Scripts and Strategies in Hypnotherapy with Children

Scripts & Strategies in Hypnotherapy with Children is a amust-reada for anyone who does hypnotherapy with children. The book is well-written. There are chapters on just about every childhood difficulty a therapist will encounter in working with children. Each of these chapters begins with an excellent summary of the condition involved (like self-esteem or encopresis). The hypnosis scripts are a joy to read since they incorporate hypnotic language usage of the highest order. The concepts of solution-focussed brief therapy illuminate the scripts, as does the use of indirect (and direct where called for) language. Hudson obviously knows children and how to communicate with them. She also knows how to interact with parents to be able to enlist their cooperation and assistance in working with their child. The book is replete with common sense and practical advice for the practitioner. This is the best book of this type I have come across, and I cannot praise it too much. Hudson does not promise acures, a but rather that the use of hypnosis will assist the child to be more relaxed, more comfortable with themselves, and more functional in his/her world. The scripts are imaginative and clearly designed to intrigue and interest and provide the child with ideas for his/her own progress and happiness. This book will be a resource to be consulted over and over again by all those who use hypnosis with children. Highly recommended.

Rubin Battino, MS

Scripts and strategies in hypnotherapy with children is a fresh, vibrant and richly involving book. The collection of scripts and therapeutic interventions are accompanied by an enlightening apparatus of comment and digression in the distinctive style of Lynda Hudson. The pieces selected cover a broad period of childhood, from the age of 5 to the age of 15 and tackle a diverse range of psychological and behavioural problems. The varied case studies and scripts enhance the reader's enjoyment and appreciation of hypnotherapy not just by highlighting their distinguishing features but also by identifying intriguing and thought-provoking insights into clinical work with children. While the annotations enlighten, they do not adhere slavishly to any set pattern and, crucially, they set out to make the reader think and sometimes to provoke. Authoritative but not stuffy, irreverent but not flippant, instructive but not dogmatic, this text will be helpful for anyone looking for a book that offers practical solution focused interventions.

Andy Young, RMN, LLB (Hons), LLM, PG Cert Hed, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health Nursing Faculty of Health and Wellbeing Sheffield Hallam University

Scripts and Strategies in Hypnosis for Children sets out to address the psychological problems which beset children and young people between the ages of 5 and 15 and will be a much-needed addition to the hypnotherapy practitioner's reading repertoire. This book should be on the bookshelf of every serious professional hypnotherapeutic practitioner who wishes to work with children and minors. Lynda Hudson introduces Scripts and Strategies in Hypnosis for Children by highlighting the fact that working with this client-group can be both rewarding and stimulating because imagination is an integral part of the everyday existence of children and young people. The author then wisely advises the hypnotherapy practitioner to apply age-appropriate methodology, to ensure client and parental compliance and to follow national legislation and guidelines. The premise of the work utilizes a solution-focused approach and takes the reader through a procedure of investigation into what can realistically be achieved by the client within the family setting. Scripts and Strategies in Hypnosis for Children effectively provides a veritable vade mecum which outlines the nature, the scope and numerous treatment strategies for assisting children and minors with a comprehensive plethora of presenting symptoms, such as self-esteem, bladder and bowel function control, habit disorders, motor-neuron disorders, anxieties states, obsessive-compulsive disorders, behavioural disorders and learning difficulties. The book, consequently, provides all that the working professional will ever need with an abundance of scripts, suggestions for scripts, checklists and useful tips throughout.

Jacquelyne Morison, founder of Jacquelyne Morison Hypnotherapy Training and author of Hypnotherapy Teaching, Training and Supervision

As a teacher/trainer of hypnotherapy practice for 37 years, I have seen many books which address aspects of the work. There has always been a gap in the available literature concerning the use of Hypnotherapy with Children. Now, hypnotherapist's Lynda Hudson's new book, Scripts and Strategies in Hypnotherapy with Children supplies the much-needed approaches and techniques for working with children. Written without academic or scientific jargon, the many scripts for a great variety of juvenile problems are precise and useful tools. With the increasing recognition and growing popularity of Hypnotherapy, parents are realizing that medicating their children to modify behaviour is often a mistake. Behaviour is subject to change and hypnotherapy can quickly pinpoint and reshape the form and nature of behaviour. Children respond to hypnosis more easily than many adults and respond to suggestions of change with enthusiasm. This is a book for every hypnotherapist's library, especially those who work with children or would like to learn how to work with them.

Gil Boyne, Exec. Director, American Council of Hypnotist Examiners Fellow, National Council for Hypnotherapy

At last, the book our profession has been waiting for, one those of us who know Lynda Hudson have been encouraging her to write for a long time. Lynda is the acknowledged expert on the use of hypnotherapy with children and her many years of experience are shared and reflected in the information, protocols, and creative and inventive scripts contained within this volume. Although aimed at the hypnotherapist, the broad spectrum of Lynda''s work found herein will be of immense value to therapists of all disciplines, providing ideas, encouragement and that often sought after source of sensible advice. Although it may seem a cliche to say, Scripts and Strategies in Hypnotherapy with Children really is an essential addition to any therapist''s library.

Peter Mabbutt FBSCH

Created from a combination of dedicated years of training and personal experience in practice, this book demonstrates the author's most excellent understanding of the uniqueness and complexity of each young client and offers the reader a perfectly constructed springboard from which to execute their own individual therapeutic delivery. The text is liberally salted with beautifully crafted example scripts that evoke the memories and imaginings of childhood so vividly that they may even address those unresolved issues that lurk within each of us as adult readers. A totally accessible manual, written with an obvious passion and sensitivity for the needs of the child and mercifully avoiding the unnecessary use of technical language wherever possible. The author states in her preface that awhether you already work with children or are just thinking of doing so, this book is aimed at youa, and I can categorically confirm that she hits her mark with unnerving accuracy. I would also suggest that many therapists (and by extension, their adult clients) are likely to benefit from this book even if they do not routinely work with children and it would consequently make a perfect addition to any practitioner's library.

William Broom, Chief Executive, The General Hypnotherapy Standards Council

Finally a book that helps therapists with youngsters aged between 5 and 15 years old! Lynda Hudson has done a terrific piece of work, this book is packed with hypnotic scripts, also advises the Therapist of any possible pitfalls that one can have, whilst working with youngsters. The author has clearly studied and included all aspects that affect youngsters in this day and age, from self confidence to bedwetting, also issues that faced at school, such as bullying, study skills, exam strategies, school phobias and many more. Lynda Hudson has packed this book with background information, advice, induction, scripts and much more but to name a few. A must read.

Jas Bassi, Adv Dip Hyp, GQHP, GHR, Hypnotherapist, Regression Hypnotherapist, Inner Child Therapist, Life & Corporate Coach

I have often looked for a book like this on working with children, and this is an excellent volume. Lynda's easy to read style helps make this both an easy as well as an informative read. All-in-all a well structured and easy to read book which will form a welcome addition to any hypnosis practitioners reference library.

Ursula James, Visiting Teaching Fellow, Oxford University Medical School, Honorary Lecturer at St Georges Medical School & Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Phd researcher - London Metropolitan University

If you don''t have any more room on the book shelf after purchasing all the books that I and colleagues have reviewed for you in The Hypnotherapist then I suggest a trip to B&Q to purchase either some wood and brackets OR a totally new bookcase.This book by Lynda Hudson is one of the most exciting books that I have reviewed in years and also, I feel, one of the most long awaited too. I feel I had a link with the author and a devotion to the book as soon as I noticed that she was a former teacher as well as being a Clinical Hypnotherapist. I was a primary Head teacher in what feels like a former existence now, and have long been interested in the potential of using hypnotherapy with children. I was privileged to review Linda Thomsonss books featuring Harry the Hypno-potamus. They were groundbreaking and immensely appealing to therapist and patient alike. However, the field lacked substance almost. It lacked a real hypnotherapy practitioners reference book which had depth, creativity, insight, suggestion and clarity. This book has it all and I feel confident that this will be seen as one of the most important and highly successful of books ever to come from the Crown House stable.Whether or not you work with children this book will be compelling reading for you. It is an invaluable source for any therapist. She has great clarity of style and as well as being a mine of information, the books is also highly readable. In fact for a while this book was my main reading matter rather than a novel. It was that compelling. It had that drawing powe r and the crysta l clear working scripts were a delight to read in their own right as they showed that the author had deep knowledge of how the child functions and how a childs mind reacts to varied stimuli.The book is unique and I will be amazed if any other book comes up to this standard let alone overtake it. This is a professional book written for professionals by a professional. It has everything that we look for, academic background, scientific substance, creative ingenuity and sound working methodology.The realm of subjects covered is wide and I was pleased to see covered such issues as anxiety, sleeping disorders, habit disorders, enuresis and even bullying.It should be amust read, for all those training to be teachers as well as therapists as this lady has true insight and understands her subjects ( the children and their needs ) thoroughly.Even SATS could become bearable after going through the Magic Bus script for Learning and Exams ( bit dont tell any teachers I just said that ). Much of a teachers time is spent in helping children become what they were meant to become, helping them to feel good about themselves, helping them to feel positive, valued. This book covers all those and more.This is a world chang ng book. Yes, I mean that. It helps us as therapists move ahead confidently and knowledgeably to help relieve the difficulties of those many youngsters who face problems today. They are our future. This book is a wonderful resource for anyone who is working with them.I wholeheartedly commend it to you.If there was a Booker Prize for Hypnotherapy texts this would be way up there on the top of my list!

David Slater, The Hypnotherapist Magazine

Lynda Hudson is clearly an expert in her field. Here she has provided the hypnotherapist with a much needed comprehensive and practical guide to working with children. This book is an invaluable resource for any therapist and I highly recommend her strategies which I have used with great success in my own practise. This book will now be required reading for all our students of hypnotherapy.

Christina Mills, Founder and Director, The Isis School of Integrated Hypnotherapy

This comprehensive handbook for hypnotherapists and other professionals in the health care sector provides an extensive collection of sparkling crystal clear scripts and strategies with a problem and age appropriate approach for 5-15 year-old youngsters. Any difficulties children of this age group may encounter on their way to further development whether of a physical, mental, educational, emotional, or behavioural nature is richly provided for by tailor-made solution focused approaches. Lynda Hudson, a very experienced and highly professional therapist and lecturer, stresses repeatedly the importance of agoing with the flow' of information provided by the young clients themselves, speaking their languages, using their learning style and adapting metaphors to their experiences so that the intervention is totally relevant to the child and therefore more powerful. The book is structured into 13 chapters, the first two of which are of a general nature, with useful summary boxes. Individual problems or major issues are tackled in the next 11 chapters. These chapters are structured into: The final section lists most useful references and resources referring to the specific problems dealt with in each of the previous chapters.

• Description, explanation, and/or characteristics of the problem in hand.
• Suitable aim of hypnotic treatment.
• Suitable approaches to the problem.
• Extensive age related, detailed, easy to follow scripts.

Eleanor May-Brenneker MA Lecturer, Linguist, Researcher, Therapist, Dyslexia Consultant (AMBDA, PATOSS, Hon. Member DABB2LG)

This is a thorough, creatively composed and eminently practical book. Ms. Hudson has taken the principles of solution-focused therapy, oriented them skillfully towards the problems of children and adolescents and thereby produced myriad scripts and strategies that both illustrate and instruct. The scripts that form the heart of the book are appropriately nuanced and written flexibly allowing the clinician to adapt them to the individual child across a wide spectrum of clinical presentations. Hudson's enthusiastic, compassionate and affirming voice comes through the text of the scripts. I particularly appreciate the author's persistent emphasis on ego-strengthening and the modeling of permissive and responsive language which is central to hypnosis, particularly with young people. The framing of each set of scripts with an overview of the clinical problems for which they can be used, helpful strategies for engaging the child and parents, as well as extracts of the salient points of each chapter provide a unique depth to this text. Practical points for the parents of children with separation anxiety, the list of dissociation strategies, ego-strengthening guidelines and a host of other useful tips add to the book's value as a desk-side reference. Taken as a whole, this rich volume captures the confident, positive, warm and imaginative spirit that embodies creative hypnosis with young people then distills it into an enjoyable and practical solution. I will use it a lot.

Laurence I. Sugarman, MD President, American Board of Medical Hypnosis, Fellow, American Academy of Pediatrics & American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

Those who treat children regularly will find this book a valuable addition to their bookshelf. It contains a wealth of useful advice, guidance and information when dealing with children and teenagers. It is clear, well written and comes from the pen of a therapist with great experience and skill in treating young people.

John S Hempstead, Chairman, British Society of Clinical Hypnosis