ABSTRACT
Although almost all of the ideas presented in this chapter stem from Milton Erickson and were elaborated by me, I do not mean to imply that other therapists should copy Erickson, me, or aiq'one else; they must find out what works for them. Over the years I have refined those that work best for me, and so must others. I found very early that I could not get results by copying verbatim what I had heard Milton say. At least once, on hearing me report one of my successes, he smiled and said that he wasn't sure that he could "get away" with what I had done. And that is what Milton wanted-that each of us should develop our own ways of handling the variety of problems presented to us. I will not apologize for my use of the first person singular in this chapter, but these are the things that work for me.
