How Hypnosis Can Help Parents Manage Stress and Anxiety: A Guide for Families with Children in Chronic Pain

"Do you think hypnosis might help me, too?"

It's a question that parents often ask after observing their child's hypnosis session or when they see the results of treatment.

The short answer is "probably." Of course, it depends on what they are trying to accomplish, as well as on several other factors. But here are some examples of common issues that parents seek help for:

Physical Symptoms of Anxiety
Parenting can be stressful for anyone. For the parent of a child with chronic pain, the stresses are multiplied: in addition to coping with a child in distress, there are appointments to juggle, school-related issues, finding time for other kids in the family, the financial stresses of missing work, etc. It's only natural that a parent can start to experience physical tension. Hypnosis is a technique that they can use to moderate their body’s reactivity to those kinds of external factors.

As an example, I saw a parent who would have anxiety symptoms when driving to medical appointments–racing heart, dizziness, feelings of panic–especially on highways. After three sessions of hypnosis, she was comfortably driving to medical offices, and able again to take the most efficient routes.

Health Anxiety
Any parent of a child with chronic pain has to find that balance between appropriate attentiveness to symptoms and excessive worry about, for instance, a missed diagnosis. It may be hard to really absorb reassurance that their child's pain does not indicate a dangerous underlying problem.

It's a situation where a person might understand and agree with an idea on an intellectual level but still not feel that it is true on an emotional level. When this happens, hypnosis helps to move a more accurate assessment of risk from the conscious to the unconscious parts of the mind so that the parent is less reactive to symptoms that have already been evaluated.

Eating Habits
When stressed, some people engage in "comfort eating"—snacking more and overindulging in foods they know they should limit. Other people lose their appetites. Hypnosis can help modify food-related behaviors so that parents can honor their own health and meet their own health goals. Recently, one small change I saw a parent make was to stop eating sweets in the afternoon, ending a pattern of having too many "treats" with their afternoon coffee.

Hypnosis is not magical. It usually does not provide an immediate fix, unlike how it’s often portrayed in the movies. But with just a few sessions and some practice in between, parents of children with chronic pain can make helpful changes in their own lives.