Stories & Encounters
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Meeting the Person You Used to Be
Roger talked in circles. Not the ordinary kind of dwelling that anxious people do, but something tighter and more exhausting — the same three or four thoughts, looping back on themselves, no matter…
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The Woman Inside the Trance
In 1962, Milton Erickson’s wife went into trance in front of a room of doctors, and described exactly what it felt like, while it was happening.
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The Gleam in His Eye
Arlene Wolberg didn’t go to Milton Erickson’s house expecting a session. It was sometime between 1945 and 1949, and her husband Lewis, a psychiatrist himself, was still shaking off an illness. The…
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The Doctor Who Put His Patients to Sleep for Weeks
In 1880s Stockholm, Dr Otto Wetterstrand kept some patients in hypnotic sleep for up to four weeks. A century later, a far darker version of his idea surfaced in a Sydney hospital.