August Video of the Month
Timeless Presentations from Erickson Foundation Events
This ongoing series highlights keynotes, workshops, and dialogues from past Erickson Foundation conferences, showcasing influential voices in psychotherapy. These archival recordings offer more than historical interest; they hold lasting clinical value. Each session distills complex clinical ideas into lived examples, practical insight, and enduring therapeutic relevance.
This month’s selection is…
Ideomotor Method of Searching Birth Memories
David Cheek, MD | Clinical Demonstration 10
1994 International Congress | Los Angeles, CA
In this thoughtful Clinical Demonstration 10-Ideomotor Method of Searching Birth Memories, Dr. Cheek illustrates the use of hypnosis and ideomotor signaling as a means of communicating directly with unconscious processes, modeling a clinical approach that emphasizes curiosity, precision, and profound respect for the client’s inner wisdom. While the demonstration centers on birth and early relational experiences, its broader lessons extend far beyond developmental work and offer valuable insights for psychotherapists, physicians, dentists, OB-GYNs, and any clinician interested in the therapeutic possibilities of hypnosis.
David Cheek, MD, was a physician, obstetrician-gynecologist, and internationally respected pioneer in clinical hypnosis whose work significantly expanded the understanding of ideomotor communication and psychosomatic processes, and the therapeutic use of unconscious responding. His innovative contributions continue to influence clinicians interested in hypnosis, mind-body medicine, and experiential psychotherapy.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this demonstration is Dr. Cheek’s distinction between what can be obtained consciously versus unconsciously through ideomotor signaling. Rather than relying exclusively on verbal responses, he demonstrates how subtle finger movements can provide access to information outside of immediate conscious awareness. Equally important, however, is his emphasis on uncertainty. Rather than assuming every unconscious process is immediately available, Cheek encourages clinicians to include responses such as “I don’t know” or “I’m not ready to answer that yet.” This simple addition protects against forcing material prematurely while reinforcing the therapeutic principle that the unconscious reveals information in its own time. The clinician’s role becomes one of patiently listening rather than searching for predetermined answers.
Throughout the demonstration, Dr. Cheek reflects on his extensive experience utilizing hypnosis during pregnancy, labor, and childbirth while expanding into the broader psychosomatic imprinting. He proposes that stress often leaves physiological and emotional imprints that continue influencing behavior long after the original experience has passed. Whether one conceptualizes these patterns as developmental memories, conditioned responses, or state-dependent learning, the clinical implication remains practical: when individuals enter a hypnotic state similar to the one in which an emotional pattern was established, new learning becomes possible. Rather than fighting symptoms, hypnosis allows clinicians to gently reorganize the relationship clients have with those experiences, replacing fear with flexibility and new possibilities.
Perhaps one of the greatest Ericksonian themes woven throughout this presentation is the shift from fear to curiosity. Cheek repeatedly demonstrates that meaningful therapeutic change rarely occurs through force. Instead, clients are invited to observe, wonder, and gradually become interested in their own internal experiences. As unconscious information is approached in manageable segments of time, what once felt overwhelming becomes increasingly integrated into conscious understanding. It is a beautiful reminder that insight is often a gradual physiological process as much as it is an intellectual one. People frequently require time not only to understand a new idea cognitively, but for their nervous system to fully accept it.
The demonstration also highlights several practical techniques, including the use of the pendulum responses and finger signaling for yes-or-no communication. Although deceptively simple, these methods illustrate an extraordinary level of attunement to subtle nonverbal communication. Erickson himself was renowned for observing the smallest physiological changes–a finger twitch, altered breathing, a shift in posture–as indicators of unconscious responding. Watching Cheek work serves as a powerful reminder that effective hypnosis depends as much upon careful observation as it does upon suggestion.
Whether your clinical work involves psychotherapy, medicine, dentistry, rehabilitation, or integrative healthcare, this demonstration offers timeless lessons in therapeutic presence, observation, and the remarkable capacity of the unconscious mind. More than a historical presentation, it is a masterclass in listening differently. We invite you to experience Dr. Cheek’s demonstration and consider how these subtle yet powerful principles might deepen your own clinical practice.
The video presentation can be found here.
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Volume 6
Four family constellations show the harmful identifications that children sometimes have with parents and grandparents. Hellinger works with participants to acknowledge hidden dynamics and to discover healthy ways to recover compassion and love.
by Roxanna Erickson Klein, RN, PhD, Ernest Rossi, PhD and Kathryn Rossi, PhD
This volume is a rare record of Milton H. Erickson's pioneering genius in facilitating the evolution of new patterns of consciousness and identity in a young woman. It is the only completely documented report of an entire hypnotherapeutic case from the middle phase of Erickson's career, when his innovative approaches were being developed. It brilliantly illustrates the actual words and methods used by Erickson that are currently transforming the meaning and essence of the entire field of psychotherapy. Therapists of all persuasions will appreciate the detailed commentaries offered by Erickson himself on the whys, ways, and means of his naturalistic and permissive approaches to healing. This intimate portrait will be treasured by all who seek to grow along with one of the most humane therapists of our time.
by Bert Hellinger and Gabriele ten Hovel
Type: Softcover
Considered one of the most innovative psychotherapists in the world today, Bert Hellinger has garnered the attention of the international therapy community, as well as the segment of the lay community interested in recovering sources of healing and wholeness. In Acknowledging What Is, Hellinger sheds light on his unique use of family constellations to reveal hidden – often destructive – family dynamics and to activate healing resources. Hellinger also speaks freely and frankly about his observations of the forces at work in family systems and the controversy that surrounds some of those observations.
In this probing interview, Gabriele ten Hovel brings to her conversations with Bert Hellinger a journalist’s skepticism. In her voice is the sense of wonderment that many may have who do not understand how such an approach can work or who have only heard about statements attributed to Hellinger. And there are times when we hold our breath, poised to be outraged by his answers and explanations. Instead, the tough questions are met by equally tough answers – and in the spaces between question and answer the formidable power of the family constellation begins to unfold.
This book provides an opportunity for Bert Hellinger to lay to rest some misunderstandings, to clarify his thinking on entanglement and resolution, to describe what he means by the “movements of the soul.”
In the end, though, the book also provides an opportunity for readers to open their hearts and minds to the power of the family constellation. Born out of the most humble therapeutic stance, that of respectful observation, this approach makes contact with the deepest levels of family engagement and disengagement.
Sit in as the logical minded journalist and the “caretaker of the soul” consider the human condition together. You may take away little gems or find that your perspective goes through a major shift – either way, these “conversations with Bert Hellinger” will energize your thinking.
Described as the ultimate empiricist, Bert Hellinger acknowledges several important influences on his life and work: his parents, whose faith immunized him against accepting Hitler’s National Socialism; his 25 years as a priest, particularly as a missionary to the Zulu; and his participation in interracial, ecumenical training in group dynamics. However, it was in Hellinger’s later training in family therapy that he first encountered the family constellations that have become the hallmark of his therapeutic work.
by Michele Ritterman
Type: eBook
Format: .epub
When a book becomes a classic…
A careful integration of essential hypnotic techniques and family therapy, this innovative perspective can be incorporated into the working paradigm of virtually all practitioners.
From Camilo Loriedo: A classic book filled with seminal ideas that continue to blossom in this always-fertile field.
From Braulio Montalvo: This is the most useful integration of ideas in hypnosis with family therapy; an enduring resource.
From Daniel Araoz: The New Hypnosis…lends itself very well to developing the skill of using ‘family hypnosis’ therapeutically. What the family has been doing ineffectively and counterproductively can be turned around for their benefit. The awareness of this aspect of family communication we owe to Ritterman…Ritterman shows the flexibility and marvelous creative potential of hypnosis with families.
From Contemporary Psychology: Ritterman’s book is an important contribution to both family therapy and clinical hypnosis. Indeed, this is the first book to be devoted to family hypnotherapy. All students of family therapy will benefit greatly from this book, regardless of the general therapeutic model they use. They will realize, with surprise, perhaps, that the hypnotic techniques proposed by Ritterman can be incorporated into their own family therapy model, enriching it and making it more effective. Family therapists owe it to themselves to read this volume.
