When Children Are Sick: Pediatric Hypnotherapy

When Children Are Sick: Pediatric Hypnotherapy

3-2-16

When I was first learning hypnotherapy, my daughter was 5 years old, and became my favorite hypnotic subject. Each night as she was going to sleep, I would tell her a story, using hypnotic language and pacing. She asked for those stories until she was 16. When she was ill, I would use hypnotic stories and images to suggest that she was a princess warrior who could rid her kingdom of bugs, or a magical fairy who could wave her wand and fill the room with healing light.

Children are great hypnotic subjects. They utilize imagination every day in play, becoming characters in games, giving personalities and ‘back stories’ to their toys, and even making up scenarios when they’re in trouble (Remember “The dog ate my homework”?).

Those same abilities to imagine and to immerse themselves in the images can be used for healing. Children can learn to end bedwetting- hypnotherapy was shown to be more effective than medication- to address pain, chronic conditions, including asthma, and reduce habits like thumb sucking and hair pulling, eliminate night terrors and other sleep problems. More uses for hypnotherapy with children are listed below.

One young hypnotherapy client I’ve worked with was a 9 year old boy who had high functioning autism. He was unable to be in a regular classroom, or to be on the playground with other children, because of anger problems. He would become frustrated with something and strike out. The other children were afraid of him, and he would have to spend his school days alone in a separate room.

Though he had trouble managing his emotions, he was highly intelligent, and enjoyed the challenge of learning self-hypnosis. After a few sessions, when he became frustrated at school, he would imagine squeezing an orange. He showed me how he would squeeze the orange until the ‘juice’ ran out and it would become small in his hand. He enjoyed the image and the feeling of power in a frustrating situation. He had fun squishing the imaginary orange, and was able to return to the classroom. I happened to see his mother recently, and he’s now in college.

What is pediatric hypnotherapy?
The University of Michigan Health System says:
As currently practiced, hypnotherapy most often involves teaching a child how to self-hypnotize in order to control bad habits, physical symptoms, and other conditions. The child learns to use relaxation techniques and mental images—similar to a daydream or fantasy—to enter an “altered mental state”

Once in this altered state, the therapist makes suggestions aimed at producing the desired change in behavior, anxiety level, or symptom intensity. These may range from recalling times of feeling happy and well in a child with chronic pain, to thinking of the body as a “computer” that the child can “program” with his or her mind.

The child may also receive specific teaching about their problem as a means of helping them learn to exercise control over their body. For example, a child with nocturnal enuresis (bedwetting) may be taught the basic anatomy and function of the bladder. Ultimately, the child is able to induce self-hypnosis when needed to achieve the desired changes.

What are some uses of hypnotherapy in children?
Hypnotherapy has been used to treat hundreds of behavior disorders, chronic diseases, and pain and discomfort. Here’s a partial list:

Behavior problems:

• Habit/tic disorders including thumb-sucking , trichotillomania (hair-pulling) , Tourette’s Syndrome.
• Nocturnal enuresis (bedwetting) .
  Evidence includes case reports as well as one clinical trial, in which hypnotherapy was shown to be more effective than medication.
• Sleep terrors, nightmares, and other sleep disturbances .
• Swallowing problems, food aversions, and choking (not related to anatomic problems or disease).
• Anxiety and stress.

Chronic Conditions:

• Asthma
  Case reports suggest that hypnotherapy may reduce episodes of wheezing or shortness of breath, and may decrease reliance on asthma medications.
• Cystic Fibrosis (CF)
  A study in adults and children with CF suggests that hypnotherapy can reduce symptoms of cough, shortness of breath, anxiety, and other problems commonly faced by these patients.
• Migraine headaches
• Cancer
  See this summary of how hypnosis might help kids with cancer.

Control of pain, treatment and medical procedure discomfort and other symptoms:

• Chronic pain in cancer patients
  Initial results from small studies showing that hypnotherapy can be used to manage chronic pain in children with cancer; larger studies are likely underway.
• Nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy
  Several studies comparing hypnotherapy to anti-nausea medications and simple relaxation techniques show that hypnotherapy plus medications was more effective than medications alone in reducing nausea and vomiting. Children treated with hypnotherapy had less pre- and post-chemotherapy nausea and vomiting.
• Treatments: pill-swallowing, injections, and medical procedures
  Hypnosis has been shown to be very effective in helping children through painful procedures like shots, IV pokes, even spinal taps and bone marrow studies.