Erickson and Kierkegaard: Indirect communication in psychotherapy.

In the present paper, we will show that, in their complementary approaches to indirect communication, Erickson and Kierkegaard have something important to offer to one another's theories. While Kierkegaard developed a framework by which Erickson can be more profoundly understood, Erickson's accounts offer clinical cases which support what Kierkegaard described. This mutual trade of benefits not only broadens and deepens the notion of indirect communication, but also alerts us to the fact that it was recognized and developed in two relatively independent disciplines, almost a hundred years apart! This parallel implies that indirect communication is, at the very least, a phenomenon worth investigating from both perspectives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)