Volume 11: Hypnotherapy: An Exploratory Casebook

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