Allan Erickson’s Reflections of Time Spent with His Father
By Allan Erickson
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes, 2 seconds
Almost exactly 50 years ago, shortly after I moved out and was living at college, I successfully played a practical joke on my dad. However, in a way the joke is on me because I learned a great deal about my father during the course of this practical joke.
I had a kind of contest with my older sister, Betty Alice. We would carefully go through whatever was published about or published by my father to see if either of our names were mentioned. Of course, if we saw our name in an article or book we would “hold” it over the other until the facts changed and the next article was published.
Thus, it was with this interest in the fall of 1961, that I looked over the latest issue of the American Journal of American Hypnosis of which my father was the editor. I always started at the table of contents and would check to see if my father was the author of any article. There was my father’s name on an article about mirror writing in- and out of a trance. Even though the likelihood of my name being mentioned dimmed greatly, I turned to the article and started reading it. It did not take me long to become confused, very confused. My dad was talking about having this person mirror writing left to right and right to left, in-and out-of trance. Since I have a down-to-earth mathematical background, I couldn’t conceive of how one can mirror write left to right. Mirror writing is just backward writing; hold it up to a mirror and it looks normal as if it is written left to right!
I puzzled over this paradox for a while and decided to write my father a letter and ask. Having learned something from my father, I decided to be indirect. I would not make the letter from me. So I wrote it to have fun as well as to get information. I acted as if I got madder and madder as I wrote the letter saying more and more things about how confusing the whole article was. Then I signed the letter H.A. Noskcire, my initials backwards, and my name spelled backwards. I sent it off wondering if I would get an answer since my letter, while sincere, was a little intemperate.
Within just a few days, I got a thick envelope to H.A. Noskcire. It was a long, detailed letter from my father thoroughly addressing all the points I had raised. It seems this person, while in a trance could write four different ways. She could write normally from left to right. She could write right to left starting at the end of the words and finish at the start of the words (or sentence.) She could also do the same with mirror writing; that is, she could mirror write “normally” starting at the start of the words and end up at the last letter of the words from right to left. But she could also mirror “backwards”, meaning she could start at the end of the words and wind up at the start of the word, i.e. mirror writing left to right. My father had even enclosed examples showing where the person started and stopped writing. What a complete answer!
What this showed me was how passionate my father was about his work, something I (just coming out of being a teenager) had not realized. He also put a great deal of energy into making sure that what he learned was clear to others. Here was a completely polite letter in answer to what my father thought was a total stranger’s rather intolerant letter, and it was answered immediately in great and complete detail. What a nice letter and a thorough explanation!
I decided to come clean. I had H.A. Noskcire write a nice thank you note for my father’s prompt and complete answer. I ended my letter with the line “Perhaps, you have noticed the mirror-like quality of my name.” My mother later told me Dad came out of his office and asked her what I meant. (My mother had earlier noticed the address to which the first letter was sent was my address and had quietly figured out the joke.)
From this experience, I learned that my father respected everyone, no matter what their behavior, and through his actions demonstrated that everyone deserves their thoughts acknowledged and enlightened upon. I also learned that my father took his work (or verified others) so seriously that he naively accepted my angry response to his article as valid. It is a perfect example of how genuine and down to earth he was, even if the theme of his article seemed esoteric to me.
This excerpt has been extracted from Volume 31, Issue No. 3 of The Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter.
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Professional Perspectives
by Jeffrey Zeig, PhD
An Epic Life is a biography written by many authors. Throughout his professional life, Milton H Erickson attracted a diversity of critics and supporters, and this book gives all a voice. Erickson was known to work with patients to elicit in them the innate ability to “connect the dots” to discover their adaptive potentials. Readers will delight in being able to connect the dots too, piecing together a portrait of an extraordinary and complex figure, as they look through the eyes of the men and women who met him at important junctures.
An Epic Life draws upon four decades of interviews with professionals who knew Erickson. The incisive perspectives are interlaced with commentary from Jeffrey Zeig to clarify and contextualize. The images of Erickson that emerge are congruent, divergent, myriad. In the end, readers gain unusual access to the man, his commitment, and his work. There is nothing simple in what is conveyed, and yet the impression it makes is coherent — and lasting.
Personal Perspectives
by Jeffrey Zeig
An Epic Life Vol. II is the second biography on Milton H. Erickson written by Jeffrey Zeig. The first volume features professional perspectives on Erickson and this book offers a personal lens, as seen through Erickson’s family, friends, neighbors, students, secretaries, and patients. The reader gains access into the dynamic personal world of Milton Erickson, who was a one-of-a-kind communicator of unparalleled brilliance.
Erickson was known to work with patients to elicit in them the innate ability to “connect the dots” to discover their adaptive potentials. Readers will delight in also being able to connect the dots, piecing together the professional aspects of Erickson in the first volume with the personal ones in this volume. For Erickson, the line between his professional life and personal life was blurred. He was doctor, teacher, friend, and neighbor all at the same time. Readers will see how his therapy methods carried over into his personal life. Or was it perhaps the other way around?
An Epic Life II draws upon decades of interviews with those who knew Erickson on a more personal level. The incisive perspectives are interlaced with commentary from Zeig to clarify and contextualize. The images of Erickson that emerge are congruent, divergent, and myriad. In the end, readers will have a more complete picture of the man, his commitment, and his work. There is nothing simple in what is conveyed, and yet the impression it makes is coherent – and lasting.
Zeig prepares us for this stimulating journey by providing a comprehensive history of Erickson’s lineage, and background on the many contexts mentioned in the book.
Erickson was one of the greatest psychotherapists of the 20th century and the father of modern hypnosis and brief therapy. His professional contributions continue to influence the field and its practitioners and his personal life is inspirational.
As we strive to evolve personally and professionally, we should do as Erickson did: Leave the world a better place.
Una Introductión Al Hombre Y Su Trabajo
por Jeffrey K. Zeig
Tipo: Tapa blanda
“Este libro vale la pena ya que es una descripción muy adecuada de la persona del Dr. Erickson y su muy personal manera de entender los problemas psicológicos y sus soluciones. Describe al hombre más como humano y menos como extraterrestre. Transcribe diálogos que tuvo con Erickson, la forma en que le explicaba al Dr. Zeig cómo podía ayudar a sus pacientes usando historias y referencias que se pueden aceptar sin que las preconcepciones previas interfieran con la nueva perspectiva.”
—Ricardo Figueroa Quiroga. MSc.
Director Instituto Milton H. Erickson de Guadalajara.
México.
“El volumen presente, principalmente un recuento personal de las experiencias personales que el autor tuvo con Erickson, es una contribución importante hacia la comprensión de muchas de las actitudes y métodos utilizados por Erickson con sus pacientes. Al¬gunas de sus intervenciones fueron un resultado de las técnicas de afrontamiento que él empleaba para moderar el dolor y las incapa¬cidades resultantes de la poliomielitis de su infancia. La lucha con¬tra sus deficiencias hicieron una mezcla única de inventiva, flexi¬bilidad, ingenio, astucia e improvisación las cuales mezcladas con un estilo poco ortodoxo y una propensión a manejar una situación hasta más allá del límite, han creado un modelo de psicoterapia que emociona al leer, pero es difícil de duplicar para el terapeuta promedio educado en el diseño de tratamiento tradicional. Sin em¬bargo, hay lecciones que aprender no solamente de las formas há¬biles con las que Erickson se relacionaba consigo mismo y con sus pacientes, pero también de las dramáticas experiencias diseñadas por este talentoso innovador.”
—Lewis R. Wolberg, M. D.
Fundador y Decano Emérito
Postgraduado en el Centro para Salud Mental
Ciudad de Nueva York
A Personal Encounter
by Peter Nemetschek
Type: Softcover
Milton H. Erickson Lives has the feel of an impressionist painting. In its details and broad strokes, the book focuses on an unusual man - from the perspective of an unusual ma. Original transcripts, rare photographs, and the special tone and palette on memory draw the reader into the vid experience of what is being described. It was an exciting moment for Milton H. Erickson and those who surrounded him, a moment of great clarity, intellectual explosion, a paradigm-shifting investigation-a moment that continues to reverberate powerfully beyond the parameters of that specific period.