Clinical Hypnosis, an Effective Mind–Body Modality for Adolescents with Behavioral and Physical Complaints

Abstract

Mind-body medicine is a system of health practices that includes meditation/relaxation training, guided imagery, hypnosis, biofeedback, yoga, art/music therapy, prayer, t'ai chi, and psychological therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy. Clinical hypnosis is an important mind-body tool that serves as an adjunct to conventional medical care for the adolescent patient. Clinical hypnosis specifically uses self-directed therapeutic suggestions to cultivate the imagination and facilitate the mind-body connection, leading to positive emotional and physical well-being. There are many similarities between clinical hypnosis and other mind-body/self-regulatory modalities such as visual imagery, mindfulness meditation, yoga, and biofeedback that incorporate experiential learning and mechanisms for change. They may be viewed as subtypes of the hypnotic experience and share the common experience of trance as the entrée into self-empowered change in physiologic and psychological states. Clinical hypnosis can be used by health care providers to teach adolescents coping skills to deal with a wide variety of conditions such as chronic headaches, recurrent abdominal pain, anxiety, depression, grief and bereavement, phobias, anger, family stressors, sleep disorders, or enuresis. Clinical vignettes are given to help illustrate the effectiveness of hypnosis in adolescents.

The Amygdala, Sleep Debt, Sleep Deprivation, and the Emotion of Anger: A Possible Connection?

“…It is quite obvious that when hypnosis, which is itself a mode of “sleep,” can help cope up with anger, there is a link between sleep deprivation and emotions such as anger. It is also suggestive of our idea that completing a full seven to eight hours of sleep can reduce the emotional symptoms of anger [17]. However, to comment on this with confidence, we need consistent future interventional studies for a longer period of time.…”

Randomized controlled trial of an 8-week intervention combining self-care and hypnosis for post-treatment cancer patients: study protocol

“…These assumptions follow from the three major components of hypnosis that could influence cognition and emotional regulation: absorption, which is the involvement in a perceptual, imaginative or ideational experience; dissociation, which is the mental separation of different components of experience that would usually be processed as a whole; and suggestibility, which is the responsiveness to social clues, enhancing the propensity to comply with hypnotic instructions and suspending critical judgment [ 93 ]. Those hypnotic suggestions also seem to facilitate mind-body connection and lead to physical, emotional and behavioral changes [ 94 ].…”

Pediatric Headache Clinic Model: Implementation of Integrative Therapies in Practice

“…A clinical hypnosis case series demonstrated a therapeutic benefit for adolescents with comorbid chronic daily headaches and anxiety [ 13 ]. Mind-body strategies, including clinical hypnosis, may regulate connections in the prefrontal structures of the adolescent brain, reducing the impact of stress-related conditions [ 30 ]. Mind-body therapies also balance dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system that may occur in migraines [ 31 , 32 ].…”