Ep 196: Using Hypnosis with Children — Lynn Lyons on Helping Anxious Kids Tap into Their Imagination

This week on Your Child is Normal, Dr. Jessica Hochman welcomes back Lynn Lyons—licensed therapist, author, and host of the Flusterclux podcast—for a surprising and eye-opening conversation about clinical hypnosis for kids.

You might associate hypnosis with stage tricks or pop culture shenanigans, but as Lynn explains, it's actually a science-backed, deeply therapeutic technique—especially powerful for children dealing with anxiety, phobias, or even chronic pain.

Drawing from her book Using Hypnosis with Children, Lynn breaks down how hypnosis really works (hint: it’s not about going into a trance), why kids are natural candidates for it, and how parents can use simple hypnotic language to help their children right away.

Whether you're a skeptic or already curious, this episode will expand your thinking and leave you with practical, compassionate tools to help your child shift from stuck to solution.

Your Child is Normal is the trusted podcast for parents, pediatricians, and child health experts who want smart, nuanced conversations about raising healthy, resilient kids. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Hochman — a board-certified practicing pediatrician — the show combines evidence-based medicine, expert interviews, and real-world parenting advice to help listeners navigate everything from sleep struggles to mental health, nutrition, screen time, and more.

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Transcript

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Hi everyone, and welcome back to your child is normal. I'm your host, Dr Jessica Hochman, so this month on the podcast, we're focusing on anxiety, one of the most common concerns that I see in kids, and we're going to talk about different ways to help them feel better. So last week, we looked at how acupuncture can help support anxious children, and today, we're diving into another thoughtful and evidence informed approach hypnosis. My guest is Lynn Lyons, a licensed therapist, author and one of the top voices in the field of childhood anxiety. You might be familiar with Lynn from her podcast fluster klux, where she shares compassionate, practical advice for parents of kids who worry. Lynn is truly gifted, and I'm so glad to welcome her back to the show this time, she's going to help us understand hypnotherapy, what it is, how it works, and why it can be such a powerful tool for anxious kids. She even wrote an entire book dedicated to this topic. And before we dive in, if you're enjoying your child as normal, please consider leaving a five star review or sharing the podcast with a friend. Your support really helps others find the show. So thank you in advance. Now on to my conversation with Lynn Lyons, Lynn, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. I can't tell you how excited I am to talk to you again. I'm excited to talk to you, Jessica, we're friends now. We are friends now. I'm very proud of that. Yeah, I know you came to we had lunch in Concord, New Hampshire, and we went for a hike in Los Angeles, California. This is all true. And you put up with my children at lunch in Concord, New Hampshire, oh no, I didn't put up with your children. Your children were delightful and funny, and I loved being with them. And I just want to say right off the bat for anybody who's listening who does not know of Lynn Lyons and is not aware of her amazing podcast. Stop what you're doing, just follow and subscribe and listen to Lynn Lyons, fluster, klux podcast. It's so wonderful for any parent that has a kid who's struggling with anxiety. I just think the world of what you're doing, it's your advice is so helpful, it's so actionable, and you do it with such a fun, loving spirit. You're not so serious, which I feel like a lot of healthcare providers nowadays are just we take everything too seriously, and I feel like you do in the perfect way. So thank you. So I'm excited to talk to you, because I've known you for a while, and we've talked about children and anxiety and how to help parents deal with their kids anxiety. What I did not know was that You've also written a book, a really big, thick book. I'm holding it right here, yes, all about how to use hypnosis as a technique with children who have anxiety. Yeah, there's other, all sorts of things, all sorts of things, yeah, yeah. And I just wanted to explore this with you, because I'm always looking for more tools to help parents with their kids and hypnosis, I find really interesting, because I have to admit, in my mind, I always pictured hypnosis as something that might not be solid in science, that may be a little more theatrical, yeah, but after reading your book, I've come to understand that that's not it at all, and that it's really a helpful therapeutic tool for children, it is. And the reason you didn't know that I wrote a book on hypnosis is because I don't talk about it all that much, which is a little self protective, because people have impressions about it, and they're like, Oh, she does hypnosis. I've had schools where I'm going to do presentations. I used to have it in my bio, you know, you list the books that you've written. I've written four books, and I've had people ask me to take that book off. Because, yes, so, so you're totally you're sort of like, Hmm, about hypnosis is totally valid. Because here's the problem, hypnosis lives in this weird world where it is both entertainment and shenanigans and ridiculousness and highly backed up by really good science and research. And there aren't too many fields that straddle those two very dichotomous positions. So it makes it harder to be somebody who does hypnosis, because a lot of exposure that people have had to it has been that they went to that R rated hypnosis show when they were in college, or that episode from Gilligan's Island, which, of course, I'm dating myself, where the guy came and hypnotized everybody on The Island. It's silliness, but until probably 50 years ago, hypnosis was a part of medical school training. It was a very solid and appreciated part of psychiatry, and it, in fact, is a much more respected and used in Europe than it is in the United States, that's fascinating, and so I'm curious, how did you become exposed to hypnosis and its benefits? Well, so long ago, when I was a little tiny new social worker, a friend of mine said, I'm bringing in this guy named Michael yapko, who. I talk about all the time. He's been on the podcast. Not only is he one of the world's experts in depression, he's also one of the world's experts in the use of clinical hypnosis with depression. And in fact, before Michael It was sort of standard operating procedure that you didn't do hypnosis with depressed people. And he was like, hmm, because he questions a lot of things in a wonderful way. So when I first met Michael back in that would have been in like, I can't even remember 1993 or something. When I first met him, he introduced me to clinical hypnosis, and that was my first knowledge of it. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know what it was about. I didn't know how it operated, and he was the one who taught me most everything I know about it. I've worked with other people too, but it's such a good clinical tool, and it's got so many applications in my work and in your work, by the way, Jessica, pediatricians use it like crazy. And in fact, the biggest pediatric Hypnosis Training Institute is full of MDS that use it in all sorts of medical ways. Well, today I used it with a child who was getting ready for a vaccination, yeah, and we talked about using their imagination and going to a different place. And they told me, you know, they love playing soccer. So we were picturing them, you know, can and being the star of a soccer game. And they appreciated thinking about how to be distracted in anticipation of having an uncomfortable experience. Yeah, I already am trying to implement a little bit of it. I love it. I love it. The way I think about it is that I am always trying to sell something, to get somebody to hear something, or understand something, or shift something, and hypnosis is just one of the ways that I can do that. So it's really a delivery system and hypnotic language, as you discovered today, with your young client, with your young patient, hypnosis is a way of harnessing imagination, and it's really, really helpful and really easy with kids, because they kind of naturally do that anyway. So it's about how I deliver what I want to deliver in a way that's interesting or creative or sometimes surprising, and harnessing those wonderful imaginative qualities and creative qualities that kids and adults have. Actually what I find interesting is a lot of therapists now talk about how important is to feel your feelings, how to get over anxiety, or how to move through feelings that are unwanted. You actually have to embrace them, and you have to feel them. But I think you describe it beautifully in your book, that hypnosis, you actually do the opposite. You want to disconnect on purpose. And so thinking that disconnection can actually be a tool, I found really interesting to think about well, and that's the thing, is that hypnosis fears nothing. And so again, when I'm doing hypnosis, I am trying to offer the message that the person needs. So sometimes the message is like, if you're giving somebody a shot. Sometimes the message is disconnection. We're going to leave your arm here and take the rest of you to that soccer field. Sometimes it's about connection, because there are certain situations or ailments that we deal with in which connecting somebody back to their body is also important. So whatever they're doing, we and this is what I'm doing as a therapist too. Whatever they're doing, I am trying to create a session that offers an interruption to the pattern, a better way of doing things. So an example of a situation in which connection might be. The goal is, say, I'm working with a dad. And this dad, the mom, comes in, and the family is working on anxiety or whatever, and this dad is like, look, my kid is a baby. Boys aren't supposed to cry, and when he gets upset, I just need to tune him out. I just I can't even tolerate his emotions. Now that's not really a good way to parent. So the mom might say he's really mean, like our child is struggling, or he's a sensitive kid, and he cries, and my husband just dismisses him. Well, then I might do a hypnosis session with the dad that is about, how do we connect? Because he's already got the disconnection thing down pat. So it might be being able to talk to him about the importance of. Of being there for his son. How do different animals connect with their young? I might talk about that. I might talk about how you handle a situation in which you really want to leave the situation but it's important for you to stick around. I mean, there's all sorts of examples of that. So sometimes for sure the goal is connection, and sometimes for sure the goal is disconnection. So interesting, yeah, for someone like me who may not know what hypnosis is actually like, what is hypnosis actually feel like for a child? Is it like being in a trance? Is it like being in a guided Daydream paint a picture for us what a hypnosis session would look like. So it depends how old the child is, because developmentally, it can be very different. And what, what I talk about, and what you proudly did today is that you focused on being hypnotic, rather than doing hypnosis. And being hypnotic means that you use your language, maybe you change your voice a little bit. It's an invitation. So being hypnotic is an invitation to use your imagination. If I'm doing with a little kid, if I'm doing it with a six year old and I'm helping them get ready because they have to go and get some teeth pulled, or they're having difficulty falling asleep at night because they're so worried about monsters under the bed, or they have a chronic health issue that they need to deal with in a different way, I am going To invite them into using their imagination. And so I might even say, Hey, I've got a story to tell you. Do you want me to tell you a story? Alright, sit back, and I just want you to listen to this story. And then I start talking, and my voice changes a little bit, and I slow down a little bit, and I pull them into the story. Their eyes may be wide open. They may be, you know, looking right at me, or they may be moving around. People have an idea that hypnosis. You're sitting there, you're perfectly still, your eyes are closed, you're in a trance. As we get older, that's often how it looks. But with little kids, it's very fluid. Once kids get older, then I might say, alright, we're going to work on doing something like, let's take the shot example. We're going to work on doing something that's going to help you get your vaccination. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to sit back. I want you to close your eyes. I want you to get absorbed in this conversation. And again, I'm inviting them into something, but it's going to be a little bit more structured. And when I'm doing a hypnosis session, the way I was trained and how I have practiced, and what the book is about is that it is very structured and I am laying it out. I have a process that I'm going through. I'm not just talking willy nilly. I really have an idea of how I set it up, how I deliver the message, how I cement the message, how I do that post hypnotic suggestion that says, now the next time that you're in situation X, you'll be able to experience why all of that is very, very specific and very, very clear in my mind. So there's a lot of particular elements to a hypnosis session that I'm really paying attention to, and that's just a testament to the training that I had early on. Yeah. So it sounds like when you provide hypnosis as a therapeutic session, you really have to plan ahead of time what the therapy session is going to be like. You just don't go in willy nilly and guide them through hypnosis? Well, sort of I may know I'm going to do hypnosis, but because I've been doing this for such a long time, I am interviewing them, and I am creating the session in my head. So I am listening for words. I am listening for potential metaphors to use. I am listening to the way that they take in information. I am listening to all of that, and then I'm creating the session as I'm talking to them. Usually I might interview somebody for 10 or 15 minutes, and then I do the session, which I always record. I always record my sessions so that people can have them, that they can listen to them later, that they can refer to them if I'm doing sessions with kids, I'm always happy to have parents in the room, but then if, say, one parent couldn't be there, but they want to hear, what did I do, they can listen to the session later, but I'm creating the session in my head as I'm listening to the client. As I'm interviewing I'm asking specific. Specific questions. I'm gathering information so that I can put it all together. That's the fun of it. Actually, for me, it's very it's very creative. Is there a particular age where you find it's most helpful with kids? I know little kids in particular, I'm thinking they have such vivid imaginations, but it might also benefit teenagers who tend to have more worries in their heads. Yeah, we're all the above, all the above. You just have to be able to adapt your style to the teenager. What I talk about in the book is how it's different with little kids, and they're easy, like, I don't even use the word hypnosis. Sometimes with them, I'm like, Hey, you want to hear a story, you want to do something. And they're all in older kids, sometimes teenagers, they're kind of curious about it. Remember that hypnosis is just the delivery method. So if I have a child who needs to get a cavity filled, or a child who's getting chemotherapy, or a child who is having difficulty hitting their siblings, I'm can do a session with that. If I've got a teenager that is struggling with depression, teenager who's using self harm, teenager who is having a really hard time expressing their feelings to people who need to hear their feelings, teenager who wants to do better in school but is having a difficult time getting their homework Done. Whatever the problem is, I can use the hypnosis as a way of delivering the message. And what do most patients that you take care of? What do most kids say about how they feel afterwards? Do they realize they were in a hypnosis or does it just feel like play to them? Is there a common consensus that you hear from your patients so for older kids, like, starting at the age of nine or so. And you asked, What's a good age? Nine is such a good age? Like, I just love nine year olds. You know, you know nine year olds, they're just so great. I know, I know they're the best, but they will say, like, wow, that was cool. Or I, I can't remember everything that you said, but I could hear everything you said. And one of the questions that I often ask at the end is I'll say, without looking at the clock, do you have a sense of how long I was talking to you? And they'll say, like, 10 minutes. And I'll go, no, 35 and they're like, Wow. So they have this distorted sense of time, which is cool. And I'll say to them, Do you Do you remember what we talked about? And sometimes they say yes, and sometimes they say no. I definitely check in with people during the session, so I'm making sure that they're getting the message that I'm delivering so they remember that you think generally they come in, they're like, that was cool, or that was different than I thought. Or they'll say, How do I know I was hypnotized? And then I'll say, how long was I talking to you? And they say, 10 minutes. I go, No, 35 minutes. So I can tell you I've been doing this for a long time. I've done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hypnosis sessions, and with very, very, very few exceptions, I can really only remember one, and it was a grown up. Most people have a very positive experience with it. It's amazing. Are there certain pediatric issues that you find hypnosis works best with? So for example, specific phobias, or you'd mentioned self harm or depression, any particular type of anxiety that you've noticed, notice better outcomes. Probably specific phobias. It's really helpful. Needle phobia, it's really helpful with for sure, pediatric emergency rooms and a lot of oncology practices, chemotherapy. Use it for side effects, for medication, for cancer treatment. Use it for there's a lot of research on its effectiveness in spinal taps or lung bar lumbar punctures, emergency rooms use it for stitches, for injury, for just bringing things down when somebody needs to be still during a procedure. So there's all those medical applications for sure in my field, certainly for anxiety, being able to deal with worry. But my whole goal when I'm dealing with with a child with anxiety, is to not try and get rid of anything. So the more you try and get rid of it, the more you say you're not going to worry anymore, or you're going to feel calm and relaxed as you take this test. That is not what I'm doing with hypnosis. It is not about creating relaxation or creating calmness. And in fact, there's a talk that I do a lot called Beyond calming down, and it's about using hypnosis in a way that doesn't support. Support this idea that we need to be calm and relaxed. What I am doing is I am saying we are going to help you with hypnosis. Be more flexible, because rigidity is a huge problem in anxiety. We're going to help you tolerate uncertainty. I'm going to tell them stories about stepping in to situations in which you don't know exactly what's going to happen. So again, I'm delivering all the same messages, but I'm doing it hypnotically. I'm using metaphors. I'm using stories. I'm talking to them about all the ways they've already changed since they were little, and how this is going to just be another opportunity for them to change some patterns. So it's all about delivering those messages. The very same thing goes for particularly teenagers that are dealing with depression. There are certain patterns that make you at risk for depression, certain patterns that keep depression going. And I can use hypnosis as a way to offer an alternative to those patterns, and it's usually with me telling stories, giving examples, talking about the pattern rather than the content, and then offering this suggestion, post hypnotic suggestion, that says, the next time you find yourself in a situation in which you're experiencing this, wouldn't it be interesting if you allowed yourself to experience this instead? So it's all I'm playing with language, I'm creating an experience in which they are feeling differently in my office than they felt before, and I'm using all of that stuff, all of those experiences, to support the idea that you can change and that's a critical message for anxious and depressed kids to get I think you say it so nicely in your book when you talk about how hypnosis is a bridge from being stuck to solutions, because I do find that for so many of us, the problem is we just get stuck in our heads and we aren't solution oriented. And this is such a nice avenue to consider well. And you know, the thing, the thing that's interesting to me about using hypnosis is that I'm saying a lot of the things that are pretty common sensical. You know, if you're giving a shot, what's the message that you want to give to a child who's afraid of needles? This may bother you, but you can do it right, and that it's gonna hurt a little bit, but be better off for it on the other end, more protected, right? And it's tolerable, and you'll get through it right? So that's the message you want to deliver. So say you were delivering that in a hypnotic way. You might talk about how interesting it is that different parts of our bodies feel different ways at different times. And isn't it kind of cool how if you are running around outside and having a great time with your friends, and then you come in later and you notice you have a scratch on your leg, and maybe it's even bleeding a little bit, and you think I didn't even notice when I got that scratch. It's so cool, isn't it? So you tell that story, and you're delivering the message of, isn't it interesting how sensations are different at different times in different circumstances, right? It's so true. I say that actually, without hearing, having heard your example, I say that all the time with kids, I noticed a lot of bruises on their shins, or you see, as you said, scratch marks. And I'll say, when did that happen? And most of the time, they have no recollection of right, hurt themselves. But you're right, when they're when they're getting their shots, they think a lot about it. They really anticipate the pain. They dread the sensation. And probably in most situations, it was not as bad as that time when they did get the big bruise on their legs, right, right. And so you can use all of that experience as a way to just talk about with curiosity. Isn't it cool that bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, right? Isn't it interesting? And you're pulling them into this in a way that's very different than saying, Okay, so we're going to give you a shot, and it's necessary that you have this vaccination, because it protects you from disease, and it really won't hurt for very long. And let's do all these distraction techniques and blah, blah, blah, although distraction can be helpful for sure, as you know, but we're really creating this atmosphere of curiosity and almost kind of delight, like, isn't it so astounding how blah blah blah blah blah, right? That's what I'm doing. I'm just playing with those things that human beings do on a regular basis. And. I did an episode recently on fluster klux about hypnosis, and I think I told the story on that episode of the time that I was running through my house, I clipped the side of a wood table with my toe. You know how you do that? And it kills. I was lying down on the rug in my living room. My kids were little, and I said to my kids, I'm going to the top of the mountain in Montana. It's a mountain called Great Northern. I'm going to the top of Great Northern. I'll be back in a minute. And they were like, okay, yeah. And I just lied there. I just took myself out of my body for a little while, went to the top of the mountain. My toes still hurt, but I wasn't panicking. I wasn't freaking out. And then I came back and things were much better. Let's say someone's hearing your story and they think, Okay, this sounds great. Should they visualize where they want to go before the moment? So for example, right now, should I say to myself, Okay, I like the beach. Should I take myself to going to the beach the next time I hurt myself? Yeah, sure. So you have it in your back pocket. So I my favorite place to be is on the top of mountains. I love hiking up mountains, so of course, I'm going to go to a mountain. You love the beach. So somebody might say, Oh, I love to play tennis, so I'm just going to imagine whacking the most perfect backhand ever. Somebody else might say, Oh, I love riding my horse, so I'm just going to put myself on my horse. Or I love canoeing. Doesn't matter. I love ice cream. So I'm going to imagine, you know, licking an ice cream cone so you have it in your back pocket. And it's fun to do that with kids too. You can say, okay, so when we go into this situation, like, maybe you have a cavity, or you have to get a shot, or you have to, whatever, let's just imagine for a moment, where would we take ourselves if we wanted a little break from this situation? Yeah, and I don't. I honestly, just so you know, in in the use of my hypnosis, I don't use this whole going to a safe place very often when I'm doing anxiety, when I'm working with anxiety and depression, there's a lot of stuff in hypnosis that is actually pretty simplistic to me. So, you know, imagine yourself in a safe place, or imagine yourself walking through a forest. You know, I'm like, Okay, here we go. It really is about creating something or having somebody come up with their own experience, and you helping them create their own experience. That's the opposite of what's keeping them stuck. Yeah, so for a parent who can't find a trained provider right away, yeah, I'm thinking of an example in my own family. Last night, my nine year old had a really bad canker sore and I did all the pediatrician and mom things for her. I gave her ibuprofen, I gave her a topical medicine to put on her, canker, sort of helper, and she was still complaining about it. Is there something I could have done to help her, use her imagination or sort of a hypnotic therapy to disconnect her from that discomfort? Yeah, so you could have said, Okay, so I've done all the things that we can do to make it feel better, but it's not going to feel perfect, and right now, why don't we imagine you could either say, taking the discomfort and putting in a little box, or you could also say, let's take the part of your brain that's really focusing on the discomfort, and put that somewhere else too. So you could say, like, oh, here comes whiny Wanda, right? We've got, oh, boy, she's really focused on the canker sore. What you focus on, you amplify. That's one of the key rules of hypnosis and psychotherapy, actually. And so you say, oh, there's that whiny part of you that's really paying attention to this and really thinking about it, so let's call it whiny Wanda. Where shall we put whiny Wanda? Should we put her in a soundproof booth? Should we put her blah blah? And you can play with it in that way. So you're not saying we're going to take all of the discomfort away, but we're going to shift your focus away from this part of it. Right? That would be something that that we might do. So the first time that I heard of hypnosis being utilized in the medical community, where it's been more legitimized, has been hypnosis with moms who want to have a non medicated labor. That's me, and I've talked to a lot of moms where it's been very successful. Yeah, I had both my kids using hypnosis, as you can imagine, you did wait so, yeah, amazing, yeah, because I guide you through it. Or did you do it on your own? I mean, it's so I had things that I would imagine, and so I would just put myself into that little trance state the second time with my second son, who was a big boy, right? I'm not a I'm not a big person. He was like, he was an over an eight pounder. I had six hour labors with both my kids, and at one point, the midwife said to me, I was at the Birthing Center here in Concord, and the midwife said, said to me, like, Hey, we're going to need a little something from you. Mm. Right? I mean, like, he's, he's here. I was like, fully dilated. They're like, you know, I mean, we hate to disturb you, but we need you to, we need you to sort of push a little bit. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, those are pretty incredible. That's really cool. You've been using hypnosis. You've used it in your life for many situations. It sounds like where it's been beneficial. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I've used it over and over again. I've used it for pain, I've used it for childbirth, I've used it for medical procedures. I've used it on my kids, my husband. Yeah, amazing, amazing. And when you think back to using hypnosis with your patients or with your clients, do you have a favorite story that sticks out, or maybe a case that really has stuck with you, where you've noticed that hypnosis made a big difference in their anxiety or in their well being? Yeah. So there was this one boy, he had been to a lot of therapists before, he had been really therapized, and they were working on his anxiety. This was a kid that had a great difficulty getting into school, which is not unusual for me and my area of specialty. He was having a really hard time making friends. His life had just gotten smaller and smaller and smaller because of his anxiety. He had had a lot of therapy. He had been on medication and off medication. His parents were just beside themselves. They were such nice, loving parents. They didn't know what to do. So he came to see me, and I said, let's do some hypnosis. After I, you know, met with him a few times, and I did a session with him that talked about the ability to do something that you didn't think was possible. And there are all sorts of stories I have for that. So I talked to him about running a four minute mile, which is a story I march out a lot with kids, how nobody believed it was possible to run a four minute mile. And then Roger Banister ran the four minute mile. And then all these other people ran the four minute mile that nobody believed looking up at the moon, that it would be possible for human beings to walk on the moon. And then, sure enough, astronauts walked on the moon, you know, stories on and on and on, and then connecting it to him, that just because, basically the message was that there are all sorts of things that people believe over centuries, that people believe human beings believe. And isn't it interesting when we start busting those beliefs? And then I'm going to say, I wonder what beliefs you've been carrying about you that maybe are worth busting. I wonder how you can begin to see things in a different way that maybe you haven't seen them before. I wonder what messages you've gotten, just like everybody got about the four minute mile or the moon or polio. I wonder what you can begin to see as possible that maybe you never knew was possible. And then I would say, and so the next time that you're stepping into a situation where your worry shows up and says, This isn't possible, I wonder if you'll think about Roger or the moon, or, you know, other stories I told him, and I wonder how that will change the way you think about you. So that was the session I did. I recorded it. He had it to listen to. I did a few more after that, just sort of reinforcing that. And within about two months, he was back in school. He was riding the school bus, he took up an instrument and was playing in the school orchestra. Huge, huge changes. And it was all the things that I had been telling him, but there was a message of this is possible that he really needed to hear. Instead of hearing, this is what's wrong with you. You have all these diagnoses. These are the things, oh my gosh, your brain doesn't work, right? Blah, blah, blah. He had to hear a message of, this is what's possible. And for some reason, delivering things in this hypnotic way seems to, you know, like uncork the bottle. And I don't even know how it works. I don't even know it's just, it's just a pretty cool tool. Well, it sounds so positive, it sounds so glass is half full. And I do feel like mindset really makes a big difference. So it makes sense to me why this would work. Because I do feel like the more you're looking for good things to happen to you in your life, you find those good things, those good things start to happen to you. On the on the flip side, the more you start thinking that bad things are going to happen to you, you'll find those bad things. So I think messaging that you're giving, yeah, and that that right there, Jessica, would be a great hypnosis session, right? So somebody comes in to see you, and you know that they have a pessimistic view of the world. We know. That depressed people and anxious people have a really hard time imagining a positive future. When they go into their imagination, they don't pull that stuff up. So then you do a session with somebody on that very theme of, isn't it interesting that when we look for good things, we see them, and when we look for bad things, we see them. And there's a gazillion examples of that, right? So yeah, what's the difference between somebody who goes for a walk in their neighborhood and just notices Frank isn't mowing his lawn the way I wanted to, or, boy, that mailbox looks terrible. Oh boy, Phyllis still has her Valentine's decorations out in its March. Or somebody who goes for a walk in the neighborhood and is like, oh my gosh, look at those chipmunks. Or, oh, look like, obviously, so and so's home from college because the basketballs are all over the front lawn. You could do a whole, a whole hypnosis session about what glasses we're wearing as we're walking through the world. Yes. And I'm thinking, I hope I'm not Person A that you described. You want to be around people that have good, positive energy. It's sort of, it's a snowball effect, right? The more you think positively, the more you're looking for the good to happen. It's a, it's a self fulfilling prophecy, yeah, such a wonderful example of you saying, here's a message that I think is really important to deliver. And then I say, okay, so how am I going to deliver that message hypnotically? Hypnosis is just the delivery system, and it's just a fun, positive, often very enjoyable experience for people to get a message delivered to them. You know, some people think about hypnosis for smoking, right? And so what? What's the message that you're going to get delivered when you go to get hypnosis for for to end smoking, which is about 50% effective, by the way, at best, so which is huge, yeah, that's pretty darn good, right? I actually have a friend who used hypnosis to quit smoking. She smoked for almost 20 years, and it was effective. It actually got her to stop, yeah, and so I would wonder, I would ask her, like, what was the message that was delivered? Right? Maybe she doesn't know, but what was the message that was delivered? And we know to stop smoking. You probably know this, the research shows that talking about the health effects of smoking doesn't really have that big an impact, but talking about the impact of your smoking on other people has more of an impact. And maybe she stopped smoking because the person doing the hypnosis session was able to bring home for her in a way she hadn't heard before how annoying other people find her smoking, I don't know, but that would be the message that I would deliver. So we're really focusing on, what are we saying to people? What are we saying to kids that allows them to do something differently, amazing? Yeah, it's such a great tool to learn about. And I'm thinking, for people that are listening and they're interested in using hypnosis, do you know where they could find somebody who's trained in hypnosis to experience hypnosis? Like to go to a practitioner? So there's if you're a parent who like, let's say you're a parent who's listening, and your child has some specific phobias, and you want to use hypnosis as a as a tool, how can they start finding somebody that they trust and that's experienced and good at hypnosis? Yeah. So a good place to go is the American Society of Clinical hypnosis, otherwise known as ash. And there are some other organizations too, the National pediatric Hypnosis Training Institute, otherwise known as nifty. They do a lot of training for people interested in pediatric hypnosis, and they probably have a referral base there too. So that's another good place to start. Here's the thing, do not go to somebody for hypnosis who is not clinically trained. So this is the other problem with hypnosis, is that you can go and get certified in hypnosis by going to a weekend course. It's sort of like being able to get certified as a parent coach in 40 hours or something, right? So, so there are very different levels of training. Hypnosis is not regulated. You don't have to have a license to do it. You and I to have our licenses for our professions. We have to do things all the time to prove that we are competent at our jobs. You don't want to go to somebody who calls themselves a certified hypnotist or a certified hypnotherapist, if they also aren't qualified as a medical or mental health professional? Yeah, that's how you want to make the difference. And I'm just thinking a lot of patients, when their kids have anxiety, you. They don't know what to do next, and they don't know that there are other existing tools out there. So I think this is, this is so helpful to know about. So thank you so so much for spreading the word. You're so welcome. The other thing too that parents can do, and it's not like I'm humping my own book because of all the books I've written, My hypnosis book has sold far less copies than any other book, just because it's kind of a niche market. But the book that I wrote, I think my mom said to me, when she read it, every grandparent should read this book, because the language in it, it helps you introduce this idea of using your language in a way that helps kids. And so it is full of ideas and language and examples that help parents too. So it's a great book to read if you're interested in learning clinically how to do hypnosis, but also if you're a parent thinking like, How can I learn to use language in that way? I really filled it with all sorts of examples that I think are very digestible for a parent wanting to learn how to how to use this tool, just like you did with your daughter, right? This is a very, very useful book. I agree with your mom. Oh, well, my mom likes this book better than this is her favorite book of mine, and she always says to me, you shouldn't have put hypnosis on the cover. That's why people don't read it. And she's probably right about that, but it's what the book is about. So I think it's very cool. I'm very, very proud of you, and I will make sure and link the book in the description of the podcast. It's called using hypnosis with children. Lynn, you are such a gift. You're such a gem. I feel so lucky to have this conversation with you, and thank you so much for being a guest again on this podcast. I really appreciate you. I will come back anytime. And you also have to come back on fluster klux too, because you are a guest on my podcast, and people love the episode that you did on our podcast, so we're gonna have to make that happen too well. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of your child is normal. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review, wherever it is you listen to podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask Dr Jessica.