Another Example of Confusion in Trance Induction
Collected Works Milton Erickson
Milton H. Erickson
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 22 seconds.
As told to the Ernest L. Rossi in 1976.
On one occasion Erickson was lecturing to a group of doctors about hypnosis. He was interrupted when another doctor brought in two women volunteers who were interested in experiencing hypnosis and introduced them to Erickson. In the following he describes the situation as he understood it.
Erickson: I began by telling them that they really didn’t know anything about me but I had at least an average education; I’d gone to grade school; I’d lectured to doctors; I had learned to count, I could count to twenty easily; I could count to twenty by one, by twos, fours, fives, or tens; I could write my name. I told them a sheer bunch of nonsense along with that important statement about counting to twenty in different ways. And then I said, “Now, of course, whenever I count to twenty, you can go into a hypnotic trance.” They just looked at me and I continued with my nonsensical discussion of irrelevant facts about myself. I liked corned beef, I liked golden-eyed trout, etc. Then I looked at them significantly and said, “I had four boys and four girls- that makes eight. They really come cheaper by the dozen, you know.” With that they both went into a trance. Eight and twelve is twenty. The women came in expecting to go into a trance. They just didn’t know what a trance induction was, so I started the nonsense discussion in which I talked about my education and counting to twenty; telling them that when I came to twenty they would go into a trance- then slipping in the statement, four boys, four girls-they come cheaper by the dozen; four plus four plus twelve equal twenty. I had earlier said that I could count to twenty in any fashion, and when I come to twenty you go into a trance. They went into a trance just that quickly. All that nonsense was not really nonsense; it was a confusion procedure. While they tried desperately to make sense out of all of that nonsense I was telling them (because it is nonsensical for somebody lecturing to a group of doctors to talk in that fashion), they probably asked themselves, “Why is he talking in that fashion? Why is he saying that? Why is he telling that to us?” They tried desperately to make some meaning out of it, and the first possible meaning to it was four plus four plus twelve, and as soon as they put that meaning on it, they went into a trance. Nice demonstration of confusion technique and of subjects struggling to put a meaning upon what you say and your awareness that the subjects are going to put a meaning upon what you say. Give them plenty and let them select.
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by Roxanna Erickson Klein, RN, PhD, Ernest Rossi, PhD and Kathryn Rossi, PhD
Includes the updating essay—“What is a Suggestion? The Neuroscience of Implicit Processing Heuristics in Therapeutic Hypnosis and Psychotherapy” By Ernest L. Rossi and Kathryn L. Rossi
“For the many who never had the opportunity and never will have the opportunity to attend workshops led by Milton Erickson, this work will serve as an invaluable surrogate. Psychotherapists, in general, as well as hypnotherapists, will find the work rewarding reading and study, for Erickson is above all a psychotherapist, and his modus operandi transcends clinical hypnotism. As for academicians and researchers, I believe they will find enough food for thought and research here to keep them busy for some time to come.” —Andre M. Weitzenhoffer
by Roxanna Erickson Klein, RN, PhD, Ernest Rossi, PhD and Kathryn Rossi, PhD
In my original Foreword to this volume I expressed the opinion that, with Milton Erickson, Ernest Rossi “has done the best job to date in clarifying Erickson’s ideas on the nature of hypnosis and hypnotic therapy, on techniques of hypnotic induction, on ways of inducing therapeutic change and of validating this change.” Many books have been written about Erickson’s approaches to therapy in the 33 years that have passed since this book was published, yet I will still stand with that opinion. On reading or re-reading this book and others, edited by or co-written by Ernest Rossi we cannot fail to be impressed by Rossi’s ideas, about the Utilization Approach and the development of new frames of reference, for example. These ideas have become so accepted in different approaches to psychotherapy that they seem to have been obvious and to have existed forever. We are especially struck by Erickson’s incredible, sometimes exquisite use of words. As Paul Watzlawick has noted Erickson “heals with words.” —Sidney Rosen, MD