Doug:         In fact, from what I can tell from the videos that I've seen, books I've read, and discussions I've had with you and others, it seemed like he was sort of always on and that the moment you walked into the room, you know, trance and therapy and things were happening.

David:         Yes, that was absolutely my experience, and everybody I know who went there, that was their experience, as well. I got to be around him outside of that room as well. I was very privileged to be invited into his home on a number of occasions and just be there with his wife, Mrs. Erickson, and him in the home and had some very nice social times with them. And, you know, it was my experience he was always on. He had a twinkle in his eye and I think he really just loved seeing what he could get people to do. I think it just gave him a lot of pleasure and he always wanted to do it in whatever subtle, long-way-around-the-barn he could.

So yes, I think he was always on. But I think the important distinction to make is that his hypnotic way of interacting with people, the language patterns he used, for instance, were not in service of putting people into trances, in my estimation. They were primarily in service of orienting people towards the kinds of learning experiences and perceptual experiences that they needed, in order to re-orient themselves... in order to change, to put it in a very simple form.

Doug:         Okay, let's talk about that. How did he do that and how did he know to do that? How did he make the distinctions of, you know, what to do with whom? That's a simple question, I know.

David:         Yeah, how did he know what to do? Whoa!

Doug:         As an example, I know by from reading a book by O'Hanlon called "Tap Roots" that there's a classic example of, for instance, the differences between traditional hypnosis and Ericksonian hypnosis, if you will use that term. In traditional hypnosis, if a person came in for any given problem, it would, essentially, be the same format. They would be put into trance, deeper, deeper, deeper, and then given direct suggestions. So as an example, if a person came in to solve a bedwetting issue, they would sit them down, close their eyes, deeper, deeper, deeper, and say, "Okay, you will have dry beds from now on." Or words to that effect.

In "Tap Roots," O'Hanlon describes three different scenarios in which Erickson worked with three different people and had three totally different approaches. One that used like a task assignment, you know, he told the girl that she should practice stopping and starting her urination. You know, build up the muscle that way, and that worked for her. I won't go into all the details of the stories for interest of time.

David:         Right. There was a boy who had the drawing of a bow in his imagination. I don't know if you remember that.

Doug:         That wasn't in "Tap Roots," but I know that story, as well. The other two in Tap Roots was a boy who had also problems in school, so Erickson gave the mother the task of waking him up if the bed's wet...she checked the beds at 5 in the morning...

David:         Oh, yeah.

Doug:         And if the beds were dry, she would let him sleep, and if it was wet, she'd wake him up and make him practice his handwriting.

David:         Right, right. That's right, I'd forgotten.

Doug:         And then there was a third one where he just told an elaborate sort of story, the kind of thing that drew on the child's own experiences of being a baseball player, comparing it with his brother's gross skills in playing football.

David:         Right.

Doug:         But he described all the fine muscle control it took to play baseball.

David:         There are other examples. There was a couple, in "Uncommon Therapy," they both wet the bed. And he would have them intentionally pee on the sheets, I don't remember the details - it's been a long time - but he'd have them both, you know, together, pee on the sheets before they went to bed. Yeah, yeah, pretty wild, huh?

Doug:         Indeed.

David:         And, in none of these examples do I recall him putting a person into a trance and, you know, doing hypnosis, per se. Okay, so let's talk about this a little bit and see if we can sort this out.

Doug:         All right.

David:         So, it seems to me that what Erickson did - I want to say does, I'll say does - is that he takes to heart, first of all, the observation or injunction that Gregory Bateson used to make which was you can't really solve a problem at the same level at which it exists. That it needs to be addressed at a different level. And so I think that what Erickson would do, rather than meeting this person head on, rather than meeting the client head on with their problems, he would consider, "Okay, what matters to this person? What's the world that this person lives in? What do they really care about? What do they respond to?"

So for instance, if we're talking about a little boy, you know, if you're a little boy growing up at a certain age, what do you care about? What's really important to you? Well, your body and being strong and being able to show that you can do things. That's what boys are about. I think what Erickson would do is ask, "What's the reality of this person? What's the world that they live in?" Some of that is given by their age, because people go through different stages in their lives. Some of that is given by their social background. There are wonderful stories of how he would use people's social backgrounds.

Their education, what they're doing professionally, all of these things contribute to kind of the world they live in. And then there's their psychological makeup. And, you know, I think what Erickson would do is take each individual who walked through the door and ask, "Well, who is this person? What's the world that just walked in the door here? And what do they really care about? What motivates them? What's important to them?" I think that's what he would look for and use for his leverage to then motivate people to do things and to provide the foundation for changing their experience.

And the way he would then go about doing that is by concocting some sort of (what I call) a reference experience, some kind of actual experience that would then meet their psychological needs and allow them to do something different, something that is in alignment with what they would really want. So, this boy who is peeing in his bed, he doesn't want to do that. He really wants to not do that. But he needs a way to, well, it can be different for different people, but he needs a way to understand it, accept it, and a way to interact with his own body that allows him to have what he wants or do what he wants to do. I'm sorry; I just said a whole lot of stuff.

Doug:         That's all right.

David:         You just feel free to stop me because I'll just run off at the mouth.

Doug:         That's what we're paying you for.

David:         Oh, okay... Hey, wait a minute!

Doug:         That's a euphemism. The check's in the mail, really, trust me.

David:         I'm sorry to be thumping the "Uncommon Therapy" book so often, but one of the wonderful things about reading that book is that, in case after case, it gives you an example of Erickson responding to the psychological and cultural and social background of each person as an individual, and coming up with a life experience that is in accordance with who the person is. It doesn't come from the outside, it comes from the inside. And the same thing is true - this is what really struck me in the early days - the same thing is true about his hypnosis work.

Doug:         When he does metaphors especially.

David:         Exactly, and that's what I think is the thing that I don't want to be missed about his work, that he did not, as you said, he did not simply, I mean, there was a time when he did that, but he did not simply put people in trance and say, "Okay, now you're going to stop bedwetting." He would put people in trance and use the trance as an opportunity to create experiences with and for the clients, as in the famous Monde tape, for example. You know, he gave her a vicarious experience, an experience that in trance had the same psychological gravity, the same reality, as having an experience out in the real world.

That's one of the wonderful things that you can do in a trance. Erickson would spend hours teaching his clients to go into a trance deep enough that they could have imagined experiences that were real to them. And once he could do that, he could orchestrate experiences for them that they would not otherwise have in the world. And those experiences then became the basis or the opportunity for them to change, to acquire a different perspective on their problem.

Doug:         And he would, in a sense, by telling these stories and by using the language patterns, make sure that they create the correct meaning out of the experience.

David:         That's right. It was very controlled. I think he really controlled what happened. Or tried to control what happened, exactly as you say. He had very clearly in mind, I think, the experience that this person needed, how he was going to help create that experience for them. And then he used those language patterns to make it real for them, to put them in the experience, and to, in a sense, fortify it with all kinds of embedded... not commands, but embedded suggestions and ideas and so on. So, yeah, he brought all of that to bear. My sense is that he really knew where he wanted this person to go, where they needed to go. He had a very strong idea of that. And everything he did was always in support of where this person needed to go.

Doug:         Now, when you do therapy with people, how do you approach it? How do you get to know where they need to go, what kind of experience that you need to provide for them? How do you decide if it's going to be a trance experience or a task assignment or how do you come up with a therapeutic plan?

David:         Okay, I want to make a distinction. To me, you asked me kind of two different questions. One is about the approach I'm going to take in terms of "Well, am I going to put this person in a trance? Am I going to just talk with them? Or am I going to give them a task? Am I going to use a technique?" That's one thing. The other is what do they need in terms of an experience? What kind of change?

Doug:         Okay.

David:         You know, how do I know what kind of change they need?

Doug:         Right.

David:         Because to me, the technique or the trance or the task, all of that is going to be in service of the change that they need.

Doug:         Sure.

David:         I don't even think about what the approach is until I have an idea about what it is that they need in terms of a change. So, do you want me to answer that?

Doug:         Yes, please.