-Caveat Lector-
In a message dated 99-09-05 13:55:14 EDT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>> because the devisers of NLP --Bandler & Grinder-- clearly and explicitly
>> created their system as a way of "pinning down" the extraordinary
abilitity
>> of one man, Dr Milton Erickson, to "hypnotize."
>
>Mnsr Chevre, can you please, elaborate on this? Sounds interesting.
The best portrait of Dr Milton Erickson's methods --as much instinctive
(seemingly "psychic") as calculated-- is Jay Haley's "Uncommon Therapy,"
1986, Norton & Co.
Dr Erickson, a private practitioner specializing in Medical Hypnosis who in
his later years operated out of Arizona, can be thought of as the "Einstein"
of hypnosis. His uncanny grasp of subconscious thought processes and his
recognition of the key role played by subtle vocal shifts in hypnotic
communication, among other things, led to a virtual revolution in the rather
"Newtonian" realm of hypnosis, until then (and alas, even now, mostly)
dominated by "stage hypnotists" who really knew no more about the
psychodynamics of trance than the pioneers in that field back in the 19th
Century.
Most of Erickson's insights were discovered simply by his own keen
observation of others when he found himself an invalid confined to bed (with
polio, I believe) early in his career. He was very much an empathetic
"people person" extraordinarily capable of "tuning in" to others while simply
talking to them in the normal course of therapy, and his sharp eye (and
especially ear) took note of the slightest changes in body language, voice
pattern, breathing rhythm, etc, accompanying each subconscious responses, so
that, after many years of such observations, he was able to DIRECT those
responses, in the same way that a tuning fork can cause other tuning forks to
resonate in harmony.
Another gift of Erickson's was his unique ability to JOIN his patients in the
so-called "trance" state, even while supervising the subject's hypnotic work,
so great was his understanding of hypnotic processes from his OWN EXPERIENCE
of them -- something that put him in a category all by himself, compared to
the clumsy "stage hypnotists."
Erickson attended U. of Wisconsin in the '20s, majoring in psychology, and
received a medical degree at Colorado General Hospital. In the '30s he
became a psychiatrist and held positions in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
finally in Michigan, where he was a director of psychiatric research and
training as well as an instructor in graduate school.
In 1948 he moved to Phoenix, Arizona, for his health, and began a private
practice in psychotherapy which included the use of clinical hypnosis. A
Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological
Association, he founded the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis, also
editing its scientific journal on hypnosis.
In the '50s he toured the country giving seminars in hypnosis for medical
professionals.
When Dr Gregory Bateson (a researcher into communication) and wife Margaret
Mead filmed instances of "trance-dancing" in Bali, they turned to Milton
Erickson --there being no greater expert in the field-- for help in correctly
interpreting the phenomena observed.
Bateson introduced Jay Haley (above) to Erickson in '53, and thereafter his
fame grew.
I am not aware of any wider participation by Erickson in Bateson's "Human
Ecology" project, which some claim was CIA-funded and -controlled. (In my
view, Bateson is one of the most brilliant minds of our age, alongside
Buckminster Fuller, and I can't imagine him being "controlled" by ANYONE,
especially for nefarious ends.) Erickson devoted most of his time to his
practice and to hypnotic research, duly recorded in his Journal.
All this can be found in "The Complete Works of Dr Milton Erickson,"
published in at least twelve thick volumes (some with accompanying audio
cassettes so that one can study the VOCAL element in hypnotic inductions)
published sometime in the mid '70s.
(The Erickson Institute of Hypnosis, run by his daughter, may still sell
these volumes.)
In his later years (he died in 1980), Dr Erickson was visited by unknowns
Bandler and Grinder, who (I believe) had helped in preparation of Erickson's
"Complete Works" and who pressed him to teach them his "secrets," in order to
preserve these "for posterity." They asked him to explain in detail what he
did and exactly how he did it -- so that his spontaneous, quasi-instinctive
and individually tailored techniques could be turned into a "science" for
wider application (in what became "Neurolinguistic Programming," Bandler &
Grinder's own little private moneymaking machine -- what some might call a
"cult." )
So, Erickson's empathetic resonance with each individual patient was reduced
to a rote formula exercised with everyone (broken down into certain
pigeonholed "types"), and his sensitivity to (even MERGING with) subconscious
thought processes in the distressed was replaced by the NLP practitioner's
"automated" flowcharting of "system strategies."
After Erickson died, Bandler & Grinder took what they had stolen <my
judgment> from Erickson and used that as the basis for NLP, for their own
personal glory (and profit), presenting themselves to their audience as the
Werner Erhards of the "New" Hypnosis.
The NLP "boom," after a decade or so, has more or less petered out, like the
original EST -- helped along by the arrest of either Bandler or Grinder (I
forget which) on charges of using NLP to seduce a woman into performing
sadomasochistic sex acts with him against her will -- a clear illustration of
the moral void in the duo's true motives ...
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the techniques recorded in the various
NLP books available (most of which I've read and collected, by the way), even
if I regard them as oversimplified, "automated" versions of Dr Erickson's
superior skills. I'm just cynical about NLP being put up on a pedestal and
treated as if the equal of clinical hypnosis in the hands of a
psychotherapist with sensitive, humane instincts, like Milton Erickson, from
whom the ONLY grains of truth in Neuro Linguistic Programming were ripped off
-- by two "New Age Capitalists," yuppie con men, who ABUSED the mind FOR
PROFIT.
Their greatest abuse, IMHO, was MASS-producing "hypnosis," and without HEART.
I hold NLP responsible for a de-individualizing of the psyche in "quick
fixes" instead of humane hypnotherapy, and for "mechanizing" communications
with the subconscious
in such a way as to dehumanize what is most human in its idiosyncrasy. Dr
Erickson was first and foremost a kindly, wise healer; Bandler & Grinder were
just SALESMEN.
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