One of the most influential post-war hypnotherapists, he wrote several books and articles on the subject. During the 1960s, Erickson popularised a new branch of hypnotherapy (Ericksonian hypnotherapy) characterised by the absence of formal hypnotic inductions, the use of indirect suggestion, metaphor, confusion techniques and double binds. The lack of resemblance between Erickson’s methods and those of traditional hypnotism, however, have led some of his contemporaries to seriously question whether he was actually practicing hypnosis at all and the status of his approach in relation to traditional hypnotism remains in question.

Learn the controversial art of covert hypnosis