Hope and Resiliency: Understanding the Psychotherapeutic Strategies of Milton H. Erickson [Hardcover]

Two distinct models of psychotherapy are emerging in the 21st century: the empirically based, programmed models and the strategic, humanistic models. Hope and Resiliency will emerge as one of the texts that epitomize the emerging strategic humanistic movements.

In the Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter interview with Scott Miller in the Winter 2005 issue (Vol. 24, No.3), Miller pointed out that techniques and procedures represent only a small percentage of the therapeutic impact in psychotherapy. Instead, it is the therapist's underlying rapport and conviction that makes the difference. Consistent with this strategic humanistic zeitgeist, Hope and Resiliency is more than a mere analysis of Erickson's strategies and techniques. It is a guide in understanding Erickson's perspective on what it means to be human and on what humans can become. Each chapter is a window into the complexity and miracle of what Erickson saw when he watched people interact with their environment and make conscious and unconscious decisions.

An implied assumption in Hope and Resiliency is that if a therapist's internal conviction is that the patient needs fixing, the patient views himself as being broken. If a therapist's internal conviction is that the patient needs curing, the patient views himself as being sick. If a therapist's internal conviction is that the patient already has everything inside that he needs with which to solve his own problem, the patient views himself as being a seeker.

This core section of the book presents strategies for clinical problem-solving. It builds on the core strategies using delightful case examples followed by explanations and elaborations. As one who has read everything about Erickson I can get my hands on, I was happy to discover many previously unpublished examples. As with the first part of the book, the second section is more than a set of how-to techniques. It is an exploration of the roots and branches of Erickson's philosophical tree as seen through concrete applications.

Each subsequent element is presented as though one were looking through a single multi-faceted window into the dynamic maelstrom of humanity. In this way, the authors have avoided having to choose between tactics or strategy by simultaneously presenting each element as both discrete and as an aspect of a larger whole.

I appreciate how the authors elegantly combined the easily readable philosophic elements with practical technique and strategy explanations. At the end of the book there is a summary of pragmatic guidelines that describe contraindications and caveats when applying the strategies with different populations or specific cases. Subsequently, there are concrete exercises that help the practitioner to internalize each of the six strategies.

In the introduction, the authors affirm that, "the content in these chapters is not meant to be memorized as a sort of stale doctrine but rather to serve as a spark for imagination and continued discovery." They are extremely successful in accomplishing their stated goal. It is impossible to read this book without one's mind immediately thinking of how to apply the learnings to one's own patients.

Most importantly, Hope and Resiliency helped me organize many of the learnings I previously internalized from Erickson but did not have pegs upon which to hang the concepts. This is a book I wish I had when I was just starting out. With it I would not have been as intimidated by the immense complexity of Erickson's worldview. To that end, I highly recommend Hope and Resiliency to anyone at any level who values both clarity and the joy of discovery.

Rick Landis, PhD

Milton H. Erickson Institute for Integrative Medicine

Orange, California

Hope and Resiliency. Understanding the Psychotherapeutic Strategies of Milton H. Erickson, M.D." is a wonderful book. I had the sense while reading it that I was in Erickson's office and just listening to him talk. This is a consequence of an informal narrative style wherein the book contains many case studies, comments by Erickson, and comments by his daughters and Short. I have not seen some of these studies and commentaries before, and they shed a new and continuingly interesting light on this remarkable man and his works. There are gems like, "Let patients know that they are going to be cured and that it will take place within them." And "Often in psychotherapy a change of reference is all that is needed." and "Erickson's philosophy of healing was characterized by his attention to the goodness of the patient's mind and body.

The heart of the book centers around organizing Erickson's contributions under the categories of: distraction, partitioning, progression, suggestion, reorientation, and utilization. Although it is next to impossible to characterize or systematize Erickson's work in simple packets, this organization does lend itself to an useful set of guidelines to the man and his work.

This book is highly recommended as it provides the reader with some unique perspectives on Erickson's work, his way of working, and many practical ideas.

Reviewed by: Rubin Battino, MS, LPCC, NCC

All my qualification for reading this and reviewing this, is simply the amount of reading I've done in nearly two years now. Covering NLP, hypnosis, REBT and some other odds and ends. So professional, I am not.

The 6 strategies covered, I can see operate in a wider realm. The realm of social influence in fact. Having reread the book several times now, I can see in other therapy modalities these threads running through.

From my own limited understanding, this is certainly an addition to my library that goes way beyond techniques, cookbook formulas and "how-to's". Instead, you have a wider overarching set of concepts to inform therapy in a more flexible, responsive and creative way.

The 6 strategies (it is noted that these are *not* exhaustive, just the main ones to be discussed) are Distraction, Progression, Reframing, Suggestion, Partitioning and Utilisation. On later reflection, I realised where some of these apply to rapport building, persuasion as well as engineering social attitudes.

At the time I was reading Cialdini's Influence, and found that the two books together do give me a way to understand propoganda, advertising and sales. Yet this is certainly not the aim of the book in itself. Like any excellent work, it has wider applications than the authors discuss, or where perhaps consciously aware of at the time?

I highly recommend this to hypnotherapists and therapists of any stripe in actual fact. I also recommend it highly to any student of psychology, counselling, advertising (yes, it's way off the curriculum I'm sure) and any agent of influence.

This of course, is only my perspective as one criticism I've had is the sheer number of books I've read in only 2 years means that surely I can't have processed the skills in them properly. Quite right, but I've enjoyed trying :-).