Erickson said, "everyone is as individual as their own thumb print." In his practice, he tailored every induction to the client’s individual needs and perceptual bias. He believed in the wisdom of the unconscious mind, and in the theory that people have all the resources necessary to make changes inside themselves. He believed that the job of the therapist is to help the, client re-establish his/her connection with his/her inner resources and to develop a rapport between the conscious and the unconscious mind.

To illustrate this ideas of client-centered therapy, Erickson once told his story to an assembled group of psychiatrists:

I was returning from high school one day and a runaway horse with a bridle sped past a group of us into a farmer's yard looking for a drink of water. The farmer didn’t recognize it so I jumped up to the horse’s back, took hold of the reins and said "Giddy-up" and headed for the highway. I knew the horse would take me in the right direction. I didn’t know what the right direction was. And the horse trotted and galloped along. Now and then he would forget he was on a highway and would stray off into a field. So I would pull on him a bit and call his attention to the fact that the highway was where he was supposed to be. And finally about four miles from where I had boarded him he turned into a farmyard and the farmer said, "So that’s how the critter came back. Where did you find him?" I said, "about four miles from here." "How did you know he should come here?" I said, "I didn't know", the horse knew. All I did was keep his attention on the road. I think that Is how you do psychotherapy.

Often, Erickson didn’t use formal trace induction. Instead he told stories that had a deeper meaning. Sometimes that meaning was clear; most times it was not. At least not to the person's conscious mind. For example, a twelve-year old boy was brought in to see Erickson about bedwetting. Erickson dismissed his parents and began talking to the boy about other topics, avoiding a direct discussion about bedwetting altogether. Upon learning that the boy played baseball and his brother football, Erickson elaborated on the fine muscle coordination it takes to play baseball, compared to the uncoordinated muscle skills used in football. The boy listened raptly as Erickson described in fine detail all the muscle adjustments his body automatically makes in order to position him underneath the ball and catch it: the glove has to be opened at just the right moment and clamped down again at just the right moment. When transferring the ball to another hand, the same kind of fine muscle control is needed. Then, when throwing the ball to the infield, if one lets go too soon, it doesn't go where on wants it to go. Likewise letting go too late leads to an undesired outcome and consequently to frustration. Erickson explained that letting go just at the right time gets it to go where one wants it to go, and that constitutes success in baseball. Therapy with this young man consisted of four session that included talks about other sports, boy scouts, and muscles. But bedwetting was not discussed, and "formal hypnosis" was not conducted. The boy's bedwetting disappeared soon thereafter.

And what could you expect if you decided to go to an Ericksonian hypnotherapist today? Hard to specify. In much the same way that Erickson treated every patient on a very individual basis, there are as many approaches to the continuation of his work as there are followers of it.

There is a joke that kind of sums it up: "How many Ericksonian hypnotherapists does it take to change a light bulb?" Answer: "Seventeen. One to change the bulb and sixteen to argue how Milton would have done it."