Hypnotic Treatment of PTSD in Children Who Have Complicated Bereavement

Abstract

Although conceptualized as a normal reaction to loss and not classified as a mental disorder, grief can be considered a focus of treatment. When grief complicates and becomes pathological by virtue of its duration, intensity, and absence or by bizarre or somatic manifestation, a psychiatric diagnosis is in order. Childhood PTSD in Complicated Bereavement is a condition derived from the loss of a loved one when the nature of death is occasioned through traumatic means. The traumatic nature of the loss engenders trauma symptoms, which impinge on the child's normal grieving process and his/ her ability to negotiate the normal grieving system. The 2 cases presented herein constitute single session treatment with clinical hypnosis of PTSD, a result of the traumatic loss of the paternal figures. The setting in which these cases took place was rural Guatemala. Treatment consisted of single session hypnosis with the Hypnotic Trauma Narrative, a tool designed to address the symptomatology of PTSD. Follow-up a week later and telephone follow-up 2 months later demonstrated the resolution of traumatic manifestations and the spontaneous beginning of the normal grief process.

Practitioner Review: Clinical applications of pediatric hypnosis

“…Based on the results of studies conducted with adults, hypnosis might also prove successful with pediatric populations that have yet to be investigated, such as children with irritable bowel syndrome (Whorwell, Prior, & Colgan, 1987). Other areas that deserve further consideration include allergies (Madrid, Rostel, Pennington, & Murphy, 1995), autoimmune diseases (Olness, Culbert, & Uden, 1989), post‐traumatic stress disorder (Iglesias & Iglesias, 2005), and the technique of automatic word processing (AWP), where a patient undergoes hypnotic induction and then communicates with the therapist via a word processing computer program (Anbar, 2001a).…”