How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 246

Folks Leave the Farm." I no longer had the strength to be a farmer, but maybe I could make it as a
doctor.
Recovering, still almost entirely lame in bed, and unable to speak, he became strongly aware of the
significance of non-verbal communication - body language, tone of voice and the way that these nonverbal expressions often directly contradicted the verbal ones.
I had polio, and I was totally paralyzed, and the inflammation was so great that I had a sensory
paralysis too. I could move my eyes and my hearing was undisturbed. I got very lonesome lying in bed,
unable to move anything except my eyeballs. I was quarantined on the farm with seven sisters, one
brother, two parents, and a practical nurse. And how could I entertain myself? I started watching
people and my environment. I soon learned that my sisters could say "no" when they meant "yes." And
they could say "yes" and mean "no" at the same time. They could offer another sister an apple and hold
it back. And I began studying nonverbal language and body language. I had a baby sister who had
begun to learn to creep. I would have to learn to stand up and walk. And you can imagine the intensity
with which I watched as my baby sister grew from creeping to learning how to stand up.[4]
He began to recall "body memories" of the muscular activity of his own body. By concentrating on
these memories, he slowly began to regain control of parts of his body to the point where he was
eventually again able to talk and use his arms. Still unable to walk, he decided to train his body further,
by embarking - alone - on a thousand mile canoe trip with only a few dollars. After this grueling trip,
he was able to walk with a cane. This experience may have contributed to Erickson's technique of
using "ordeals" in a therapeutic context. (See below).
Erickson was an avid medical student, and was so curious about and engaged with psychiatry that he
got a psychology degree while he was still studying medicine.
Much later, in his fifties he developed post-polio syndrome, characterized by pain and muscle
weakness caused by the chronic over-use of partially paralyzed muscles. The condition left him even
more severely paralyzed, but having been through the experience once before, he now had a strategy
for recovering some use of his muscles, which he employed again. After this second recovery, he was
obliged to use a wheelchair, and suffered chronic pain, which he controlled with self-hypnosis:
It usually takes me an hour after I awaken to get all the pain out. It used to be easier w