Hypnotherapy and Children

Today's children face a growing number of pressures, demands and problems that can negatively affect their motivation and self-esteem. This can be helped through hypnotherapy.

Hypnosis can be looked upon as a state of concentrated and focused attention, directed inward that is very similar to daydreaming. It allows access to the highly suggestible unconscious by quieting the conscious mind. The mind is occupied by deeper and more significant feelings and images while the conscious is mind is put on hold.

Children do not fully develop the reasoning faculty until they reach the age of 11 or 12. Until that age information is uncritically experienced by the child rather than being processed and critically evaluated. In fact children do not worry about the same theories and facts about the world and how things should be. My experience is that children go much easier into hypnosis than adults. They respond beautifully to stories that create images of the desired results. Children have great imagination and have a strong belief and fascination of magic.

Most of Tatjana’s work with children is done using their imagination, which is the doorway between the conscious and unconscious level of the mind. However it is very important, that the child wants to come and recognizes that they have a problem which they want to solve. Hypnotherapy and other altered-state methods are about empowering the child to help themselves, so that they can deal effectively not only with the present but also with any problems in the future. Along with EFT, the child is given a magical tool to eliminate his problem on his own and is at times very proud to teach others of his new found magical powers.

Children aged 6 or older respond best to hypnosis. As in any therapy, it is important for parents to know what is going on. This happens during the first meeting, where Tatjana establishes trust between parent and herself thus the child and the therapist. The problem is identified and talked about what the child wants to do about it. Just as with adults, it is very important that the child wants to change and is willing to do hypnotherapy. In the hypnosis session itself, the parent is sitting outside in the waiting room. The parents really do not play any part in the actual therapy. However it is recommended that one parent is treated at the same time. Often children eliminate their problem quit rapidly, but often when they go back into the environment which caused the problem it brings back the nuisance for which they came to see the hypnotherapist.

Some of the common areas that can be helped by hypnosis are;

Fears and Anxieties

• fear of the dentist, needles

• nightmares

• death

• divorce

• new baby

• pain (only with written approval by doctor)

• asthma

Habit breaking

• bed wetting

• thumb sucking

• nail biting

School issues

• learning difficulties

• dealing with change

• relationships

• building confidence

• ADD and ADHD

In the majority of cases the child accomplishes an adequate result. Hypnotherapy does not rely on synthetic drugs or any other artificial tools; the power of the child's mind in hypnosis is much more effective and physiologically harmless.

Children are sometimes given homework to do. This could involve learning a magic spell, keeping a reward chart or diary, drawing pictures or some other simple fun exercises. This is about empowering the child to build confidence and the belief that they did most of the work in solving the problem on their own.

Contact Tatjana if you have any questions or want to make an appointment.