Another of Sue’s successes is 11-year-old Sarah, who had been suffering from bad dreams and irrational fears for almost six years. She often took nearly five hours to get to sleep and when she did finally drop off, she woke several times during the night, calling for her mum or to go to the toilet. She often suffered bad stomach pains and headaches and was scared to stay indoors alone or go out into the garden – she always needed someone with her.
A health visitor recommended Sue to Sarah’s family. “She turned both my daughter and our family’s life around,” her mother says. “She spent time getting to know Sarah, finding out her deepest thoughts and worries. She then relaxed her and spoke to her giving her confidence to deal with her anxieties and also given her strategies to aid peaceful, restful and deep sleep.
“Sarah has now developed her own routine at bedtime which enables her to feel at ease and sleepy. She travels around the house and garden in daylight and darkness without any problems and has even stopped biting her nails. When she does have concerns, she just goes through the strategies that Sue has taught her and I see the relief coming onto her face.”
Over the past year Sue has seen an influx of children at her Harley Street consulting rooms and at Candela Clinical Hypnosis, her practice in Henley, Oxfordshire.
Still relatively new to Britain, child hypnosis is already well established in America where parents have found it to be an effective remedy to cure fears, phobias and deep-seated habits such as nail biting and bed wetting. It is also used to overcome sleep problems, help eating disorders and to boost self-confidence and self-worth. Memory enhancement, exam nerves and dyslexia can also be helped by enhancing a child’s belief in their ability.
Sue is one of this country’s few child hypnosis specialists and, judging by the numbers of parents seeking help for their children, as a therapy, it could well take off here too.
But first, parents have to understand what hypnosis is all about. They want to be assured that a hypnotherapist won’t be playing with their kids’ brains, getting them to walk around on all fours, scream like a banshee or pretend to climb walls when a bell rings – that’s stage hypnotism, which is a different ball game altogether.
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