A Storied Figure in Hypnotherapy

Author(s)

Steven N. Gold, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow

Document Type

Other

Publication Title

PsycCRITIQUES-Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books

ISSN

1554-0138

Publication Date

2015

Abstract

Reviews the video, In the Room With Milton H. Erickson, M.D., Volume 1 produced by Jane Parsons-Fein (2014). Provides a rare opportunity to directly witness Erickson’s teaching style through extensive video recordings. For several decades in the mid-20th century, Erickson developed radically different approaches to inducing hypnosis and for applying hypnosis to clinical situations than had previously existed. Rather than thinking of hypnosis as a mental state which was imposed on one person by another, he conceived of it as a naturalistic, spontaneously occurring phenomenon of everyday life that people could be taught to intentionally access. The DVDs can be viewed with captions. The captions are a helpful feature since it is sometimes difficult to make out what Erickson is saying because of his advanced age, his limited control of his voice due to the resurgence of symptoms related to polio he contracted as an adolescent, and the less than optimal audio quality of the VHS tapes on which the material was originally recorded. This video set is valuable as an extended exemplar of his teaching, therapeutic, and, to a lesser extent, hypnotic style in his later years. It is an excellent tool for classroom teaching. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)

DOI

10.1037/a0039551

Volume

60

Issue

35

NSUWorks Citation

Gold, S. N. (2015). A Storied Figure in Hypnotherapy. PsycCRITIQUES-Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 60(35).
Available at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cps_facarticles/1829