How is this process different from "brainwashing"?

Perhaps
the main difference is that without cultural reinforcement "brainwashing"
tends to fade away. During the Korean War, for example,
many "brainwashed" American prisoners-of-war were led to
accept anti-American beliefs. In fact, thousands wanted to remain
in Communist China rather than return home. Yet after they had
been repatriated, it would seem, most, if not all, returned to their
former beliefs.
Erickson's interventions were more likely to lead to changes
that were self-reinforcing and led to further changes. Perhaps this
occurred because these changes were in the direction of growth
and "opening." Of course, they were likely to be most effective
and permanent in a culture that supported Erickson's philosophy
—that the individual is important, that he can better himself, and
that each of us has unique possibilities for growth.
INTRAPSYCHIC CHANGE
As already mentioned, the unconscious mind can be influenced
by positive input. Involvement with a therapist like
Erickson, who is optimistic and supportive of growth, can in itself
constitute positive input. The addition of "teaching tales" reinforces,
supplements, and directs that positive input. In the telling
of stories, Erickson adds new data, evokes new feelings, and prescribes
new experiences. A patient who has been struggling for
years within a guilt-ridden, narrow view of life may be presented
through these tales with Erickson's permissive, life-celebrating
philosophy. These views reach him on many levels, including the
unconscious. They may be presented to the patient in the waking
state and the hypnotic state. The patient may then discover that
he does not have to rely solely on his own well-established circular
patterns of thought. He does not have to "make do" with his own
limited philosophy and limited mental sets. Partly through the
medium of these stories, he becomes aware of new possibilities,
which he is free to accept or reject on both conscious and unconscious
levels.
Sometimes the patient will identify with a character in a story,
or with Erickson himself—the master, who can deal successfully
with difficult challenges. He may then experience a sense of
accomplishment. This sense of accomplishment allows him to
approach a situation with a greater feeling of confidence. This can
30 MY VOICE WILL GO WITH YOU
be illustrated in the treatment of sexual problems, such as premature
ejaculation. When a patient has been able to experience
himself successfully enjoying a sexual act while in a hypnotic
trance, the therapist has added to his memories the feeling of
success and the expectation of further success.
Of course, not all of Erickson's teaching tales, and certainly
not all parts of all tales, are aimed at adding such positive input
to the unconscious. Some of them are meant to stir up and bring
to awareness feelings of deadness, feelings of being stuck, or
feelings of lack of authenticity. The listener then must tap his
own unconscious resources in order to ameliorate the situation.
Or he may find emotional and intellectual sustenance in one of
the other Erickson tales.
A single remembered phrase from one of Erickson's stories
may change the feeling of an entire day. On one occasion, this
happened to me while I was walking beside a meadow. Suddenly
the sentence "Did you know that every blade of grass is a different
shade of green?" popped into my head and I looked at the grass
more closely. Indeed, it was true! For the rest of the day, I walked
around with my eyes more open than usual.
Many of Erickson's tales appear to involve interactions and
even manipulations between people. One might conclude that he
is teaching people how to manipulate others. This is far from the
intent of the stories, or their effect, which is manifested mostly
in inner changes. Many people who have heard these stories find
themselves functioning with increased freedom and creativity.
This obviously comes from some intrapsychic changes. We can
better understand these changes if we look at the stories and their
characters as representing inner psychic structures. For example,
parents in the stories can represent guides, sources of love and
support, or sources of irrational guidance. More often they represent
sources of irrational coercive force. A child in a story can
represent the child within us—inexperienced, eager to learn but
CHANGING THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND 31
not knowing how, spontaneous but ignorant, with a limited repertoire
of behaviors and responses. When the reader identifies with
the child, he is likely to feel hopeful as he hears how the child
overcomes blockages to growth and freedom.
Some intrapsychic changes may result from the process of
"reparenting." Erickson used this concept in a broader way than
had Jacqui Lee Schiff in her book Transactional Analysis Treatment
of Psychosis. Erickson applied the term to his method of
replacing previous "parental" injunctions with new ideas, which
he instilled by means of posthypnotic suggestions.
These posthypnotic suggestions might be facilitated by a
phrase that Erickson often included in his hypnotic inductions:
"And my voice will go with you wherever you are." This phrase
enabled him to keep contact with the patient in trance, regardless
of the depth of the patient's regression, while also serving as a cue
to posthypnotic suggestions. Another cueing phrase might be
"You will see a flash of color." Subsequently, long after the therapeutic
session, whenever the patient saw a flash of color, he was
likely to respond to other posthypnotic suggestions given in conjunction
with the "flash of color" suggestion. These suggestions
could include injunctions and points of view, which would then
be "heard" (often in Erickson's voice) as the voice of an introjccted
parent or superego. This introjcction of the therapist's
voice can occur in any psychotherapy but is most likely to occur
when the patient is in a hypnotic trance. One possible explanation
for this phenomenon was given by Lawrence Kubie at a meeting
of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Dr. Kubie noted
that in a hypnotic trance the distinction between hypnotist and
subject is abolished. The subject then hears the hypnotist's voice
as if it were coming from inside his own head-—as his own inner
voice. This was true of Erickson. His voice would become your
voice, and his voice would go with you, wherever you were.
Obviously, the best way of conveying the full impact of these
32 MY VOICE WILL GO WITH VOU
tales would be to present them through videotape, or, at least,
audiotape. One would certainly have a better sense of the importance
of Erickson's changes of voice, pauses, body position, and
nonverbal cues. Unfortunately, rather few videotapes arc available
at this time. The intelligibility of most audiotapes is poor. In fact,
one advantage of having the stories printed out is that they are
more easily available for study and review.
INTERPRETATIONS OF ERICKSON'S
THERAPEUTIC APPROACHES
Erickson's case reports often appear to present magical cures,
and some people have reacted by not believing them. Others feel
that they are fictional reports—interestingly written and presented,
but fiction nevertheless. From personal observation of
Erickson while he was working with patients, I can attest that at
least some of the reports are not fiction. In fact, I believe that all
of them are quite factual and were edited only for the sake of a
more readable, and perhaps more dramatic, presentation than is
found in most clinical reports. Some who believe that Erickson
effected dramatic and real changes in patients, students, and
therapists still maintain that these results were probably obtained
because of some special Ericksonian charisma that could not be
transmitted to other therapists. Recently, however, there have
been attempts to study his modes of communication in a more
analytical way.
In Uncommon Therapy, Jay Haley emphasizes the strategic
aspect. Haley has defined "strategic therapy" as one in which "the
clinician initiates what happens during therapy and designs a
particular approach for each problem." Haley points out that
Erickson communicates with patients, not only in metaphors, but
that he also "works within the metaphor to bring about a
CHANGING THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND 33
34 MY VOICE WILL GO WITH YOU
CHANGING THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND 35
natural resistance to change; (5) anecdotes can be used to control
the relationship; (6} anecdotes model flexibility; (7) anecdotes can
create confusion and promote hypnotic responsiveness; and (8)
anecdotes tag the memory—"they make the presented idea more
memorable."
APPLICATIONS OF THE TEACHING TALES
IN THERAPY
One of Erickson's most important and useful approaches
could be called "mind reading." By observing the patient carefully
and by mirroring his behavior and responses, Erickson gives
the patient the feeling that his mind is being read and that
Erickson really knows him. This kind of "knowing" leads to a very
intimate relationship. "Rapport," which is imperative in all kinds
of psychotherapy, is apparently formed more quickly during hypnotic
therapy than in other forms of psychotherapy. (In this
regard, it is of interest that Anton Mesmer was the first one to
use the term "rapport" in conjunction with therapy.) Most therapists,
regardless of their "school," will agree that this rapport, the
"doctor-patient relationship," is of central importance. A strong
therapeutic relationship leads the patient to fee] understood, safe,
and secure. With this support he may then venture into both
inner and outer worlds with greater confidence and with a greater
readiness to take risks.
The type of "knowing" referred to here is quite different from
the usual way in which an analytic therapist gets to know "about"
a patient. In fact, it was not necessary for Erickson to acquire a
great deal of information about a patient's background, or even
about his symptoms. There is some truth to the speculation that
his knowing was "intuitive," but only if we understand that Erickson's
intuition was grounded in years of careful and painstaking
training in observing. His observations pertained not only to simple
matters such as body movements, breathing, and pulse rate
(seen in the neck), but also to the