How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 248

Because Erickson expected trance states to occur naturally and frequently, he was prepared to exploit
them therapeutically, even when the patient was not present with him in the consulting room. He also
discovered many techniques for how to increase the likelihood that a trance state would occur. He
developed both verbal and non-verbal techniques, and pioneered the idea that the common experiences
of wonderment, engrossment and confusion are, in reality, just kinds of trance. (These phenomena are
of course central to many spiritual and religious disciplines, and are regularly employed by evangelists,
cult leaders and holy men of all kinds).[citation needed]
Clearly there are a great many kinds of G&