July Video of the Month
Timeless Presentations from Erickson Foundation Events
A series exploring keynotes, workshops, dialogues, etc. from past Erickson Foundation conferences—featuring the field’s most influential voices.
These recordings from The Milton H. Erickson Foundation archives offer more than historical interest — they hold lasting clinical value. Each session distills complex therapeutic ideas through lived examples, practical experience, and the subtle choices of the presenters and participants. These sessions continue to invite reflection, offer perspective, and reconnect us with core principles that remain relevant across time and context.
This month’s selection is…
Lynn Lyons, LICSW – "Humor, Hypnosis and Homework: Concrete Strategies for Helping Anxious and Depressed Kids in and out of the Therapy Office"
Brief Therapy Conference 2016 | San Diego, CA
This month’s spotlight features Lynn Lyons, LICSW, whose direct, funny, and refreshingly honest approach to treating childhood anxiety makes this lively 2016 workshop a standout.
If you work with anxious or depressed kids (or their anxious parents), you’ll walk away from this video with concrete tools you can utilize immediately. Lyons illustrates how to use wit, metaphors, and carefully crafted language to help kids shift patterns. She explains how to keep parents engaged, how to assign effective homework, and why talking too much about content (the specifics of a worry) can actually get in the way of change.
Some highlights include:
• Why anxious patterns need to be interrupted—not just explored
• How to turn common complaints into treatment targets
• The value of being playful, directive, and strategic all at once
“Anxiety is a pattern. If we don’t change the pattern, we don’t change the outcome.” – Lynn Lyons
🌀 Ericksonian Threads in Lyons’ Work
Lynn Lyons explicitly acknowledges her Ericksonian influences throughout this workshop…most notably her mentorship under Dr. Michael Yapko, a leading figure in the modern Ericksonian tradition. “I trained with Michael Yapko,” she says, “and so my training is really rooted in strategic and Ericksonian hypnosis.”
Rather than formal trance induction, Lyons employs language and pattern disruption in the Ericksonian spirit. She accomplishes this by strategically embedding suggestion, metaphor, and experiential learning to help anxious children and families shift longstanding patterns. She models the use of indirect suggestion by engaging clients (and workshop participants) with playful yet purposeful reframes, often using rhythmic language, embedded commands, and process cues typical of Ericksonian communication.
One standout example is her use of the 'response set' (a classic Ericksonian method). Lyons explains how she sequences agreeable statements or predictable prompts to build rapport and lower resistance. This technique, taught to her by Yapko, allows her to guide even oppositional or anxious clients into a more receptive and flexible state without confrontation. It exemplifies how hypnotic principles can be applied conversationally, particularly with children and families.
Other Ericksonian principles she puts into action include:
• Utilization – using what the client brings into the room as part of the solution
• Strategic indirectness – embedding change suggestions in metaphor and process language
• Process orientation – focusing on how the anxiety operates, rather than why it exists
• Experiential interventions – engaging clients in doing, rather than discussing
• Hypnotic language – not to induce formal trance, but to guide awareness and encourage change
Often humorous and highly directive, Lyons’ style embodies the flexibility and creativity championed by Erickson. Her interventions are rooted in the belief that therapy should create movement and that change unfolds through carefully structured interactions that evoke curiosity, agency, and practice.
Lyons delivers strategies with staying power, and this workshop is full of practical gems you’ll want to bring straight into your next session.
In the following clip, she shares one of them: a vivid analogy that reframes anxiety’s grip on families and invites a new way forward.
🗓️ Don’t Miss Lynn Lyons at the 2025 Anxiety & Depression Conference (September 27–28, virtual)
She’ll be building on the ideas from this video in three upcoming appearances:
• Workshop: "Getting to Work with Anxious Parents: Make First Sessions Count" – Learn how to engage parents early, reduce accommodations, and set the tone for active treatment.
• Keynote: "The Anxiety-Depression Pipeline in Teens" – Explore what really helps teens build resilience and avoid the slide from anxiety into depression.
• Dialogue with Reid Wilson, Ph.D.: "What’s Happening in Anxiety Treatment?" – A candid conversation about what’s working, what’s not, and what’s next.
