Gosh, there’s a lot of fear around hypnosis, isn’t there? Personally I blame the old Hitchcock type films… the swinging watches and crimes carried out by unwitting victims… which is all a load of tosh btw – otherwise there would be a lot of very wealthy hypnotherapists out there…
But before I get on my high horse and start ranting…
The answer to your question is, whilst there is a lot to be said for hypnotherapy for children – don’t panic, we’re not actually hypnotizing your child.
Hypnotism involves guiding people into a particular brainwave state (generally the alpha or theta states) in order to be able to access the subconscious mind.
The subconscious mind is the place where we store all of the beliefs we gather about the world around us and ourselves – beliefs which aren’t always helpful. And once those beliefs are in there – they can’t be removed simply by willing them away (otherwise we’d all have enough willpower to stick to that diet or train for a marathon). The fact is that we can’t access the subconscious in normal waking state – there’s a filter (called the reticular activating system) that acts as a barrier between the conscious and subconscious mind. So no matter how much we tell ourselves that spider at the other end of the kitchen is tiny and can’t hurt us, if our subconscious is arachnophobic, we’ll be standing on the table screaming before you can say “tarantula”.
Whilst a hypnotherapist can deliberately guide people into the alpha and theta brainwave states, the truth is we all go in and out of these states every day – especially when we go to sleep or wake up – and children dip in and out of these states very frequently.
So, Papalona takes advantage of your child’s natural brainwave cycles. By playing our recordings as your child is going to sleep or through sleep cycles, or otherwise relaxing, Papalona taps into the times when your child will naturally be drifting in to those relaxed brainwave states… and that allows all those uplifting positive beliefs necessary for long-term emotional well-being and mental health can sink into their psyches…
Simples…