Courses are available in advanced human dynamics and change technologies, accelerated learning, leadership development, creativity, and coaching excellence at international and satellite locations around the world. Erickson College's The Art & Science of Coaching ICF Accredited Coach Training Program is one of the leading, and fastest growing coaching training programs in the world.
Training centres for Erickson College International are located in various cities in North America, China, United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, and Turkey.The Head Office for Erickson College is in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia on Canada's West Coast.
Marilyn Atkinson Ph.D, the founder of Erickson College, was part of the gestalt movement in the ‘60s and spent time with Fritz Perls, and then in the ‘70s with Virginia Satir. She explored a lot of different spiritual paths - Sufi and Buddhist teachings included. She worked with the primal approach to psychology and was very much interested in the whole rise of the commitment frame in large personal workshops where people were able to commit to taking control of their lives and moving forward.
Dr. Atkinson was particularly attracted to the work of Dr. Milton Erickson, an American Psychiatrist and hypnotherapist, who was noted for amazing results with patients. He had a brilliant inquiring mind, and, was the foremost of the expert therapists studied by the early students of the NLP community. Erickson had evolved a number of precepts which, while at first hearing were surprising to some people, and in some contexts shocking to others, actually turned out to be true. Many of Erickson’s precepts which when applied both in and outside of hypnotherapy, were highly effective in counseling.
Dr. Atkinson then developed her own seminars through those years, working with NLP and Ericksonian hypnotherapy, solution-focused methods and accelerated learning, which were all major learning frames for her and many of other people.
Opening the BC NLP Institute in Vancouver in 1980, Dr. Atkinson became the first person to bring NLP to Canada. She then opened the NLP Institute in Toronto, Ontario, and conducted multiple public courses and private courses for over a 5 year period engaging both public and corporate clients, and doing large projects with corporations such as IBM.
In 1989 Dr. Atkinson was invited to Russia to teach Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and she commenced a training community that continues to grow and flourish, now expanded to 20 cities.
Dr. Atkinson discovered that although she was teaching people what she called genius skills, they did not have a forum to continue to practise these skills consistently such that they deeply integrated these skills. To answer this need, Dr. Atkinson established Erickson College in 1995 as a place where students would have adequate time to develop that quality of integration necessary for their continued development.
To that end she developed a two year Solution Focused Counseling course. The first year focused on the basics of Ericksonian Hypnotherapy, the basics of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and practice in counseling. The second year course focused on the specialty areas such as Family Counseling, Addictions Counseling, Sexual Abuse Counseling, and Interventions. In 2000 Erickson College became an accredited teaching institution.
In 1995, Dr. Atkinson commenced a Coaching program for students who were interested in more than Counseling. This was an easy transition, as much of the effectiveness of Solution Focused Counseling came from its focus on the future, and highly elegant questioning models that focused on the solution to problems, rather than the problem state. This model, with its emphasis on visualizing the future, the use of NLP models and NLP processes that Dr.Atkinson had originated, a questioning structure that is based on how the human mind actually functions, was welcomed by apprentice coaches and experienced coaches as a significant contribution to the coaching movement.
Building on that initial model, Dr. Atkinson launched The Art & Science of Coaching in April 2000 as a course address the needs of the burgeoning coaching movement. In 2003, the Art & Science of Coaching was accredited by the International Coach Federation and ICF Accredited Coach Training Program (ACTP).
With a mission of truly connecting the heart and the mind for all of humanity, Marilyn Atkinson and the Erickson training staff are continually breaking new ground and bringing the coaching movement to the world.
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