The unconscious is always looking for solutions, but our defenses and traumas can keep us from connecting the dots. We have evolved to digest our daily experiences through REM sleep, but traumatic and other anxiety-provoking material can prevent REM sleep from doing its job. However, it is that we become stuck. One of the solutions to being stuck lies in the art of metaphor. A metaphor means creating a story or idea that symbolizes something. For example, you might write a story about a famous event in history but change the characters into various mythological or magic characters. Many of the most famous stories are actually metaphors for what was going on politically at the time they were written. Many more are love stories that resemble our own love lives in various ways. That’s why we can relate to them. But Erickson contributed a great deal to using metaphors for healing. Metaphor bypasses the conscious mind and helps the unconscious process issues that are stuck. Metaphors can help us process things that we could not process on our own.

The book Little Annie Stories is a wonderful collection of metaphorical stories to tell children that are intended to help them deal with difficult issues like bed wetting. The book, My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., is an excellent addition to the library of anyone interested in the Milton model and metaphor. One way to begin building metaphors is to read collections of them. That is why I recommended those books. Of course, there are others. You can begin building metaphors by picking a challenging issue and turning it into a story about animals. Whatever the challenge is, turn it into something that has similar emotional significance. For example, if the challenge is about regaining self-esteem after a failure, the story could be about the animals going to a dried up watering hole and going on a search for water. The thing that makes a metaphor healing is that there is some kind of healing message embedded in the story. In the water metaphor, the animals going on a quest for water is like someone not being stuck in low self-esteem and going for new opportunities. Being thirsty didn’t stop the animals; it drove them on.

Experiencing a dramatic or hurtful failure doesn’t stop people; it drives them to build the needed skills and seek new challenges. So the water is a metaphor for success and self-esteem at the same time. Since people have parts, as we have learned, Different characters in the story can match different parts. One of the animals could say, “It’s hopeless. There’s no point in going on. We must stay here and hope for rain.” The ensuing dialogue could be a message to the unconscious to turn the voice of hopelessness into a voice of motivation.