient Mayan traditions. Its tradition is aimed atengendering inner peace and peace among peoples througheducation, cultural exchanges, and promoting union withindiversity. To celebrate the first anniversary of such distinction,Cervantes, Gomez and their team organized the FirstInternational Festival of Arts and Culture, congregating fourcountries and 40 different activities, including representationfrom Argentina, Canada, France and Mexico. The festival waswelcomed by the community and reached more than 10,000people.

As Cervantes proudly stated: " All of what we are and dois under the Ericksonian vision and mission of harmoniousgrowth and change. Our aim is to do excellent work to leaveeverlasting footprints."

The Centro Ericksoniano de La Paz wishes to thank the many Ericksoniansand international faculty who have supported their efforts through the years,including Ciro Almada, Marilia Baker, Lilian Borges Zeig, Marta Campillo,Consuelo Casula, Dulce Cota, Rocio Cruz, Mrs. Elizabeth Erickson, CeciliaFabre, Margarita Gutierrez, Cecile Laversin, Joyce Mills, Omar Murillo, JorgeOrozco, Teresa Robles, Jeffrey Zeig, and the staff of the Milton H. EricksonFoundation in Phoenix.


Centro Ericksoniano de La Paz, Baja California Sur

Interviewed by Cecilia Fabre, MA

Email: [email protected]

The Centro Ericksoniano de La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, was estab-lished

May, 2005 by Matilde Cervantes, Lic. Psych, Sarai Gomez, Lic. Psych, andCecilia Fabre, MA. Psychologists, Ciro Almada and Dulce Anyra Cota, wereinvited as therapy and training affiliates. The Institute is located in the charmingresort town of La Paz (Peace) at the tip of the Baja California peninsula. Thename of the city fittingly describes the peaceful Sea of Cortez surroundings inter-spersed with rugged yet vibrant desert vegetation. It also serves as actionmetaphor for much of the therapeutic work developed at the Institute. FollowingDr. Erickson’s interventions suggesting patients to observe closely the plant oranimal life which survives adversity in the desert where rain has not fallen inyears , Cervantes, Gomez & team utilize to the maximum the natural resourcesaround them. Simultaneously with the Institute they run the Centro de Cultura yDesarrollo Humano incorporated to promote activities for developing humanpotential.

Matilde Cervantes and Sarai Gomez became interested in Milton Ericksoninitially through the tutelage of Jorge Orozco at the University of Baja Californiain Mexicali, in 2002. His contagious enthusiasm for Ericksonian hypnosis andpsychotherapy had been perfected through his studies with Teresa Robles andher team in Mexico City. Subsequently he established the Milton H. EricksonInstitute of Mexicali. Another influ-ence for Cervantes and Gomez wasthrough a clinical internship withMarta Campillo, a renownedEricksonian, director of the MiltonH. Erickson Institute of Xalapa,Veracruz. Their interest in Ericksonwas further consolidated through aneventful synchronicity – at a newspa-per stand they laid eyes onSaludablemente, a psycho-educa-tional publication by CentroEricksoniano de Mexico. ContactingTeresa Robles directly and beingwarmly welcomed by her opened upunforeseen opportunities, includingopening in La Paz a partner campusfor Robles’ Masters program inEricksonian Psychotherapy.

The activities at the Institutehave been many since its initiation in2005. In addition to the masters pro-gram – a second generation of grad-uates is under way – there is clinicalwork with individuals, couples, fam-ilies and, especially children. Sarai Gomez is particularly proud of their focus onearly childhood interventions, special education/special needs, psychophysiolo-gy, and learning disabilities. Psycho-educational ecological trips are offered(such as for rescuing baby turtles from certain death). Summer camps also havebecome a tradition. Environmental and ecological awareness is foremost inworking with children and adolescents, and promote self-awareness, healthyself-concepts, sexual education, and mastering emotions. The Institute also isactively involved in community initiatives aimed at adolescent suicide preven-

tion, drug abuse prevention, and child malnutrition prevention through educationand therapy. It recently donated $16,000 Mexican pesos to a foundation granti-ng scholarships and school lunches to underprivileged children as well as$20,000 Mexican pesos to adolescent education and prevention programs.Another important activity is pro bono therapeutic work with musicians of thelocal Symphony and students of the State sponsored School of Music. In addi-tion, Cervantes, Gomez and their team have become quite involved with theSecretariat of Public Education through the already mentioned prevention pro-grams. They support the development of full potential in women: girls,

I N T R O D U C I N G T H E I N S T I T U T E S

Sarai Gomez and the Summer Institute.

Left to right: Co-directors Sarai Gomez and MatildeCervantes; Margarita Gutierrez, invited professor; Dulce

Anyra Cota and Ciro Almada, therapist affiliates.


Elizabeth Moore Erickson’s multi-facetedhuman qualities, and how they influenced my outlook on life.

By Marilia Baker, MSW, LMFT

Phoenix Institute of Ericksonian Therapy

There was a special moment in my life 30 years ago when I noticed the ded-ication of Uncommon Therapy i, which read "To Mrs. Elizabeth Erickson". Thisinscription intrigued me. I had an immediate, strong knowing that behind thequalifier "uncommon" Jay Haley attributed to the great psychiatrist’s work therecertainly was an uncommon life partner! I felt confident she fit the other mean-ings of uncommon: unusual, extraordinary, remarkable, of rare beauty, unique,singular. I had a new mission: Go find the Feminine life force behind the greatman, I thought. Go find the femme inspiratrice -- the inspiration, the muse, therole model, and you will meet the lifetime companion, the remarkable woman,the wife, the mother of his children, and the colleague extraordinaire.

I became interested in Elizabeth Erickson, as I pursued the therapeuticapproaches of her husband. Therecent death of Jay Haley trans-ported me to that moment intime, and reminded me of themultitude of ways that studyinghis book opened doors for me.Haley’s work introduced me to agreat man, and indirectly to agreat woman. Many years later Ihad the privilege of interview-ing Mrs. Erickson for theErickson Centennial edition of this Newsletter (Vol. 21,.2, Summer, 2001)ii.

Subsequently I paid homage to her in book form. iiiFamily narratives validat-ed my initial intuition: "Her contributions were central and integral to ourfather’s work", said daughters Betty Alice and Roxanna." Meeting Mrs. Ericksonpersonally and learning her ways of perceiving the world have had an everlast-ing impact on my outlook on life. It would be impossible to describe what inElizabeth Moore Erickson has impressed me the most or has influenced me themost, I would say: everything. Even though our lives and circumstances havebeen different I have identified with her in many ways. She is to me a womanwho serves as a model and inspiration in all areas of my life. Let me list some ofthe ways:

A long life well lived. Today, April 22nd, is Mrs. Erickson’s 92nd birthday.This fact inspires me to want to live as long and as well, enjoying every moment,feeling grateful and happy for the smallest reasons, practicing the art of le petitbonheur, persistently looking for the positive but true side of things, withoutbeing naive. In 2001 she had a bad fall and broke her arm. I asked how she wasfeeling. Her answer: "I am exceedingly glad I know how to fall." (It could,indeed, have been much worse). I have been pondering on the multiple implica-tions of this truism for my everyday life: knowing how to fall.

A long, successful, collaborative partnership and marriage. In interviewswith members of the Erickson family, I learned again and again of the magnifi-cent synergy between Milton Erickson and Elizabeth Moore.

Setting the cornerstone: Bert, Dr. Erickson’s oldest son, told me how muchhe liked Miss Moore from the moment he first met her, experiencing her sensi-tive and accepting manner. He was seven when 21-year-old Elizabeth marriedhis father. "She was everything we could have hoped for". There was a signifi-cant apprehension though, for both his five-year-old brother and he – would his

F A C E T S & R E F L E C T I O N Snew mother know how to prepare schoollunches for them? As a young mother, herresponse set the tone for a lifetime of cre-ative solutions and synergy. Bert andLance placed the lunchbox staples in frontof their new mother: bread, jars of peanutbutter and jelly. "Normal preparationinvolved pasting peanut butter on one sliceand jelly on the other", said Bert. "ButMom did it better – she softened thepeanut butter and blended the jelly into it.Such an unusual outcome and, how deli-cious it was!" Such thoughfulness canserve as a utilizable metaphor for any mar-riage, any family, and any merger.

Unique, remarkable, of rare beauty.I have been deeply touched by Elizabeth

Erickson’s unique worldview and personal style. Particularly meaningful to mewas her style of fostering and systematically nurturing the power of imagination

in her children through storytelling has been particu-larly meaningful to me. A major implication of thisapparently simple tradition refers to the education ofchildren for freedom of thought, autonomy, respect forothers, physical health, and self-reliance through imag-inationiv. Evidence from neuroscience research corrob-orates the intricate relationship between imaginationand health. What is hypnosis if not the utilization ofinfluential words and powerful imagery to attain free-dom from stress, disease and suffering? Hypnosis canbuild autonomy, self-reliance, altruism, and a healthy

self-concept.

Successful widowhood. For the past 27 years Elizabeth Erickson has been aremarkable model of healthy independence, autonomy, and self-reliance in wid-owhood. She summed up her philosophy at the conclusion of our Centennialinterview: "All of what we do makes us who we are. The connections we make,and what we do, all have an impact that we cannot even anticipate at the time.Everything is meaningful if we are open to it".

***********************************

Compiling mementos on Elizabeth M. Erickson: If you have a memory, astory, a vignette, or a reflection on your interactions and/or encounters with Mrs.Erickson, and want to let her know in what ways she has touched your life, pleaseemail Roxanna Erickson Klein at: [email protected]. iJay Haley (1973) Uncommon Therapy. The Psychiatric Techniques of Milton H.Erickson, M.D. New York: Norton.iiI am indebted to Dan Short, Ph.D., then Editor-in-Chief, who facilitated thisopportunity.ii iMarilia Baker (2004). A Tribute to Elizabeth Moore Erickson. ColleagueExtraordinaire, Wife, Mother, and Companion. Mexico: Alom Editores (Englishedition).ivDaughter Roxanna recalls with delight the magical mornings in her childhoodwhen her mother would read from their favorite L. Frank Baum’s Oz Booksseries (e.g. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) while braiding her long tresses andthose of her sister Kristi’s. The tradition of reading these treasured series hasbeen observed by the Erickson family and passed on to their children and grand-children. Further see Baker, M. (2004) A Tribute to Elizabeth Moore Erickson.

"It would be impossible to describe what in Elizabeth Moore Erickson has impressed me the most or has influenced me the most,

I would say: everything."


tive on the unique contributions ofErickson, and how Ericksonianapproaches fit with the larger field.The book has been translated intoboth Japanese and Polish. Royaltiesgenerated from both books are part ofMunion´s ongoing contributions tothe Milton H. Erickson Foundation.

Munion has presented at a numberof Congresses, and has been selectedas faculty for the upcoming TenthInternational Congress onEricksonian Approaches to Hypnosis

W. Michael MunionM.A., L.P.C.

By Roxanna Erickson Klein R.N., Ph.D.

Michael Munion MA has been asteady contributor to Ericksonianmovement for many years. Hisbehind the scenes support give him afamiliar presence though few areaware of the extent of his contribu-tions.

Michael Munion dates his interestin Ericksonian approaches to the firstCongress in 1980, where he was avolunteer. At that time, new to thefield, he was looking to extend hisclinical knowledge and skills. Thefirst session he attended was led byKay Thompson, DDS, who was wellknown for her exquisite creative useof language. During and subsequentto the Congress, Munion came torealize that he was alreadyEricksonian in his thinking althoughhe had not really appreciated this ori-entation prior to his experiences at theCongress. He continued to volunteerfor other Congresses, including theEvolution of Psychotherapy Congressin 1985. The Evolution Congress hada dramatic effect on the field of ther-apy, as well as on many who attendedincluding Munion.

Following the EvolutionCongress, Munion was stimulated tobetter understand the interfaces, dif-ferences and commonalities amongwidely known approaches to therapy.As a result of that inquiry, Munionand Jeffrey Zeig collaborated to editthe book, What is Psychotherapy?Contemporary Perspectives (JosseyBass, 1990). The book looked atbroad questions relevant to studentsof the field and brought togethereighty one original commentariesfrom well-known practitioners. Itoffered an important summary guideto students who wish to have a clear-er perspective of similarities and dif-ferences among psychotherapeuticapproaches.

Zeig and Munion continued theircollaboration with a second book,Milton H. Erickson (Sage, London,1999). This book is part of a Sagepublication series on key figures incounseling and psychotherapy. It isintended to give students a perspec-

C O N T R I B U T O R O F N O T Eand Psychotherapy this December inPhoenix. He is also a training affili-ate of the Phoenix Institute forEricksonian Therapy.

Munion maintains a private prac-tice with offices in Gold Canyon andMesa, Arizona. His focus on privatepractice allows him the flexibility topursue more teaching, workshops,and professional writing. Muniondescribes his approach to individual,marital and family therapy as briefand solution focused treatment thatutilizes many Ericksonian techniquesincluding hypnotherapy. He main-tains an interest in cognitive behav-ioral approaches; treatment of theadolescent; substance abuse; anddomestic violence. Having spent 20years as clinical director atSuperstition Mountain Mental HealthCenter, a multi-faceted facility offer-ing a growing and broad range mentalhealth services to six communities,Munion has a solid background ofexpertise. He teaches at OttawaUniversity, and recently has givenworkshops dealing with methamphet-amine issues as they relate to childabuse and neglect.

The ideology of change holds a

fascination for Munion, and ongoinginquiry into the process of generatinghealthy change has continued toguide his thinking. Munion’s basicphilosophy focuses on the importanceof people becoming more health ori-ented. He aspires to sweep away theillusion of mind body divisions thatinterfere with people mobilizing theirown internal resources to facilitatetheir health and well being. This is anextension of the principles by whichhypnosis provides relief from pain.Intentionality is key in this process.Munion is committed to the perspec-tive that individuals can take anactive role in their own healing (bothpsychological and physical), andbecome more intentional in interac-tions of all kinds.

Michael Munion is a dedicatedcontributor who has helped carry for-ward the momentum of theEricksonian approaches and the lega-cy of Milton Erickson. In his ownquiet way, he sets a standard of con-tribution to the healing arts that isadmirable and appreciated.

To learn more about his work goto www.michaelmunion.com


Albert Ellis: A TributeBy Jeffrey K. Zeig

It is with deep sorrow that I received and now report the death of Albert Ellis,Ph.D. Al was born in Pittsburgh on September 27, 1913. Present at his death washis wife, Deborah Joffe Ellis.

I travel to New York City three or four times a year to teach and I frequent-ly have visited Al and Debbie during those trips. For much of the past two years,Al was bedridden and communication was limited. But it was always comfortingto witness how much Debbie adored Al. She was devoted, remaining glued to hisbedside, attending to his needs and health care. It was her dedication that kept Alalive and comfortable during his arduous final illness.

Al was a great friend of the Erickson Foundation, having presented at numer-ous meetings beginning with the 1985 Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference.Al graced the podium of every subsequent Evolution Conference, including the1994 European Evolution Conference. He presented at Erickson Congresses andBrief Therapy Conferences from 1986 to 2003. Al and I served on the faculty ofinternational meetings in Latin America.

My most memorable moments with Al were at the 1988 InternationalCongress on Brief Therapy in San Francisco when we engaged in a dialogue. Adialogue with Al was really destined to be a debate, and Al was a peerlessdebater, who had engaged countless contributors to psychotherapy, and, well…Iwanted to be included on that list. Also, that dialogue served as an opportunityto study more deeply Al’s monumental contributions, something I recommend toall clinicians.

The discussion was spirited and when it ended, Al remarked that I had donea good job. Janet Wolfe, his companion of almost 40 years, indicated that Al’spronouncement was high praise.

Al was a complex man. He was driven and dedicated. He was philosophicalyet down-to-earth; he was humane and self-aggrandizing. Impossibly cantanker-ous, and at once familiar, he was "Al," not "Dr. Ellis." Above all, he was effi-cient and energetic, working 16 hours a day or more.

My best friend, J. Charles Theisen, wrote his Masters Thesis on Al under thesupervision of Harold Greenwald at United States International University in SanDiego. Knowing Al’s gene for efficiency, Chuck scheduled a time for a person-al interview on one of Al’s cross-country flights, and booked a seat next to him.

Al’s approach to therapy and the human condition was earthy -- and filledwith humor. Imagine the nasal New York City twang as Al would lead therapistsand patients in song at one of his workshops. You see, he’d sometimes borrow apopular tune and put new words to it to reflect important principles from,Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).

Al was in Disneyland—at least once. I remember seeing him there onDecember 13, 1990, the night I rented Disneyland for a private party for atten-dees of the Evolution Conference. Al in Disneyland was an anomalous sight.And, the image did not last long. He left with his usual flair…after pronouncingan unprintable expletive about his surroundings. My guess is that he went backto the hotel to write another book.

Dedicated to the Institute for Rational Emotive Therapy, which he foundedin 1959, almost all of his earnings were donated to the Institute.

In 1965, Al purchased with his personal funds a six-story building on 65thStreet in Manhattan that eventually became known as the Albert Ellis Institute.In recent years a newsworthy controversy started brewing about control of theassets of the Institute once Al was removed from its board.

Al was not much for creature comforts. He lived a Spartan lifestyle in a sim-ple apartment on the top floor of the Institute where I visited him twice. Clearly,his contributions to humanity, not his human comforts, were what were impor-tant to him. He really wanted people to correct their distorted attitudes and takea more positive and proactive approach to living as sanely as possible in aninsane world.

Al was a workhorse. He saw patients and then wrote in between the brieftherapy sessions he conducted. And he worked despite prolonged adversity,

including diabetes and profound hearingloss in his later life.

Never was Al one to mince words. Hehad a fearless integrity combined with dra-matic flair. His letters to me were true toform: "I am coming to your (expletivedeleted) conference," he would write.Then he would jest that his presencewould be sufficient, and that no otherexperts would be needed.

Perhaps some of my affinity for Al wasdue to the fact that we were both reared in

the Bronx. Al was a New York City institution. His Friday night drop-in groupsat the Institute were legendary where participants got to have the REBT messagedelivered with the sagacity of Woody Allen and the saltiness of Lenny Bruce.Al’s obituary was front-page news in the New York Times which was followedby a feature in its Sunday section. His death was noted in detail on New YorkCity television news.

The contributions that Al made to psychotherapy are more numerous thancan be recounted here. Therapists of all persuasions were influenced by him. Itis impossible to attend graduate school in any psychotherapy discipline withoutlearning the ABCs of REBT.

I frequently use things I learned from Al. I do not know how many times Ihave shared with patients Al’s notion that we are all members of the FFH club:fallible, f++ked-up, human beings. I borrow his description to re-frame withhumor patient’s negative thinking.

Al’s contributions to hypnosis are less well-known, but Al was a fellow ofDivision 30 of the American Psychological Association, which is the divisiondedicated to psychological hypnosis. Al published on hypnosis and was profi-cient in its practice. He presented on REBT and hypnosis at an early EricksonCongress.

Al was an avid spokesman for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, themethod he invented in the mid-1950s and refined throughout his lifetime. A tire-less author, he wrote more than 75 books for professionals and the public onwide-ranging topics including human sexuality, relationships, anxiety, depres-sion, and addiction.

Al Ellis’s legacy is secure. A 1982 survey indicated that Al was rated aheadof Freud, and second to Carl Rogers, as the most influential therapist among clin-ical psychologists.

I do not think any therapist treated as many patients as Al did. No therapistwrote as many papers and books as Al did. No expert conducted as many work-shops as Al did. No expert is cited more widely in the psychotherapy literature.No presenter made a workshop more interesting and provocative. No therapistin history was more public in demonstrating his clinical work.

Al was a man with a determined attitude, who dedicated his life to the propo-sition that self-defeating thoughts could be permanently cured by self-determin-ing one’s attitude. It is not our circumstances that determine our destiny; it is ourattitude about them. Nobody made that proposition plainer, or advocated it morestrongly than Al Ellis.

Links from Wikipedia:* http://www.rebt.org/

* http://www.rebtnetwork.org/

* http://www.rebt.ws/

* http://www.albertellis.info/

* http://www.arebt.org/

* http://www.rebt-cbt.net/

* http://changingminds.org/explanations/belief/irrational_beliefs.htm

* http://albert-ellis-friends.net/

T R I B U T E

Albert Ellis and Jeffrey Zeig Workshop in Mexico

(1997)


THE LABYRINTH:

ANOTHERROUTE INSIDEBy Helen Adrienne, LCSW, BCD

www.helenadrienne.com

Anyone who receives the MiltonErickson Foundation Newsletter islikely to know that hypnosis excels asa modality by which we can guidepatients into an inner space of intelli-gence and serenity. Yet not all of ourpatients are open to the wonders ofhypnosis. Some have been preju-diced against it. Others are afraid.

Years ago, I started using a paperrepresentation of the labyrinth atChartres pictured on this page as asettling device for such patients. I hadpromising results.

My approach has been to explainto a patient what a labyrinth is, andhow I believe the process will servethem. I give them a paper version ofthe labyrinth and set the tone withconversational trance. I wrote ageneric script which I personalize asthey trace the inward journey using acolored pencil. When patients gets tothe center, I invite them to close theireyes and allow their minds to collectthe random thoughts or memories thatcame to them as they meanderedthrough the labyrinthine loops whilelistening to me. When they open theireyes I encourage them to capture theirthoughts on paper for later use. Witha different colored pencil so as not toget confused, they trace their way outas they continue to follow my voice.Discoveries always ensue.

The labyrinth is not a maze. It isa path that circumnavigates its way

into, and out of, a central space with-out dead-ends. The experience thushas three parts: the journey in; arriv-ing and being in the center; and thejourney out. No doubt you can appre-ciate its metaphoric value --to arriveat the center of the labyrinth can beakin to arriving at the center of one’sself.

The labyrinth can be a task aimedat anxiety reduction, or an inductionattendant to other goals. Either way,when used by a practitioner, it paral-lels hypnosis. The banter used toguide the person into and out of thecenter can encourage attention to thebreath and to the senses. It can labelevolving trance-comfort; it can pen-dulate between conscious and uncon-scious awareness; it can be scriptedwith primary process language; and itcan be deliberate in the use ofmetaphor. A patient’s own imagery

T H E R A P E U T I C F R A M E W O R K Scan be utilized along the way, espe-cially once in the center as a deepen-ing technique when the labyrinth isused as an induction and the center ofthe labyrinth becomes the placewhere the main hypnotic interventiontakes place.

Some metaphoric influences thatcan be incorporated into the script aredescriptive of the labyrinth itself. Forexample, "twists and turns" (like reallife), or "each turn leads toward thecenter" (your path inward can be con-tinuous).

The root of the word clue comesfrom "clew," which refers to the turnsin a labyrinth. Once you’veexplained this fact in your patter, itcan have a powerful hypnotic impactif you say, "…and as you allow your-

See FRAMEWORKS on page 14


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This edition of IN THE SPIRITOF THERAPY is devoted to how peo-ple’s beliefs impact their ability tobecome successful. Since Dr NicolasCummings is one of the most widelysuccessful people in almost everyarea of his life he was asked to speakabout his beliefs and successes. Hegenerously accepted the request. Intelling his story he provides a formu-la for his success. It is hypnotic andefficient.. This article is the first of atwo-part series. The second part willspell out the formula in more detail,and off insights into the spirituality ofsuccess. Cummings’ credentials givea hint of his accomplishments, andsuccess, but only a hint. He is a per-son of amazing, accomplishment,generosity, and kindness.

Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., Sc.D.

Distinguished Professor, Universityof Nevada, Reno

President, Cummings Foundation forBehavioral Health, Inc.

Board Chair, The Nicholas &Dorothy Cummings Foundation, Inc.

Board Chair, Care Integra

Former President, AmericanPsychological Association

John Lentz: Dr. Cummings,Many people believe things aboutGod and themselves that results in aworld view that blocks their success.Some people seem to believe theydon't deserve to be successful. Clearlyyour beliefs have invited, and evenmagnified, your ability to not just sur-vive and succeed, but to thrive andachieve amazing heights of success inmultiple areas. Would you sharesome of your insights and beliefsabout success?

Nicholas Cummings: It is myguiding belief that all of us have anintended potential accomplishmentand that often tragedy and otherobstacles can serve to strengthen ourresolve toward that goal. I learnedthis from my maternal grandmotherwho has had the greatest influence onmy life. She was born in NorthernGreece and deprived of any formaleducation. She was totally illiterate,but brilliant, a woman with a tremen-dous oral history who could recite

from memory almost all of Homer'sIliad and Odyssey and taught me thesame.

JL: Have you ever thought abouthow your Grandmother’s reciting ofHomer’s Iliad and Odyssey was alsoa powerful hypnotic message to over-come tragedy and become success-ful?

NC: In her recitations of theHomeric heroic tales, my grandmoth-er used the many adversities that triedto keep Ulysses from his purpose as away of illustrating that these onlystrengthened his resolve. Everyonehas a purpose, and someday I wouldrealize mine. At age four my fatherdied, leaving my 25-year-old mothera widow with two young children.My mother plunged into a severedepression and my grandmotheressentially raised my younger sisterand me during the next several years.

Because my grandmother arrivedin the U.S. late in life, she knew noEnglish, so we spoke only Greek athome. So I went to kindergartenspeaking no English. The school sys-tem was quite backward, and the prin-cipal was a petty tyrant whophysically beat me the first week ofschool because I was unresponsive.Terrified, I responded to my inabilityto understand any instructions byremaining mute. The school officialsdiagnosed me mentally retarded afterhaving me tested by a school psychol-ogist. Remaining mute, I flunked,and papers were drawn committingme to a Home for Retarded Children.In her depression my mother signedthem, and had it not been for theintervention of an uncle and anotherman who had been by father’s friendbefore his death, I would have beencommitted. I learned English within amonth or two and was later re-diag-nosed as gifted. But it was a veryclose call.

When I was eight my motherremarried, and we moved to the SanFrancisco. At the age of nine I wasstruck with polio, almost died, andeventually was totally paralyzed fromthe waist down. My parents were toldby neurologists that I would neverwalk again. My Grandmother Maryonce again came to the rescue. Shebadgered me into trying a controver-sial theory that believed even passiveexercise would restore nerve trans-

mission. When my mother wasn'tlooking I would creep down the stairslike a snake, chin myself on waterpipes, mounting my bicycle, thanpushing down from my hips as mylegs were useless. My grandmotherapplauded my efforts even though atfirst I would go less than a city blockbefore I fell. I had to lie there untilsomeone came to pick me up.Discouraged and wanting to give up,my intuitive grandmother would, withthe cruelest voice she could muster,yell, "You are only nine; do you wantto be a helpless cripple all your life?"Yes, she used the now politically

I N T H E S P I R I T O F T H E R A P Yincorrect word "cripple," but sheknew what she was doing. It angeredand motivated me.

In further discussion with Dr.Cummings, it became apparent thatthe events he recounted spoke vol-umes about his spiritual stancetoward the world. His early experi-ences elicited a powerful hypnoticincentive to continue to succeed.Subsequently he realized that successis our birthright.. Dr. Cummings willcontinue his story in the next issue ofthe Newsletter.


is Online! www.erickson-foundation.org


self to take a deep and relaxing breath... with each clew, you can get aclue." It is important to encourage theprocess to move slowly. I haveslowed the process by using myvoice, but also by incorporating adescription of the habits of the three-toed sloth. Slowing down the journeythrough the labyrinth is akin to thehypnotic intention of narrowing thefocus of attention.

Labyrinths were originally meantto be walked. Having walked alabyrinth many times, I am aware ofits capacity to create a shift, a byprod-uct of hypnosis as well. A paperlabyrinth becomes a convenient, con-crete therapeutic tool. The sensitivityof our fingers as we trace the pathserves as an analogue to actuallywalking it.

The uses for the paper labyrinthcan be many and varied. Althoughthe labyrinth predates Christianity, itwas picked up by the Christians as a"walking prayer." The paperlabyrinth can be used in this contextas well with those for whom spiritual-ity is thought of as congruent withemotional growth. The spirituallyoriented patient can be encouraged torelease some issue on the way in, askfor guidance in the center, and experi-ence a shift in affect or awareness onthe way out. A labyrinth can be usedwith children, or in combination with

FRAMEWORKS continued from page 12

brain-balancing music as a biofeed-back approach to insomnia. It can beused as a distraction that could impactchronic pain or irritable bowel syn-drome. It can be used in many thera-peutic situations. The feel of thetexture of a wooden or soapstonelabyrinth would evoke different expe-riences than pencil on paper and canbe used by the blind. I have used it ina support group setting with infertili-ty patients.

The labyrinth provides manyopportunities to use one’s hypnosistraining creatively. It can impact thesame place in the brain as hypnosisboth with those who are averse to for-mal trance work and those who arenot.

©Helen Adrienne, 2007

420 East 64th Street - 1D(East)

New York, New York 10021

[email protected]

This article was written with valu-able contributions by Susan Dowell,Susan Hendricks, Wayne Martin andMarie Madeo.

For info and resources about thelabyrinth go on-line to: www.veriditas.net, www.labyrinthsociety.org,w w w . g r a c e c a t h e d r a l . o r g ,www.LabyrinthResourceGroup.org,www.lessons4living.com/walking.htm.

Hypnosis for Self-HealingBy Betty Alice Erickson, MA, LPC

Note: Joe was not a "usual" client. Highly motivated, in therapy at exactlythe right time, he believed life was good, and the therapy fit his paradigm per-fectly. Even though it is not common that everything works so well, the conceptsand ideas used in this case can be useful in many situations.

Joe walked into the office with a diffident yet paradoxically firm attitude. Ahandsome 32 year old, he had never had a long-term relationship. He used to startout just fine, he said, but after having sex a few times, he would lose his erectionhalf-way through. As time went on, he would lose his erection more quickly.Now he couldn’t even get one at the beginning of an encounter. Worse, he wasstarting to choose people who were not his type, who drank too much or had noambition. He was sure the two problems were related.

His first sexual encounter was at 16. A church youth counselor crawled intohis sleeping bag at a campout and molested him. The man said Joe had enjoyedit because he physically responded. Joe had never told anyone about this.However, he didn’t think it had anything to do with his current problem. He had"almost forgotten all about it."

Joe’s physician had recommended hypnosis, so I taught him self-hypnosis. Iused a favorite injunction, "for your own good purposes," and he practiced faith-fully. At our fourth session he told me proudly that while in a trance, he hadrevisited the night he had been molested. He remembered he had said, "Stop!"He had said it several times, but he had been too embarrassed to "make a com-motion." We then talked about how children live in literally different worlds. Weeach brought up foolish things we had done as kids and laughed at how much wehad changed, how we had outgrown many old ideas.

At the next session, almost as conversation, I talked about how Erickson’swork embodied five universal moral values: truth, compassion, justice, respectand accountability. The next week, Joe said he had thought a lot and couldn’tthink of a single good situation that did not have those values. His molestationviolated every single value, he added angrily.

We used formal trance that day. I asked him to visualize himself as a 16-yearold. I told him he had gained wisdom in his 32 years of life, so I wanted him touse that wisdom to give that youngster truth, compassion, respect and to teachhim the accountability of his molestation. At the end, we did not discuss the halfhour he had spent in silent trance. He remarked that he wanted to continue thattrance at home.

During the next couple sessions he discussed his molestation from a totallydifferent perspective. He looked on the Internet and was delighted to see his per-petrator was a Registered Sex Offender. "Somebody told," Joe said happily. "Hegot caught!" During this time, he looked for a better job, and was also introducedto someone who seemed right for him. He decided to start dating again. He was-n’t going to worry about losing his erection, he said. "Worrying would guaran-tee it," he remarked.

At our last session, he reported he didn’t think he had a problem anymore.But he wanted to come back in a month or so just to make sure "everything keptworking right."

Discussion: Joe’s difficulties were built on an unsolvable dilemma. Heblamed himself for his molestation and for "enjoying" what was actually repug-nant to him. Failing at sex insured he would not enjoy it any more, which was aperfect "punishment." This pattern then escalated into dates with people he knewwere unsuitable—yet another reason to fail at sex. His circular thinking that hewas to blame and not worthy was reinforced.

Joe was highly defended in his belief that the abuse was not affecting him. Ilearned from Erickson that functional people will not use self-hypnosis in waysthey are not ready to handle. Joe was ready to heal himself. Remembering his

protests began his healing. Joe’s structuring of his own therapy, with only a lit-tle guidance, embodies Erickson’s idea of nurturing independence.

Moral values are clearly an integral part of Erickson’s work. I had discussedthem with Joe as interesting conversation. He discovered "on his own" that hehad been violated on moral levels. Separating those moral violations from hisphysical responses allowed him to eliminate self-blame.

Joe used his adult wisdom to give his unconscious a more adult understand-ing of the abuse. Erickson repeatedly said the unconscious is childlike and knowsreality from concrete experiences. It also generates emotions that are not ratio-nal. We all know that children routinely outgrew childish beliefs.

Laughing about outgrowing childhood beliefs normalized Joe’s blaming him-self in an understandable way. That action allowed him to accept that he wasn’tto blame. Without blame, he had no reason to feel guilty about something doneto him.

An adult understanding of moral values allowed him to heal. To discover hisperpetrator was a registered Sex Offender was serendipity at its best--there waseven justice. Joe could continue his life as he really wanted, being more of whohe really was.

C A S E R E P O R T"...I talked about how Erickson’s work embodied five universal moral values: truth, compassion,

justice, respect and accountability.

The Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter VOL. 27, NO. 2 15WEB NEWS

VISIT THE NEW ONLINE STORE!www.ericksonfoundationstore.comThe Erickson Foundation has made many products available for online purchaseincluding books and audio/video recordings from past Conferences. Audio files(MP3) for immediate download also will be available in the coming months.Check back often for new products added to the already expanding list of newtitles available for online purchasing.

NEW PUBLIC RELATIONS LINK ADDED TO FOUNDATION HOMEPAGEwww.erickson-foundation.org/pr/The new link provides downloadable PDF order forms for books, audio andvideo recordings, brochures for upcoming Foundation conferences, and links toadditional organizations offering psychotherapy-related workshops and pro-grams.

ONLINE NEWSLETTERVisit the Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter web page with easy-to-readPDF versions of new and archival editions. Go to: www.erickson-foundation.organd click on ‘Newsletter’. Join the Foundation E-mail mailing list and be thefirst to receive the most current published editions!

JOIN THE FOUNDATION E-MAIL MAILING LIST!Be the first to receive Conference announcements and registration specials;information on audiotape/videotape, and CD/DVD specials from the EricksonPress; automatically receive the Online version of the Erickson Newsletter andmore. Sign-up on the Foundation’s web site: www.erickson-foundation.orgThe Erickson Foundation will not sell or rent your E-mail address to any personor organization.

THE ERICKSON LISTSERV - Join the Discussion!This Internet discussion group addresses Ericksonian approaches to hypnosis andpsychotherapy. Additionally, list members have access to a web site featuringpapers, photographs, and a matching service for workshop presenters and thosein need of training.TO SUBSCRIBE: http://www.topica.com/lists/EricksonListOr send a BLANK e-mail to: [email protected]


UPCOMING TRAININGDATE TITLE / LOCATION / LEADER CONTACTS

2007

10/5-7 MHE Institute of West Virginia and WV University Hypnosis Study Group 24th Annual Hypnosis Training Workshop / Morgantown, WV / Betty Alice Erickson, M.S. and Invited Faculty 1.

10/6-7 Eating Disorders / Rome, Italy / Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D. 2.

10/10-11 Brief Therapy / Cologne, Germany / Zeig 3.

10/12-13 Intermediate Hypnosis / Copenhagen, Denmark / Zeig 4.

10/18-21 Intensive Supervision Workshop in Ericksonian Clinical Hypnotherapy - Master Class / New York City, NY / Zeig 5.

10/22-26 Intensive Training in Ericksonian Approaches to Brief Hypnotic Psychotherapy - Fundamental / Phoenix, Ariz. / Brent Geary, Ph.D., Stephen Lankton, MSW, DAHB, Zeig, and Invited Presenters 6.

10/29-11/2 Intensive Training in Ericksonian Approaches to Brief Hypnotic Psychotherapy - Intermediate / Phoenix, Ariz. / Geary, Lankton, Zeig, and Invited Presenters 6.

11/25-30 Maximizing the Healing Power of Connection in Hypnotherapy and Healing / Esalen, Calif. / Michelle Ritterman, Ph.D. 7.

11/28-12/2 Ongoing Supervision Training / Mexico City, MEXICO / Zeig 8.

12/6-9 Tenth International Congress on Ericksonian Approaches to Hypnosis and Psychotherapy / Phoenix, Ariz. / Invited Faculty 6.

2008

1/24-27 Intensive Supervision Workshop in Ericksonian Clinical Hypnotherapy - Master Class / Minneapolis, Minn. / Zeig 9.

1/31-2/3 Intensive Supervision Workshop in Ericksonian Clinical Hypnotherapy - Master Class / New York City, NY / Zeig 5.

2/4-8 Intensive Training in Ericksonian Approaches to Brief Hypnotic Psychotherapy - Fundamental / Phoenix, Ariz. / Geary, Lankton, Zeig, and Invited Presenters 6.

2/11-15 Intensive Training in Ericksonian Approaches to Brief Hypnotic Psychotherapy - Intermediate / Phoenix, Ariz. / Geary, Lankton, Zeig, and Invited Presenters 6.

Contact Information:1. Marion Kostka; Tel, 304-293-4431; Email, [email protected] ;

Web, www.wvu.edu/~cocenter/HypAnnual.html

2. Camillo Loriedo; Email, [email protected]

3. Email, [email protected]


5. Helen Adrienne; E-mail, [email protected] ; Tel, 212/758-0125

6. The Milton H. Erickson Foundation, Inc., 3606 N. 24th Street, Phoenix, AZ85016-6500; Toll-free tel, 1-877-212-6678; tel, 602/956-6196; fax, 602/956-0519; E-mail, [email protected] ; Web: www.erickson-foundation.org

7. Kinga Pfeifer, [email protected]; Sami Gamble and Kinga Pfeifer,Programs Department, Esalen Institute; Tel, 831-667-3038; Fax, 831-667-0329

8. Juan Francisco Ramirez Martinez / Email: [email protected]


To submit a listing for Upcoming Trainings, please send dates, title of workshop,venue, city/state/country, list of presenters, and complete contact information ONLY.Information must be sent in the format above. A $10 fee, per listing, is required. Deadlinefor the 2007 Fall/Winter Issue (mailed December) is October 1, 2007. All workshop sub-missions are subject to approval by the Erickson Foundation. For more information,please contact the Erickson Foundation at 602/956-6196; [email protected]


CONFERENCE NOTESThe Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (SCEH) is sponsoring the 58th Annual Workshops and Scientific Program Conference, "The Science of

Hypnosis – The Decade Ahead." The Conference will be held October 24-28, 2007, at the Embassy Suites Hotel Anaheim South, in Anaheim, Calif. For furtherinformation on the Conference and the Call for Papers and Workshops Proposals, go to the Conference Web Site: www.sceh.us/conference/index.htm

Third European Conference of Brief Strategic and Systemic Therapy, The European Ways of Brief Therapy: Investigate – Induce – Prescribe, will be heldNovember 8-11, 2007, at the Centro Affari E Convegni in Arezzo, Italy. A Pre-Conference Workshop will be held on November 7. This year’s Conference will bein honor of Paul Watzlawick. Workshops, Symposia, Discussions, Presentations, Announcements and Demonstrations will be available. The first two Conferencesbrought together over 2,000 colleagues from 36 countries. The Scientific Committee for the Conference includes Prof. Camillo Loriedo, Prof. Giorgio Nardone, Prof.Wendel Ray, Prof. Gunther Schmidt, and others. For complete information and registration form visit the Conference web site: www.BSST.org ; Strategic TherapyCenter, Piazza S. Agostino, 11 – 52100 – Arezzo, Italy; Tel, +39 0575 350240; Fax, +39 0575 350277; Email, [email protected] ;www.centroditerapiastrategica.org

The Tenth International Congress on Ericksonian Approaches to Hypnosis and Psychotherapy, sponsored by The Milton H. Erickson Foundation, Inc., will beheld December 6-9, 2007, at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix, Phoenix, Ariz. Sessions include Law & Ethics, Practice Development Workshops, Keynotes, InteractiveEvents, Clinical Demonstrations, and an eight-session Fundamentals of Ericksonian Hypnosis Program. A post-Congress Advanced Ericksonian Hypnosis TrainingDay will be held on Monday, December 10, 2007. To receive the brochure by mail contact The Milton H. Erickson Foundation, 3606 N. 24th Street, Phoenix, AZ85016-6500; Tel, 602.956.6196; Fax, 602.956.0519; Email, [email protected]

View the complete brochure on the Congress site: www.erickson-foundation.org/10thCongress. Online registration, accreditation, faculty bios, workshop hand-outs, hotel accommodation, and free educational downloads also is available.

The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH) will hold the 50th Annual Scientific Meeting and Workshop entitled, Reflections, March 7-11, 2008, at theHyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago, Ill. For complete information contact ASCH, 140 N. Bloomingdale Rd., Bloomingdale, IL 60108; Tel, 630-980-4740;Email, [email protected] ; Web, www.ASCH.net

Symposium East 2008, Activating our Relational Selves: From Isolation to Connection, will be held March 13-16, 2008, in Washington, D.C., and is sponsoredby the Psychotherapy Networker. Information will be available in the coming weeks on the organization’s web site: www.psychotherapynetworker.com ;Psychotherapy Networker, 5135 MacArthur Boulevard N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016; Tel, 202-537-8950 ; Toll-Free, 888-408-2452; Fax, 202-537-6869; Email,[email protected]

The 11th Congress of the European Society of Hypnosis (ESH) in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine, Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy: Trauma and Pain,will be held September 17-21, 2008, at the Lecture Hall Centre in Vienna, Austria, with a special Pre-Congress on EMDR, September 16, 2008. For further infor-mation and to register Online visit the Congress web site: www.vienna.hypnos.de ; Tel, +43 1 405 138 316; Fax, +43 1 407 82 74.

Call for Papers: Abstracts for papers, workshops and posters contact Henriette Walter: [email protected] All abstracts regarding dental issuesshould be sent directly to Albrecht Schmierer: [email protected] Deadline for Abstract submission is January 31, 2008.

The ESH homepage is www.esh-hypnosis.org

Paul Watzlawick, Ph.D.Philosopher-Family Therapy Pioneer was 85

Paul Watzlawick, a pioneer in family therapy, system theory and construc-tivist philosophy, died Saturday, March 31, 2007 at his home in Palo Alto, CA.He was 85 years old.

He died of heart arrest, a spokesperson at the Stanford University MedicalCenter said. In late 2006, primarily due to ill health related to age, after 46 yearshe gave up his office at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) entered into fulltime retirement. Dr Watzlawick donated his body to science. There will be noservices held.

Dr. Watzlawick’s contributions to system theory and family therapy weremany, widely read, and influential. Internationally known for his contributionsto Communication Theory and the practice of Brief Therapy, and in the fields ofcybernetics applied to human interaction and constructivist theory, he was authorof 22 books translated into more than 80 languages, including The Pragmatics ofHuman Communication (1967); Change – Principals of problem formation andproblem resolution (1974); The Language of Change (1977); The InventedReality (1990); and How real is real? (1976).

Dr Watzlawick received his Doctorate in 1949 from the University of

O B I T U A R YVenice (Cà Foscari) in Philosophy andModern Languages. Trained at the C. G.Jung Institute in Zurich, since November1960 he served as a member of the staff atthe Mental Research Institute (MRI). Atthe time of his death he was a SeniorResearch Fellow at the Mental ResearchInstitute (MRI) a founding member of theMRI Brief Therapy Center team, andProfessor Emeritus at Stanford UniversitySchool of Medicine Department ofPsychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Among the best known figures in thefields of communication and construc-tivist theory, family and brief therapy, Dr.Watzlawick was the receipient of numer-

ous awards and honors including the Prix Psych 19719 Paris; DistinguishedAchievement Award, American Family Therapy Association, 1981; OutstandingTeacher Award, Psychiatric Residency Class 1981, Stanford Univ. Med. Center;the Paracelsus Ring 1987, City of Villach (Austria); Lifetime Achievement

See WATZLAWICK on page 21


Pioneers ofPsychotherapy

GuidingAssociations

Jeffery Zeig Ph.D.

DVD 60 min Recorded at the Evolutionof Psychotherapy Conference 1995

Milton H. Erickson Foundation

www.erickson-foundation.org/pioneers

PPEP95-CP-V1

The clinical demonstration,"Guiding Associations" by JeffreyZeig, PhD masterfully demonstrateshow to utilize the client’s own wordsand suggestions while inviting her

gradually, by her experiences and hischarisma, to think differently aboutherself, her problem, and her future.

The demonstration begins with awoman who presents a problem ofnail biting that she wants to over-come. Zeig elicits from her the real-ization that this is a symbol of herfeeling successful, feminine, compe-tent and happy, and so her problemisn’t a simple matter of tearing at hernails, but an attitude of self-deprecia-tion that impacts all of her life. Andeven though what she wants toaccomplish would be complex evenfor ongoing therapy sessions, Zeigsays that he has a guaranteed cure. Bythe end of the demonstration, I couldsee that he not only wasn’t being arro-gant, but that his pronouncement wasleading to the cure, and it worked!

A part of what is so inspiringabout this clinical demonstration is

D V D R E V I E W

Multi-Dimensional Problem Solving with Hypnosis

Clinical Demonstration by Michael Yapko Ph.D.

BT06-DVD7

Brief Therapy Congress in Anaheim, Dec 2006


www.erickson-foundation.org

A note to readers-- This DVD presentation was selected for viewing at ameeting of the North Texas Society of Clinical Hypnosis in Dallas Texas. Theone-hour video was followed by group discussion regarding the strengths, weak-nesses, techniques, and style of presentation. This review is a compilation ofsome of the comments made during the discussion.

Comments by James Taylor Ph.D., Dallas, TexasThe DVD "Multi-Dimensional Problem Solving with Hypnosis, Clinical

Demonstration" is an impressive display of Dr Michael Yapko’s highly devel-oped skills. As usual, he is articulate, as he deals in an impromptu way with adifficult case. His use of Ericksonian methods is subtle and effective, demon-strating his approach of disrupting old maladaptive patterns, introducing newview points, and helping the client to draw upon her own resources for newinsight while working around her conscious defenses.

Comments by Roxanna Erickson Klein R.N., Ph.D., Dallas, TexasYapko started his demonstration with a brief introduction of the client, and a

few questions about what she wished to accomplish in the session. She referredback to an incident that had significantly altered many aspects of her personallife. In our professional group discussion, it was noted that Yapko did not askfor details or even clarification about the incident, but instead focused on creat-ing a brighter future for the client. Working with a sophisticated and apparentlycapable client, Yapko was adept at meeting the client where she was. In the briefsession, he generated positive momentum that could energize lasting change.

Also of note is the skillful way in which Yapko answered questions from theaudience members. He was able to incisively focus on central issues and adroit-ly provide comprehensive answers to questions..

Comments by George Mount, Ph.D., Dallas, TexasYapko’s clinical demonstration illustrated the use of Erickson’s confusion

techniques, and the use of metaphors and embedded suggestions. He successful-ly dealt with the client’s resistance. At the end, she acknowledged having gainedmore insight and hope from the demonstration. One is never sure what "rift" shecaused in a close, personal relationship, but her grief and depression were evi-dent. His suggestions that the client would become more aware and trusting ofherself were well formed and delivered. He also helped her become more awareof her "blind spot," and rightfully suggested that all of us have blind spots. Hehelped her realize that she could learn to trust herself: The past does not neces-sarily predict the future. He pointed out to her that we are in the process of chang-ing and becoming: The choices we will make tomorrow define us more than thechoices that we made yesterday.

The client indicated that she felt competent in her work, and that her ownclients and colleagues reinforced that perception for her. Yapko skillfully deliv-ered suggestions to help her see herself as equally competent in her personal life,and that she could come to trust herself in that area as well. The processes ofemerging and becoming were also coupled with a post-hypnotic suggestion andassociated with the theme song from the movie, 2001.

This one-hour DVD is well worth watching several times. I watched it twiceand felt like I picked up more details and noticed more of his subtle techniqueson the second viewing. Yapko is a skilled therapist and a relaxed, informativeand entertaining presenter. I highly recommend that you watch this demonstra-tion. It is appropriate for the novice and the expert.

D V D R E V I E W"He pointed out to her that we are in the process

of changing and becoming: The choices we will make tomorrow define us more

than the choices that we made yesterday."

that after seeing this DVD, the view-er has gained insight, and is promptedto do better work. However, afterthinking deeply about what Zeig did,I realize that he was speaking to thesubject on more than one level almostthroughout the demonstration. By theend he has wound up the threads fromall the spools that he was weavingfrom, and guided the client’s associa-tions so that she would not only becured of nail biting, but would thinkdifferently about herself and wouldcontinue to evolve and grow from theexperience.

On one level you can appreciatethe mastery that Zeig works with thiswoman. On another level you can beinspired to use this type of guidingassociations in your work. On still

another level you can find yourselftransformed by watching the demon-stration and find you are encouragedto be more than you have been. Youjust might come away with morerecognition that you can be more suc-cessful, competent, and proud of whoyou are.

I found the demonstration so com-pelling that I have shown it to twoclasses. and developed a pattern forteaching this style of interaction tostudents. The demonstration lendsitself to that type of scrutiny. Thedeeper that I look the better it looks.If you are looking for something thatwill help you work more effectively, Isuspect you will be delighted.

Reviewed by:John D. Lentz D.Min.Shepherdsville, KY

"On still another level you can find yourself transformed by watching the demonstration

and find you are encouraged to be more than you have been."


Healing and Spirituality in TherapyBetty Alice Erickson, MS

CD 90 min

Need item number, please


Brief Therapy Conference December 7-10 2006

Anaheim, California


In the workshop, "Healing and Spirituality in Therapy," Betty AliceErickson is elegant. Her warm, personal way of teaching and presenting infor-mation while evoking a caring relationship is evident. She invites the listenerto feel good while she gives useful information. Using her blend of humor,self-disclosure, and metaphor, she offers a thoughtful and thought provokingworkshop about spirituality and healing. In short, she makes a complex subjectlook almost effortless.

Beginning with an explanation and definition of spirituality that almosteveryone could agree on, she states that all learning is experiential. She thengives experiences that invite learning and elicit a spiritual experience.

Drawing on her clinical and life experiences, BA Erickson gives informa-tion that is useful and helpful without being preachy. She wisely constructs theworkshop to be a blend of speaking to both sides of the brain. She explains thedifferences and describes what she is attempting to do in a way that ensures thelistener feels cared about and respected. At the same time, she also makes surethat the workshop is one that evokes a spiritual experience. She does this by

C D R E V I E W

her willingness to speak openly, so that the listener feels connected to her andothers at a higher level of consciousness. She expertly invites a spiritual experi-ence through the poetry of implied messages, metaphors, and skillful rhetoric.One of the impressive things about her presentation is how she plants the seedsof spirituality and understanding in a way that includes everyone. It is one of thehallmarks of her ability and her professionalism that she so easily and intention-ally speaks on more than one level.

BA Erickson’s integrity and ability are evident in this workshop as she detailsaspects of spirituality and healing, and shows how each enhances the other. Shegives plenty of information and yet is mindful of how people will hear what ispresented. She intentionally speaks in ways that protect the listener and avoidany negative hypnotic messages, while inviting listeners to feel connected andcapable with positive messages. Her concern for the listener is obvious, and sheimplicitly conveys care and sensitivity. This is an excellent workshop that helpsus to connect spirituality and healing in ways that includes people of all beliefsand levels of belief.

Reviewed byJohn D. Lentz D.Min.Shepherdsville, KY

"She intentionally speaks in ways that protect the listener and avoid any negative

hypnotic messages, while inviting listeners to feel connected and capable with positive messages."


BIOENERGETICSby ALEXANDER LOWEN

Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference 2000

Pioneer of Psychotherapy Series


PP-EP00-CDV5


In this DVD Alexander Lowen conducts a demonstration with a woman whoserved as his demonstration subject ten years earlier. The previous work had tar-geted her asthma that had persisted for ten years while working two jobs andstruggling in her marriage. The deep breath work had opened up her chest, andthe attacks had ended. She also noted that for five years after their work she hadmore energy; was more self-aware; and had continued bioenergetic work on herown.

During this session, she worked on residual trauma from her brother holdingher at knifepoint after he molested her when she was a child. She also dealt withgrief over the loss of her parents, and having to face that the brother who molest-ed her became executor of her parents’ estate. She was currently in menopauseand found herself "shut down", gaining weight, and not breathing well.

Since the subject was familiar with the procedure, Lowen successfully pro-duced a demonstration that was vivid and illustrated the power of his techniques.As he worked with her, he explained his theoretical stance: "If you don’t breathe,your energy is low." Therapy encouraged the use of the voice and moved theclient to cry. The therapist observed the body and its patterns of holding tension.

Lowen asserted that asthma is caused in a child when it blocks crying. Fromthen on, the child may have an asthmatic attack each time he or she tries not tocry. Crying is a healthy way to relieve tension.

The exercises he demonstrated included leaning backward over a back sad-dle with arms overhead. The client produced sounds that lead to deep breathing,then sobbing, then the body began to move and stop holding. Breathing alsobrings awareness of body pain. The second exercise involved leaning over for-ward and purposefully starting to vibrate the body. These exercises were encour-aged in between sessions as well. Eventually the person’s breathingself-corrects, as does the client's weight.

The subject’s body type was examined for holding patterns. She was placedon a mattress on her back while she continued crying. She was encouraged toexpress her anger through her body by kicking, and asked to shout and scream"why?" She held her fists up and became aware of her anger.

Next, Lowen conducted analysis to identify the precise emotions that werebeing held inside. The pattern was that she is a "good girl" and this held her incheck so she was always pleasant, which forced the negative feelings to becomeinternalized. He recommended that the client continue to work on the problemas a lifetime commitment to the body, and to releasing tension beyond the ses-sion.

Lowen asserted that everyone in this society has a sexual problem. While onher back, the client pushed her head back, arched her back, knees together, andgrabbed her ankles to release the sexual block. She was encouraged to breathedeeply and to vibrate.

Lowen provided a lively demonstration in this 60-minute DVD, but notes thathe also had written materials to supplement his work. The DVD reveals a styleof therapy that is remarkably different from the approach most therapists utilize,and provides interesting insights into a body-oriented perspective--even for ther-apists who do not plan on adopting a bioenergetic approach in their practices.

Reviewed byKathleen Donaghy, Ph.D.Phoenix, Arizona

D V D R E V I E W

in psychotherapy.

HALEY: I was born a long timeago! (Haley laughs.) I was born inMidwest, Wyoming. I moved out toCalifornia when I was four years old.1 went through the Army, then wentto UCLA, and I got involved inresearch on films. I looked upGregory Bateson because he was oneof the few people to analyze films. Hehad analyzed German propagandafilms. We got into an argument abouta film, and he hired me for his project.I was doing my Master's at Stanfordat the time, and was doing my disser-tation on film. He had just receivedsome grant money on the subject ofcommunication. He hired JohnWeakland, who, as a film re-searcher,studied Chinese film, among otherthings. So, we started that project andstudied all kinds of behavior, includ-ing animal behavior and so forth, andthen we got involved in studyingschizophrenics and their communica-tion. That seemed a good way to getfunded, so we got a grant. That led tothe "double-bind theory" and familytherapy.

YAPKO: That's a lot of groundyou just covered in a pretty short peri-od of time! What was the turningpoint for you in terms of making a

TRIBUTE continued from page 1

leap from film analysis to therapeuticcommunication?

HALEY: Well, I was very inter-ested in the Freudian metaphors ofmovies at that time. One of the rea-sons that Bateson and I argued is thatI didn't think he'd taken seriously thecastration issue in the film he wasstudying. It was about a young boywith a knife - an interesting castrationidea, and Bateson wasn't supportingit. But, anyhow, he hired John and meto investigate in looking for paradox-ical communication. One day a resi-dent said that if we were interested incommunication, I ought to talk to apatient of his, who was a "wordsalad" schizophrenic. We became fas-cinated by his communication andbegan to study it.

We were housed in the VAHospital, but we weren't studyingpsychological material from the hos-pital; we were studying animals at thezoo, training guide dogs for the blind,and ventriloquism. And once westarted with this patient, we began todeal with some patients from the hos-pital. This first schizophrenic I inter-viewed was a migratory laborer witha third-grade education. I remember

See TRIBUTE on page 22


The Breakout Heuristic: The NewNeuroscience of Mirror Neurons,

Consciousness and Creativity in Human Relationships

by Ernest Lawrence Rossi

The Milton H. Erickson Foundation PressPhoenix, Arizona

2007ISBN: 978-1-932248-29-6

473 pages

www.erickson-foundation.org/press

Ernest Rossi sat back, closed his eyes, and allowed his unconscious mind torange freely over his many years of scientific, theoretical, and therapeutic work.The result is this fascinating collection of Rossi’s pivotal papers from fourdecades of creative insights. Gathered from separate articles, the book reads as acoherent unity. Personal introductions to each section invite the reader intoRossi’s world to share in "The Breakout Heuristic" as a journey of discovery.

A holistic theory unfolds, interrelating every level of functioning from genesand neural networks to the evolution consciousness and personality. In recog-nizing a reciprocal action between mind and brain, Rossi loosens the artificialconstraints of traditional one-way materialism: Mind can determine body just asmuch as body determines mind. In this way, Rossi offers optimism for the effi-cacy and benefit of psychotherapy, especially therapeutic hypnosis: Activated bythe right kinds of experiences, Rossi documents how mind, body, and spirit canbe transformed in psychotherapy.

The book is divided into four parts. Part I begins with early papers thatexpress the breakout theory, culminating with a 2001 article that explains Rossi’svisionary model of psychotherapy synchronizing the molecular with the spiritu-al. Through the brain’s mirror neurons, the activity-dependent genes are turnedon to express these experiences in the new networks of brain plasticity. Thisprocess corresponds to experiences of truth and beauty associated with changesin consciousness and optimal functioning.

Part II presents Rossi’s dream/protein hypothesis. Dreaming turns on activ-ity-dependent gene expression and brain plasticity essential for the growth,change, and transformation of personality. Self-reflection in dreams mediates ashift from one state of being and self-identity to another through protein synthe-sis. New structures of the mind are formed during dreams, making them psy-chobiological resources for what Erickson (Rossi??) called "theneuro-psycho-physiology" of therapeutic hypnosis and psychotherapy.

Part III depicts key breakthroughs in the mind/body connection. One ofRossi’s earliest discoveries came from Erickson’s use of shock and surprise intherapy, awakening in Rossi the inspiration for his bridge between biology andpsychosocial processes. Several chapters follow Rossi’s path into chronobiolo-gy, the ongoing 90 to 120-minute ultradian rest/activation cycle. He citesresearch documenting a connection between our inner biological clock andErickson’s use of "the common everyday trance," and therapeutic suggestion tofacilitate mind-body healing. Genes are surprisingly adaptable and reactive tonovel and enrichening experiences of everyday life and psychotherapy. Rossicarefully explains and illustrates this neuroscience aspect of his model in anaccessible manner. His innovative four-stage approaches to activity-dependenttherapeutic hypnosis and suggestion utilizes our natural mind-body rhythms toactivate mirror neurons, modulate activity-dependent gene expression, and trig-ger brain plasticity to facilitate creative problem solving and healing.

Part IV further develops the promising principle that all activities of daily lifeare associated with unique patterns of gene expression and brain plasticity.Healing happens when gene expression is turned on by our creative experiencesof art and novelty. Rossi presents an exploratory mathematical model about themirror neuron system of empathy and "Einstein’s Eternal Mystery of

Epistemology Explained" via the four-stage creative process in art, science, andpsychotherapy.

We highly recommend this inspiring book to therapists and researchers, forits innovation, depth of insight, and useful applications. Rossi’s work is a stepforward for human progress in understanding. As the psychotherapy communitybegins to catch up with Rossi’s new breakout heuristics, he will smile, and allowshis hand to rise, as he activates the flow of his creative thought to explore new,uncharted waters. And we will pause… wonder….and grow with him – will wenot?

Reviewed by: C. Alexander Simpkins, Ph.D.Annellen Simpkins, Ph.D.

B O O K R E V I E W

Award, Milton H. Erickson Foundation, 1988; Distinguished Professor forContributions to Family Therapy Award, American Association of Marriage &Family Therapy, 1982; Medal for Meritorious Service, City of Vienna, 1990;Doctor honoris causa, University of Liege (Belgium), 1992; Doctor honoriscausa University of Bordeaux-III, 1992; Fonorary Medal, Province of Carinthia(Austria), 1993; Author's Award (Nonfiction), Donauland Book Association,Vienna, 1993.

An extraordinarily humble, kind, and generous human being, he will bemissed by the thousands of therapists and philosophers throughout the worldwhom he mentored. His wife, Vera; stepdaughters Yvonne and Joanne; sister,Maria Wúnsch and nephew Doctor Harald Wúnsch of Villach Austria, andnieces and other relatives survive him.

Wendel A. Ray, Ph.D.

Professor of Family System TheoryThe University of Louisiana at MonroeAnd Senior Research Fellow, Mental Research Institute (MRI)

A Selected Bibliography1. Watzlawick, P., Beavin-Bavelas, J., & Jackson, D. (1967), Pragmatics of

Human Communication – A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies andParadoxes, New York: W. W. Norton.

2. Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J., & Fisch, R. (1974), Change: Principals ofProblem Formation and Problem Resolution, New York: W. W. Norton.

3. Watzlawick, P. (1976). How real is real. NY: WW Norton4. Watzlawick, P., & Weakland, J. (1977). The Interactional View, NY: WW

Norton5. Watzlawick, P. (1978) The Language of Change, NY: WW Norton 6. Watzlawick, P. (1990). (Ed.), The Invented Reality, NY: WW Norton.7. Watzlawick, P. Munchausen’s Pigtail and other essays, (1990). NY: WW

Norton

WATZLAWICK continued from page 17

"His innovative four-stage approaches to activity-dependent therapeutic hypnosis and

suggestion utilizes our natural mind-body rhythms to activate mirror neurons, modulate activity-

dependent gene expression, and trigger brain plasticityto facilitate creative problem solving and healing."



asking him what his mother was like,and he said "Skinny as a wolf, trickyas a cat, with a long tail like a scorpi-on that stings." That's pretty good! Isaw him every day for five years.That's how we did therapy in thosedays. I finally got him out of the hos-pital.

Then John and Bateson startedwith patients. Bateson was the hospi-tal ethnologist and his job was to dealwith minorities. Some anthropologisthad visited a VA hospital in LosAngeles and saw an Indian and beganto talk to him and told the staff hewasn't crazy, he was just acting likean Indian! So, the VA decided theyshould have an anthropologist or anethnologist in the VA hospital. So,they had one in Los Angeles, andBateson was the one in Menlo Park.That was his job, dealing with minori-ties. The primary minority there wasIrish. That's what got him into alco-holism, because many of them werealcoholics. The project began in 1953and in 1956 we published the "dou-ble-bind" paper. I had published oneother paper on paradox in therapy in1954. So, we had two papers in fouryears. Then, from 1956 to 1962, wepublished 70 publications, including acouple of books. All of a sudden, westarted writing and everything beganto make sense! It was a very produc-tive project; we were together eighthours a day for ten years. JohnWeakland and I just did a videotapeconversation with each other aboutworking with Bateson. We called itRemembering Bateson.

The way we got into family thera-py was when I was seeing a patientwho thought his stomach was full ofcement. I remember saying toErickson, "I have this patient whothinks his stomach is full of cement.How would you deal with him?"Erickson said, "I'd go over to the cafe-teria and check the hospital food!" Ithought that was too superficial aresponse. But, later when I checkedthe hospital food, it was pretty bad!Erickson was so practical at times. Ihad been interested in the oral aspectsof the patient and the symbolism ofhis mother's milk and all that. It wasan oral period in psychiatry.Anyhow, I was seeing this patient andevery time his parents visited him, hewould fall down on the hospitalgrounds in a faint and couldn't get up.

Then the parents would call the ward.The ward would send an aide over,and the aide would say, "Get up." Thepatient would get up and go back tothe ward. But, he couldn't be with hisparents for more than a few minutes!Yet his idea was that when he got outof the hospital, he would have to gohome and be with his parents. I won-dered how he could go home with hisparents if he couldn't be with them formore than five minutes? So, Ibrought the parents in with him in aninterview, and he stood up against thewall like he was crucified. It was aninteresting session, and it was the firstfamily interview we recorded. I stillhave a recording of that one. We real-ized the double bind Bateson washypothesizing about having happenedin the childhood of the schizophrenicwas happening currently - if you lookat the communication. So, we made atremendous shift from etiology andchildhood experiences as causal topsychopathology to the current socialsituation as causal. That was the fam-ily whose supposedly "psychotic" sonsent his mother a Mother's Day cardwhich said, "You've always been likea mother to me." The mother broughtit with her to a session, saying,"There's something wrong with this."It was that paradoxical level of com-munication that interested us. So, Istarted seeing that family regularlyfor a long time, and then we all start-ed seeing families.

YAPKO: The kind of psychody-namic training you had gotten was aframework you approached this pro-ject with, but it fell by the waysidepretty early on, it seems.

HALEY: I had picked up psycho-dynamic ideas not from any propertraining, but from my reading. I wasparticularly interested in relation tofiction and metaphor and myths. Ithink it's [psychoanalysis] still thebest framework for analyzing fictionand myths.... So, I got involved in itthat way, not in relation to therapy atall, because I wasn't really involved intherapy. But then, when we startedworking with schizophrenics, wewere supervised by Don Jackson.Bateson brought him in because weneeded supervision. If you talk exten-sively to a schizophrenic, you end updoing therapy with him, and we knewnothing about how to deal with them.

Jackson had been personally super-vised by Sullivan and was the author-ity on the West Coast onschizophrenia. He began to superviseus with those patients. He brought adifferent view; he brought aSullivanian view, rather than the psy-chodynamic view. All family thera-pists were influenced by Sullivan. Weonce did a survey for GAP, when Iwas on the committee, of 300 familytherapists, and almost all of them hadsome contact with Sullivan. He hadtremendous influence, even though hewouldn't see a family. He wouldn't sitin a room with the mother of a schiz-ophrenic.

YAPKO: Do you recall your firstmeeting with Erickson?

HALEY: Sure. He came to townto give us a workshop in 1953.Wewere studying anything to do withparadox at the time. I said to BatesonI had heard a hypnotist was coming totown and I'd like to take a seminarwith him and see if hypnosis wasinteresting paradoxically. He askedwho it was and I said, "MiltonErickson." He said, "Well, I'll callhim." That's how I found out thatBateson knew Erickson. Batesonknew everyone. He knew every majorsocial scientist in the field. So, heasked Erickson if I could attend, andErickson said, "Sure." So, I went upand took that seminar. He gave a talkto his audience of about 20 and heasked whether one of us would like tovolunteer to come up and be a sub-ject. I felt the muscle in my thightwitch and almost pull me up to myfeet! At that moment, the guy in frontof me stood up and went to volunteer.But if he hadn't, I would have gone. 1never had anything happen like thatbefore. How it happened, I don'tknow. 1 sure felt that muscle twitchand pull me up to my feet!

YAPKO: Was your immediatereaction to him positive, negative, orneutral?

HALEY: Pretty positive. 1 wasimpressed with him. But I also wasbiased in the sense that Bateson likedhim, spent time with him, and recom-mended him. He was scary. Everyonewas scared of Erickson, because theynever knew what he was doing toinfluence you. He was so agile of themind that he got bored doing any onething, so he was always doing two orthree things at once. As you're chat-ting with him about a case, he wastrying to get you to move a hand on atable, or turn the other way. I remem-ber one time, we had dinner in San

Francisco, and John reached out forhis glass of water and his handstopped. He said, "Milton, l can'treach for that glass of water and Ithink you have something to do withit." Erickson said, "Would you like tohave the water?" John said, "Yes."Erickson said, "Well, you can haveit." And John reached over and tookthe glass of water and drank it. Howhe did that I don't know. It was some-thing he might spend 20 minutes to ahalf hour setting up while he was talk-ing about other things.

YAPKO: So, your perception ofhis mental "play" was how he couldachieve specific responses in people?

HALEY: He was constantly prac-ticing; if he turned this way, wouldyou turn this way? Would you go theother way? He used to say that if hewent to a party in college and hecould get a person sitting over here tomove over there without asking themto, then the evening was a success.

YAPKO: When did you knowthat it was going to be enough of afocal point in your career to say thethings that you said in Strategies ofPsychotherapy, and then UncommonTherapy? That was a pretty largecommitment on your part, to make hiswork so well known and understood.

HALEY: Well, that year webegan to investigate hypnosis as aninteresting phenomenon. In fact, inhypnosis was the first double-bind weever found. Bateson had this idea ofthe double-bind, but we couldn't findone. I remember when I realized thata hypnotist was directing a person tobehave spontaneously that that was adouble-bind. That was a classicalparadoxical conflict. So, that got usinterested, and we began an investiga-tion.

YAPKO: That was your conclu-sion in observing hypnosis, and itreally became a framework for somuch else after that.

HALEY: At that time, we werestudying schizophrenia and the issuesin schizophrenic families. We gotinterested in the question, "How didthe relationship between the hypnotistand his subject compare with themother of the schizophrenic and theschizophrenic?" because there weresimilarities. For example, if the hyp-notist was being resisted by the sub-ject, he would say, "I want you toresist me." If the guy's hand got heav-ier when asked to have it lighter, thehypnotist would say, "It will get heav-ier still." In the same way, we should

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The Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter VOL. 27, NO. 2 23TRIBUTE continued from page 22

see a mother say to her child, "I wantyou to resist me and be independentbecause it will help you" when thechild was already trying to be inde-pendent. So, we got interested insequences like that to see if they weresimilar.

In 1955, John and I went to spenda week with Erickson and talked withhim many hours about similaritieswith schizophrenic communicationand hypnosis, such as hallucinations.Erickson thought they were different.But he'd never thought about it,either. So, we did a lot of exploringand then we came back and went overthat material and worked quite a bitwith it. In the material was Ericksontalking about cases, and we began torealize he was doing a special kind oftherapy. At that time, there was notherapy, except that which was basedupon psychodynamic ideology. Therewas no behavior therapy; there wasno family therapy. I was very muchinfluenced by Zen in terms of an ide-ology about life. Ultimately, I real-ized that Zen practices and Erickson'stherapy were similar in many ways.So, I could see that he had somethingthat was an alternative to the existingtherapy that really wasn't all that suc-cessful. We went back again andagain to talk to him about therapy.

In 1956, I went into practice. I hadbeen teaching hypnosis to local psy-chiatrists and psychologists. I wentinto practice as a hypnotherapist, setup by Don Jackson, who was head ofa clinic. I realized I didn't know howto cure anyone. 1 knew how to hyp-notize them, but not how to changethem. I had a few successes that puz-zled me. So, I went down and spent aweek with Erickson just posing casesto him, and that's how I began to workwith him for years, going over cases:I'd say, "Now, what would you dowith this kind of problem?" and he'dalways surprise me. I had a womanwho lost her voice, who couldn'tspeak above a whisper and there wasnothing physically wrong. So, I saidto Erickson, "What would you dowith this woman?"

Milton said, "I'd ask her if therewas anything she wanted to say!" Hiscomments often came off soundingimpractical, until you started to thinkabout it.

YAPKO: When you wroteUncommon Therapy, that was cer-tainly a landmark, a turning point ----I imagine, for you professionally, as

well as for making Erickson so muchmore well-known to everyone else.

HALEY: Well, when I wroteStrategies of Psychotherapy, whichwas really the Bateson Project ideasabout therapy, I decided I wasthrough with therapy. I wanted to getout of it and do research on otherkinds of things on films and families.So, I started a project researchingfamilies, experimenting with them.Then Strategies of Psychotherapybecame popular, and people started toinvite me to talk. So, l got back intotherapy because I was driven to talkabout it in order to make somemoney. That book got me established.So, the more I got into it, and themore I did more practice and began toteach, the more interested I got inErickson and his specific kind of ther-apy. By that time, behavior therapywas beginning. In fact, two of thebehavior therapists who began behav-ior therapy were Krasner and Ullman,who were in the same research build-ing as the Bateson Project at the VAHospital in Menlo Park.

As for Uncommon Therapy, I gotsome time off and 1 got enoughmoney to spend a year writing it. Ithought that would do it. Actually, ittook that year and four more before Igot it done. It was a tremendous job. Ihad to go through all the recordings ofall the conversations and transcribethem. Then I had to isolate out thecases and organize them. Then I hadto put them in some kind of a frame-work. It was a tremendous job. First,I was beginning to write things downin terms of how to handle symptoms;then finally, I fell on this idea of thefamily life cycle, which was a brandnew idea at the time. Nobody hadthought of it. I saw, then, that his ther-apy could fall together that way. So Iused that framework and then I beganto lecture about that. Now, it's takenfor granted, the family life cycle, butthat was a new idea at the time.

YAPKO: The book triggered allthe interest in Erickson and createdthe focus on his approaches and whatis now known as Ericksonian psy-chotherapy. It eventually led to theFirst International Congress and nowhere we are at the Fourth (1988). Howdid you feel about this? Did it everfeel like a monster out of control toyou? Were you glad that he was get-ting recognition, because it was whatyou helped start? Were you ever

thinking that all the focuson Erickson was an over-reaction? I'm really curi-ous about what yourinternal experience was toall the hoopla.

HALEY: Well, the contempo-raries of Erickson thought of him asthe best among equals. There were anumber of therapists who thoughtthey were just about as good as hewas. The younger generation of ther-apists think of him as "The Guru,"and think of him as magical or what-ever. I'm of the older generation whothought of him as a man who knewhis business as a therapist. He workedat it, he practiced it, he experimentedwith it, and he innovated remarkableprocedures.

When I finished UncommonTherapy, I was really into otherthings. I was working with the poorand with families in Philadelphia. I'dhad enough of Erickson. You know, Ifelt that I gave a good description ofhis work and since that was now doneI'd go on to other things. On theBateson Project, we studied many dif-ferent therapists. Erickson was one ofa number we studied, but, he was theone I devoted most of my time to. Atthat time, Erickson wasn't that well-known. He was still going somewhereevery couple of weeks to give a sem-inar but it was usually an invitation todo hypnosis. People didn't reallyknow what he was doing as a thera-pist, which was his most interestingaspect to me.

Granted that he introduced theidea of interpersonal hypnosis whichis unusual, to say the least, after a fewthousand years of descriptions ofindividual hypnosis. But it was after Ibegan to get involved in other thingsand really wasn't seeing much of himthat he became "The Guru" and peo-

ple began to visit him. Iencouraged my studentsto go to visit him, but Iwas less and less in con-tact with him in the 1970s.

YAPKO: Address theinternal feeling part of my question.Did you like it that he was gainingrecognition, or not like it? Or did itnot matter to you either way?

HALEY: Oh, I thought it wasgood that he got the recognition, notonly for the field of therapy, whichcould use him because there's somuch that's not so good in it, butbecause he worked so hard anddeserved it. This man was seeingpatients from 7:00 in the morninguntil 11:00 at night and giving semi-nars every couple of weeks, and wasalways teaching. He's probably themost recorded therapist there everwas. He gave freely of his time withanyone who was interested in hiswork. He was a very dedicatedteacher. So, to see him get all thatrecognition was great!

One of the reasons I didn't see himso often during the 1970s is that I wasfeeling sad about him. When I knewhim, he was a physically strong man,and very articulate. He was one of thefew therapists who said it wasextremely important to control yourphysical movement, and to controlyour voice. For example, you need tobe able to have a slight inflection inyour voice which will itself be a mes-sage. If you tell someone to "wakeup" with a little questioning inflec-tion, they won't wake up because it's aquestion. He could do the most subtlekinds of inflections that you couldn'trecognize, but the subject could tellthat it was a question. What made meso sad is that when he got older helost some of his speech because of his


I'm of the older generation who thought of him as a man who knew his business

as a therapist. He worked at it, he practiced it, he experimented with it,

and he innovated remarkable procedures.


polio, and he lost his movement. Toother therapists, it might not matter,but it was so important to him.

I remember I visited him once andsaid, "I would like to set up a videocamera and film you in the office withsomeone changing the tapes. Wouldyou be willing to do that?" He said,"No. My therapy would be misunder-stood and someone would have toedit those tapes." I didn't say I'd editthem, because 1'd had enough of edit-ing Erickson at that time. So, I said Ithought it would be valuable just interms of an archive. He said there wasa more important reason: He didn'twant to be remembered as a little oldman who couldn't talk well. If he wason the video, that's how he'd beremembered. I said, "Okay."

Then Herb Lustig, whom I knewin Philadelphia, said he was going togo and film Erickson. Ericksonagreed to let him film! Once he didthat, then he agreed to let other peoplecome and film. All the films of himsitting in a wheelchair have occurredsince then. There was a period whenhe didn't really want that, though.

YAPKO: You have said, on pre-vious occasions, that you regret hisdecision to be filmed in his lateryears. It really is such a sharp imageof an aged Erickson, especially forpeople who have never seen him anyother way.

HALEY: Well, it's different. It's adifferent person. I mean, he was agracious, active guy who walked witha cane, but he was physically veryactive when I knew him. I think it's ashame to remember him that way. Ifonly there were earlier films, like theone I have from 1958 which showshim in his prime. The subject is aStanford student. The Bateson Projectbrought in a cameraman and hadMilton filmed talking to a young stu-dent and doing an induction. It's not agood film because it's a long distancecamera shot, but it does show him inhis prime. There's a 1964 film, whichI loaned around and will be putting anarration on because he does someextraordinary and intricate work withseveral women in a demonstration.But anyhow, if there were more filmsavailable of him in his 50s then show-ing the older ones wouldn't matter somuch. But people think of him in thatway and it's a shame.

YAPKO: Would you like toadvance more of the solution-orientedtype of work? What would you like tosee as a part of a school curriculum?

HALEY: I think it's like playingthe piano, you have to practice it. Andthe earlier students start practicing it,the more they'll have an idea of whatthey have to learn. When we weretraining people from the communityto be therapists, we put them in withfamilies within two weeks; they didn'tknow anything, which is why we didlive supervision to protect the family.But once they got in that room withthe family, they got very interested inlearning, because they didn't knowwhat the hell they were doing!Whereas, if you just take a course intherapy but you are not going to use ituntil four or five years from then, youreally are not that involved. So Iwould put them into practice as soonas possible, which would probablyrequire using older students, becauseI think it helps if people are marriedand have children or at least are get-ting up in the late 20s or 30s.

But, there's another aspect abouthypnosis --- I don't think you canteach clinical hypnosis without doingtherapy. That is, I tend to think ofthree different hypnoses: 1) the per-sonal hypnosis, where you go througha yoga experience or meditationexperience, or whatever; 2) researchhypnosis, where you're trying to findthe limits of influence of hypnosis invarious ways - in terms of deafness,color-blindness, or whatever; andthen 3) there's clinical hypnosis,where you're trying to change some-one. I don't think that has anything todo with the other two types of hypno-sis. To teach hypnosis clinically, youhave to show someone how to do itwith a patient and then watch them doit to a patient while you guide them indoing it. That's how it was taught atthe turn of the century - live supervi-sion. And to teach them how to hyp-notize, I don't think means anything.It's so different changing someone;the person's motivation is different,the responses are different. I canremember when I went into practiceand had some nice formal ways ofinducing trance. I would get clientswho came to be hypnotized andthey'd sit down in a chair and go intotrance when I said "Hello.' I wouldwake them up to put them through the

proper ritual! Then I realized that thesetting determined how they weregoing to be and it really wasn't neces-sary to hypnotize many of them at all!But you wouldn't realize that if youwere teaching hypnosis in a class.Anyhow, I don't want to do therapyright now, and it's one of the reasonsI don't teach hypnosis. I think youhave to do it to teach it, and I'm tryingto stay out of doing it. I think itshould be included in the curriculum,but I think it has to be taught well bypeople who are competent clinically,

not just hypnotists.

YAPKO: One of yourfavorite roles has beenpoking fun at the tradi-tions of therapy. You liketo get people to thinkabout why they're doing the thingsthey're doing, and to get them to askthe question, "What if I didn't do itthat way?" 'That's a role you seem torelish.

HALEY: Well, it was so easy,really. Therapy was so dumb for somany years! I mean, for Freud to setup a procedure designed to changepeople and then ask the therapist notto direct them to change them in anyway - that's pretty crazy! It was set upto change people and then the analystsaid, "I don't want you to make anychanges in your life during youranalysis," which would go on foryears!

YAPKO: I laughed when yousaid that, because it's literally true! Iwas at the University of Michigan, ina very analytical program, and that'swhat they tell you, "Don't make anylife decisions for the next nine years."

HALEY: Yes. Don't change; andnow - let's change! (Both laugh.) So,anyhow, it was pretty easy. It wasfun, really. Years ago, I wrote thatpaper on analysis, "The Art ofPsychoanalysis," which was a big hit.

I finally put it in Strategies ofPsychotherapy to stop the reprintrequest. I got over 2000 reprintrequests for it, which was a pain. Ishowed it to Don Jackson and I said,"Do you think it would harm peoplein analysis to read this?" And he said,"No. If an analyst can't handle thatarticle when a patient brings it in, heshouldn't be in the field! If he's com-petent, he should be able to handle it.If he's not competent, you shouldn'tprotect him." That is a sensible way tolook at it, if you think about it.

YAPKO: At the firstEvolution ofP s y c h o t h e r a p yConference (1985) youmade a very flat statementthat psychoanalysis is

dead. And obviously, many peopledon't see it that way. For the peoplewho invest years in trying to under-stand things like the psychodynamicsof borderline personality disordersand other personality disorders, whatwould you say to them about thosethings?

HALEY: It's a waste of time. I'dsay it's a fashion problem. You didn'thear about borderline personalitiessix or eight years ago! It will bearound for a few years or so, and thenit will go away just like "schizoaffec-tive states" and other such diagnoses.They're really just talking about diffi-cult people. You could define a bor-derline as halfway in the family andhalfway out, but it's not a diagnosisthat leads you into an operation of anykind. It isn't a good diagnosis. I thinkit's wrong for them to take young peo-ple, call them "borderline," and lockthem up in hospitals until the insur-ance runs out, which is what they'redoing. I think those private hospitals,and there are 85 of them in one chainalone, I think they are corrupting thetherapy process. Therapists can't get



Therapy was so dumb for so many years! I mean, for Freud to set up a procedure designed

to change people and then ask the therapist not to direct them to change them in

any way - that's pretty crazy!


jobs doing therapy, so they go towork in one of these hospitals, thenthey try to do something with thesefamilies and they can't.

Then, they get bitter or they feelas though they're selling out in someway. And those hospitals make somuch money! I just gave a talk at one,and the psychiatrist I was with said,"This is a non-profit hospital, but ithas 12 million dollars in the bank!"They're doing very well indeed.

YAPKO: In the same way thatyou, in essence, rejected the diagnosisof borderline personality, are thereother diagnostic categories that rubyou the wrong way? Another fashion-able one, for example, is multiple per-sonality disorder.

HALEY: Erickson was an enthu-siast of that.

YAPKO: Was he?

HALEY: Well, usually he wouldonly talk about two. I spent a lot oftime talking to him about dual per-sonalities.

YAPKO: And he meant it in theliteral, multiple personality way - fulldissociation?

HALEY: Yes. Only he didn'tthink of it as pathological. They aretwo different personalities in thesame body, was his view. I think I cutthat out of Conversations with MiltonH, Erickson. Diagnosis is an impor-tant issue. No one can cure a schoolphobia, but you can cure a schoolavoidance. And that slight shift indiagnosis makes the whole differencein therapy to me. I think the more ter-minology goes that way, the better itis. With schizophrenics, I tend todefine them as either troublemakersor apathetic. The troublemakers areeasier, be-cause they force everyoneto deal with them, the family, thecommunity, everyone. The apatheticones just sit in their living rooms andgrow beards. Those are very difficultpeople to change, because the familyis stable with them like that, and toget the family organized to do some-thing about them is hard. So, I tend tothink of them as easy cases or hardcases rather than whether it's this kindof schizophrenic or that kind of schiz-ophrenic.

YAPKO: Are there any thatyou've grouped into the "impossible"category? Are there any categories ofdisorder where you feel you simply

cannot do anything with the individ-ual?

HALEY: Well, I can't think ofone. Certainly, not on the basis of anycategory, because the category isn'tthe person. And you're dealing withthe person - not a set of ideas. But wedon't turn anyone away. Really, Ithink the difficult cases are, in termsof the diagnosis of the individual, thepeople most involved with the profes-sionals. The trouble with dealing witha schizophrenic is that you have a lotof colleagues you have to deal with.The trouble in dealing with addicts isyou have the courts to deal with. Ifyou're dealing with a sex abuse case,which could be relatively easy tosolve in the family, you have the pro-tective service agencies involved whohave a whole separate set of ideasfrom yours. So, the most difficultcases are in relation to colleagues -they're not in relation to the type ofpathology.

YAPKO: Colleagues aside, a lotof people are going to hear this as, "...if you're a competent therapist, you'llbe able to cure anybody." Do youmean that?

HALEY: If you're a competenttherapist, you're going to win someand lose some! (Haley laughs.) Itdoesn't mean they're incurable, it justmeans you haven't found a way tocure them!

Once, I was talking to Ericksonabout manic-depressives, which wasa rare diagnosis in those days. Whenwe got Lithium, everyone was amanic-depressive, because the diag-nosis goes with the medication.

But in those days it was very rare.And he had a friend who was manic-depressive. I'm pretty sure that he saidhe was incurable, and that he couldonly help this guy be the way he was.I was speaking to Don Jackson aboutthat one day, and he said, "Well, thatdoesn't mean manic-depressives areincurable, it means Erickson'sapproach doesn't cure it." It hadn'toccurred to me that Erickson'sapproach could be limited in somearea, because I was so admiring, youknow? But, Jackson was absolutelyright! The way Erickson thoughtabout manic-depressives preventedhim from solving their problem. Ithink that's the way it is; the therapistcan fail for a variety of reasons, butthat doesn't mean the person is incur-able.

YAPKO: Well, hereis the last question. Whatdoes the future hold forJay Haley?

HALEY: My problemis that most of what I'mdoing, I've already done! I'm teach-ing, and even teaching what I'vealready taught! I'd like to do some-thing different and interesting. I'mbeginning to struggle with a play, aplay on "The Looking Glass," theone-way mirror. But other than that, Ijust go on doing the job of teaching,doing workshops and figuring outvariations on this theme.

YAPKO: All right, let me lockdown the biographical information.You got your Master's at ...

HALEY: I got a B.A. in theaterfrom UCLA, then I got a B.L.S. inlibrary science from the University ofCalifornia in Berkeley in order towork my way through Stanford. ThenI went to Stanford and got an M.A.and struggled for a while to get myPh.D. Then I got more and moreinvolved in research and Bateson andI never went back.

YAPKO: And the M.A. was inpsychology?

HALEY: Mass Communication.

YAPKO: Any other relevantinformation you want me to includein this? Is there anything that youwished I would have asked, and did-n't?

HALEY: Nothing I can think of.I chose to be a respondent and justrespond!

YAPKO: I appreciate you takingthe time, Jay. Thanks for the inter-view.

PART II: 10 YEARS LATER (1999)YAPKO: It has been almost

exactly ten years since ourprevious interview. I'dlike to begin by askingyou to provide a synopsisof the significant eventsthat have transpired inyour life in the interim.

HALEY: Well, I moved from theEast - from Washington, DC, to theWest - La Jolla, California, and I gotmarried. That's quite a move!

YAPKO: Let's talk about thefestschrift in your honor taking placelater this year. How do you feel aboutthe fact that you have distinguishedcolleagues from all over the worldcoming together to pay tribute to yourwork?

HALEY: Actually, I'm embar-rassed by it. I've put off doing it for acouple of years. It's not that I'm over-ly modest, but it is awkward for me tohave people talk about my merits.This is particularly so when I've beenin opposition for so many years.

YAPKO: Recently, SalvadorMinuchin wrote an article in theJournal of Marriage and FamilyTherapy asking where the familytherapy was in many approaches thatdeclare themselves to be family ther-apy. First of all, do you think that hewas right? And, more generally, canyou comment on the status of familytherapy today?

HALEY: I think Minuchin wasabsolutely right. He was just present-ing what an intelligent family thera-pist would present, and adding hisunique views. Some family therapyspokespersons behave as if theyhaven't ever done family therapy. Istarted to do a parody of their com-ments on Dr. Minuchin, but it was sodifficult that I gave it up. There is



The troublemakers are easier, because they force everyone to deal with them, the family, the community, everyone. The apathetic ones just sit in their living rooms and grow beards.

something about the way they presenttheir views that is already a parody. Ithink Minuchin did a good job for thefield and did it very gracefully.

YAPKO: And the status of fami-ly therapy today?

HALEY: Family therapy contin-ues to expand and to get more rigidi-fied. I think the organizations havegotten tighter and require moreextreme things in order to be a mem-ber. But, I was never an enthusiastabout organizations for therapy. Idon't like it when a person in Texasmust decide whether a person inMaryland can be a therapist or not.I've always preferred that people docredentialing, where each state han-dles its own therapists.

I think the state of family therapyis still developing, but it still has anumber of people trying to haul itback into an individual theory. I thinkthe problem is that most teachers arestill trained in doing individual thera-py and they try to draft the theories offamily therapy to fit an individualmodel.

For example, family therapistswho are competent usually can't makeany sense out of group therapy. That'sjust individual therapy performed ona small group of individuals. Yet, thatapproach is becoming more popular,perhaps because most compulsorytherapy now requires a group. Peoplenot only get forced into a group, but agroup for 12 sessions or 52 weeks,whether or not they improve.Whatever happens to them in thegroup, they have to continue to go for52 weeks. Either they do that, or theygo to jail. I think that's a bizarre kindof therapy.

YAPKO: Much of your profes-sional life now revolves around work-ing with your wife, Maddy(Madeleine Richeport-Haley), onproducing videos of therapy sessions.Why is this such an important focusfor you right now?

HALEY: Because I think peoplelearn best from studying successfultherapies. Writing about them isn't thesame as showing them. Family thera-py is so dramatic that it's exciting toobserve. Individual therapy tends tobe dull to sit and watch. But if you puta family into live supervision, theycome to life - both the observers andthe family - especially with a one-

way mirror as a part of the process.Also, I've al-ways been interested infilms, and this is one meaningful wayof working on them. Maddy and Ihave made documentaries onErickson, family therapy, and on Bali.

One of the things we're workingon now is a film on supervision.We're shooting what happens behinda one-way mirror as the family thera-pist comes in and goes out and com-municates during the therapy. It's aninteresting task to try to make senseout of supervision. The film is abouthow to teach family therapy, or anytherapy for that matter, and canaccompany my recent book, Learningand Teaching Therapy.

YAPKO: You don't seem to betalking much about hypnosis thesedays. The last time that we spoke, tenyears ago, you said that you reallyhave to do hypnosis in order to teachit, and if you're not doing therapy -you won't teach it. Why does hypno-sis merit special exclusion from yourteaching?

HALEY: I think hypnosis wasbest taught by observing someonedoing it. When therapy went confi-dential, that stopped. But, then itcame back with the one-way mirror.I've done some interesting things nowwith a trainee doing hypnosis in atherapy room while I call in from theobservation room and make sugges-tions. Doing that doesn't seem tointerfere with the hypnosis induction.

YAPKO: So, the premise of myquestion isn't accurate. You are, infact, still teaching hypnosis?

HALEY: Occasionally, yes. And,if I was in practice, I still would use it.

But, I feel that you have to adaptwhatever you do for the case thatcomes in. Some cases are appropriatefor using hypnosis and some are not.For example, if you have a familystructure that is a mess, and you'retrying to straighten it out, hypnosisisn't going to be the easiest way to dothat.

YAPKO: The festschrift presentsan opportunity for you to look back-wards. What stands out in your mindas being your most significant contri-bution to the field?

HALEY: I think my most signifi-cant contribution is breaking therapydown to a practice of specific skills -

of simple ideas, skills andtechniques. This is quitedifferent from the non-directive ideology thefield had when I first gotinto it.

YAPKO: What are you mostproud of in terms of your contribu-tions?

HALEY: I'm most proud of mybooks, naturally.

YAPKO: Which of your booksare you most proud of?

HALEY: Well, it's hard to say,because they were all done under dif-ferent circumstances. I thinkUncommon Therapy has turned a lotof people around in therapy, orchanged their ways of doing it. But,my earlier book, Strategies ofPsychotherapy, was the first introduc-tion to the idea that you can describetherapy as more than one person inthe room, as Harry Stack Sullivan hadproposed.

YAPKO: Are there any thingsyou wrote that, now when you lookback over them, you feel you werewrong about or perhaps regret havingwritten?

HALEY: You know, it's interest-ing you ask that. I've thought abouthow I'd answer that question if some-one were to ask it of me. I don't regretanything I wrote. When I look some-thing over I've written, I see some-thing which others now take forgranted. But, at the time I wrote it,that certainly wasn't so. Sometimeswhen you write something, lateryou're sorry you ever put that intoprint. But, I just never had that hap-pen to me.

YAPKO: What would you say isthe most commonly held misconcep-tion about Jay Haley?

HALEY: I would have no idea.I'm always surprised that there areany misconceptions of me.

YAPKO: Well, as I said earlier, a

festschrift presents anopportunity to look back-ward. But, it also presentsan opportunity to look for-ward. What do you lookforward to in the years tocome?

HALEY: Surviving.

YAPKO: A rather modest goal ...(Both laugh.)

HALEY: I would still like to dosomething that I never really didbefore. I have the idea that we haven'treally properly described communi-cation among human beings in termsof the literal, the metaphorical and thevariety of communication compul-sions people act out. For example, amarried couple seems to follow rulesthat require them to behave in certainways. Those rules have never beenproperly translated, in my opinion.Dr. Don Jackson tried to do that.[Note: Wendel Ray is now publishingthe complete works of Jackson.] Thefact that some of the rules just arisefrom the nature of communication isan area I would like to explore. I’llget to it one of these days, I hope .. .

YAPKO: The climate for themental health profession has changedpretty radically over the past fewyears. I'm sure you hear a lot aboutmanaged care, and I'm sure you heara lot about the desire for empiricalvalidation of each treatment modality.What do you think about these kindsof changes that have taken place? Doyou feel that this is a progressiveseries of steps for the field, or do youfeel that we might be hurting our-selves with unrealistic expectations oran inappropriate emphasis?

HALEY: I think we should sendall the managed care people to socialwork school! Something should bedone with them, because to have busi-ness people determining how therapyshould be done, and for how many



I think my most significant contribution is breaking therapy down to a practice of specificskills - of simple ideas, skills and techniques.This is quite different from the non-directive ideology the field had when I first got into it.



sessions, seems bizarre. But, with allthe years that have been spent study-ing therapy, I think that a managedcare system could have some positivethings about it, too. I think many ther-apists have no idea how to do therapy-- they sit there in therapy and listento someone for months or more. Now,therapists have to know how to for-mulate a problem, make an interven-tion, and then they have to check theirresults - or their results will bechecked for them. So, some ideas ofmanaged care are good. But, at thesame time, when you have business-men deciding on treatment they'llchoose what is cheapest, and what ismost profitable, and that may be hir-ing the cheapest therapists who maybe the most inadequate.

YAPKO: Do you think that fami-ly therapy has held up well in theresearch?

HALEY: I don't know. I don'tread enough on family therapy in theresearch literature. I think there weresome interesting problems beingresearched 20 or 30 years ago, someof which I hope are still beingexplored in the universities.Researchers can still questionwhether a family with an abnormalmember has a different structure thana family with all hypothetically nor-mal members. It is never a questionthat has been satisfactorily answered.Yet, family therapy is built on theidea that if there is a different familystructure, that is the problem. There isstill a lot of research to be done infamily therapy. To be honest, though,when I look at the family therapyjournals, I have to search for some-thing that is particularly interesting orrelevant to therapy.

YAPKO: Your wife, Maddy, isan anthropologist. She looks at cul-tures and cultural issues from a verydifferent perspective than a familytherapist might. What kind of influ-ence do you think Maddy has had on

your way of looking at families?

HALEY: I've become increasing-ly concerned with issues of ethnicitybecause of Maddy's influence. Also,my interest in the healers of the worldhas increased greatly because of herinterest in the topic. We went to Balitogether and were able to watch heal-ers at work. It was very interesting tosee how much of what they weredoing could be translated into thesame kinds of things we are doing.For example, they will deal with thefamily while focusing on an individ-ual very similarly to the way thingsare done here.

There is a variety of ethnic groupsthat therapists have to be familiarwith. Hopefully, they'll speakEnglish, but even if they don't, welearn to work with translators. I knowof a school that had an "Ethnic Day,"and there were 187 ethnic groups rep-resented in that school! With so manydifferent styles of life in the world, atherapist is never going to be anexpert on all of them. But, hopefully,we can find ways to understand par-ticular groups well enough to helpsolve their problems.

YAPKO: You talk about diversi-ty. The therapy field itself has gonethrough an enormous diversification.There are literally hundreds of thera-pies now, even some therapies thatcan only be described as fringy andesoteric, such as people who aredoing past-life regressions with theirpatients. Are you a fan of this level ofdiversity? Or, do you think perhapswe have been too lenient in lettingcertain practices be allowed to flour-ish?

HAEY: I think we have been toolenient in many ways. One of theproblems is that there is no longer anyorthodoxy in the field. When there isno orthodoxy, you can't be a deviant.So, what used to be condemned asdeviance years ago is not being con-demned now. If they do something a

little different in therapy,they immediately form aschool with powers ofinfluence, rather than say-ing it is just one moretechnique that a therapistshould be able to usewhen necessary.

YAPKO: The Milton H. EricksonFoundation is going to be celebratingtheir 20th anniversary this year(1999). In large part, the work ofMilton Erickson came to the forefrontof people's consciousness because ofyou. This celebration is a major con-tribution of yours as well.

HALEY: I think that's probablytrue, but it isn't only my contribution.John Weakland and I did much of ourexploration together. Also, DonJackson taught us a lot about therapythat paralleled what and howErickson taught.

I think a lot happened in the1950s. Therapy became more socialand began to change and transform.Things are still changing, and we arestill exploring. I think the mostimportant idea that came in this cen-tury was that the individual wasn't theappropriate unit of study, rather it'sthe individual and others together. AsGregory Bateson said, "The mind isoutside the person."

YAPKO: What about the viewthat says it's not only the individual


that we should study, but,even more reductionisti-cally, the individual's bio-chemistry? People seementhralled with biologicalexplanations of behavior.

HALEY: I'm not an enthusiast forattributing so much to an individual'sbiochemistry. I think that it is impor-tant for certain problems, but I thinkthat the overselling of medications isone of the worst problems in the field,and it is getting worse all the time.Some psychiatrists now don't evenseem able to talk to people - they onlylisten to decide which medications toprescribe. It's a shame. When I wasyounger, psychiatrists used to get thebest clinical training. But now, that'sno longer so. They don't seem to seekout or get the best training; you don'toften find them at workshops on ther-apy, and you don't often find themdoing research on therapy. Thingshave changed.

YAPKO: This festschrift marks avery significant occasion celebratingyour lifelong contributions to thefield. Even though you are slightlyembarrassed by it, I hope that youwill revel in it, enjoy it, and reallyhave a great time. Thanks for every-thing that you have done, and thanksalso for doing this interview, Jay.

HALEY: Thank you!

It's a shame. When I was younger, psychiatrists used to get the best clinical

training. But now, that's no longer so. They don't seem to seek out or get the best training;

you don't often find them at workshops on therapy, and you don't often find them doingresearch on therapy. Things have changed.

THE ERICKSON LISTSERV - Join the Discussion!This Internet discussion group addresses Ericksonian approaches to hypnosis and psychotherapy. Additionally, list members have access

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DONATIONSThe Milton H. Erickson Foundation, Inc., would

like to thank the following colleagues for their verygenerous donations to the Erickson Foundation, theErickson Foundation Archives Fund, and theErickson Foundation Building Fund, since the lastissue of the Newsletter: John Lappin, MSW, LCSW;Naomichi Moribayashi; and Benjamin Tong.

Donations earmarked for the Milton H. EricksonArchives go directly to assisting with expenses forrestoring the audio and video recordings from the lateMilton H. Erickson, M.D., along with recordingsfrom past Milton H. Erickson FoundationConferences from 1980 through 2007. This exten-sive restoration process will make these recordingsand other materials available to mental health profes-sionals around the world for training purposes.

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