When there's snow outside, I think...

Dear reader,

it's been snowing for a few days here now and when there's snow outside, I think of two Erickson stories:

One of those stories can be found in Sidney Rosen's book "My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton Erickson, M. D." and it's called "Walking on Glare Ice". During the war one day Erickson was on his way to work: the induction board in Detroit. On his way he saw a veteran with an artificial leg, who seemed worried that he needed to walk over glare ice. The man feared he might slip and fall on the ice. Erickson told him to stay there. He'd come over and show him how to walk on glare ice. Erickson came over and the man could see he had a limp. So he wasn't just a babbler. Erickson told the man to close his eyes and Erickson made him walk this way and that way and up and down, until the man was utterly confused. Then Erickson led him to the safe side of the ice and told him to open his eyes again. He was surprised that the ice was behind him and had no idea how he got to that other side.

Erickson told him, "You walked as if the cement was hard. When you try to walk on ice the usual tendency is to tense your muscles, preparing for a fall. You get a mental set. And you slip that way. If you put the weight of your legs down straight, the way you would on dry cement, you wouldn't slip. The slide comes because you don't put down your full weight and because you tense yourself."

The second anecdote is mentioned, among other places, in the book "Hypnotic Realities: The Induction of Clinical Hypnosis and Forms of Indirect Suggestion" by Milton H. Erickson, Ernest L. Rossi and Sheila I. Rossi. As a child Erickson liked to go to school early after it had snowed. On the way he left a crooked path. On the way home he had fun watching other students and passengers not going a straight path, although they knew there had to be a straight path. They all followed Erickson's path crooked path in the snow instead.

Until next blog,

sarah