Erickson and Ruth
There is a 34 minute film clip of the great Milton Erickson, grandfather of modern hypnotherapy and original model for Neuro Linguistic Programming, which was available on You Tube, but isn't anymore. Beneath it were several comments such as “Brilliant to see the man at work, very very pleasant!,” “HOLY MOLLY! Milton Erickson is my hero-- this is the first time I ever saw him! thanks to whoever posted this ------> you are looking at the start of the entire field of Neuro Linguistic Programing--- daaammn,” and “Wow. It is amazing to watch Uncle Milty in action. I see how he is using pacing on the non verbal level-very cool. I'm sure there is a lot more to learn from this video, but I've only watched it 3 times so far.”
Milton Erickson’s hypnotic techniques have been subjected to greater scrutiny and analysis than any other hypnotherapist and many expensive books have been published explaining the brilliance of his methods. Mighty reputations and considerable fortunes have been amassed interpreting transcripts of Erickson’s work and modeling the man in action. It is wonderful to be able to watch the great man deploy his own techniques so that we can study his methods for ourselves.
A questioning mind is the student’s most valuable tool. It is all too easy to swallow what we are taught, bait, barb and ballast without ever stopping to check the accuracy, substance and veracity of that which we are taught. Moreover challenging the prevailing orthodoxy is a risky business as it is likely to incur the wrath of those in authority (who have got where they are by promoting the prevailing orthodoxy). For thousands of years people were taught that the sun went around the earth and when Galileo questioned it he was arrested – but he was right. If you believe that hypnosis is a state of relaxation and eye-closure then this clip is a wonderful demonstration of hypnotism.
If you are a hypnotist, you will wonder whether Erickson ever hypnotized anyone at all.
The film begins with the entry of the subject, Ruth; a young woman whose age is never revealed but looks to be in her late teens or early twenties. (In fact, I later discovered Ruth to be an undergrad at Harvard University, so 19-21ish.) Erickson says he understands that she has never been hypnotized but is interested, and suggests that the best thing is to “get right down to work”.
In the following transcript easily identifiable Ericksonian Techniques are identified by upper case lettering in square brackets [LIKE THIS]. Less familiar Ericksonian Techniques which I believe have previously gone unnoticed are identified by bold italics like this.
You might want to print the rest of this out so you can follow it whilst you watch the video.
01:00 Ruth confesses to being a bit nervous. Erickson reassures her saying that he’s the one who has to do all the work and that “all you have to do is let things happen, and it will happen.” [CREATING POSITIVE EXPECTANCY]
01:10 Erickson starts with an implied suggestion, “Are you forgetting about the light?” [IMPLIED SUGGESTION] Ruth says “No,” and asks if she’s supposed to look at it. Erickson tells her she CAN forget about it. [DIRECT SUGGESTION] Presumably he will come back to this later and make sure she has forgotten about it.
01:35 “As you watch your hands, they’re resting there.” [TRUISM] This is typical Ericksonian permissive language. He tells Ruth he wants to get automatic movement and explains what it is. “And do you know about the feelings you have when you’re feeding a baby and you want the baby to open it’s mouth and you open yours instead of the baby?” [TRUISM TO EVOKE MEMORIES OF THE DESIRED PHENOMENON] This is curious. Ruth is a young woman. Later he refers to her as a girl. There are no rings on her fingers and nothing to indicate she has any experience of attempting to make babies let alone feed one. In fact she is a student. It might be interpreted as a CONFUSIONAL TECHNIQUE but, actually, it’s really just a significant goof.
02:20 Erickson explains that “Without it being a voluntary thing” on his part, his “Right hand can lift and it can lower ... my left hand can lift ... and lower …” He picks his hands up and down to demonstrate movement, but it is an entirely voluntary action.
02:36 “Now what I’d like to have you understand is that you have a conscious mind ... and you know that and I know that ... and you have an unconscious mind or a subconscious mind ... and you know what I mean by that do you not?” [NEGATIVE TO DISCHARGE RESISTANCE] Then he gets into an explanation about conscious and non-conscious movement of hands. He wants Ruth’s unconscious mind to do automatic movement. [TRANCE RATIFICATION]
03:12 “But your unconscious mind can lift one or the other of your hands …” [DOUBLE BIND]
03:25 “And I’m going to ask you a question and you do not know the answer to that question ... consciously ... and you’ll have to wait and see what the answer is. I’m going to ask you ‘Which hand is your unconscious mind going to lift up first, the right, or the left?’ [DOUBLE BIND] And you really don’t know, but your unconscious knows. That’s right. And it’s beginning to lift, lifting, lifting, lifting, that’s right.” [CREATING POSITIVE EXPECTANCY] What’s right, exactly, is not apparent. Nothing has happened. Nothing has moved.
04:10 Both hands are still refusing to budge so Erickson picks the left hand up, “Lifting, lifting, lifting ... That’s right.” Oh no it isn’t. He wanted automatic movement. He didn’t get it, so he picked the hand up. That isn’t hypnotism.
04:40 “And if you wish you can close your eyes and feel your hand lifting higher and higher. That’s right.” [CONTINGENT SUGGESTION WITH ADDED POSITIVE EXPECTANCY] Ruth is not in trance, which is why the trance ratification is not working.
05:00 “Now close your eyes and just feel it lifting, lifting, lifting.” The problem with this, as I see it, is that if Ruth were hypnotized, Erickson would only have to say “I want your unconscious mind to raise one of your hands up,” and then wait. It might take a while for the response to come but what, exactly, is he trying to achieve by giving the suggestion literally dozens of times? The implication is that he thinks Ruth unconscious mind is too thick to understand the suggestion and that by repeating a suggestion it didn’t understand often enough it will get to understand it eventually. This reminds me of shouting louder to make foreigners understand you.
05:12 Now he picks up her left hand, “Lifting, lifting, lifting ...” What is this? Certainly not trance ratification. Ruth’s hand is up neither because of her unconscious mind, nor her conscious mind, but thanks to Erickson’s conscious, voluntary action. Can you imagine a hypno training course where everyone is told “Pick your partners hand up, say ‘lifting, lifting, lifting,’ and that’s hypnotism”?
05:30 Erickson picks her right hand up too.
05:45 “Now I mentioned before, your hand can go up and it can go down. And now I wonder if you know which hand is going to go down first?” [BIND] This should work better. Gravity is on his side.
06:40 “And when your hand touches your lap you’ll take a deep breath and go even deeper into the trance because you’re beginning to learn how.” [IMPLIED DIRECTIVE – Time bind ‘and when’, internal response ‘go even deeper into the trance’, physical confirmation ‘deep breath’.] Hand rests. No deep breath. It’s hard to tell from the video that there is no deep breath, but …
06:55 “Now take a deep breath.”
07:05 “Now let it feel to you as if many minutes have passed.” I’m not at all sure what the point or purpose of this is.
07:15 Erickson tells Ruth he wants her to rouse up, open her eyes and talk to him. [INTERACTIVE TRANCE maybe] This is, perhaps, a Confusional Technique. Well, it confused me. He is rousing her from a trance he’s completely failed to ratify; i.e. from no trance at all.
07:30 “And you’re beginning to learn to go into a trance.” [PRINCIPLE OF SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATIONS] We are agreed on one thing. Ruth isn’t in a trance yet, and has not been, which raises questions about why he was trying to get automatic movement/trance ratification. I disagree, however, that she’s learning to go into trance. I’m not even sure she’s learning to do as she’s told.
07:50 Ruth’s left hand is still up in the air. That might be because she’s still in the trance Erickson thought he was rousing her from, or it might be because she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do. I’m sure Ruth isn’t hypnotized. Erickson doesn’t seem to know one way or the other. He asks Ruth how her hand feels, and she says “a little heavy”. He asks her if she can see her hand plainly. Her left hand is up in the air right in the middle of both their visual fields as they look at each other. Ruth asks “The one on my lap? Yes.” Erickson meant the one in the air. At this point I expect him to abandon the session. He can’t even get a simple answer to a simple question. He directs her attention to the hand in the air.
07:56 “Now watch that hand as it gets closer and closer to your face.”
08:10 “And I’d like to have you pay full attention to the sensations of the movement of your arm … the bending of your elbow ... and the way that hand is getting closer and closer to your face.” Unfortunately there has not been any movement and there still isn’t. But having roused her up a minute ago, is he now trying automatic movement again as an induction or a ratification? And if it’s a ratification, where was the induction?
08:30 “And very shortly it’s going to touch your face ... but it’s not going to touch your face until you’re ready to take a deep breath, and to close your eyes, and go way deep sound asleep.” [PRINCIPLE OF SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATIONS]
08:50 “That’s right. Almost ready. Almost ready.”
09:00 Lot’s of “That’s right, that’s right ... And you’re waiting for it to touch your face and getting ready to take that deep breath …”
09:40 The hand still hasn’t touched Ruth’s face so Erickson explains to her why it isn’t working, saying that it isn’t going to touch until she’s “Ready to take that deep breath …”
10:08 “That’s it ... that’s it. Almost there.” Nothing moves. Nothing changes.
10:23 Still waiting for her hand to touch her face, Erickson picks Ruth’s other hand up, for no apparent reason.
10:42 Erickson seems to have decided that the hand has touched Ruth’s face. Maybe it did. It’s not obvious from the film. I don’t think it did. There doesn’t seem to have been any movement of the hand or the face since he was last declaring it was “almost there”. In any case, the much heralded ‘deep breath’ certainly did not happen. He tells Ruth her left hand is going to come back down to the arm of the chair and, just in case her subconscious struggles with simple English, he gives her arm a little tug in the right direction.
10:59 Despite the tug, the arm isn’t moving. “That’s right.” Every time something doesn’t work he says “That’s right.” This is the technique known as Pretend Every Failure Is A Success.
11:10 “And now your right arm is going to start lifting up and the elbow will start bending.” [PRINCIPLE OF POSITIVE SUGGESTION] Erickson’s been doing arm levitation with Ruth for 10 minutes and nothing has worked. Perhaps he thinks she is finally in trance so it’s worth having another go.
11:22 “And your left arm is coming down more and more, and your right elbow is bending …” [APPOSITION OF OPPOSITES] The left arm is not coming down and the right arm isn’t bending. I feel certain he’s about to say “That’s right”.
11:34 “That’s right.”
11:40 “Lifting ... lifting ... lifting ... that’s it.” You won’t believe this, but in order to get Ruth’s left hand to lift, Erickson puts his own hand beneath hers and pushes up. So now you know. The next time you pick up an apple, the apple doesn’t rise up because you pick it up; the apple is hypnotized – just like Ruth.
12:20 Still no automatic, unconscious action in either arm. “And now, Ruth, I would like to have you discover something …” He asks her to open her eyes and look at her hands, one by one.
12:42 “And notice the difference in the movements.” What movements?
13:06 The left hand has, at last, started to move down slowly. “And I want you to tryyyyy, just tryyyyy to stop the downward movement of that left hand.” As he says it, he waves his hand down. [LEADING] Yet it stops. He certainly meant that she wouldn’t be able to stop it, but she stops it. In fact, guess what’s coming next.
13:22 “That’s right.”
13:30 “And down it comes.” Yep. He definitely wanted the hand to keep coming down when he told her to “tryyyyy” to stop it. I think Ruth has figured out that she’s supposed to do as she’s told so she let’s her hand lower.
13:40 “And now I want you to notice that you can’t stop it from lifting up.” He lifts his own hand up in an invitation for her to copy him. I think this is an example of PACING AND LEADING, except it’s really just Laying On The Hints With A Trowel. Despite which, nothing happens.
14:06 “Now watch your right hand lifting up towards your face.” Ruth’s right hand hasn’t moved since Erickson last gave that suggestion three minutes ago at 11:10.
14:15 “And try hard to stop it but up it comes ... up it comes ... up it comes.” So at this stage both hands are supposed to be heading towards Ruth’s face. Curiously, neither hand is moving. Not at all.
14:35 “And I’d like to have you watch, look at my finger now.” Erickson holds his index finger up in front of her face in a classic prelude to an eye fixation. “And I want you to notice something that happens to you.” Ruth’s right hand suddenly moves rapidly towards her face, and clearly touches her face. This dramatic action is achieved because Erickson has grasped her wrist and pushed her hand to her face! Then he drops his finger. Her right hand is stationery, still. I don't know what the point of the finger was. Neither, apparently, does Erickson.
15:05 “Take a deep breath. Close your eyes.”
15:15 “And all the time you’re beginning to feel that you’re learning more and more.” This is just Drivel. It is a mistake to imbue this nonsense with any meaningful significance. It’s simply drivel.
15:30 Erickson picks up her right hand and tells Ruth her right hand is moving towards her face. I think this is an example of the well know Ericksonian technique of Stating the Obvious. “And as soon as your right hand touches your face you’ll take another deep breath and go deeper asleep.” [CONTINGENT SUGGESTION] This is the technique known as Wishful Thinking.
15:40 He lets go of Ruth’s right hand at chest height and tells her it will keep moving. It stays where it is. He reinforces the idea that when her hand touches her face she’ll take another deep breath and go deeper asleep. This technique is called Repeating the Instructions In Case She Wasn’t Paying Attention the First Time or Because So Much Time Has Elapsed She May Have Forgotten What She’s Supposed To Do.
15:50 “And the closer your right hand gets to your face the more your left hand will move away from it.” [APPOSITION OF OPPOSITES]
16:00 More instructions follow about different hands moving in different directions, but nothing actually moves unless Erickson holds her arms and moves them, physically, himself. This passage includes more Trowel technique as Erickson tells Ruth her hands are moving “Faster and faster and faster,” and actually speaks faster as he says it. [PACING AND LEADING] Of course, it doesn’t work. “That’s right.”
16:50 “And now while your hands are busy doing that, Ruth, Id like to have you open your eyes and look at me.” Her hands haven’t been busy since she arrived.
17:00 “And now I want to teach you something more of importance.” [IMPLIED RETROSPECTIVE SUGGESTION] It’s now five minutes and 50 seconds since Erickson gave the original suggestion for Ruth’s right hand to come up to her face, that she take a deep breath and go deep asleep. None of that has happened. Her hand has only moved when Erickson has picked it up and repositioned it himself. We’ve now been treated to a quarter of an hour of arm levitation, and it has all failed. He finally concedes that it’s rather hard for Ruth to touch her own face with her own hand (goodness only knows how she did her makeup) so he pulls her right hand to her face, physically.
17:50 Erickson decides to do something different. He tells Ruth that he wants her to “Discover the difference between your thinking and your doing.” He tells her she knows how to nod and shake her head: that her name is Ruth: that she’s a girl: that she’s sitting down. [YES-SET?] Then he tells her that no matter what he says it won’t change her name or the fact that she’s a girl or the fact that she’s sitting down. Then he asks if her first name is Ruth. She nods. “That’s right.” He asks if she’s a girl and Ruth says “Yes.” Wrong. She was supposed to nod, so Erickson tells her to just nod or shake her head. It's embarrassing.
19:00 He asks her again if she is a girl, and she demonstrates social compliance by nodding her head. “Are you sitting down?” Nod. Hooray! Ruth’s got the hang of it.
19:18 “Now I’m going to ask you some other questions and YOU WILL NOD YOUR HEAD IN ANSWER.” He reinforces (Trowel technique) what he wants by nodding like a pantomime donkey as he says it. Let’s just recap so we know exactly where we are. Erickson has set this up so that whatever he asks her, she is to nod her head in agreement. “I’m going to ask you something and you are going to nod.” It couldn’t be clearer.
19:20 “Is your name Anne?”
19:23 Ruth shakes her head. Oh dear. She was supposed to nod. She isn’t hypnotized. She never has been. She isn’t even doing social compliance. She hasn’t understood the game and has simply answered honestly. You could argue that Erickson was proving his earlier assertion that whatever he did would not alter the fact that her name was Ruth. But you’d be wrong. This is just not working. Erickson has not got what he attempted to achieve; that is, an affirmative nod to whatever question he asked. In fact, he got the exact opposite.
19:25 So he explains once again what he wants her to do. “And you will NOD YOUR HEAD in answer.”
19:30 She nods. “That’s right.” No it isn’t. That’s social compliance. “Because your thinking can be different than the movement of the muscles in your neck.” It could be, if Ruth was hypnotized. Sadly, she isn’t.
19:45 Erickson asks a bunch of other questions and Ruth dutifully nods because that’s what she’s been told to do. Her beliefs have not changed at all. Her reality is the same as it was when she arrived. Her thinking and the muscles in her neck are doing the same thing. Whatever this is a demonstration of, it is not hypnotism or hypnosis.
20:00 Safe in the knowledge that Ruth has understood that her role is to follow his instructions, Erickson tells her he wants her to shake her head ‘No,’ and asks her “Your name isn’t Ruth is it?” She shakes her head, of course.
20:42 Several other “You aren’t ... are you?” questions follow and Ruth dutifully shakes her head. The last two are “You aren’t in a trance, are you?” (he got that right!) and “You’re not going to answer me, are you?” Ruth shakes her head. “That’s right.”
20:40 If Ruth were hypnotized that would be the end of her answering questions. Erickson tests it by asking “And you can hear everything I say to you, can’t you?” Ruth shakes her head. Test, failed. She answered.
20:45 “And you won’t hear anything I say to you will you?” Ruth’s blown the ‘not answering questions’ test already so she just goes right on shaking her head because that’s what she thinks Erickson wants her to do.
20:52 Erickson tells her to close her eyes. No negative auditory hallucination. Another test, failed. The grandfather of modern hypnotherapy has been at it for 20 minutes and nothing whatsoever has worked because he has not hypnotized his subject.
21:00 “And you’re closing them, are you not?” [NEGATIVE TO DISCHARGE RESISTANCE] 21 minutes in and Erickson admits it isn’t working. He uses what he thinks of as a ‘negative to discharge resistance,’ and, in doing so, accepts that there is resistance that needs to be discharged. I think he’s wrong again. She isn’t hypnotized and doesn’t understand what she’s supposed to do. She isn’t resisting, consciously or unconsciously. She’s wide awake and trying to go along with a bizarre set of instructions.
21:08 “And you can enjoy sleeping more and more deeply all the time. And you really are, aren’t you?” Another negative to discharge non-existent resistance. “That’s right.” More Wishful Thinking.
21:29 He starts talking about going deeper and deeper into the trance. Ruth starts to put her right arm down. She hasn’t been told to overtly, nor is it a response to a suggestion, so I guess it was getting tired. Erickson notices the movement and utilizes it saying that in order to let him know she’s going right down her hand will come to rest on her lap. [UTILIZATION] This technique is known as Shameless Opportunism. Unfortunately, as soon as he says it, she stops moving her hand. Doh!
21:40 He’s doing lots of “Deeper and deeper …”
22:00 “And I’m going to talk and you don’t even need to listen to me. And you really don’t because you’re really very busy going deeper and deeper ... ” [NOT KNOWING ... NOT DOING] Erickson thinks she’s trying too hard and that that’s why nothing has worked. This is meant to assist Ruth in making an unconscious response.
22:20 “And as it comes to rest on your lap, and as it continues to rest on your lap …” Now I understand. Ruth has hypnotized Erickson! He’s having a positive visual hallucination. The hand is nowhere near Ruth’s lap.
22:50 The right hand seems to be down, at last.
22:57 “And I can talk to the others. I can say anything to them, but you really don’t need to listen.” Believe it or not this is an implied suggestion that there are other people in the room.
23:30 “And perhaps the other hand would like to rest on the arm of the chair. And I don’t know but your hand will find out. That’s right.” This technique is called Gibberish.
23:52 “And of course it would be all right if I took a hold of your wrist and lowered your hand.” Actually, no. It isn’t all right. Hypnotists don’t have to do arm levitation by picking hands up and putting them down again, and they don’t take 20 minutes to do it either.
24:25 “And I’d like to have you enjoy all the learnings you are achieving.” Apart from the fact that I regret, deeply, this torturing of the English language, what learnings? Ruth has learned to nod when she’s told to nod, and that when her hand is picked up by someone else it goes up. Not exactly profound, is it? And what’s to enjoy?
24:50 We’re back to Ruth’s head nodding “in answer to questions”.
25:30 Erickson tells her she’s daydreaming about sitting all alone at home in an easy chair.
26:10 “As you enjoy it, more and more, your head will nod a little bit more.” Nothing. “That’s right.” Typical.
26:30 “Nodding more freely.” Right now any kind of nod would be good for Erickson. Still, nothing.
26:45 “Nodding ... nodding ... still more freely.” Erickson is nodding. Ruth isn’t.
27:00 Erickson tells Ruth to open her eyes and asks “How much did you forget about the people that were here?” Ruth says, “I didn’t think there were.” At this point Ruth looks sane (not hypnotized, but sane). Erickson looks silly.
27:40 The sound quality goes. I think Erickson asks “Is your name Ruth?” and Ruth says “Yes”. Then, I think, he asks her to nod rather than speak and asks again if her name is Ruth. Ruth nods.
28:00 Erickson tells Ruth to “Keep nodding your head and see what happens.” He asks her if her name is Ruth, and Erickson shakes his head. Ruth nods. Erickson keeps shaking his head. Ruth keeps nodding. Erickson wants Ruth to shake her head but Ruth doesn’t get it and keeps nodding.
28:30 It isn’t working (nothing has) so Erickson tells her “And now it’s going to shake more and more, ‘no’”.
28:40 “Shaking from side to side. That’s right.” Ruth is still nodding.
28:50 “More and more from side to side,” gets repeated several times. Ruth still nods.
28:55 Desperate to hammer the hint home, Erickson starts swaying side to side from his waist up. It’s hilarious.
29:10 Finally the penny drops and Ruth stops nodding, but only when Erickson says, explicitly, “And the nodding stops.”
29:20 Now she’s aping Erickson swaying her head from side to side. Ruth is supposed to be shaking her head to answer that her name isn’t Ruth but is, instead, following the only clue she’s got, and swaying her head.
29:40 He wants her to feel rested. Seasick is more likely.
30:00 Now he wants her to nod and despite his bizarre pantomime donkey act, she shakes her head.
30:50 Erickson explicitly tells Ruth to nod her head up and down. “That’s right.” She’s still swaying her head.
31:00 “I want you to feel as if you have been resting for hours.”
31:15 “And I’d like to have you rouse up. And as you rouse up as your hand lifts …” He picks her hand up, in a reprise of the frequently used Flogging A Dead Horse technique.
32:00 Ruth is awake, but no different to when Erickson thought she wasn’t. There is no referral back to her being able to forget about the light.
Maybe it isn’t actually the great Milton Erickson in this video clip. Perhaps it is an impostor acting out a pastiche of the master. If so, it is an uncanny likeness in every respect other than his complete inability to do hypnotism.
Unfortunately, however, it really is Erickson. I do not understand why he did not latch on to the fact that he had a poor subject early on in the proceedings and abandon the filming. I do not understand why he carried on when nothing at all worked, and I do not understand why he would ever let such an embarrassing film be developed, let alone escape from his possession.
Unless, of course, Erickson genuinely thought this film was a good demonstration of hypnotic techniques. If that is the case, Erickson knew little about hypnotism, couldn’t recognise when he didn’t have hypnosis, and probably wouldn’t have known either, therefore, if he ever did achieve hypnosis. He may have been a great master of Ericksonian Hypnotherapy but, on the evidence of this demonstration, that would not include any hypnotism. None at all. His great achievement, then, would have been to convince himself, Rossi, Bandler and Grinder, et al, that he was doing hypnotism when he wasn’t.
None of these observations would be made if Erickson had held his hand up and declared Ruth to be a less than great hypnotee. Instead, however, he seems reasonably satisfied with his work.
I am conscious that many people hold Erickson in high regard, many practitioners employ specifically Ericksonian techniques and that NLP was largely modeled on the kind of thing that features in this clip, and this transcript. I apologize in advance to anyone whose cherished beliefs I may have offended with my analysis, but if this is supposed to be a demonstration of hypnotic techniques it is flawed and embarrassing.
The Emperor had no clothes. But that is simply my view. No one has to agree with me. You are free to watch the film for yourself and arrive at your own conclusions.
For comparison, there is another demonstration video here. This one features me, Simon, and hypnotism.