ABSTRACT
This article examines how Ericksonian techniques of psychotherapy can be applied toward goals typically associated with psychoanalytic therapy and often thought to need lengthy treatment periods to effect. Such goals include enhanced reality testing, impulse control, object relations, and defensive functioning. The clinical population discussed is socially and emotionally disturbed adolescents in a residential treatment setting. These teens are 14–19 years of age and manifest, among other problems: an inability to relate age-appropriately to others; an inability to comfortably accept limits and direction from authority figures; and difficulties modulating impulse and affect. They often find it difficult to establish a therapeutic alliance and engage in a process of psychotherapy. Case studies are used to illustrate ways in which Ericksonian and psychodynamic principles can work in concert. Issues relating to the practice of hypnosis and other Ericksonian treatment modalities in residential settings are addressed as well.
