The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

particularly fascinated him was the walking styles of people, perhaps a
reflection of his own difficulties in relearning how to use his legs. He
would watch people walking in every part of the city. He paid attention
to the heaviness of the step—there was the emphatic walk of those who
were persistent and full of resolve; the light step of those who seemed
more indecisive; the loping, fluid walk of those who seemed rather
lazy; the meandering walk of the person lost in thought. He observed
closely the extra swaying of the hips or the strut that seemed to elevate
the head, indicating high levels of confidence in a person. There was
the walk that people put on to cover up some weakness or insecurity—
the exaggerated masculine stride, the nonchalant shuffle of the
rebellious teenager. He took note of the sudden changes in people’s

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walk as they became excited or nervous. All of this supplied him
endless information about people’s moods and self-confidence.
In his office, he placed his desk at the far end of the room, making
his patients walk toward him. He would notice changes in the walk
from before to after the session. He would scrutinize their way of
sitting down, the level of tension in their hands as they grasped the
arms of the chair, the degree to which they would face him as they
talked, and in a matter of a few seconds, without words being
exchanged, he had a profound read on their insecurities and rigidities,
as mapped clearly in their body language.
At one point in his career, Erickson worked in a ward for the
mentally disturbed. In one instance the psychologists there were
perplexed by the case of a particular patient—a former businessman
who had made a fortune and then lost everything because of the
Depression. All the man could do was cry and continually move his
hands back and forth, straight out from his chest. Nobody could figure
out the source of this tic or how to help him. Getting him to talk was
not easy and it led nowhere. To Erickson, however, the moment he saw
the man he understood the nature of the problem—through this
gesture he was literally expressing the futile efforts in his life to get
ahead and the despair this had brought him. Erickson went up to him
and said, “Your life has had many ups and downs,” and as he did so, he
shifted the motion of the arms to up and down. The man seemed
interested in this new motion and it now became his tic.
Working with an occupational therapist on site, Erickson placed
blocks of sandpaper in each of the man’s hands and put a rough piece
of lumber in front of him. Soon the man became enthralled with the
sanding of the wood and the smell of it as he polished it. He stopped
crying and took woodworking classes, carving elaborate chess sets and
selling them. By focusing exclusively on his body language and altering
his physical motion, Erickson could alter the locked position of his
mind and cure him.
One category that fascinated him was the difference in nonverbal
communication between men and women and how this reflected a
different way of thinking. He was particularly sensitive to the
mannerisms of women, perhaps a reflection of the months he had
spent closely observing his sisters. He could dissect every nuance of
their body language. One time, a beautiful young woman came to see

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him, saying she had seen various psychiatrists but none of them were
quite right. Could Erickson possibly be the right one? As she talked
some more, never discussing the nature of her problem, Erickson
watched her pick some lint off her sleeve. He listened and nodded,
then posed some rather uninteresting questions.
Suddenly, out of the blue, he said in a very confident tone that he
was the right, in fact the only psychiatrist for her. Taken aback by his
conceited attitude, she asked him why he felt that way. He said he
needed to ask her one more question in order to prove it.
“How long,” he asked, “have you been wearing women’s clothes?”
“How did you know?” the man asked in astonishment. Erickson
explained that he had noticed the way he had picked off the lint,
without making a naturally wide detour around the breast area. He had
seen that motion too many times to be fooled by anything else. In
addition, his assertive way of discussing his need to test Erickson first,
all expressed in a very staccato vocal rhythm, was decidedly masculine.
All of the other psychiatrists had been taken in by the young man’s
extremely feminine appearance and the voice he had worked on so
carefully, but the body does not lie.
On another occasion Erickson entered his office to see a new female
patient waiting for him. She explained that she had sought him out
because she had a phobia of flying. Erickson interrupted her. Without
explaining why, he asked her to leave the office and reenter. She
seemed annoyed but complied, and he studied her walk closely, as well
as her posture as she settled into the chair. He then asked her to
explain her problem.
“My husband is taking me a-broad in September and I have a
deathly fear of being on an airplane.”
“Madam,” Erickson said, “when a patient comes to a psychiatrist
there can be no withholding of information. I know something about
you. I am going to ask you an unpleasant question. . . . Does your
husband know about your love affair?”
“No,” she said with astonishment, “but how did you?”
“Your body language told me.” He explained how her legs were
crossed in a very tight position, with one foot completely tucked
around the ankle. In his experience, every married woman having an
affair locks her body up in a similar way. And she had clearly said “a-

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broad” instead of “abroad,” in a hesitant tone, as if she were ashamed
of herself. And her walk indicated a woman who felt trapped in
complicated relationships. In subsequent sessions she brought in her
lover, who was also married. Erickson asked to see the wife of the
lover, and when she came, she sat in the exact same locked position,
with the foot under the ankle.
“So you’re having an affair,” he told her.
“Yes, did my husband tell you?”
“No, I got it from your body language. Now I know why your
husband suffers from chronic headaches.” Soon he was treating them
all and helping them out of their locked and painful positions.
Over the years, his observation powers extended to elements of
nonverbal communication that were nearly imperceptible. He could
determine people’s states of mind by their breathing patterns, and by
mirroring these patterns himself he could lead the patient into a
hypnotic trance and create a feeling of deep rapport. He could read
subliminal and subvocal speech as people would mouth a word or
name in a barely visible manner. This was how fortune-tellers,
psychics, and some magicians would make a living. He could tell when
his secretary was menstruating by the heaviness of her typing. He
could guess the career backgrounds of people by the quality of their
hands, the heaviness of their step, the way they tilted their heads, and
their vocal inflections. To patients and friends it seemed as if Erickson
possessed psychic powers, but they were simply unaware of how long
and hard he had studied this, gaining mastery of the second language.
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