The purple wizard of the desert

Dear reader,

today is a big day. I fulfill my promise to write about Milton Erickson. He was born december, 5 1901 in Aurum, Nevada. His birthday seemed more appropriate to me to write about him than his day of death: march, 25 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Erickson was born into a farmer family with 7 sisters and only 1 brother. Erickson took his time when he started to speak as a child. His mom was fine with that though. She simply said, "When the time arrives, then he will talk." He was 4 years old when he started talking. He had a rough time at school first. He'd start reading a dictionary not at least going through it starting with the first letter of the word he was looking up, but started reading with at the letter "a", until he finally came to the letter and word he actually wanted to look up. Hence his nickname "Dictionary". He was dyslexic.

In 1919 he graduated from high school, but everyone thought this would be the end for him. Erickson got a polio infection (his first) and was completely paralysed when he overheard the doctor in the next room telling his mom that "The boy will be dead by morning." Erickson found out through much, much practice that he could control one of his eyes and make it move the way he wanted and he spent many hours getting his mom's attention and he was able to communicate to her to move the chest in his room some way. What he couldn't tell her was that the chest was blocking his view from the window and he wanted to see the sunset, before he died. Well, he only saw part of it He was unconscious for 3 days.

He needed to learn everything again. His youngest sister was just about that age where she'd start to learn how to walk, so Erickson was able to look and learn from her. This time consciously. Erickson himself said the polio infection gave him a "terrific advantage" over others. Even when he was sick in bed, unable to move, he studied his family and other people in the house. He found out that his siblings could say "yes", but mean "no" or say "no", but mean "yes". So he learned the basics of careful observation, phrasing and body language. When he was reasonably able to walk again, Erickson and one of his friends decided to go on a canoe tour. Luckily his family wasn't present at the actual time of departure, because on short notice his friend cancled the tour. I think his family wouldn't have let him go alone. When Erickson had to move the canoe, he needed help. He made an experiment out of that for the tour to never ask for help directly, but always create a situation in which others would ask him or offer help. That's how more often than not people would find him sitting learning german vocabularies for his medical studies, until someone would come along.

Even as a student he was interested in hypnosis and worked in hospitals, in psychiatric hospitals first. His boss once told him that the walking cane he needed to walk, was helpful and made him likeable for both patients and colleagues. The female patients wouldn't feel threatened by a man with a walking cane and male colleagues wouldn't see him as serious competition. In 1947 he had an unfortunate accident on his bike and although he didn't like to get vaccinations, he decided to get a tetanus vaccination this time. He got an anaphylactic shock, which he was lucky to survive and which gave him pollen allergies for the rest of his life. That was the reason for him to stop working in hospitals and move to Phoenix, where the desert climate was nicer for him with the allergies.

In 1953 he got a post-polio syndrome on top of the discomfort he already had to deal with. He worked closely with many well known therapists, among them Jay Haley, Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead. John Grinder and Richard Bandler, who created neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and analysed and used Erickson's hypnotic language patterns for that. My friend John is one of those methods, as I explained in earlier posts already.

As maybe you could tell from my, this post here already, there are many stories around Erickson. Even if I spend the next posts to tell some of those, it would take some time. Erickson was a genius story teller. But he didn't just tell stories for entertainment, but to help and heal in an indirect way.

Many people then and now know Erickson from his older days when he was half paralysed in a wheel-chair, hard of hearing, had double vision and suffered from chronic pain. It's impressive to see him even in short youtube videos. Even in those you can sense he was full of lust for life and energy of life although (or maybe because?) he suffered so much. I think, his obvious physical problems made him more believeable for his patients. Who would you believe more readily, when he tells you that pain control is possible: a seemingly young, healthy, energetic doctor, or a sickly elderly man in a wheel-chair? ;-)

These are only a very few aspects of Erickson's life and work. Many stories and aspects I know and thought of as I wrote this, I left out. One single post isn't enough by far.

If you're interested in learning more about Erickson, I can warmly recommend to read Sidney Rosen's collection of Erickson stories My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson. If you want to get a glimps of what Erickson was like with his students, I recommend his 5-days-seminar, which his student Jeffrey Zeig recorded. The written version of that is published under the title A Teaching Seminar With Milton H. Erickson. If you have further questions or want more suggestions, just write to me. For now this will be it about Erickson. But I'm sure this won't be the last post, where I'll mention him.

Until next blog,

sarah

My friend Tim (Part 2)

Dear reader,

I forgot something yesterday. So today has a new post. Not only can I say things you don't necessarily want to read through my friend John or Tim. If my friend Tim wants to use a bunch of curse words and wants that to be well received, before he does it, he simply says he has a poem he wants to recite and pretends he has tourette syndrom or something like that. Then everything is just fine. Like in his poem "Angry (Feet)":

Watch a video of it here

Here are the lyrics:

Sometimes I get a bit angry
But you couldn't tell, no you couldn't tell
Unless you looked real closely
Sometimes I get a bit angry
But it's alright, yes it's alright
Cause I keep it out of sight
Inside, deep inside

I breast fed 'til I was nine
Which my QUACK... doctor says is fine
And he also says I'd deal with anger better
If I wrote about myself in a poem or a letter

My mother was a STUPID BITCH... caring lady
She taught me all I know
Although I was a little slow, she never gave up
She never let me Slut down
Although she spent a lot of time at the neighbour's house
When my dad was out of town

I didn't walk 'til I was seven, or talk 'til I was ten
But neither did Napoleon, according to my QUACK fucking doctor
Who has certificates in frames
To substantiate his Dodgy Fucking... claims

My father left my mother for the love of a PANTANG... nother
And I have a Bastard brother who I've never really known
Because me dad moved up to Queensland
And he doesn't have a Bullshit You Fat Cunt... telephone
In primary school I had trouble making ASHTRAYS... friends
An issue which has become somewhat of a trend
The origin of which I can not pretend does not perplex me
Although my Quack Fucking doctor says it's cool
And that loads of "Fat Prick!" "SHUT UP I'm NOT FAT"... kids at school
Have problems with communication
And that of course some medication would be wise
And combined with more honest self expression
Could help me with my issues with emotional repression
And at a hundred and eighty bucks a session
I think I'll take the Theiving Wank BASTARD chap's advice

I quite like Porn... photography
And books on GUNS... history
And I'd like to be a POLITICIAN... vet
And I feel as I get older
I'm more in control of my violent tendencies
And when I die KILL... and when I die
I'll have no regrets

And I feel that all this writing
Is really Poofy exciting
And my Quack... Quack doctor would be proud
Because I feel a lot less angry
And I'm saying stuff out loud
And I'm letting anger out
Like today in our last session
When I taught the Quack a lesson
'Cause he said I'm not progressing
Said I wasn't moving forward
So I said, "Let's see how you move without your fucking legs."
And I tied him to his chair
And I pulled out my machete
And I listened to him beg
And then I cut his fucking feet off
And while he laid there bleeding
I used his feet to kick him in the head...

Until next blog,

sarah

It wasn't me! (My friend Tim)

Dear reader,

in one of my first posts I already mentioned the my friend John method. You kind of put the blame on somebody else and can say what you want to say anyway. You won't be in trouble for what you said, because you didn't say it, but "my friend John" did.

Having said that due to recent events here a gig with Tim Minchin:

(Video link) Peace Anthem for Palestine

Here are the lyrics:

We don't eat pigs
You don't eat pigs
It seems it's been that way forever

So if you don't eat pigs
And we don't eat pigs
Why not, not eat pigs together?

Until next blog,

sarah