"A chalice of wisdom for our time."—Ernest L. Rossi, Ph.D., C.J. Jung Institute of Los Angeles Milton H. Erickson has been called the most influential hypnotherapist of our time. Part of his therapy was his use of teaching tales, which through shock, surprise, or confusion—with genius use of questions, puns, and playful humor—helped people to see their situations in a new way. In this book Sidney Rosen has collected over one hundred of the tales. Presented verbatim and accompanied by Dr. Rosen's commentary, they are grouped under such headings as Motivating Tales, Reframing, and Capturing the Innocent Eye.

"...Provides students and professionals with clear examples of the evolution of clinical hypnotic phenomena. Two major innovations in this volume are the utilization theory of hypnosis and indirect forms of suggestion...Each chapter includes an essay by Ernest Rossi which clarifies and elaborates on the relevant issues of Dr. Erickson's work just illustrated. In these essays Dr. Rossi analyzes Dr. Erickson's approach in order to uncover some of the basic variables that can be isolated and tested by future experimental work...A number of graduated exercises are offered as a guide to aid hypnotherapists to develop their own skills in the clinical arts of observation, hypnotic induction, and the formulation of indirect suggestion..."--inside flap.

Milton H. Erickson, M.D. is generally acknowledged to have been the world's leading practitioner of medical hypnosis. His "strategic therapy," using hypnotic techniques with or without actually inducing trance, allows him to get directly to the core of a problem and prescribe a course of action that can lead to rapid recovery.This book provides a comprehensive look at Dr. Erickson's theories in practice, through a series of case studies covering the kinds of problems that are likely to occur at various stages of the human life cycle. The results Dr. Erickson achieves sometimes seem to border on the miraculous, but they are brought about by a finely honed technique used by a wise, intuitive, highly trained psychiatrist-hypnotist whose work is recognized as a major contribution to the field.