Taproots: Underlying Principles of Milton Erickson's Therapy and Hypnosis (Norton Professional Book)

A lot of books have been written about Milton Erickson. I was introduced to Erickson's work through the work of Bandler and Grinder, now known as NLP (I got my NLP trainer certificate in 1996). This book doesn't cover the modern NLP as I know it, nor does it cover the work of Steven Gilligan, but apart from that it includes a brief overview of frameworks that explain Erickson's Therapy and Hypnosis (e.g. Haley, Rossi, Lankton, Zeig, etc).Now you know what the book does and doesn't cover, let me tell you what it aims at. The author wants to make Erickson's work accessible and to unravel the underlying structure of Erickson's marvelous interventions, which were often beyond the comprehension of his students. The goal of the book is to offer the reader a set of patterns that will result in therapeutic interventions of the same style as those used by Erickson himself. It also includes principles, assumptions to be avoided and illustrates the whole with examples from Erickson himself.I think the author has done well on his goal, especially given the reputation of his subject. In general, this is a very accessible book which doesn't require any previous knowledge.Patrick E. Merlevede, Author of "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence"