EXAMPLE ANSWERS: Q7

Q7. What approach would you take when hypnotising a child?

Learning outcomes: 1.1

Student answer When working with children there are additional factors which need to be considered by the therapist. This is to ensure safe, legally compliant practice which adheres to the General Hypnotherapy Register code of Ethics. It is likely that any request to work with a child will come from a parent or guardian. However legally and for safeguarding purposes a child is considered as anyone under 18 years old and written permission from the parent or guardian must be obtained if someone is under that age. It would also be advisable if not essential to have a current Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) clearance which can be verified as required. This provides assurance to all parties that the therapist does not have convictions – in particular ones in relation to working with children and may be a requirement of therapist insurance. When agreeing to work with a child, having a chaperone in attendance is also strongly recommended. This could be the parent or guardian but could also be an older sibling or friend if this is more appropriate. The methods used for work with children will need to be imaginative, interesting and fun. Use of play, Ericksonion metaphor story telling or a guided visualisation is more likely to engage children and ensure that they are able to fully participate in a session. An induction may be shorter as often children are better able to bypass the critical factor and progress into the body of the session. Engagement with the method used is key – and a variety may be required within one session. Children’s attention span will increase with age and a guideline can be obtained from the attention displayed within the meta questioning – it is easy to see when a child is losing interest in what you say! Language used should match the child’s where possible –in sentence length, content and tone. This promotes engagement and is likely to build rapport. When working with children it is often useful to have an understanding of where they are in their own personal development and how this compares with child development milestones. For example their parents may describe a child as not being sociable or as over social without fear but there are stages of childhood in which this is not unusual. As a therapist it is also important to expect or anticipate that a child will be less likely to sit still; they may vary in the depth of their trance and may need to be re-oriented and re-engaged at intervals. However all of these factors vary from child to child and it is as important to treat as individuals as it is with adults. (LO 1.1 An understanding of advanced interventions)

Tutor feedback (DO NOT delete/edit feedback. Write amendments, additional information & thoughts underneath this table Correct, you have demonstrated an understanding of this advanced form of intervention and brought up some important practical considerations and insightful points.

Further Student Answer Example:  Personally I would not choose to work with children, however for those therapists who do they have to take into account certain factors:

As their client is under the age of consent they need written permission of the parent / guardian as well as a current CRB certificate for working with children, and a chaperone should be considered in many circumstances.

The formal style of hypnosis generally used today would not be recommended for children as they struggle with their attention span so are difficult to induce using the normal form of hypnosis.

As children are more imaginative than adults the preferred forms include play therapy, Ericksonian metaphor story telling, a guided visualisation such as between the child and the therapist making up a story where the client is the central player and the therapist leads the story feeding appropriate suggestions to bring about the required changes.

...the Utilisation Technique is particularly useful with the resistant client and that resistance may well be due to the subject matter being uncomfortable for the client to discuss or where the clients, as you say, are so deeply focussed on their own problems that the usual approach may be filtered out of awareness. Sexual matters, financial matters and emotional discord are examples where the client may feel uncomfortable discussing matters and where it is important to adopt a matter of fact approach or, to project this empathetic understanding and adopting a sincere acceptance of the situation. Utilisation of whatever they bring to the session is helpful in the therapy.