Why all child clinicians should be hypnosis-informed. Advantages, benefits, creativity, & development: ABC’s & D

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper advocates for all child clinicians to learn hypnosis skills as a distinct advantage to enhance their understanding of child development in the treatment of children. It examines the interface of child development and hypnosis. Clinical hypnosis with children follows the child’s developmentally determined self-expressions. The clinician must tend to the way in which the child expresses a “problem,” structuring treatment goals and pace, and evoking and utilizing opportunities for therapeutic suggestion. This article defines hypnosis as a set of skills and principles. It defines trance as psychoneurobiological plasticity. Eight variables, shared across therapeutic interventions, are explored in the context of working hypnotically with children and adolescents. These are 1) Relationships, rapport, attachment; 2) Attention, absorption, focus; 3) Use of language and therapeutic suggestions; 4) Expectations; 5) Resources; 6) Dissociation and Unconscious; 7) Trauma parallels with trance; 8) Development. Becoming hypnosis-informed is the ABC’s, & D, for child clinicians. A case illustrates the application of skills, principles, and variables.