Hypnotherapy for Children and Teenagers

(This blog was originally posted on February 27, 2014)

 

                 

                Over the years, many of my clients have wanted to work on similar self-improvement issues: increase self-confidence/self-esteem, improve sport performance, increase focus/memory, manage fears and phobias, or to overcome social anxiety. The majority of these clients have been adults. However, I can and do work with children and teenagers. For the most part, a child’s hypnotherapy session is very similar to the grown-up’s: I discuss what behavior(s) the person would like to change, and I use the context of John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind to explain how the current, unwanted behavior was established—and how it will be replaced by a more effective, desired strategy. During hypnosis, I provide general suggestions for relaxation and guided imagery that is specifically tailored for my client. Following are some of the major differences between my hypnotherapy work with children (under 18 years old) and adults:

1.       I must have a signed consent document from the child’s parents in order to work with anyone under 18 years old. If the parents are divorced and share custody of the child, both parents must still sign a consent-release form which I provide. If only one parent or has custody of the child, the legal guardian must sign the document.

2.       The parents and legal guardians have a legal right to know some details about the hypnotherapy that their child or teenager is receiving. They also have a right to know whether the minor is using drugs or engaging in underage sex or dangerous behavior, or is threatening to harm him- or herself or others.

3.       I respect the youngster’s right to privacy and confidentiality whenever possible, but I also encourage the individual to confide in his or her parents, if/when it is appropriate.

4.       When I work with minors, I always invite my client’s parents or guardian to be present during the hypnosis.

5.       The amount of time a young child will spend in hypnosis during the hypnotherapy session will be much shorter than what an adult or even a teenager will spend. While I typically use breathing/relaxation exercises to induce hypnosis in all of my clients, I also employ some kind of eye-fascination technique to hypnotize a child under age 14. (I usually do not use eye-fascination techniques to induce hypnosis in an adult).

 

As a certified hypnotherapist, California law allows me to provide hypnotherapy as a complementary or alternative treatment to help my clients to achieve vocational and avocational self-improvement goals (Business and Professions Code 2908). If your child or teenager’s issues are, or become, beyond my scope of expertise as a hypnotherapist, I will refer you to a licensed medical doctor or psychologist for further evaluation and/or treatment.

 

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015

 

Sensory-Based Language

(This blog was originally posted on January 22, 2014)

 

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

 

                 No pun intended, but the way we use words to share thoughts and ideas is so expressive of who we are and how we take in our world. We communicate what we perceive, and we use specific words and terms to illustrate how we perceive the information we are sharing. According to Neurolinguistic Programming, we all have a preferred way to express or represent ourselves when we communicate. Following are descriptions of the different sensory representational systems.

·         Visual: This person primarily takes in information by seeing and how something looks. He or she looks up and is comfortable establishing eye contact. He or she needs to see written information or instructions to something and will use metaphors such as, “I see what you mean” to convey understanding during a conversation.

·         Auditory: This individual processes information via auditory cues and can learn by hearing and listening to instruction. He or she will use expressions like, “The message is loud and clear” or “another way to say that.” This person is comfortable memorizing sequences and is very sensitive to the speaker’s tone of voice and the words the other person uses. However, this individual can become overwhelmed by stimuli and may avoid eye contact (focusing on another stimuli) in order to listen to and understand what is being said. This person will use metaphors like, “I hear what you’re saying” to convey understanding during a conversation.

·         Kinesthetic: A kinesthetic person learns and memorizes something by rehearsing or “walking through” a scenario. This person tends to make physical contact with the object of discussion or another person in the conversation as a way of reinforcing what he or she is learning. He or she will use metaphors like, “That meeting completely slipped my mind.”

·         Auditory Digital: An auditory-digital individual focuses on whether something makes sense in order to learn and understand a concept. This person will use language like, “That’s logical” to indicate that he or she understands (or not) the principle being discussed.

During each hypnotherapy session, I pay careful attention to the words my clients use and which metaphors they choose when they speak. I know that the way they use language paints a picture of how they perceive their lives and where they are in the process of replacing an unwanted behavior. This information helps me to create the ideal hypnotic script by which I can communicate with their subconscious mind and help them achieve their goals.

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015

 

The Systems Approach in Hypnotherapy

(This blog was originally posted on May 29, 2014) 

 

                The basic idea or premise of the Systems Approach is that every part of the social/emotional system will affect the entire system. In other words, you cannot separate one component of the system from the sub-total or entire system. It doesn’t matter whether one spouse returns to college and completes the Bachelor of Arts degree she abandoned long ago to have children or whether her husband loses weight to improve his health and suddenly attracts a bevy of female admirers. The changes in behavior can affect the basic structure of the relationship or system and create resistance within it. The ultimate goal of the Systems Approach is to bring the System back into balance.

                For example, if a man comes in for hypnotherapy; his “presenting issue” is marital discord, and the hypnotherapist is working only with the man (husband). However, if the hypnotherapist doesn’t keep the client’s wife in mind during the therapy, she is liable to walk out of the marriage because she has not been taken into account within the “system.” Ideally, both spouses would come in for hypnotherapy to work on their marital issues. If this is not possible or the spouse refuses to come in, the hypnotherapist could work just with the client to specifically teach him how to deal with her.

                According to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., no matter what the client’s problem or issue happens to be, the systems approach infiltrates all areas of therapy. Even if only one member of the family or one spouse or partner in a relationship is seeking therapy, that issue must be dealt with within the context of the client’s own system. Therefore, the hypnotherapist must address components in the person’s work, relationships, family past, the hypnotherapy he or she is receiving, plus aspects of the entire social system or relationship. If these other issues aren’t taken into account, the therapy won’t be successful and only the issue being addressed in therapy will be “treated” (improved or eliminated) per the client’s goal, Dr. Kappas warned.

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015

 

Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss

(This blog was originally posted on January 2, 2014)

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

  

Whenever I work with a hypnotherapy client to help the person lose weight, the first thing I do is to establish the motivation for losing the weight. Is there a health reason such as diabetes control? Does the person want to improve his or her physical fitness or just take off a few pounds after indulging during the holidays? Sometimes friends or relatives in the person’s social circle put on pressure to drop the pounds. Or, a client may use excess weight as a “shield” to protect against emotional rejection or even a subconscious fear of returning to a previous lower weight where an emotional trauma may have occurred, said John G. Kappas, Ph.D., founder of Hypnosis Motivation Institute.

“If you are not personally motivated to achieve the weight-loss goal, the weight-loss program is unlikely to be successful,” Dr. Kappas warned. 

Once the client identifies what is motivating him or her to lose weight, I help the person to resolve any previous issues or resistance to losing weight* and develop a strong, positive self-image about being at the desired weight and feeling comfortable with being physically attractive. When appropriate, I also refer the client to be examined by a physician for guidance about an appropriate exercise and nutritional regimen, which I will reinforce during the hypnotherapy sessions. All hypnotic suggestions would incorporate the client’s feeling motivated to feel physically, emotionally, mentally healthy and happier every day and to project positive feelings and ideas of successfully losing weight in a healthy way.

*California law allows access by California residents to complementary and alternative health care practitioners who are not providing services that require medical training and credentials. The purpose of a program of hypnotherapy is for vocational and avocational self-improvement (Business and Professions Code 2908) and as an alternative or complementary treatment to healing arts services licensed by the state. A hypnotherapist is not a licensed physician or psychologist, and hypnotherapy services are not licensed by the state of California. Services are non-diagnostic and do not include the practice of medicine, neither should they be considered a substitute for licensed medical or psychological services or procedures.

 Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015

Dominant laws of suggestibility: Delayed Action

 

 

One of the most effective suggestibility techniques I use is the law of “Delayed Action.” Here, I provide a specific suggestion that is designed to work at some point after the hypnosis session in which it is introduced. The timing may be several hours or even week(s) after I have introduced it during the hypnotherapy session.

 For example, if a client’s most significant “trigger” to smoke a cigarette is after eating the evening meal, I will create the hypnotic suggestion that the person engages in a specific alternative behavior at that time. At the beginning of the session I will ask the client about various activities that he or she enjoys doing, such as going for a walk or playing a board game with the kids, etc., to replace that undesired behavior. When the person is in hypnosis I will drop a suggestion into the person’s subconscious mind that he or she will engage in that desired, enjoyable behavior after eating instead of lighting up. The key to this technique is that the hypnotic suggestion only kicks in when the specific situation presents itself: in this case, after a meal.

Depending on the client’s suggestibility (how the person learns), I will use a direct and literal suggestion for the physical suggestible client or a more inferential one for an emotional suggestible person. The key is to use language to which the person’s subconscious mind will most readily and easily respond whenever a subconscious trigger “kicks in” the delayed-action suggestion.

 

 

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015

 

Thoughts of the Day

 

                Every now and then I like (and need) to take a few moments and remind myself about what is really important to me, in my life. If you follow me on Facebook you may have seen some of these quotes before on this page, or will in the future. Many of these Quotes of the Day are beautiful examples and illustrations of the work I do as a hypnotherapist, so I will probably draw on them in future essays.

·         “Oh, yes. The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or…learn from it.” – Rafiki, The Lion King

·         “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. So if you’re feeling uncomfortable right now, know that the change taking place in your life is a beginning, not an ending.” – Neale Donald Walsch

·         “A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.” – General George S. Patton

·         “I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me.” – Virginia Woolf

 

·         “Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.” – German proverb

·         “Sometimes an answer not yet blowin’ is stirring in the breeze.” – Robert Brault

 ·         “Life is really simple but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius

·         “Constant use will not wear ragged the fabric of friendship.” – Dorothy Parker

·         “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” Walter E. Disney

 ·         “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother Teresa

·         “Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you handle it.” – Lou Holtz

 

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015

 

 

Dominant Laws of Suggestibility: The Law of Repetition

Photo courtesy of Microsoft/Bing

 

During a typical hypnotherapy session, I reinforce hypnotic suggestions in various ways during the hour or so I spend working with a client, but mostly I do this through repetition. In other words, I simply (and literally) repeat the suggestion many times and at different times during the session to reinforce the new behavior in the person’s subconscious mind.

A common and oft-repeated suggestion that I give a client during his or her hypnotherapy session is “deep sleep.” These words are employed to deepen the person’s relaxation and comfort in hypnosis so the individual can go even deeper into this state (not to encourage the person to actually fall asleep). The real work of behavior change occurs in the subconscious mind. Therefore, the more times I make this suggestion to deepen the hypnosis, the more receptive the client becomes to other hypnotic suggestions designed to implement the desired behavior change.

Depending on the client’s suggestibility (how the person learns), if the individual is an emotional suggestible and is more inclined to learn through inference, I may also use metaphors in this context. Regardless of the language I use, I will repeat the suggestion because the more often it is given or made, the more automatic the behavior becomes.

 

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015