The Practitioner's Guide to Ericksonian Choice Architecture Integrating Clinical Wisdom and the Science of Choice

Introduction: Choice and the Core Principles of Ericksonian Choice Architecture

Chapter 1: When the Glass is Always Half-Empty: Negativity Bias

Chapter 2: The Bright Side Blind Spot: Positivity Bias

Chapter 3: It is What It Is: Status Quo Bias

Chapter 4: Change is the Only Constant: Change Bias

Chapter 5: Make My Day: Reactance

Chapter 6: Follow the Leader: Authority Bias 

Chapter 7: Two Voices, One Choice: Ambivalence 

Chapter 8: I’ll See It When I Believe It: Confirmation Bias

Chapter 9: Conclusion: The Freedom to Thrive

Biography

Dan Short is a practicing clinical psychologist who also serves as Director for the Milton H. Erickson Institute of Phoenix, Arizona, adjunct faculty for the Milton H. Erickson Foundation’s hypnosis training program, and the originator of Ericksonian Choice Architecture (ECA). Dr. Short served for five years as Editor-in-Chief for the Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter and two years as Assistant Director at the Foundation. During that time, he oversaw the preservation of nearly 1,500 hours of audio recording from Milton Erickson. Dr. Short has taught medical hypnosis at Sonoran University of Health Sciences for more than a decade. Dr. Short has published five books, served as guest editor for the American Journal of Hypnosis (AJCH), and authored dozens of scholarly articles and book chapters. Dr. Short’s research interests have focused on Ericksonian hypnosis, resulting in a research-based treatment manual for Ericksonian therapy (ET), which is used by training institutes around the world.

“Choice architecture provides a context for orienting (‘nudging’) citizens toward choices aimed at their well-being. The Practitioner's Guide to Ericksonian Choice Architecture by Dan Short offers a further way of privileging the role of context: the psychotherapeutic dimension of ECA (Ericksonian Choice Architecture). As in the ecological rationality approach of Gerd Gigerenzer’s school, and inspired by the pragmatism of William James, Short’s interesting book shows how what are commonly considered biases, errors, and distortions can become strengths and sources of personal growth when they are placed within a frame and a decision environment that reinterpret and enhance them. ECA represents a new challenge to traditional normative psychotherapy.”

Riccardo Viale, Professor of Cognitive Economics, University of Milano-Bicocca and LUISS, Italy; author of Nudging

“Dr Short’s views on Milton H. Erickson’s communication skills offers new insight into mysterious successes that have lingered beyond logical understanding. While previous scholars explored Erickson’s techniques and hypnotherapeutic ideas, Short examines case materials from an unexplored direction. This remarkable contribution illustrates integrated permissive decision-making used rationally to promote independent autonomy. Finally, we can appreciate how Erickson’s confusing creative directives elicited generative responses. This work on Ericksonian Choice Architecture brings new understanding even to those of us who have studied Erickson for decades.”

Roxanna Erickson-Klein, Board of Directors – The Milton H. Erickson Foundation

“The intuitive therapist will recognize many of the approaches subsumed under the framework of Ericksonian Choice Architecture (ECA) to nudge the unconscious towards problem solving and foster self-awareness and insight. Covering a broad swath of ideas Short provides a comprehensive and meticulous integration of psychological, philosophical, and economic literature and theory, highlighting numerous techniques to increase agency and confidence; to honor autonomy; and to utilize client resources. The cases, his own and Erickson’s, are carefully analyzed to illustrate the applied suggestions built on the ECA foundation. Unpackaged and carefully explained he names the processes and then guides us through their usage, an architecture of both choice and change. A compendium that deserves to be on each psychotherapist’s bookshelf of resources.”

Julie H Linden, Editor-in-Chief, The Routledge International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis

"If you want to know ways you can help clients to embrace healthy choices that are consistent with their values and personal autonomy, rather than seeing them as resistant or noncompliant, this book is for you. Kudos to Dan Short — highly recommended!”

Michael F. Hoyt, author of Brief Therapy and Beyond: Stories, Language, Love, Hope, and Time and Single Session Therapy: A Clinical Introduction to Principles and Practices

“This new book by Dan Short offers clinicians and counselors new ways to utilize Milton Erickson's contributions. He invites readers to exercise flexibility in reframing and restructuring taken-for-granted thoughts and attitudes. The author urges a deeper understanding of cognitive biases to help understand threats and opportunities, and to identify a new language for managing complexity with collaborative relationships that instill security and foster commitment, self-determination, and discernment. A particularly interesting aspect of the architecture of choice, according to the Ericksonian pragmatics proposed by Dan Short, concerns the scrupulous attention to the autonomy, dignity, and identity of the individual with whom this new approach is applied.”

Consuelo Casula, author of Metaphors for Personal & Professional Evolution