Hypnosis in Pediatric Practice

This 70-minute DVD demonstrates the use of a variety of hypnotic techniques with children. The use of hypnosis can comfort children and adolescents during procedures, injections and examinations, and help them to manage stress and cope with chronic disease. The DVD includes eight actual sessions with children ranging from age 7 to 16 and clearly shows the benefits to both child and family. It presents the symptoms that include: the relief of migraines; asthma control; enuresis (bed-wetting); recurrent abdominal pain; juvenile migraines and muscle tension headaches; needle phobia; and traumatic leukemia therapy. Included with the DVD is a 32-page Learning Guide which includes complete clinical summaries of all of the cases presented in a series of key discussion points, recommended reading materials as well as organizations offering professional training in clinical hypnosis.

This demonstration series exposes the mastery and elegance of Rob McNeilly''s unique contribution to the Solution Oriented approach. He introduces the series in a rare narrative relating the evolution of his work from its origins in his time spent with Milton Erickson through his working and teaching to the present day.

He draws a thumbnail sketch of the framework of his process and invites us to observe the session from within our experience, and to explore our own individual response and learning.

Each demonstration is introduced with specific reference to individualising the therapy to the client. The diagnosis is acknowledged and then set aside to allow the individual to emerge in his/her entirety, uncovering concerns, strengths, resources and often banal human dilemmas. He masterfully grows a session from this foundation manifesting the art of dealing with the client''s experience, without explaining it, or even understanding it, by grasping the coherences that allow him to deal with it, without explanation or understanding. At face value these are engaging, practical and deceptively simple sessions, but to the seasoned practitioner they provide a rare opportunity to explore the many layers and subtleties of the use of language, emotions and the body to generate learning which is sustainable and available for future experience as well as past reflection.

Presented in a gentle, respectful mood with Rob''s unique playfulness and humour, this series is recommended to any practitioner who values enduring experiential learning over information or technique.

Gabrielle Peacock

This documentary, which is what it calls itself, is an excellent piece of work. The editing and content inclusion gives a wonderful overview of hypnosis in pediatrics medicine, and in my opinion ought to be course material for all medical students and hypnotherapists. It does not intrude into the field of child psychotherapy or psychiatry but stays well within the field of the use of hypnosis in pediatric medicine.

Sugarman is a community pediatrician in Rochester, New York, where he serves as Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He is joined by Robert Adder, PhD, MD; Robert Haggerty, MD; Daniel P, Kohen, MD; Richard E. Kreipe, MD; and Karen Olness MD. All of these professional participants in this documentary seem to have considerable experience in both clinical hypnosis, biofeedback and psychoneuroimmunology in pediatrics.

Included is footage of those clinicians working with children and hypnosis in the fields of pain control, dealing with needle phobias, nocturnal enuresis, psychosomatic gastrointestinal disorders, juvenile migraines, medication tolerance, end-stage renal failure, leukaemia and asthma. Also, what is of great use to the viewer is footage of follow-up where those patients have clearly benefited by hypnotic intervention. Many a GP and practice nurse would do well to have this teaching footage on their shelves.

As is well pointed out pediatric hypnosis requires different criteria than other applications including different approaches to induction and post-hypnotic suggestions. There is great emphasis on getting the little patients to practise self-hypnosis under their own volitions without parental pressure. In order to foster the sense of trust between the clinician and the pediatric patient, the socio-behavioural theory that all hypnosis being self-hypnosis is laboured, which is the only major blind spot in the production.

Of all the footage of child hypnosis in pediatrics I have seen, this documentary is one that medical libraries would wisely have as standard upon their shelves. It is blatantly suggesting medication reduction using autonomous pediatric self-care through hypnosis in a very wise and down-to-earth way. This can be quite surprising and brave of the documentary''s creators when one learns that some of the funding for this project actually came from drug companies.Review by Dr Tracie O''Keefe DCH, Hypnosis Australia Online Journal

Dr Tracie O'Keefe

Laurence I. Sugarman, MD, FAAP, ABMH, is a general pediatrician and consultant in behavioural pediatrics at the Lifetime Health Medical Group in Rochester, New York. President of the American Board of Medical Hypnosis and Fellow in the American Academy of Pediatrics. He produced, wrote and directed the DVD, Hypnosis in Pediatric Practice: Imaginative Medicine in Action (ISBN 9781845900472).

This professionally produced 70-minute DVD - with accompanying 32 page Learning Guide - demonstrates the use of a variety of hypnotic techniques with children. The use of hypnosis can comfort children and adolescents during procedures, injections and examinations, and help them to manage stress and cope with chronic disease.The DVD includes eight actual sessions with children ranging from age 7 through age 16 and clearly shows the benefits to both child and their family. Presenting symptoms include the relief of migraines; asthma control; enuresis (bed-wetting); recurrent abdominal pain; juvenile migraines and muscle tension headaches; needle phobia; and traumatic leukemia therapy. Included with the DVD is a 32-page Learning Guide, coauthored by Daniel Kohen, MD, Richard Kreipe, MD and Laurence Sugarman, MD. It includes complete clinical summaries of all of the cases presented as well as a series of key discussion points, recommended reading materials as well as organizations offering professional training in clinical hypnosis.

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