In 1918 doctors believed Milton Erickson would die at the age of 17 after he was so severely paralyzed from polio that he couldn’t move. Once it became clear he would survive it fell upon the shoulders of his family to nurse him back to health while he was bedridden and unable to speak. During this time he began to focus on his sister’s body language and tone of voice and found another language hidden beneath their words.
He realized that while his sister’s performed their nursing duties they were also repulsed by his semi-vegetative state.
He overheard one sister offer another sister an apple only because it was the right thing to do, not because she wanted to share.
He would watch them say “yes” and mean “no,” eventually tuning his skills to such a degree that the true intentions of those around him were obvious regardless of what was said.
Erickson was paralyzed until he learned to focus on the memories of how his body used to move after watching one of his younger sisters (still a baby) graduate from crawling to standing up. Once he regained his motor control he went on to medical school, studied psychology, and became a psychiatrist where his self-education in the power of the unconscious mind led him to develop many unconventional but effective approaches to psychotherapy and hypnotherapy.
