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hynotherapy - anyone tried this for anxiety attacks?

penquin2

Our son A is 9 on the spectrum and a happy boy most of the time, but he gets really upset when dogs bark at night time.

As next door have a jack russell that barks loudly whenever someone walks past its house and 2 hounds across an alleyway from us bark and howl at night when they are let out for a minute or two when their owner gets home, you can imagine how difficult it can be for A

He gets really anxious and takes to banging on the nearest window and screaming and refusing to go to sleep again.

tried cotton wool and headphones but seems like he hears the noise all the same

recently been reading how adults with anxiety and addictions like smoking use hynotherapy to overcome their problems

wondered if anyone on this forum with children on the spectrum has tried hynotherapy to deal with anxiety attacks, and if so did they find it helped, made no difference or just made things worse?

  • penquin2 said:
    Do you know if CBT is available on the NHS for children?

    I don't know, sorry. But, I do know that if you do seek CBT or any other form of councelling, you should ensure that it's with a specialist who is trained to treat children on the autistic spectrum, because it won't be as effective otherwise.

  • my son is verbal so may be said to be on the high functioning end of the spectrum.

    we haven't tried other psychological (?) therapies but have tried occupational therapy which has helped with his balance but apart from a short spell at the beginning, didn't help with the barking.

    Do you know if CBT is available on the NHS for children?

     

  • From what I know of it, it seems very positive. The basic idea is to retrain one's thought processes through the cognitive and intellectual analysis of a problem. And, from what I understand, is far more suitable for those on the Autistic Spectrum, particularly at the High-Functioning/Asperger's end, then other, more 'traditional', psychological therapies.

  • It is something I'm wary of, but I'm not sure how else to deal with my son's anxiety.  Talking of cogitive behavioural therapy this is something Research Autism recommends what's your take on cbt, scorpion0x17?

  • I'm no expert, have not tried hypnothery, nor know anyone who has, but I do know a little about it, and I would be very wary of using it for this kind of issue, penguin2.

    As I understand it, hypnotherapy is very selective - that is you could use it to prevent anxiety attacks caused by dogs barking, but it would only work for dogs barking.

    But, it's likely that your son has a more general hypersensitivity to certain types of sounds, possibly sound in general - not just specifically dogs barking.

    So, once you've 'cured' the barking dogs problem, it could well become something else that causes problems.

    Also, as I understand it, hypnotherapy wears off - it works well for smokers simply because it gives them time to kick the addiction (which actually only takes about 5 days) - after that they don't start smoking again simply because they're no longer addicted.

    For more general anxiety issues it's not so succesfull, unless it's to deal with an issue that one is exposed to very frequently - so if you get hypnotherapy to 'cure' you of a fear of spiders, say, unless you see spiders a lot, in the long term, that fear is going to come back, though possibly not as strongly, but only because the hypnotherapy will include a certain amount of cognitive behavioral therapy as well, which changes the way you deal with the problem.