Hypnosis

Haley makes it very clear that Erickson used hypnosis as a vital and integral part of his therapeutic system for patients. He comes from a line of hypnotists within the field of psychology. This was his intellectual heritage, not his familial heritage. Haley provides readers with a special definition of hypnosis in this book. He writes that it is a type of interpersonal communication. Strangely enough, hypnosis is somehow both clearly evidenced and yet left rather vague for readers.

More than once, Erickson simply tells a patient to go into a trance. There is no description anywhere by even one client regarding what this was like or how to comply with it. Even so, it was shown clearly that there was ample evidence of trance states in patients. One sign of the patient being in a trance is that he or she became much more open to suggestion...