After receiving his doctorate in Psychology from Stanford University, Gilligan has become a leading teacher and practitioner in the field of Ericksonian hypnotherapy. Motivated by his experiences as a therapist, a teacher, and by his own quest, he developed a new practice of radical awakening incorporating Ericksonian psychotherapy, Aikido, Buddhism, meditation, and the performance arts.

His work, known as Self-relations Psychotherapy, reconnects mind-body processes and encourages and supports radical change. The cornerstone of Self-Relations Psychotherapy is the understandings and processes of Sponsorship.

The enthusiastic acceptance of Sponsorship and Self-Sponsorship as approaches to therapy and personal change, along with his profoundly soul-touching presentation style, has led to speaking tours, workshops, and numerous Sponsorship groups throughout North America and Europe.

An abuse survivor himself, Gilligan has consistently emphasized and demonstrated the generative nature of mental process in each person's life. His most recent book, "The Courage to Love: A Self-Relations Approach to Psychotherapy" (1997), examines the relation of Erickson's legacy to aikido, Buddhism and nonviolence. It emphasizes love as a skill and a courage that may be cultivated and used to transform the many faces of violence and negative thinking that surround unhappiness and suffering. His book "Therapeutic Trances: The Cooperation Principle in Ericksonian Hypnotherapy", is considered one of the classics in the field.