Change Your Brain Every Day - Hypnosis and Kids: What’s Safe? with Dr. Jeffrey Zeig

Episode Date: June 20, 2019

Children tend to have highly suggestible brains, which makes them all the more vulnerable to some of the negative messaging in society, most often found on certain social media platforms. So due to their easily influenced brains, is it best to just keep kids away from hypnosis until their brains have developed properly? In the fourth and final episode in a series on hypnosis, Dr. Daniel Amen, Tana Amen, and Dr. Jeffrey Zeig give their surprising views when it comes to medical hypnosis and children.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We are here with Dr. Jeffrey Zeig. We're so grateful for his time,

the founder and director of the Milton Erickson Foundation, also hugely influential in helping to support Man's Search for Meaning and victor frankel's work in the united states he runs the evolution of psychotherapy conference one of the largest most influential psychotherapy conferences in history and we're just so grateful to talk about this really fun helpful uh topic of hypnosis so i think we've talked about it's not of the devil it's a medical treatment that has been used actually since the time of mesmer and mesner was around 1760 177070, wildly popular. But the scientific community was not a fan. Actually, Benjamin Franklin was part of the group that investigated mesmer

and the whole mesmerism. And they said, oh, it's nothing more than suggestion, such as suggestion is really a bad idea. Right, it is suggestion in a powerful way. It could be a really helpful idea, but then used by Charcot and used by Freud, at least initially, it's really been part of psychiatry since psychiatry's inception and way less toxic than most of the medications we use or some of the really insane things we've done to try to help people heal.

So we've been talking about some of its uses like sleep and pain. Irritable bowel syndrome. Do you think, Jeff, this is something we should actually be teaching most children, how to use self-hypnosis? Sure. How to use your mind, how to use your brain. You've been a champion of that, Dan, and helping people to understand brain health, brain welfare, and brain possibilities. And so the earlier that we can teach people how to use the potentials that they're born with, the better we'll be as a society. Yeah. We don't call it hypnosis per se, but we've been working with Chloe since she was

a baby pretty much on focus. So on focusing what is good and focusing on what you want to achieve, what you want to be, and not focusing on what you don to achieve, what you want to be, and not focusing on what you don't want, and then meditating on that, praying on that, really focusing. Well, we have a great Chloe story. Oh, yeah. She actually- And I'm also a child psychiatrist, so I've used it with children a lot. And from what I remember, hypnotizability peaks around the age of 11.

And because children don't have the adult belief they can't do something, they are much more able to go into trances and utilize the information. So do you want to talk about the story? Yeah. So it was 4th of July and she decided to make something on her own. She wanted to make something. And so she heated up some almond butter and I didn't know she put it in the microwave and it got overly hot. She went to get it out and it's bubbled over onto her hand and she burned her finger pretty good. Now it wasn't like a third degree burn, but I mean, it blistered her finger. So I'm a nurse and I'm trying to wrap it and clean it and do all this stuff. And I'm talking really sweet to her. And she is screaming.

She's screaming. She won't settle down. She's hyperventilating. And I think she's working herself up even more than what the wound warranted. But kids do that, right? So she was about what? We all do that. She was seven or eight?

She was about seven or eight. And so she is just getting more and more worked up. And she hates herself. I'm so stupid. She kept saying, I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid. I hate myself. Why did I do that? I mean, she's, I'm like, what? You just murdered. Like, I'm like, honey, this is just a mistake, but she's not having any of it. She's just going on and on and on. I'm trying to read her a story. Two hours later, she's still worked up and going on, won't go to sleep. And I finally am just at my wits end. And I go in and I'm like, I need help with this kid.

I can't get her to sleep. So I have no idea what's going on. I'm in my office working. And she's just like out of control. So I go get Daniel. I'm like, I have no idea what to do with her. She just will not settle down. She is just out of control.

And it's just getting worse, not better. And it's like 10 o'clock at night. So he goes in there. now you take it from there. So, and I see how upset she is and I'm like, oh, we should put her in a trance. So, um, I talk softly to her. I tell her it's all going to be okay. And I have her focus on a spot on the wall above her eye level. And I said, sweetie, I'm going to count to 20. And as I count to 20, I just want your eyes to begin to feel really heavy. And by 20, her eyes are closed. She's calmer. She's breathing better. Do a little bit of progressive relaxation and she's gone.

It was awesome. Take her to a park, to a pool, have her put her hand in the healing water of the pool all of her favorite animals with her and yeah no i mean the more visualization you can do the better my experience and i suggested that we'd turn off the pain and that she would go to sleep and in the morning everything would be fine oh and and that people make mistakes and there's no reason. I mean, he did this whole thing about, there's no reason to feel bad. And, you know, so. And then we left and, you know, we're wondering, we're, you know, five minutes later,

and we didn't see her until the morning and I'm like, Hey, how are you? She's like, I'm really fine. And people make mistakes. It's okay. Never mentioned her finger again. Super. That's a transformative experience. And that's one of the building blocks of adult functioning. So once you can help a child to get that kind of a realization that is pure gold for, you know, enjoying and being effective in life. Yeah. And one of the things that you taught me, I mean, hypnosis is, I mean, as we've discussed, it's one of my favorite tools, but even like with a child before you get to that level of even medical hypnosis, because hypnosis is really helping you focus, right? It's a focus on your potential. So one thing we do, you've helped me with is asking her questions that help

her to focus. So getting her to focus on the right things with the use of questions over and over and over. So redirecting her attention and her energy. If you can, I think, do that with kids and really get them focusing on the right things, because especially in adolescence, they're not focused often on the right things. But getting them to focus on the right things through the use of questions is really powerful. Well, and I think I'd be interested in your thoughts, Jeff, that social media actually uses hypnosis in a very negative way. Negative way for kids. That people are entranced by their phones that they actually lose time so oh well i have three minutes to check instagram and 40 minutes later they're still there um and the unconscious

message that you're not enough you're not pretty enough you're not smart enough you're not rich enough just is pervasive and then kids feel terrible about themselves the incidence of teenage depression has skyrocketed right when you and I were in training we didn't see the numbers of kids who are suffering the way they are now, even though as a society we have more, emotionally they feel like they have less. There could be empowering messages just as well as the subterranean disempowering messages that are more pervasive in the internet world. But I have to think that I'm an inadequate hypnotist because the people who are capable of creating games and

Facebook and Instagram and all of these things that exist have figured out ways to suck people in and to influence people and to get people involved in a focused state that may not be as valuable for them. And it's amazing that people's brains can be malleable enough to keep up with some of the incredible things that can happen in the media and also on their iPad or their personal cell phone, the amount of things that people are being exposed to. I know that there was a study many years ago before the internet that the average child between three and 18 saw 100,000 murders and 300,000 acts of violence. Now, I'm sure that that figure is very conservative compared to what happens

today. So bombarding children with violence and with pain is not the best way to build self-esteem. And it would be nice to know that these designers would have ways of helping people like games that could be where children group together to defeat the game and would be more a positive experience than I'm better than you are at using the Fortnite. Right. It's amazing that we haven't even, we might not even have time to talk about it, but we haven't talked about the hypnotic state that kids go into with these violent video games. So I don't want to get into the discussion of guns, no guns, but all of these shootings that we see,

everyone's focused on the guns, but no one's thinking about these kids going to... Because there's a really interesting fact that a lot of people don't even know about, and that is that the U.S. government adopted the technology from Nintendo, okay, because they started to realize that kids could walk into a room and commit these violent acts. Do you know how hard it is to hit a moving target? But these kids were able to walk into a room they've never seen or they've never been to

and hit moving people. And the government began to realize, wait a second, these kids are actually better at it than our soldiers. They adopted that technology and began to utilize it. So it makes you wonder. Before we stop, let's bring this back to helpful. But that's hypnotic. Yes, I agree. And I brought it up with social media, but we only have a few minutes left. And Jeff, you said some really important things. Don't just go to someone for hypnosis that's a hypnotist who's also not a trained psychiatrist, psychologist, marriage and family therapist, social worker, because often people will go, but there's an underlying major depression,

or there's an underlying bipolar disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder. This is a tool to be used by a competent therapist that can be so helpful. On BrainFit Life, that's our online tool. It's our app that is like brain health in your pocket or purse. I actually do six hypnosis audios for people, sleep, pain, anxiety, peak performance, weight, smoking. Those things can be helpful, but it's always best done in the context of someone who is a professional. I wrote a book once that I think you'd really like. It's called Time for Bed, Sleepyhead. It's a hypnotic game. It's really a hypnotic book to put children to sleep. When my daughter, Brianne, was three, she wouldn't go to bed one night and she and I were just like bonded. And I must have had a bad day because I was really upset and I got angry at her. And I felt so

guilty for being angry at her that I'm like, come on, you can do better. Put her in a trance. And then I basically told her that story for the next five years because she loved the Sleepy Times story. So there's lots of resources. Which of your books should people read or which of your resources could be helpful to our audience? Most of my work, most of my writing is for professionals. So the books that

I have that would be interesting for the trade, interesting for the lay audience, they're not about hypnosis. I have one book, which is 10 Commandments for Couples, and another book, which is The Habit of a Happy Life. And those are available from zeitucker.com, which is a publishing company that I also run. For the people who are professionals who want to learn about Erickson, about advances in evocative approaches to psychotherapy, hypnotic approaches to psychotherapy, they can go to the Erickson Foundation website. And the Erickson Foundation also has a press. And many of my professional books are on the Erickson Foundation site. But what I'm trying to do, which is what you said at the beginning, is to understand influence.

And that hypnosis is the foundation in psychiatry, psychotherapy of using an evocative technique. You don't put a person into hypnosis to give them information. You put somebody into hypnosis to demonstrate you can change your state. You're not the slave of your depression, your anxiety, your habit, your bad relationship. You can change your state. And if you can change your state once and demonstrate to yourself you can change your state once, Get in as if you're thinking about a standard shift car. You're in reverse right now. You're

coming to me for help. I do a trance. You go into neutral. You demonstrate. I can change my state. Once you can get into neutral, then you can begin to move into first gear. But again, I don't recommend that people shop for techniques, that they shop for the right person. Each person will have different techniques. Each expert, each therapist, licensed therapist, licensed physician, psychiatrist will have a technology at his disposal. And once you find the right person, the technique will help to get you there. But looking for the technique first is putting the cart before the horse. You know, Dan, you've been a wonderful friend and a great friend of the

Erickson Foundation and a great supporter of our work and the conferences that we do. And you've been a remarkable contributor, both of you, to helping people to live more healthful lives. And if we call that hypnosis, that's probably going to diminish some of the effect that you've had. You've had a marvelous effect at helping people to realize, both of you, keep your brain healthy. This is what you need to live, what you need to function adequately in life. So bless you for all of the things that both of you are doing to bring health to life. Thanks, Jeff. That is wonderful. I'm so grateful. You know, if it wasn't for the imaging work that I stumbled across, that hypnosis would have been probably my life's work because I just loved it so much.

But then when I started looking at the brain, I'm like, oh, hardware and software, you got to get the hardware right first. And then it's so much easier to program. So what, after listening to the hypnosis series with Dr. Zeig, what's the one thing you learned? What's the one thing that you can apply in your life? Post it to any of your social media sites. And tag us. Tag us, hashtag BrainWarriorsWay. And then please write a review, write questions. We'd love to hear from you. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode.

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