Milton Hyland Erickson, MD (born 5th December 1901 in Aurum, Nevada, died 25th March 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona) was an American psychiatrist specializing in medical hypnosis and family therapy. He was founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis and a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychopathological Association.

He is noted for:

• His often unconventional approach to psychotherapy, such as described in the book Uncommon Therapy, by Jay Haley, and the book Hypnotherapy: An Exploratory Casebook, by Milton H. Erickson and Ernest L. Rossi (1979, New York: Irvington Publishers, Inc.)
• His extensive use of therapeutic metaphor and story as well as hypnosis
• coining the term Brief Therapy for his approach of addressing therapeutic changes in relatively few sessions
• His use of interventions that influenced the strategic therapy and family systems therapy practitioners beginning in the 1950s including Virginia Satir and Jay Haley
• His conceptualization of the unconscious as highly separate from the conscious mind, with its own awareness, interests, responses, and learnings. For Erickson, the unconscious mind was creative, solution-generating, and often positive.
• His ability to "utilize" anything about a patient to help them change, including their beliefs, favorite words, cultural background, personal history, or even their neurotic habits.
• His influence on Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), which was in part based upon his working methods .