Milton H. Erickson - Controversy

Controversy

Erickson's work on hypnotism was controversial during his lifetime and has remained so to the present day. Some of his central presuppositions have been questioned by other researchers and the opaque nature of his explanations has led to a variety of competing interpretations of his approach.

A friend and colleague of Erickson, the hypnosis researcher André Weitzenhoffer, a prolific and well-respected author in the field of hypnosis himself, has extensively criticised the ideas and influence of Erickson in various writings, such as his textbook The Practice of Hypnotism. Weitzenhoffer displays a clear, and explicitly stated, bias against Ericksonian Hypnosis in his book, in favor of what he terms the semi-traditional, scientific, approach.

The author Jeffrey Masson dedicated a whole sub-section of his book Against Therapy to criticism of Milton Erickson. Masson questions the accuracy of Erickson's case reports. Regarding Erickson's report of a female patient who was allegedly hypnotised to have spontaneous orgasms throughout the day, Masson writes, "The whole thing is tinged with fantasy and has a feeling of unreality about it."

Masson was particularly concerned by Erickson's own reports of cases in which he acted in a manner he felt might be construed as sexually inappropriate. He even goes so far as to suggest that Erickson may have obtained "sexual pleasure" from cases like the following, where he reports asking a young female client to gradually strip naked in his office, allegedly as a psychotherapeutic exercise.

"Now you need to know how to undress and go to bed in the presence of a man. So start undressing." Slowly, in an almost automatic fashion, she undressed. I had her show me her right breast, her left breast, her right nipple, her left nipple. Her belly button. Her genital area. Her knees. Her gluteal regions. I asked her to point where she would like to have her husband kiss her. I had her turn around . I had her dress slowly. She dressed. I dismissed her.

Masson also notes that Erickson, as a psychiatrist in the Arizona State Hospital, was an enthusiastic advocate of the use of restraints, a subject which he delivered a well-attended talk on, and frequently had patients confined by straitjackets. Masson cites various instances of Erickson's behaviour toward psychiatric patients which he considers "cruel, crude jokes". Referring to Erickson's authoritarian approach as "prison-camp therapy" and "therapist-as-boss", Masson concludes, "It is not surprising that Erickson succumbed to the opportunity to abuse his patients, as the examples quoted make clear."

Self-professed "sceptical hypnotist" Alex Tsander cited Massons concerns in his 2005 book "Beyond Erickson: A Fresh Look at "The Emperor of Hypnosis"". The title of which alludes to Charcot's characterisation in the previous century as "The Emperor of the Neuroses". Tsander re-evaluates a swathe of Ericksons accounts of his therapeutic approaches and lecture demonstrations in the context of scientific literature on hypnotism and his own experience in giving live demonstrations of hypnotic technique. Emphasising social-psychological perspectives, Tsander introduces an "interpretive filter" with which he re-evaluates Erickson's own accounts of his demonstrations and introduces prosaic explanations for occurrences that both Erickson and other authors tend to portray as remarkable.