Is hypnotherapy useful with children?

Hypnotherapy is categorized as a form of complementary medicine. It involves putting a patient in a hypnotic state or trance so that his muscles are relaxed, his blood pressure goes down and his brain wave patterns alter slightly. In this condition, it becomes possible for a skilled therapist to make suggestions to a receptive subconscious. These suggestions or images may revolve around relaxation, alleviating pain or dissociating an acquired unhealthy habit from the memories that triggered it in the first place. It’s useful for inducing a healthy state of mind in a patient and gives the patient the opportunity to participate in his own healing. This approach is slightly different from the conventional one, where the patient remains passive and waits for the drugs to take effect. Hypnotherapy has been proven helpful for adults, but does it work for children as well? Hypnotherapy has been shown to be particularly useful in cases where the patient is suffering from a sickness that is somehow linked to stress, anxiety or fear. Some conditions in which it is helpful are insomnia, addiction, asthma and obesity. Since children are also susceptible to these illnesses, it makes sense to try this non-invasive therapy on them as well. In the past, doctors thought that children would not be receptive to hypnotherapy. In modern times, this idea has been proven wrong as children are apparently easier to hypnotize than adults. Indeed, while a grown-up will probably be able to perceive the results of hypnotherapy in four to ten sessions, an improvement may be detected in children after as few as two. At present, hypnotherapy in pediatric practice is usually aimed at teaching a child to self-hypnotize. In this way the patient will be able to control negative behaviours or manage chronic pain. In unfortunate cases where a child has an illness like cancer, for instance, he may be taught to think of his radiation or chemo as a huge laser beam that zaps the “evil” cancer cells. Similar visualization techniques can be introduced to alleviate pain and raise the threshold of pain. Sometimes, these methods might involve teaching the child the anatomy or mechanics of certain bodily systems. If a child is a bed-wetter, for instance, imagining how the bladder works can help him control his nocturnal episodes. Since hypnotherapy’s approach can be likened to fantasizing, it’s a good way to address common childhood problems like thumb-sucking, night terrors and asthma attacks.