This is a description.

From the Lounsbury-Winston collection.

For this one-hour video, we went back to the archives of Erickson to find his teaching seminars. The seminars were held in the comfort of his home. Three cases dealing with trauma are encountered in this video. There is hidden meaning in each case. The true meaning for therapeutic effect can be inferred from the extraneous information provided by the client, as well as the context relevant to the client’s problem.

There is a video with a featurette on the cases and techniques used by Erickson.

You can apply the lessons from these cases to your own practice.

1. Storytelling. Erickson was a great storyteller, and he often told stories for the client to have a realization. He worked experientially. And when he was doing hypnosis, the stories became suggestions.
2. Working in a series of steps. Erickson worked incrementally. If there is hard work to be done, it is best accomplished by working incrementally in small steps. Think “baby steps.” Even when Erickson was working with repression, he never pushed the client down to relive the trauma. Rather, he would break things up into behavioral, affective, and cognitive components — and deal with them individually. All problems are an amalgamation of these components, so addressing the components individually will promote the best outcome.
3. Follow the clues. In Erickson’s world, there was no extraneous information. Anything could be used to advance the therapy. He would notice the smallest detail — a certain posture, an inflection in a client’s voice – verbal and nonverbal behavior as clues to solving the riddle, solving the client’s problem.