Ericksonian Choice Architecture: Helping Clients Discover Their Own Solutions
Some clients won’t be talked into anything. You offer reassurance, they brush it off. You suggest a plan, they push back. The harder you try to point them somewhere better, the more they dig in.
You’ve had sessions like that. You finish knowing the client needed something other than what your training said to do, and you’re not quite sure what. It isn’t a gap in your skill. Most therapy starts by deciding the client is broken and then sets about fixing them, and some clients will never go along with that. The more you push for change, the harder they hold on.
Dr Dan Short has spent nearly 30 years working this way, inside Ericksonian hypnosis and therapy. Over the last couple of years, he and his colleagues have put a name to what happens in those sessions where a stuck client suddenly finds a way forward, without being told what to do, talked round, or put into a trance. He calls it Ericksonian Choice Architecture.
The idea is simple. You stop being the person trying to change the client and become the person who sets up the choice. You work out what state they’re in, you speak to the part of them that makes decisions without thinking it through, and you set things up so a new option becomes obvious. They pick it themselves, which is why it sticks.
That one shift gets you through to the clients who usually wear us down. The ones who say no to everything. The ones who bristle at anything that sounds like authority. The ones who are too flat to believe anything will help. Dan gives you something to say and do for each of them: a way to talk to the client who knocks back every positive thing you offer, a way to reach the client who only hears the bad, and a way to hold a session steady when it tips into crisis.
Over three hours and twelve lessons, he walks through the real cases it came from: the couple at the desk, the man who couldn’t move his arm, the thumb-sucking teen, the client with a weapon at home, the woman who froze in front of her boss. Each one shows a different move, and where you’d use it.
You don’t need any hypnosis training to use this. Most of what Dan teaches happens in ordinary conversation, with the client wide awake. If you’ve trained in hypnosis you’ll see where it fits, and if you haven’t, none of it is out of reach.
If you’ve ever sat with a client your usual approach just couldn’t reach, this shows you another way in.
You’ll walk away able to
- Set up choices for a client instead of pushing them to change, and know which one a given client needs
- Reach clients who knock back anything positive, with language that lands where reassurance bounces off
- Work with the state a client is in, not the label on their file, and see how a diagnosis can quietly make things worse
- Narrow a client’s choices to steady a session that’s heading for crisis
- Stay steady with defiant, guarded or risk-averse clients without making them dig in harder
- Help clients come up with their own answers, so the progress holds after they leave
- Work with people who don’t trust help, or you, yet
- Calm a high-conflict couple, including how the setup of the room can do some of the work for you
- Pick the right headspace before a hard session, so you walk in as the clinician that session needs
CPD Information For Mental Health Professionals
Enjoy complete flexibility with 100% self-paced learning you can access anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Pay once for lifetime access.
Course Duration: 3 learning hours
Certificate and CPD hours: On completion you’ll receive a Certificate of Completion to support your CPD records.
Assessment: Complete a short quiz at the end (80% pass mark), which you can resit as many times as needed.
Lifetime Access: Your access to the course does not expire, so you can revisit main concepts anytime you want a refresher for practice.
CPD Eligibility: This program may be suitable for CPD for professionals such as:
- Psychologists
- Counsellors and Psychotherapists
- Social Workers
- Community Workers
- Mental Health Nurses
- General Practitioners (GPs)
- Occupational Therapists
CPD requirements vary between professional bodies, so please check with your association or credentialing body to confirm you can claim CPD hours/OPD points for this program and what evidence they require.
Course Content
Meet Your Instructor
Traditional therapy approaches that rely heavily on conscious insight can miss the profound healing potential that emerges when clinicians learn to work with clients' unconscious resources. Dan Short has spent over three decades mastering the art and science of Ericksonian hypnosis, becoming one of the world's leading authorities on unconscious process work and brief therapeutic interventions.
As Director of the Milton H. Erickson Institute of Phoenix and Executive Director of the Phoenix Institute of Ericksonian Therapy, Dr. Short represents the direct lineage of Milton Erickson's revolutionary approach to psychotherapy. His book Hope and Resiliency, co-authored with Betty Alice Erickson and Roxanna Erickson Klein, has been translated into seven languages and stands as a definitive guide to Ericksonian principles. His extensive research includes over 1,500 hours studying the original Erickson archives, giving him unparalleled insight into the master therapist's methods.
Dr. Short's expertise spans Ericksonian hypnosis, brief therapy, domestic violence treatment, trauma therapy, and couples/family therapy. His approach demonstrates how therapeutic relationships themselves become vehicles for transformation when practitioners learn to engage clients' unconscious wisdom. He specialises in showing clinicians how small shifts in language, timing, and therapeutic presence can create profound changes that bypass conscious resistance and accelerate healing.
What sets his training apart is depth combined with practical application. Short doesn't just teach hypnotic techniques - he shows practitioners how to cultivate the therapeutic artistry that makes Ericksonian approaches so effective. His international teaching at institutes in France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Japan gives him cross-cultural insights into how unconscious processes operate across diverse populations.
For your practice, expect to gain specific skills in therapeutic hypnosis, tools for accessing clients' unconscious resources, and frameworks for creating transformational therapeutic relationships. His methods particularly benefit clinicians who want to move beyond symptom-focused approaches to facilitate deeper, more lasting change.
Quick Win: Short's "therapeutic choice architecture" technique helps clinicians structure conversations so clients naturally discover their own solutions - often creating breakthrough insights that traditional directive approaches miss.
Qualifications
- Ph.D., Counseling Psychology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2000
- M.A., Counseling, University of North Texas, 1993
- APA-accredited internship, Houston, TX, 1996
- Licensed Clinical Psychologist
- Nearly 30 years of clinical experience
- Over 1,500 hours of research in Milton Erickson archives
Authored Books
- Making Psychotherapy More Effective with Unconscious Process Work (2020)
- From William James to Milton Erickson: The Care of Human Consciousness (2020)
- Transformational Relationships (2010, Zeig, Tucker & Theisen)
- Hope and Resiliency (2005, co-author with Betty Alice Erickson & Roxanna Erickson Klein, Crown House Publishing, translated into Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian)
Teaching & Roles
- Director, Milton H. Erickson Institute of Phoenix
- Executive Director, Phoenix Institute of Ericksonian Therapy
- Adjunct Faculty, International Society of Hypnosis (ISH) Educational Board
- Clinical Instructor, Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine
- Visiting Faculty, Various Ericksonian Institutes Worldwide
- Former Associate Director, Milton H. Erickson Foundation
- Former Executive Editor, Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter (5 years)
Professional Practice
- Private Practice Psychologist, Scottsdale, AZ, 2003–present
- Clinical Supervisor, Graduate interns, various programs, ongoing
- Former Graduate Faculty Member, Argosy University
- Consultation groups for professionals, Phoenix metropolitan area
Featured Publications
- Multiple professional articles, book chapters, treatment manuals
- Blog author, Behavior.net
- Collaborative author, SAGE Encyclopedia of Counselling and Theory
- Academic researcher with extensive publications in professional journals
Speaking & Training
- International conference faculty worldwide
- Milton H. Erickson Foundation conference presenter
- Visiting faculty: France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Japan
- YouTube presentations on Ericksonian therapy
- Global educational workshops and seminars
Ready to unlock your clients' unconscious healing resources? Discover how Dr. Short's Ericksonian methods can transform your therapeutic presence and help clients access profound change through their own innate wisdom.
Feedback & Reviews
This course includes:
- Lessons 13
- Topics 0
- Duration 3 hours
- Quizzes 1
- Language English