F. Ralph Berberich

The Scope of Pediatric Suggestions

The word suggestion carries two intentional meanings. One goal is to provide parents and patients with practical solutions to child rearing problems. The setting and time allotted can supplement whatever advice the child's pediatrician has already conveyed. I do not provide psychotherapy, medication, or delve into areas outside the scope of general pediatric practice.

The other meaning of the word suggestion addresses the power of words to guide the listener in a direction that he or she subconsciously chooses to solve problems. The child or teenager may be invited to journey to an imagined place of comfort and self-absorption, a dream-like state that removes her or him from conscious "thinking". In that state, somewhere between consciousness and sleep, properly chosen words and quiet interludes can be powerful motivators that help children accomplish what they would like to do. Some call this state believed-in imagination, while others term it self-hypnosis.

Children who become motivated to learn self-hypnosis almost always learn a valuable skill. As with any other skill or talent, children may have a range of ability and drive to master and practice self-hypnosis. I am often asked about length of the process. Since the child or teenager takes on an active motivated role, trust, anxiety and the duration of the problem all come into play. As the story unfolds and the child learns to use skills he or she already possesses but is initially unaware of, sessions may take place with the child alone, a parent or set of parents without the presence of their child, or parents together with their child.

♦ Practical advice regarding child rearing and health issues
♦ Complex pediatric medical problems
♦ Hypnosis and Alert Suggestions for
        • fears, phobias
        • anxiety/stress
        • habits and tics
        • abdominal pain
        • headaches
        • sleep issues
        • bed-wetting/stool-holding

For patients

Why You'd Be Interested in Hypnosis

Let me tell you what it's all about: Hypnosis is like day dreaming, imagining, and getting into your imagination. That's what it is. It feels a bit like the time between being fully awake and falling asleep, when you can still hear everything people say to you, but aren't aware of much else and may not remember the next morning. It is like times when you are concentrating so hard that you are not aware if someone calls you to come to eat, or when an hour seems to go by like a minute or a minute seems to take an hour. It's like a journey, a trip deep into your imagination. It is a way to use the power of your imagination to help you be so calm that your inside mind will begin to tell you how to solve your problem. Your inside mind is the part you use to walk or ride your bike without thinking about it.

Most kids tell me it is very pleasant to be in hypnosis. I don't hypnotize you. I guide you to hypnotize yourself, and it only happens when you want it to happen and you can stop it at any time - or do it at any time! So it's called self-hypnosis.

Hypnosis is NOT…

A watch I hold that goes back and forth.

Making you cluck like a chicken or quack like a duck.

Making you do anything.
Sleep.
A power I have over you.

Hypnosis IS…

A way to relax.
A way to reduce feeling nervous or anxious.

A way to open your unconscious mind to suggestions, which helps you do things you want to do for yourself.

A way to help you solve problems you haven't been able to solve berfore.

Your unconscious mind is…

The part of your mind that works without "thinking".

Part of your brain you use in music, art and sports.
Part of what makes you enjoy stories and poems.
What makes you do things "automatically".
A natural part of you that you are usually not aware of.

I believe just about everyone can get something out of learning self-hypnosis and enjoy becoming an expert at this new skill. It's interesting and fun, too! Especially when you are curious about it….

For parents

Understanding Hypnosis

It may not be what you think it is! Hypnosis is a method of tapping into your child's patterns of concentration and imagination to facilitate treatment of certain problems. There is nothing magic or mysterious about it. Children are naturally so often in hypnosis that as you become more aware of that state, you will realize that you witness it every day when interacting with them. To be in hypnosis is to be in a trance, a state of restricted focus in which a minute can seem like an hour or an hour like a minute. It is the state of mind in which a child may be watching television, listening to music, playing with a toy or video game, attention fixed, glued to and spaced out, and you ask him to do something or call her to dinner and he or she later says that he or she heard nothing and had no idea someone was talking. It is the state of mind where the imagination can transport someone to another mental place or another mental time. In hypnosis, we suspend some our self-awareness, turn inward and lose ourselves in a task or a dream. This state allows suggestions to be absorbed deeply; but we are not asleep and can leave that state of mind any time we wish.

During hypnosis, our subconscious is more open to verbal suggestions that can increase the success of whatever we want to do. Despite anything you have seen in stage "hypnosis", all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, and the facilitator cannot make someone do anything he or she does not wish to do! The facilitator simply helps a willing person reach that calm, inwardly absorbed state of being, planting suggestions that are in keeping with the child's goal and evoke the child's as yet untapped inner resources for problem solving. The child in hypnosis can talk, open and close his or her eyes, and stop the hypnosis at any time. Therefore we like to talk about being "in hypnosis" rather than "being hypnotized" (by someone else). The aim is to teach the child how to enter the hypnotic state of mind on his or her own in order to treat a problem he or she wishes to change. Because it is an acquired skill, hypnosis may take time to learn, must be practiced, and usually requires periodic update visits for reinforcement.

The more the person guiding the hypnosis knows about his or her patient, the easier it is to help induce the hypnotic state and the easier it may be to incorporate successful and appropriate suggestions in the treatment session. If the child does not want to experience hypnosis or resists the process, it does not occur. What I do to reach this state also varies with the age of the child, being more playful and perhaps comic or distracting with the younger child, or more verbal and imaginative with the older child. There is also much trial and error here as each patient is an individual with his or her own particular set of skills and interests. And there is homework-practice, which the child does without parental nudging or coaching, The older child, especially, will be encouraged to enter the hypnotic state by him- or herself often, outside the doctor's office, and on a regular basis.

Hypnosis can be a powerful tool and one of fun and interest to the child. Most importantly, it is a tool of self-mastery, one that is entirely portable and requires no instruments or pills to be effective. Helping a child with anxiety, a bed-wetting problem, or a fear, is fulfilling for all involved, but especially for the child who has learned to do it on his or her own.

I have spent over 30 years in clinical pediatric practice and am a founding partner of the Pediatric Medical Group in Berkeley, California. I am on staff at Children's Hospital Oakland and the Alta Bates Medical Center, where I have previously served as Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics. My interest in pediatric hypnosis is long standing, but has recently become the focus of my approach to pediatric care. I am a member of both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, through which I am accredited. I have co-authored The Available Pediatrician and have also written Hit Below the Belt, a book about prostate cancer.

Over the past years, I have become increasingly reluctant to reach for medication as the answer to all pediatric disorders. Workshops in pediatric hypnosis have made clear the impact of conscious and subconscious mental processes on a variety of common conditions affecting children and adolescents. The workshops have also pointed out the innate suggestibility of kids as reflected in their fantasy play, their ability to daydream and their knack for tuning out unpleasant intrusions. That talent can be harnessed to address a variety of issues as well as to enhance the general mastery that children so eagerly seek to acquire. This is because when they are in completely focused in trance, children and adolescents are particularly open to suggestions they hear subconsciously, and these register an impact that can be greater than that of simple directions or parental teaching.

Hypnosis is a process and a learned skill, one that can be applied well into and throughout adulthood. It is not necessarily a quick fix and never imposed on the child. Rather, it requires the youngster's continuing motivation and active participation, as well as ongoing practice. Alert suggestion is a pediatric cousin to formal hypnosis. Younger children are offered verbal suggestions during periods of play and conversations that engage their imagination. During these activities they may be in and out of hypnotic trance states.

Parents should be aware that a practitioner who uses hypnosis couldn't make a child do something he or she does not wish to do or something that is self-destructive or anti-social. To use hypnosis in the medical setting requires careful and extensive training as well as ongoing accreditation. The power of hypnosis lies with the child and is self contained and restrained.