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What benefits can teenagers get from hypnotherapy?
Hypnosis helps youngsters in many different ways. Specialist hypnotic techniques are effective at tackling a number of teenage problems, improving their ability to achieve their potential so they can develop into healthy, emotionally balanced and confident adults.
There are various stressors on teens in our society. Bullying, hormonal changes, educational pressures and social demands are big influences on adolescent life. For some teenagers, emotional issues can become more serious. According to research, one in ten of our children below the age of 16 experience mental health issues (1). Despite being commonplace, there are limited resources available to deal with these issues and teenagers will often suffer in silence rather than draw attention to their own vulnerabilities. For many years now, parents have sought the advice of Tunbridge Wells Hypnotherapist Karen Martin when they discover their child has emotional problems which are affecting their wellbeing. These include:
Adolescent Depression
If a teenager is suffering from feelings of depression, they must be seen by a doctor for diagnosis and possible medication or psychiatric treatment. Hypnotherapy can work alongside any medical treatment and bring some real benefits to the process. Depression can affect a youngster’s body and mind in a range of ways.
Conditions like depression are subconscious, automatic and emotional and typically characterised by feelings of being helpless, hopeless and out of control. The developing adolescent brain has limited resources to deal with these distressing and confusing symptoms, over which they have little or no conscious control. With hypnotherapy, a teenager can be guided towards achieving the self awareness which will enable them to learn to redirect their attention in a mindful way so they can rebalance their mood fluctuations. By recognising their thought patterns they can use hypnotic techniques to interrupt, challenge and change the negative feelings related to depression. Hypnotherapy provides the tools to subconsciously build beneficial beliefs and emotions.
Teenage Anxiety
During teenage years, from puberty through to young adulthood, we typically go through more changes than at any other time in our lives. Anxiety is often associated with life changes and that is why it often develops in late teens and early adulthood and, if not treated at that time, can become lifelong and debilitating. Limiting beliefs, avoidance behaviours and low self esteem can prevent the anxious teenager from exploring their potential and taking adult responsibility for themselves. Because anxiety is often regarded as a weakness or a flaw, it saps confidence and can undermine relationships, education and career development.
Hypnotherapy provides a toolbox of techniques and strategies which can be of lifelong benefit to the anxiety sufferer. With a little practice, hypnosis is a means to access cognitive resources to manage anxiety and to use relaxation and mindfulness to gain perspective and relieve stress. Karen said: “If all teenagers and young adults were given hypnotic training of the kind they get from me to treat anxiety, there would be far fewer anxious adults in the world. It is wonderful to be able to help anxious and fearful young people blossom into optimistic achievers who are looking forward to life’s challenges.”
Confidence
Teenagers are typically exposed to disappointment, failure and rejection during their formative years and the impact these experiences have on emotional development and expectations of themselves can affect them for life. The resulting low self-worth and lack of confidence create limiting beliefs which can affect the big decisions which young adults have to make about their future.
If your child is afflicted with a negative self-image or struggling to make friends and approach life with the fascination and confidence a teen should, hypnotherapy can help them achieve metamorphosis into the best young adult they’re capable of being and to recognise and value their true worth. The subconscious mind harbours critical thinking and negative feelings about who we think we are and many of these core beliefs become established during teenage years. Karen said: “Hypnotherapy can help rewrite the script while it’s still in draft stage so the adolescent author can take centre stage in their own life, confidently using their own strengths to create success and overcome adversity.”
Hypnotherapy nurtures confidence in young adults by helping them take control of the symptoms of negative thoughts and feelings too. These can include behavioural problems like anger, OCD, self harm, habits, addictions and eating disorders and social, sexual, family and relationship issues. Karen said: “There is such a broad spectrum of teenage problems which can be tackled with hypnotherapy, much depends on the degree and extent of the psychological impact they have had. Hypnotherapy is particularly good at nipping emerging patterns in the bud. Once they are more deeply seated, an integrative strategy involving other specialist treatments may be the best way forward. Teenagers respond most effectively to an individual approach based on their specific needs.”
(1. http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-statistics/children-young-people/)