Hypnosis with Children
Let’s think of “children” being between four and twelve years old (the age range I have worked with in hypnosis). Younger children are believed to be unable to benefit from hypnosis, while teenagers usually respond well to adult hypnotic techniques. The four-to-twelve-year-olds tend to be very creative and imaginative and often slip into hypnosis without need of a formal induction. They are used to going into an altered state of consciousness spontaneously on their own. Their ability to day-dream and fantasize makes them ideal subjects for hypnosis.
Much of who we are and who we become takes hold within us in the form of habits at a very early age. Experts suggest that the blueprint for who we become is in place by the time we are three to six years of age, influenced powerfully by our immediate environment. Louise Hay, in her book You Can Heal Your Life, says: “Almost all of our programming, both positive and negative, was accepted by us by the time we were three years old.”[1] In the September/October, 2013 Well Being Journal, Leigh Fortson refers to the research of Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., in the article “You Can Change Your Genes” ( reprinted with permission of the author from chapter five of her book: Embrace, Release, Heal: An Empowering Guide To Talking About, Thinking About and Treating Cancer). “The major problem is that people are aware of their conscious beliefs and behaviors, but not of subconscious beliefs and behaviors. Most people don’t even acknowledge that their subconscious mind is at play, when the fact is that the subconscious mind is a million times more powerful than the conscious mind and that we operate 95 to 99 percent of our lives from subconscious programming.”[2] “Jesuits used to say, ‘Give me a child until age six or seven, and he’ll be with the church for the rest of his life’. They knew that our subconscious minds are programmed through the experiences we have in the first six years of our lives.” [3]
So we might imagine that youngsters, depending upon their immediate environment, have the same kind of habits and issues as adults (from positive to negative). The difference being that adults have had them and been influenced by them much longer. But when working with the four-to-twelve-year-olds, it’s best to play to their strengths. By learning what they like to do, especially in their free time, it’s possible to “make a game” of hypnosis. Once started, the child usually takes off and leads the way.
I have worked with children on the following issues: anxiety, asthma, athletics (baseball, soccer, gymnastics), bed wetting, chronic pain, eating disorders, fears (dentist, heights, spiders), hair pulling (trichotillomania), nightmares and thumb sucking. Rather than elaborate on those, however I will present an entertaining account of a session presented by Don Rice, CH, at the 2007 National Guild of Hypnotists’ Annual Convention, that will illustrate how a session could unfold.
“Brian was a bright young man, seven and three quarter years old, which he told me several times, because I forgot and often said seven years old. Brian, his mother and five-year-old brother came into my office. When I asked his mother how I might help, his little brother Tim blurted out: ‘Brian pees in his bed and his mom and dad are sick and tired of it’. After we got acquainted, Tim and his mother went to the waiting room. I asked Brian why he was wetting in his bed and he replied: ‘Dr. Don, if I knew why I was wetting in my bed I wouldn’t be here for you to help me’. At this point I considered that perhaps Brian wasn’t seven and three quarter years old, but actually a thirty year old short person.
After helping Brian go into hypnosis with the magic crystal (pendulum) I had given him, I asked if his magic mind knew he was wetting in his sleep? In a disgusted tone he replied ‘Ya, I’ve been watching him.’ I asked Brian’s magic mind why Brian wet in his bed while sleeping. The reply was: ‘Dr. Don when Brian goes sleepy bye at night his head goes to sleep and his body falls asleep, but his pee pee stays up all night long!’
I suggested to Brian’s magic mind that there were hundreds of wires in Brian’s head and one of them had broken or become loose and that was why his pee pee wouldn’t go to sleep at night. Brian’s magic mind said: ‘OK let’s fix it.’ I gave Brian a make-believe flashlight and said he could look inside his head and find the loose or broken wire. When he located it, I told him to repair it in a way that would stay repaired forever. A couple minutes later Brian said he had fixed it real good by using duct tape because his dad says duct tape can fix anything. I asked if he was ready to go on and he said: ‘Oh no, Dr. Don, I need to work some more (in his head), it’s a real mess in there. A minute later he reported that his head was all fixed.
After he returned to full consciousness and we talked awhile, we went out to the waiting room. Brian’s mother asked how it went and Brian blurted out: ‘I fixed the wire to my pee pee and I won’t wet the bed no more!’ Tim yelled: ‘Cool!’ But the look on the mother’s face was priceless. When I followed up with Brian’s mother about a week later, she said Brian stopped wetting in his bed immediately and she wanted to know if there really was a wire to his pee pee? I told her: ‘with a child, anything was possible,’ and left it at that.”[4]
[1] (2008). Hay, L., You Can Heal Your Life, Hay House, Inc., p. 79.
[2] “You Can Change Your Genes”, Well Being Journal, September/October 2013, Carson City, Nevada, p. 7.
[3] Ibid.
[4] “The Child’s Magic Mind,” by Donald Rice, CH, NGH Annual Convention, 2007
Hugh Sadlier, M.Ed., BCCH, is a Board Certified Consulting Hypnotist who has been practicing in Maine since 1991 and is currently associated with the Integrative Health Center of Maine, in Portland. He has worked with people on over two hundred different issues and encourages his clients to become actively involved in the hypnotic process, thereby empowering them to achieve optimal mental, physical, and emotional well-being. He has given hypnosis lectures and demonstrations to medical staffs, club and organization members, health fair attendees, and high school, college and adult education students. To schedule a presentation for your group, contact Hugh at (207) 773-5200 or sadlier@hypno-health.net (website: http://www.hypno-health.net/).
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