The February Man

Evolving Consciousness and Identity in Hypnotherapy

Milton H. Erickson, Ernest Lawrence Rossi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136859724
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

This book is a fascinating case study that illustrates the use of multiple levels of consciousness and meaning to access and therapeutically reframe traumatic memories that were the source of very severe phobias and depression. A rare record of Erickson's pioneering genius in facilitating the evolution of new patterns of consciousness and identity in a patient.

Session I: Part I*

Approaches to Therapeutic Hypnosis

The first few sections of this presentation are very difficult to appreciate 40 years after they were recorded by a stenographer. Without the vocal tones and body gestures that gave important nuances of meaning to the jokes, puzzles, and games contained in these sections, the transcribed word alone is very confusing. The general thrust of this initial conversation between Erickson, Dr. Fink, and the subject is to indirectly attract, motivate and engage her attention (stage one of the microdynamics of trance induction, Erickson & Rossi, 1976/1980), and then to depotentiate her habitual conscious sets via confusion, shifting frames of reference, distraction, cognitive overloading, and non sequiturs (stage two of the microdynamics of trance induction). If the reader feels confused and overloaded trying to make sense of these first few sections, there can only be the consolation and wonder of how much more bewildered the subject must have felt—even though she tries to keep up a brave front in the face of the associative verbal onslaught going on about her.^®

1.0 Confusion: Associative Games and Puzzles to Initiate Response Readiness and the Hypnotic Process

Erickson:	…Getting away from the cockle shells, how do you like Gene Autry?
Fink:	I certainly ought to be able to ride a horse like he can. Or doesn’t that make horse sense? I’m off on the wrong foot! How do I like Gene Autry?
Erickson:	What’s that got to do with a garden?
Fink:	Well, it contributes fertilizer to a garden.
Erickson:	How do you get from tumbled to garden to Gene Autry?
Fink:	Purely schizoid.
Erickson:	Can you hum it? Fink hums Drifting Along with the Tumbling Tumbleweed.
Fink:	Tumble… tumbling tumbleweed… Gene Autry.
Erickson:	Yes, that’s it. He’s not tumbling. I inquired about his garden—Gene Autry sings, The Tumbling Tumbleweed.
Fink:	It’s a Song to remember.
Erickson:	It’s not a song—just a horse of another color!
Subject:	Here I was trying to connect it up with…!? |Subject blocks in confusion.|
Fink:	And yet I missed it.
Erickson:	I’m very certain he doesn’t remember it. And your remark should have refreshed his memory. But his memory wasn’t refreshed. Therefore he didn’t hear you. (Subject moves closer to Miss Dey.!)
Fink:	Well, that’s one on me.
Subject:	what’s she doing?
Fink:	She’s writing a letter. To a friend.
	Rossi: [In 1987]* The session begins with an apparently irrelevant conversation wherein Milton Erickson asks Dr. Fink if he likes Gene Autry (a popular singing cowboy in that time period). Dr. Fink replies spiritedly but with poor puns about horse sense and getting off on the wrong foot. Erickson then introduces an associative game by asking the non sequiturs of, “What’s that got to do with a garden? and “How do you get from tumbled to garden to Gene Autry?” The outcome of this initial word play, however is immediately evident in its effect on the subject’s consciousness: she is obviously confused but does not realize that Erickson is doing it to her indirectly. It seems as if Erickson is not even addressing her; he knows she is Iistening but he acts as if he is engaging only Dr. Fink. The subject soon shows evidence of trying to join the puzzling associative game going on around her when she says, “Here I was trying to connect it up with (she blocks in confusion).” She thereby indicates that she is confused—an ideal state for initiating hypnosis, because her attention is apparently focused within the ongoing dynamics Erickson is initiating, yet she needs a clarifying direction which she hopes to receive from either Erickson or Dr. Fink. This need for clarification indicates that she is now in a state of response readiness: she is ready to respond by accepting any clarifying suggestions. Erickson regards this state of response readiness as an ideal preparation for initiating a hypnotherapeutic experience.

1.1 Questions, Confusion, Not Knowing, and Non Sequiturs to Facilitate the Microdynamics of Trance Induction

Erickson:	What color is that brown?
Subject:	I haven’t any idea. All I know is that it is brown.
Erickson:	What study was mentioned?
Fink:	Obviously a study in brown.
Subject:	I’m glad I know what that word is.
Erickson:	Who’s in a bro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by Sidney Rosen, M.D.
• Introduction by Ernest Lawrence Rossi, Ph.D.
• Session I: Part 1 Approaches to Therapeutic Hypnosis
• Session I: Part 2 Identity Creation of the February Man
• Session II: Multiple Levels of Communication and Being
• Session III: Evoking and Utilizing Psychodynamic Processes
• Session IV: Active Therapeutic Trancework
• References
• Index