The use of the hypnotic hero is a very creative and successful hypnotic technique. Approximately one third of my therapy practice involves children from four until the late teen years. The majority of children have heroes; these heroic people can be real or imagined. I began using this new technique after a weekend of training with the American Psychological Association ( Hypnotherapy and Personality Disorders ). I strongly recommend HYPNOSIS AND HYPNOTHERAPY WITH CHILDREN by Karen Olness, MD and G. Gail Gardner, PHD for any hypnotherapist who is interested in working with children. Request the third edition from 1996.

      When working with young children from 4 until approximately 11 you use the language of childhood. You also keep children in this age bracket in trance for 5-8 minutes; this is due to their inability to focus for a longer period of time. From 12 until the late teens you use the language of an a dolescent and keep them in trance from 10-15 minutes. I make audio tapes of all of my treatments and also teach one minute self-hypnosis techniques. I encourage parents to participate with the younger children.

      I am currently working with Sam who is eight years old. His presenting problem was a type of food aversion. I had his mother fax a list of foods that he does eat and enjoys and a list of five foods that he wanted to learn to enjoy. When it was possible I connected the new foods to the ones he already enjoys, i. e., hot dogs and hamburgers with french fries. I did the standard direct and indirect suggestions for eating and enjoying the new foods, i.e., "you now find that you enjoy the taste of hot dogs, I am wondering how you will feel as you notice this change in your eating habits, and I am curious as to whom the first person will be to notice these changes in your behavior?" I see Sam every two weeks and we continue to work on five new foods with every session.

      During the first part of our initial session I discovered that Sam had read and enjoyed all of the four Harry Potter novels. Young children typically go into a trance state almost immediately as they close their eyes, so you do not have to worry about the induction process. Olness points out in her book that children from birth until puberty are in waking trance about 75 per cent of the day. (1) I did a TV induction with Sam and we went to the Harry Potter channel (optional number) and Sam visualized himself with Harry Potter and his favorite characters from the novels. Sam had been invited to spend a weekend in the UK with Harry. The trade off was that Harry would come to visit Sam here in the Boston area. The visual was a scene that involved a cookout at Harry's home. Sam saw Harry and all of the kids eating hot dogs and hamburgers, and he joined them and really had a great time. I had Sam give me ideomotor responses by nodding his head as he ate and enjoyed the new foods. Before trance termination I was silent for a moment as Harry, who had the same problem with food when he was younger, gave silent advice to Sam in ways to help overcome the problem. I expanded the visual to cover all five new foods,i.e., that night Harry's Mom served chicken cutlets, etc. My experience tells me that the visualizations that we use in hypnotherapy are as powerful as any type of suggestions that we use. In the Ericksonian sense, we are what we imagine our selves to be. Imagine that!

      Greg is ten years old. He is doing long term chemotherapy following the surgical removal of a brain tumor; he is facing forty four weeks of continuing chemotherapy. His Mom said that his behavior as a cancer patient has been ideal. The presenting problem with Greg is his strong aversion to swallowing pills; he cannot stand the taste. Doing the intake I discovered that Greg's favorite candy has a sweet and sour taste. Like Sam, Greg had read all four of the Harry Potter novels. I did a TV induction with Greg and this time we went again to the Harry Potter TV channel. The scene this time brought Harry Potter and Greg's favorite fictional characters here to the USA. Harry and his gang are visiting to promote the sale of the novels. They visit Harry's grade school and Greg has a chance to meet with Harry for a few minutes. Harry takes some time out to tell Greg how to overcome the swallowing problem. Later I give suggestions for the pills to taste like sweet and sour candy, and some time distortion suggestions that the swallowing will seem like a mini-second,etc. Finally Greg sees himself on a TV screen swallowing and finding the experience to be OK!

      Dan's presenting problem was one of chronic anxiety and depression. He was a medical referral to me here within the hospital. He was seeing a psychiatrist for medications and was doing chat therapy with a LICSW as an out patient. Dan who is twenty one, has been in these therapy modes for over ten years and the progress was not good, i. e., his anxiety level was so strong that he could not hold a simple menial job in a local supermarket, go to school. or experience himself in social situations with his friends. Emotionally he was pretty much shut down. I treated him five times. This work was in conjunction with the hospital psychiatrist; so hypnosis was an adjunct. I did a session on anxiety (with an excellent response), ego-strengthing, self confidence and self-esteem, overcoming his fear of driving and finally a session to assist him in a slow withdrawal from his medications. It was in the last session that I decided to do a hero technique with him. He imagined a rock star whose music is important to him. Again I was silent and the rock star had a chat with him in overcoming hard times; he had overcome a drug problem!

      This hypnotic hero technique has no limitations for applications. It allows great creativity for the therapist. It can easily be fine-tuned to include direct and indirect suggestions, visuals for change, binds, and metaphors!

Footnotes:
1. Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy With Children, Grune & Stratton, Olness, Karen, MD. Gardner, Gail, PHD., p. 239