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Volume III: Changing Children and Families
This volume contains conversations with Milton H. Erickson about his ways of dealing with whole families and his therapy of children. In volumes one and two of this series are presented his conversations about changing individuals and changing marital couples. Included as an appendix in this volume is a conversation with him about his life, which provides biographical information, not published before.
The reader unfamiliar with Dr. Erickson will find in these conversations a lively presentation of his ideas and approach to therapy. The reader who has read everything written about Dr. Erickson will find new material as well as the basic data of his views expressed in his own words. Some of these case reports will be familiar because I drew upon these conversations for my book, Uncommon Therapy. A few cases Erickson told to other people who have since published them. The Erickson Scholar will have the opportunity to examine these transcripts of what Erickson actually said and compare them with the summaries of authors who have written about his work.
The conversations in this particular volume took place from 1958 to 1961 and were part of Gregory Bateson’s research project investigation of family therapy, an adventure we had just begun for the first time. For several years the project had been studying Erickson’s hypnosis and therapy as part of a larger investigation of the nature of therapeutic change.
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