Sometimes it is difficult to spot the difference between an unhappy, moody teenager and a depressed teenager. With so much upheaval what with peer pressure, exam pressure, relationships with family members, opposite sex, same sex, not to mention all those hormones causing havoc resulting in huge mood swings.
However, findings show that one in eight teenager exhibit some symptoms of teen depression. If left this depression may turn into a more serious debilitating condition. Help is out there though and the earlier you seek that help for your child the better!
Some of the symptoms to look out for are:
Sadness, anxiety or a feeling of hopelessness
Apathy
Pains in head or tummy
Difficulty concentrating
Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed
Self consciousness about body
Difficulty making decisions
Excessive or inappropriate guilt
Loss of appetite or overeating
Irresponsible behaviour e.g. playing truant, stealing, forgetting chores
Staying awake at night and sleeping late during the day
Drop in grades
Excessive use of alcohol or drugs
Preoccupation with death and dying
Staying in bedroom for hours after school
Not every child presents with every symptom but if you can mark some of those listed above maybe it is time to check out what is going on with your son/daughter.
The first step is to contact your GP and arrange for a psychological check up for your child. You will be better informed then which help would best suit your child.
At Setanta Hypnotherapy Clinic we have noticed an increase in the numbers of teenagers who are coming for help suffering from teen depression. We offer a Free Initial Consultation for parents and teen to assess the conditions and to ascertain the therapy best suited for the individual child. For many, many teens the results are very positive as we empower them to take control back, to release themselves from the cycle of negative thoughts which result in negative feelings. We work with their GP who is the primary carer and if medication is prescribed the client continues to take it until told otherwise by his doctor. However, the therapy we provide gets to the root cause of the problem which not only gives the client the tools to let go of these all consuming negative thoughts/ feelings once and for all and live life as it should be lived … each day a gift to be enjoyed!
Conscious thought is regularly hijacked by associations that capture the mind and hold it hostage in the past. While in the process of thinking we automatically find our thoughts pulled to past events or imagined future results. Thoughts that provoke fear and anger always lead us back to the past while worry and anxiety keep us stuck in the future. We spend most of our waking day in the past or the future remembering what has already happened and no longer exists or expecting something to happen that has not yet occurred. As a result, the time we spend fully in the present moment is minimal and this is the main reason why we are unable to correct this debilitating condition and heal ourselves without the assistance of a psychotherapist.
Action is Unconsciously Motivated
Imagine you are an observer watching a woman walking on the pavement. She was bitten by a dog when she was a child but you are not aware of this. You see her cross the street as she is approached by a dog and its owner.
Unless you knew that the woman had been bitten by a dog when she was a child you probably wouldn’t think anything more of her action to cross the road. As an observer you can only observe her action but not the thinking behind the reason why she crossed the road. I say the thinking behind the cause of her action because it is, strictly speaking, not her thinking that caused her to cross the road but her feelings and emotions. Let me explain … the sight of the dog transports the woman back in time to the incident when she was bitten by the dog as a child. She is not consciously aware of this regression because it has become an unconscious association and all she is consciously aware of are the emotions associated with the experience of being bitten. It is these feelings from the past that cause her to cross the road. She crosses the road to avoid a dog that is probably long since dead and more importantly escape the uncomfortable feelings she has buried and wants kept buried. To an observer who knows her past it would appear that she is only avoiding the dog.
Subconscious Strategies to Avoid Pain
We do things to seek pleasure and avoid pain, physical and emotional and this is one of the reasons why people drink excessively and over eat. Someone who drinks alcohol excessively or over eats has learned to use these actions as strategies to avoid uncomfortable feelings but strategies do not solve the problem they help manage the problem that never goes away.
Repression
The buried feelings I refer to in this article are the feelings felt at the the time a person experiences a trauma such as a dog bite and are called repressions. If you think back to your childhood you can remember a number of incidents that traumatised you but more difficult to consciously recollect are the feelings associated with the incident. The reason for this is that they have been filed in the subconscious and are then triggered every time it looks like you are about to experience a similar incident. This all happens below the level of your conscious awareness so you have no conscious control over your spontaneous reaction.
Hypnotised by Trauma
When a repression is triggered our conscious analytical or thinking mind is suspended and we become hypnotised. We are unable to think and our mind is in fact captured by an event that happened in the past and we are stuck there while the old video plays out below the level of our conscious awareness. It is only after the video of the past event has played out that we regain access to our conscious thinking mind but until then we are at the mercy of our repressions. We often wonder later why we were unable to think straight or take more effective action in a particular situation and many never realise that they are not in control during those times.
Hypno-Psychotherapy to Address the Emotional Root Cause
In Hypno-Psychotherapy, which is the therapy we provide at Setanta Hypnotherapy Clinic in Peel, Isle of Man, the client is given the opportunity to uncover the repressions that are responsible for their condition and ultimately release these repressions in a safe environment. Repression release results in spontaneous healing as the mind reclaims its thinking space and power to make conscious decisions in ways no longer determined by events in the past.
Video by Xavier and Mary Nathan Explaining Hypno-Analysis
To learn more about the subject of this article you might like to read the following articles:
Catharsis and the release of repressed psychic energy
The essence of repression as described by Sigmund Freud consists simply in the act of turning – and keeping – something away from the conscious. Repressed material exerts continuous pressure from the subconscious mind, where it resides, toward the conscious mind which repressed it in the first place. This continuous and constant psychic pressure from the subconscious has to be held in equilibrium by an equal and opposing constant unrelenting counter pressure. It follows then that to maintain a repression requires a constant expenditure of energy.
Freud insisted that the purpose of repression is the avoidance of what he termed unpleasure. The repression consisting of thoughts and feelings will have done its job if the negative feelings associated with it are not experienced. Therefore to release a repression those very feelings one sought to escape from must be fully experienced and the thoughts filed as experiences.
Once filed as an experience without the emotive charge the once repressed experience can now be used like any other experience to help us cope should the same or similar challenge ever face us again in the future.
Without the necessary emotional resources being available and on file in the subconscious a child experiencing a traumatic event may find the normal mental processes being suspended. This will of course occur unconsciously and the event is said to be repressed. This is a survival mechanism used by a mind overwhelmed by an experience that cannot be be dealt with at the time. The event is not forgotten but kept in a kind of ‘cold storage’ to be dealt with when the necessary mental and emotional resources have been acquired. In order to ensure that the repressed material is not forgotten or ignored forever the gap, in what was supposed to be learned from the experience, is replaced by a physical symptom somewhat like a calling card.
What happens in session
In Analytical Hypnotherapy the client is guided into a relaxed state of mind with conscious analytical mind in suspension. While in this light state of hypnosis the client is then instructed to report whatever thoughts, feelings and memories that emerge. The client is reminded to report what emerges in the order in which it is revealed and to refrain from excluding any of the associations on the grounds that they are judged too trivial, irrelevant, shameful or secret. Success of the therapy depends on the client complying with this fundamental rule to reveal everything that emerges.
It is rare for a therapist to come across a client who does not try to reserve some area for himself – a no-go area if you like. Therapy is prevented access to this area of the mind classed as off-limits. This is done subconsciously by the client in an attempt to protect the repression and is is called resistance by Freud.
Resistance is an inevitable and important part of the therapeutic process. It is disappointing to a therapist if unable to provoke these resistances and demonstrate them to the client. In fact overcoming these resistances is an essential function of therapy.
The most important ingredient in Hypno-Analysis or Analytical Hypnotherapy is rapport between client and therapist. It is this trust that encourages the transference of feelings on to the therapist and thus giving the client the opportunity to resolve emotional issues that have been repressed. The therapist takes on the qualities of the person with whom the client needs to resolve these issues and it is common for the client to see saw between admiring and loving the therapist to feeling outright hostility toward the therapist. It is by means of this phenomenon that transference becomes a powerful tool to access the the no go areas and to secure repression release.
Psychotherapy by ~briggsdj2
When a repression is located the client may report it the way a TV reporter would report from the scene of a crime. The client therefore describes the traumatic incident in the past tense and as if it had happened to someone else. The therapist would then direct the client to relive the incident in the present as if it is happening right now. The client would then regress in time and experience the incident fully this time without any interruption to the normal mental processes which occurred when it did happen all those years ago and resulted in the debilitating symptoms the client is now presenting.
The client would then be directed to experience the incident over and over again until every scrap of emotional charge is released and the client sees the incident as just another experience without any of the emotional response that once accompanied it. The first time through the incident may see the client crying uncontrollably and with each subsequent reliving of the incident the therapist will notice the client revealing more and more detail. Eventually the client will run through the incident without showing any emotion and in a bored kind of tone. This is normally the signal that all the negative emotion associated with the repression has been released and it is not uncommon to see the client let out a sigh when it is complete.
The role of the therapist
It is not therapist’s job to advise the client, offer any explanations evaluations or judgements during this process but rather allow the client to fully experience the emotions that emerge without interruption and be kept on task. The therapist must at all times recognise that the client is the supreme authority in his own world and the therapist has not authority to tell the client what anything means or how the client should or should not interpret what comes up. Any therapist that does so is not serving the client but his own ego. The therapist is like a guide on a safari. He ensures that the client is on the right path, has bullets in his rifle and is safe. When the time comes it is the client who is paying to shoot the lion not the guide. A good therapist will ensure that the client feels safe and is fully engaging in the process and not just reporting from a safe distance. Though the therapist will not be advising the client about how to view or interpret anything that emerges in session he will often question the client to clarify what is said and to cause the client to question beliefs stubbornly being held on to.
As part of my own training as a Hypno-Psychotherapist I was required to undergo the therapy before receiving my qualification. How else could you gauge the effectiveness of the treatment you intend to administer if you yourself have not experienced it? I found it a very rewarding and insightful experience during which I released a number of repressions and as a result I cured myself of a number of conditions I had suffered from all of my life.
Following are just some of the conditions my wife and I treat at our private practice in Peel, Isle of Man:
Depression, Panic Attacks, Anxiety, Sleeping Difficulties, Post Traumatic Stress, Underachievement, Lack of Confidence, Fears and Phobias, Irritable Bowel, Smoking, Eating Disorders… and many more.
For more information about me and my work as an Analytical Hypnotherapist please visit my website Setanta Hypnotherapy Clinic.
Following are links to articles I have written on topics related to this post:
Following is a list of books that I highly recommend to people involved in Hypnotherapy whether they are involved as practitioners or clients. Each of these books will enrich the hypnotherapy process and help you get the most from your special inner journey.
Hypnotherapy by Dave Elman
This is a practical and very comprehensive guide for the practitioner of hypnoanalysis. The author is probably the most influential practitioner and teacher in the history of modern hypnotherapy.The book is useful for people undergoing hypnotherapy because it gives a good understanding of what hypnosis is and what they can expect in therapy.It contains numerous case studies so the process can be explored as it is applied to a wide range of conditions.
To buy from Amazon.com
To buy from Amazon.co.uk
Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin D Yalom
This book explains psychotherapy in a way that makes the process accessible to anyone. This is a book that grips you from the first pages. The book contains a series of case histories and Yalom allows the reader to travel with him on his journey with his clients. We know what he is thinking, what is happening, what he wants to happen and on the rare occasion where it went wrong. This wonderful book tells us it is ok to care!
To buy from Amazon.com
To buy from Amazon.co.uk
Shift Happens by Robert Holden
Written in a clear and easy to read style this book is inspirational! It is full of wisdom and ways to unlock negativity and fears and open the door to happiness, joy and success. Robert Holden draws on real life stories, allowing you to read how others changed their lives and created a new happier, more joyful new reality. This book is a joy, in itself, to read!
To buy from Amazon.com
To buy from Amazon.co.uk
As A Man Thinketh by James Allen
This classical self help book written over a hundred years ago is as relevant today as ever it was. Many of the modern self help books are based on the teachings of James Allen. The book teaches the power of thought and how we use it to create our reality.
To buy from Amazon.com
To buy from Amazon.co.uk
The Power by Rhonda Byrne
This is a life changing book that explains the power of love. Each one of us has the choice to think what we want but we seldom exercise this choice. We spend most of the day on auto pilot reacting in the same way to people and events that occur oblivious to the fact that we are creating our feelings and our circumstances. Our thoughts affect how we feel and when we feel bad we tend to think more bad thoughts and create even more bad feeling and this situation continues until we think good thoughts to lift our mood. Our feelings attract into our lives people and circumstances that reflect how we feel and that is why it is in our interests to exercise the power of choice to create happiness and always be connected to universal power of love.
To buy from Amazon.com
To buy from Amazon.co.uk
The Power (Audio Book) by Rhonda Byrne
The audio book version read by the author is quite a moving experience because the background music helps the reader feel the messages being given.
Louise Hay cured herself of cancer using the principles she outlines in this inspirational book. She very simply explains the relationship between mind and body and how the mindset has the power to create illness or health. The book also gives a list of illnesses with their corresponding root causes. Louise also provides affirmations to counteract each illness or disease she lists.
To buy from Amazon.com
To buy from Amazon.co.uk
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
Prominent scientists, authors and philosophers reveal the universal law of attraction to create what you want in your life.The Secret is based on the principles outlined in books like As A Man thinketh by James Allen and though this knowledge has always been available to us few people actually use it in their lives and that is the reason for much of the conflict , pain and suffering we see in the world today.This book has brought these age old principles back into the world’s awareness once more and at a time in our planet’s history when we need it most.
To buy from Amazon.com
To buy from Amazon.co.uk
Cutting the Ties that Bind by Phyllis Krystal
We are all bound by invisible chains and ties that bind us and block us from being who we really are. The ties were created in childhood, from family, environment, culture, fears or reactions to events that took place a long time ago. Phyllis Krystal is a psychotherapist who has taught people all over Europe practical visualisation techniques that untangle our deepest bonds to everyone and anything that holds us back from reconnecting with our higher consciousness and attaining our freedom.
To buy from Amazon.com
To buy from Amazon.co.uk
Instant Self-Hypnosis: How to Hypnotize Yourself with Your Eyes Open by Forbes Robbins Blair
This book shows you step-by-step exactly how to enter the state of hypnosis as your read. It teaches you how to give yourself suggestions and make them work. The book also shows you how to create a program for self-improvement and how to use your inner source of wisdom during your normal waking life. The author’s writing style is very inviting and makes you feel very comfortable. It doesn’t matter whether you are a professional or a beginner, this book is for everyone. And yes, you can hypnotize yourself for success, happiness and all good things with its guidance. And with your eyes open there are several advantages. First of all, it is easy to stay focused. You are reading and imagining at the same time, so your mind does not wander around as much as with traditional creative visualization. Also, the author is a professional hypnotist and has carefully designed the techniques, for maximum effectiveness.
To buy from Amazon.com
To buy from Amazon.co.uk
Awareness by Anthony deMello
This best-selling book by one of the most gifted spiritual guides of the twentieth century is now established as a modern spiritual classic. Its anecdotes, stories, practical guidelines and exercises use humour, compassion and insight to the importance of awareness in truly understanding ourselves and the world we live in. The book addresses issues that are relevant to everyone today and these issues include change, happiness, suffering, loss and direction is also given on coping with anger and fear.
How Projection Affects Relationships
Projection is the way in which we avoid taking responsibility for those aspects we abhor in ourselves. Projection creates an illusion so elaborate that we completely believe it.
Here is an example of how it works: a father is angry with his son. He sees [...]
Of all the conditions that can be successfully treated by Hypnotherapy, Sexual Dysfunction, by its highly emotional nature, lends itself to this treatment. When I say Sexual Dysfunction I am referring to any difficulty or block experienced by either man or woman before, during or after normal sexual activity.
a) Sexual [...]
What Can be Treated with Hypnotherapy
My wife Mary and I run our own private Hypnotherapy Practice in Peel, Isle of Man where we employ a combination of Hypnosis and Psychotherapy to treat conditions with an emotional root cause. To see a list of some the conditions we treat please [...]
A baby places no labels on the objects she comes across. A lump of coal holds as much wonder to a child as would a diamond. A child does not assign meaning or value to the object she encounters until taught to do so.
Our parents are usually our [...]
Transference is very important dynamic in Hypno-Psychotherapy in that it provides the client with the opportunity to address in the present a problem from the past.
The problem was buried in the subconscious because the client did not have the emotional resources to deal with it when it occurred in the [...]
Photo Credit to: Nicola Oliver
What is an eating disorder?
The definition of eating disorders is ‘a range of psychological disorders characterised by abnormal or disturbed eating habits’. Most people are familiar with the disorders Anorexia and Bulimia but are less familiar with Binge Eating Disorder (without purging), Compulsive Overeating and Orthorexia [...]
Faulty Self-Concept
People usually do not enter psychotherapy with the goal of changing their perception of self. On the contrary most people who enter psychotherapy are completely unaware that it is their faulty self-concept that is at the root of their suffering. They initially seek to preserve their perception of self [...]
Why Hypnotherapy is so successful for children
Children are naturally open to hypnotherapy as they have few if any misconceptions about hypnosis. Most of them, especially the younger ones, have never heard of stage hypnotists so an explanation about the vast differences between what I do in therapy and what stage [...]
Photo credit to: Dr Akilah El – Celestial Healing Wellness Center
Success Stories
Bill Munro from Michigan USA was in his 70′s when he developed melanoma ( the most dangerous type of skin cancer ) and at the same time he also suffered from prostate cancer. Rather than opt for conventional medical treatment [...]
Our expectations are determined by what we believe. What we believe about life and the world around us influences what we expect to happen to us and others. It is our belief systems that determine how we perceive people. It is our belief [...]
Thanks on your marvelous posting! I seriously enjoyed reading it, you happen to be a great author.
I will make certain to bookmark your blog and may come back later in life.
I want to encourage you to continue your great job, have a nice morning!
My homepage; v2 cig Coupon
Greetings, There’s no doubt that your web site might be having web browser compatibility problems. Whenever I look at your site in Safari, it looks fine however, when opening in Internet Explorer, it’s got some overlapping issues. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Aside from that, [...]
I blog frequently and I truly thank you for your information. This article has really peaked my interest. I’m going to bookmark your website and keep checking for new information about once a week. I subscribed to your Feed as well.
I blog frequently and I genuinely appreciate your information. Your article has truly peaked my interest. I’m going to bookmark your website and keep checking for new details about once a week. I opted in for your Feed as well.
Usually My partner and i don’t publish upon internet sites, but I would like to claim that this particular distribute actually forced myself to achieve this. Very great submit!
Just wanna discuss few standard things, The website style is perfect, the written content is very superb. By following the thought of one nation, two systems, ‘ you don’t swallow me personally up nor I anyone. by Deng Xiaoping.
Sometimes it is difficult to spot the difference between an unhappy, moody teenager and a depressed teenager. With so much upheaval what with peer pressure, exam pressure, relationships with family members, opposite sex, same sex, not to mention all those hormones causing havoc resulting in huge mood swings.
Not logged in