Milton Erickson
Ericksonian technique uses what a person already brings, their resistance, language, or belief, as the material for change, working through indirect suggestion and story rather than direct instruction.
Five moves carry a stuck response from what the person already brings to a change they arrive at on their own.
Reach for this when…
- Direct advice keeps bouncing off someone who digs in the moment you push.
- A person's resistance is the most consistent thing about them in the room.
- Straight instruction has failed twice and a different angle is needed.
How to run it
- Work from Erickson's core move: use what the person presents rather than imposing your theory.
- Apply utilisation: turn their resistance, belief, or habit into the vehicle for the change itself.
- Use indirect suggestion or a story that runs parallel to their situation.
- Reframe: attach a new meaning to an experience they already have.
- Use embedded, conversational language rather than direct commands to invite the new behaviour.
A worked example
Situation. Mwansa Chileshe coached Bwalya, a plant manager at a textile manufacturer in Lusaka, Zambia, who dismissed every piece of direct feedback about delegating with "that's just how I run a floor."
Applied. Mwansa stopped arguing the point and instead told him a story about a foreman she'd known who kept a 'second pair of hands' list, framed as pure practicality, not a critique of his style; his resistance to being told what to do became irrelevant because nothing was being told.
Result. Two weeks later Bwalya brought his own version of the list to their session, insisting it was his idea. It was, by then.
The catch
It depends heavily on the practitioner's skill and timing; done badly it slides into manipulation, and the line between influence and coercion is a live ethical question in the field. It is slow and indirect by design, which frustrates people who want a straight answer. Some of Erickson's own case reporting is anecdotal rather than tested.
If the story only works because the other person never notices what you're doing, ask whether you'd be comfortable telling them afterwards.
Origin: Milton H. Erickson