by Steve Andreas ©2003 “Every sentence has implications and it is in the implications that the important message is given.” —Milton H. Erickson, M.D. Implication is one of the most common ways that we unconsciously make meaning out of events in everyday life. A speaker’s statement implies something that the listener infers. Implication was used …
by Steve Andreas ©1998 A number of times in my life I’ve been annoyed by needing to use a bathroom (“number two”) in the middle of the day. Sometimes this rudely interrupted activities that were a lot more important or fun, and sometimes it involved a frantic search for facilities where they were scarce …
Steve Andreas, MA “Every sentence has implications and it is in the implications that the important message is given.” —Milton H. Erickson, M.D. In a previous article, I described verbal implication as follows: a statement is made that is the opposite of the desired outcome. This statement is made about a different context, which is …
by Steve Andreas Presuppositions are messages about the way things are, embedded almost invisibly in a therapist’s language. Because they are not even noticed consciously, these communications have immense power to change a client’s perceptions, expectations and beliefs. Consider this example from the work of Milton Erickson: In the late 1950s, when Erickson was a …
by Steve Andreas, MA ©2004 A woman told Erickson about her eight-year old daughter, Ruth, who hated EVERYBODY: A very MISERABLE kind of girl. I (Erickson) asked the mother what she thought made the girl hate herself and everybody else. The mother said, “Her face is a solid freckle. And the kids …
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