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Hope & Resiliency
Short, Erickson, Erickson Klein
 

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he was not cured of arthritis. On the contrary, there remained certain circumscribed moments in which his problem was just as intense as when he first came for therapy. The residual arthritis was so debilitating that he was again temporarily confined to bed. However, the therapy was highly successful in that he was no longer an invalid.

The first major point to recognize is that perfection is not an appropriate therapeutic goal. Although he was often admired for his powers of persuasion, Erickson was careful to avoid misplaced notions of control. He did not try to make people conform to a standard of perfection. In Erickson's words, "perfection is not a human attribute" (1973/2001b, p. 14). Accordingly, he warned of the complications of striving for a total cure. Instead, Erickson remained focused on the task of promoting the patient's health, as imperfect as it may be. He felt it important to search for some small good that could be accomplished in relation to the patient's current situation. Erickson approached therapy with the premise that all suffering can be reduced. Although pain in life is unavoidable, it does not have to be overwhelming. Painful events can instead be perceived as an inconvenience, a problem, a challenge, something where there can be some sort of improvement (Erickson-Klein, 1990, p. 273).1

As will often occur, one small gain can lead to other unexpected outcomes and even cascade into completely unanticipated benefits. As with the case of the man with arthritis, Erickson admitted that he initially had no idea the patient would make such remarkable progress. The man had been putting most of his energy into making the problem worse. Once that energy was shifted toward identifying unrecognized possibilities, seemingly impossible circumstances were transcended. If Erickson had attempted to cure the man, he would most certainly have failed. Instead he hoped that some amount of good could be accomplished.


1 Because somatic pain is a warning signal that something is wrong with the body, the psychological treatment of pain is appropriate once the causal factors are known and medical treatment is under way.

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