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What is psychotherapy? Initially, over a hundred years ago, a new way of non-medical treatment arose to help people suffering from 'nervous disorders.' Over the decades the scope and the approaches have changed. Various gurus of therapy have come and gone and each has left an idea, an approach, interventions, some research, and so on. At the same time the range of problems treated has expanded. People often struggle for personal goals of relief from pain, anxiety, depression, indecision, obsession, performance limitations, and maladaptive memories and habits. Similarly, people often struggle to resolve conflicts within their marriage, family, and with workplace partners. In any case, they attempt to find a creative and pleasurable adjustment to experiences with themselves, others, or the object of their spiritual journey. When they have exhausted the ideas or resources of their own problem-solving efforts they seek aid. The aid they seeks can be from loved ones, friends, clergy, physicians, or psychotherapists. There are several features common to most professional approaches of psychotherapy. These essential elements include:
1) customarily therapy is done in face-to-face settings with verbal and non-verbal interaction between the persons involved
The applied psychology is usually called brief therapy, psychiatry, psychotherapy, group therapy, family therapy, cognitive therapy, behavior therapy, or so on, denoting a major aspect of an approach or the modality in which it is conducted.
People seeking therapy should only consult state licensed mental health professionals who will, therefore, hold the requisite academic degree (M.D., Ph.D., M.S.W., M.A., M.S.S.W., Psy.D.), and background in clinical training, and supervision requirement to practice. After reading this introduction, you may wish to read the longer essay at the bottom of this page.
Who is Milton Erickson? Milton H. Erickson, M.D. (1901-1980) is largely considered an architect of innovations in psychotherapy which have been called by some parallel in scope to those of Freud's. However, where Freud was a major contributor to the theory of personality structure, Erickson was the major contributor to the methods and techniques of intervention and change (according to Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., of Psychology Today). One can measure his contributions in many ways. He advanced clinical hypnosis, family therapy, brief therapy, and the general approach to problem solving in all therapies.
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Integrate learnings | |
Responsiveness | |
Permissive approach | |
• Milton
H. Erickson, M.D.'s Life
A 6 page description by Jay Haley | |
• Milton
H. Erickson, M.D.'s Health
A 6 page description by Mrs. Elizabeth Erickson | |
• Milton Erickson's Contribution to Therapy
A description by Stephen Lankton | |
He hypnotized more than 30,000 people in the course of his career (Lankton and Lankton, 1983). He wrote the entries on hypnosis and hypnotism for 3 encyclopedias, including the Britannica (1954-1973), Colliers Encyclopedia (1952-1962), and The Americana -- He wrote the Britannica entry for twenty years as the foremost authority on clinical hypnosis (Lankton, S., 1989). He published 2 co-authored books, more than 300 scientific papers, he has had more than 100 books written about him, and there are more than 115 institutes attempting to promote his approach worldwide. The approach to therapy that bears his influence is called Ericksonian therapy.
| Defining Ericksonian therapy is a challenge because Milton Erickson was
known for being therapeutically diversified and intervening in unique ways in
response to each unique client. Many professionals believe that Erickson's
significant contribution was the advancement of the use of hypnosis but others
would say it was his use of language such as in the use of indirect suggestion,
metaphor, anecdotes, confusion, therapeutic binds, etc. Others would argue that
his contribution was the concepts known as utilization, positive framing,
speaking the client's language, and so on. More depth on his career, health,
therapeutic approach, and epistemology can be found in the papers linked in the
above table.
I have written a great deal more on these topics and referenced them in the publication list. Still more reading on all aspects of therapy can be found with my publisher Brunner/Mazel, Inc. Still further information for local referrals or for professional training opportunities and the Milton H. Erickson Archives, are available from The Milton H. Erickson Foundation, Inc., 3606 N. 24th Street, Phoenix, AZ 85016, 602-956-6196 (voice), 602-956-0519 (fax), email. And please note, the efforts of Dr. Jay Haley Dr. Ernest Rossi have been a fantastic help to the research and clinical community in gaining access to Erickson's published papers. |
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Lankton's Approach
Prior to the graduate work and postgraduate therapy training I spend my
undergraduate days studying mathematics, and engineering
until finally majoring in four subject: history, linguistics, anthropology, and
psychology. This (hard) scientific background has profoundly rooted me in the
pragmatics, epistemology, and phenomenology of how change occurs, how I know
it, and how it is experienced by others. My post-grad study was strongly influenced by personal contact and study
with Milton Erickson and other therapy leaders I worked with mentioned elsewhere
on this web site.
My approach is strongly influenced by my five years of personal
study with Dr. Erickson. However, my classical clinical social work training, gestalt therapy,
psychodrama training, transactional analysis, and behavior modification training, and early
work to help develop clinical patterns for neurolinguistic programming have provided an
additional range of understanding.
I believe that, therapy is more than techniques. Therapy can represent and embrace an emerging epistemology and new attitude in social science. That is, therapy should emphasize a goal-oriented, brief, and non-pathological approach. It must be goal-oriented, future-oriented, participatory, health-discovering, and co-creating of the experiences and resources needed to make truly creative responses to demands which gave rise to symptoms or problems. Therapists are primarily experts for co-creating a context for change, that is co-creating process and the reassociation of experience that produces creative growth or "cure." My clinical work is in the contexts of marital and family therapy, individual psychotherapy, and clinical hypnosis.
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Stephen on co-creating experience. |
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• Goal-Oriented Brief Couples (and Individual) Therapy A description of Goal-Oriented
Therapy |
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A method for resolving the
critical moments of trauma.
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Summarizing my goal-oriented approach, in a nutshell is easy. This introduction is followed by a link to a more in-depth 12-page discussion at the bottom of this page. There are two major orientations to couples (and individual) therapy: one deals with resolving the negative patterns acquired during premarital developmental stages, and the other ignores these limitations, instead working to strengthen positive experiences and communications between the couples. The former approach is built on conventional psychodynamic therapy (using the past) and the latter is an off-shoot of a systems approach that is usually referred to as “solution-focused” (using the future). However, solution-focused therapy is correctly criticized because clients often have experience the therapist as superficial due to an insistence upon diminishing the time in the office that allows a client to articulate a problem and compulsively forcing the dialog to, say, tender, sweet, and loving experiences that are believed to be the solution. Instead, part of the goal of therapy is to help people find meaning and learn to problem solve from the world they have come to know. That is, therapy must be built upon acknowledging and understanding where the client is coming from. As Erickson said, “speaking the client’s language” and “putting one foot in the client’s world and keeping one in your own world.” Minimizing the value of the client’s point of view will not enhance or speed therapy. It will only frustrate people and perhaps turn them from treatment altogether.
Yet, the emphasis of brief marital therapy, or individual therapy for that matter, is on rapidly removing the blocks to, and establishing the foundations of, improved communication that leads to empathic skills, active listening, and intimacy while heightening awareness for, and experiences of, positive bonds each partner has (or had) for the other. That is why I have called the approach goal-oriented brief therapy – to distinguish it from the approach knows as solution-focused.
The most essential part of the treatment is the assessment phase, because it is based on the epistemology of the therapist. The therapist’s view of the problem, theoretical framework, and range of skill for reaching goals will radically alter the course of treatment. The most crucial variable is the determination of whether or not the maladaptive communication between the couple is a result of poor habits in previous modeling or the result of pre-existing proclivities for defensive behavior on the part of one or both spouses. If it is the latter, therapists may help solve the attitudinal and experiential inhibitions that give rise to the defensiveness – even if its origin lies outside of, and existed prior to the partnership.
It is most important for the seasoned clinician to recognize that a deficiency in positive communication and listening/empathy skills may indicate that there are emotional conflicts and historical biases in perceptions, thinking, and feeling. These deficiencies work to prohibit the retrieval of desired behaviors, experiences, and skills needed to improve the marriage or quality of life. Goal-oriented brief therapy with couples need not polarize to one or the other of the approaches mentioned above, but can be accomplished by integrating the two with the strongest emphasis always resting upon a desire to establish the positive experiences and skills in listening, reinforcing, and communicating goals in the shortest possible time. The remainder of this entire article can be read by clicking on this link:
Goal-Oriented Brief Therapy by Stephen Lankton
