Enchantment and Intervention in Family Therapy

This volume makes available a stimulating body of teachings taken virtually verbatim from five different workshops given by Carol and Stephen Lankton. It presents what these widely known trainers and practitioners have selected as the requisite ingredients for conceptualizing and assessing families so one can effectively use an Ericksonian approach that includes interventions of hypnosis, suggestion, paradox and metaphor. While there have been many volumes describing Milton Erickson s specific interventions, few have attempted to provide a broad systemic framework to make sense of these varied techniques and to weave them together in a coherent strategy for everyday work with families. Enchantment and Intervention in Family Therapy succeeds in presenting such a framework and fills it out with specific interventions that are described in detail and then built systematically into ever more complex combinations of interventions. This volume is unique not just in its presentation of a systemic framework for Ericksonian approaches to treatment of the family, but also in its vivid recreation of the workshop experience with the Lanktons. The illustrations used in the volume are the actual workshop materials and projector aids, giving the reader the experience of participating in this highly stimulating and effective workshop. As a result, this volume provides a training experience that will enrich the clinical work of every practicing psychotherapist.