The use of hypnotic techniques often can be replaced or used with other treatment modalities, such as psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacologic interventions. The involvement of the parents in hypnotic work with children is controversial, however. Some maintain that the parents can serve as useful collaborators to reinforce the child’s learning of the techniques involved; others advocate for the usefulness of the child’s becoming more independent of the parents through learning self-soothing tools.
Our group has found that conducting hypnotherapy with a public hospital outpatient population differs in significant ways from doing so in a private practice or other type of hospital setting. In contrast to parents in a private practice setting who might be overly involved in the child’s symptoms, parents in public settings often are too overwhelmed by socioeconomic issues to behave in such a manner, and the children often welcome their participation. In a sense, the involvement of parents can be viewed as a therapeutic family-systems intervention.
Another interesting difference is that instead of encountering the usual skepticism about hypnosis that would be seen in a private practice setting, we usually find that the patients and parents in our hospital center often are very open to the idea of hypnotherapy. Perhaps this is because they have little familiarity with hypnotherapy and are more responsive to a physically based, non–"talk therapy" approach.
Hypnosis is a technique that can help resolve a range of psychiatric issues for child and adolescent patients. However, additional research using randomized, controlled methodologies and adequate sample sizes is needed.
Dr. Oberfield is unit chief and director of the pediatric consultation-liaison service at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York. He also serves as clinical professor of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychiatry at New York University. Dr. Gerson is senior psychologist in the pediatric consultation-liaison service at Bellevue Hospital Center. She also treats patients who have gastrointestinal disorders with hypnosis in private practice.