This journey through the USA has been one of the most exciting I’ve had in the last year and it’s been as if the Milton’s spirit has accompanied me in every action and in every place I’ve explored, outside me and inside me.

I’ve been thinking back to Dave and to the dozens of stories he told me and allowed me to relive. I would have wanted to be able to find a way to hold them all, but I am sure my unconscious has already done that for me.

I have also felt the affection of the many people that have followed me long-distance along this journey. I‘ve been thinking how wonderful it would have been if each one of you could have shared the same journey, or rather your own journey, before your own unconscious.

I’ve been thinking that it was only a momentary dream, an idea impossible to achieve: a place far away and difficult to reach for many.

Then I looked at it from a new perspective: does the place really constitute the dream or do stories give that place meaning and pass through people?

This magic belongs to the people and in this case to the great Milton Erickson and to those who, like Dave, have been able to look in his eyes and keep alive that small flame of hope and wonder lit in the soul of those who met him.

So I asked myself: who might it be, keeping that light Milton that transferred to so many people alive with the greatest intensity?
First I thought of his students, who spent some months with him, some even a few years. Then of his patients, who in a few sessions have been healed or have learned to look at their condition with new eyes. And then I thought of the most obvious thing, the one which is almost invisible. I thought of that little girl sitting in an armchair, behind Milton as he speaks to a patient, in an old photograph. I thought of Betty Alice, his daughter: the person who was raised by Milton and who went on to develop an intense passion for hypnosis and a great love for people.

I thought of just the person who knew him deeply and is still expressing his message and just at that moment I got Betty Alice Erickson’s answer, saying that she will hold a one-day seminar for us in Italy.

Betty Alice Erickson not only had the privilege of growing up in a remarkable family with an extraordinary man as her father and mentor, she also worked side by side with him for many years, continuing his immense legacy. A renowned family therapist herself, and a teacher and trainer at numerous workshops and seminars held around the world, she herself says in the book we are translating into Italian, Milton H. Erickson, M.D. An American Healer: “I am still learning from Dad, from the memories I have of him, from the knowledge he gave me and the wisdom he taught.” No one is more able to offer a multifaceted portrait and a profound insight into the life and work of a great therapist, a remarkable man and a true healer.

It will be a great honor to welcome her for an extraordinary day in Milan, on 14 May 2011.

I’ll be sitting in the front row at the event, what about you?