Scripts and Strategies in Hypnosis for Children sets out to address the psychological problems which beset children and young people between the ages of 5 and 15 and will be a much-needed addition to the hypnotherapy practitioner's reading repertoire. This book should be on the bookshelf of every serious professional hypnotherapeutic practitioner who wishes to work with children and minors.

Lynda Hudson introduces Scripts and Strategies in Hypnosis for Children by highlighting the fact that working with this client-group can be both rewarding and stimulating because imagination is an integral part of the everyday existence of children and young people. The author then wisely advises the hypnotherapy practitioner to apply age-appropriate methodology, to ensure client and parental compliance and to follow national legislation and guidelines.

The premise of the work utilizes a solution-focused approach and takes the reader through a procedure of investigation into what can realistically be achieved by the client within the family setting.

Scripts and Strategies in Hypnosis for Children effectively provides a veritable vade mecum which outlines the nature, the scope and numerous treatment strategies for assisting children and minors with a comprehensive plethora of presenting symptoms, such as self-esteem, bladder and bowel function control, habit disorders, motor-neuron disorders, anxieties states, obsessive-compulsive disorders, behavioural disorders and learning difficulties.



The book, consequently, provides all that the working professional will ever need with an abundance of scripts, suggestions for scripts, checklists and useful tips throughout.

If you don't have any more room on the book shelf after purchasing all the books that I and colleagues have reviewed for you in The Hypnotherapist then I suggest a trip to B&Q to purchase either some wood and brackets OR a totally new bookcase.

This book by Lynda Hudson is one of the most exciting books that I have reviewed in years and also, I feel, one of the most long awaited too.
I feel I had a link with the author and a devotion to the book as soon as I noticed that she was a former teacher as well as being a Clinical Hypnotherapist. I was a primary Head teacher in what feels like a former existence now, and have long been interested in the potential of using hypnotherapy with children.
I was privileged to review Linda Thomsonss books featuring Harry the Hypno-potamus. They were groundbreaking and immensely appealing to therapist and patient alike. However, the field lacked substance almost. It lacked a real hypnotherapy practitioners reference book which had depth, creativity, insight, suggestion and clarity. This book has it all and I feel confident that this will be seen as one of the most important and highly successful of books ever to come from the Crown House stable.

Whether or not you work with children this book will be compelling reading for you. It is an invaluable source for any therapist. She has great clarity of style and as well as being a mine of information, the books is also highly readable. In fact for a while this book was my main reading matter rather than a novel. It was that compelling. It had that drawing powe r and the crysta l clear working scripts were a delight to read in their own right as they showed that the author had deep knowledge of how the child functions and how a childs mind reacts to varied stimuli.

The book is unique and I will be amazed if any other book comes up to this standard let alone overtake it. This is a professional book written for professionals by a professional. It has everything that we look for, academic background, scientific substance, creative ingenuity and sound working methodology.

The realm of subjects covered is wide and I was pleased to see covered such issues as anxiety, sleeping disorders, habit disorders, enuresis and even bullying.

It should be a"must read, for all those training to be teachers as well as therapists as this lady has true insight and understands her subjects ( the children and their needs ) thoroughly.

Even SATS could become bearable after going through the Magic Bus script for Learning and Exams ( bit dont tell any teachers I just said that ).
Much of a teachers time is spent in helping children become what they were meant to become, helping them to feel good about themselves, helping them to feel positive, valued. This book covers all those and more.

This is a world chang ng book. Yes,I mean that. It helps us as therapists move ahead confidently and knowledgeably to help relieve the difficulties of those many youngsters who face problems today. They are our future. This book is a wonderful resource for anyone who is working with them.

I wholeheartedly commend it to you.

If there was a Booker Prize for Hypnotherapy texts this would be way up there on the top of my list!

Finally a book that helps therapists with youngsters aged between 5 and 15 years old!

Lynda Hudson has done a terrific piece of work, this book is packed with hypnotic scripts, also advises the Therapist of any possible pitfalls that one can have, whilst working with youngsters.

The author has clearly studied and included all aspects that affect youngsters in this day and age, from self confidence to bedwetting, also issues that faced at school, such as bullying, study skills, exam strategies, school phobias and many more.

Lynda Hudson has packed this book with background information, advice, induction, scripts and much more but to name a few.



A must read.

Scripts and strategies in hypnotherapy with children is a fresh, vibrant and richly involving book.

The collection of scripts and therapeutic interventions are accompanied by an enlightening apparatus of comment and digression in the distinctive style of Lynda Hudson.

The pieces selected cover a broad period of childhood, from the age of 5 to the age of 15 and tackle a diverse range of psychological and behavioural problems.

The varied case studies and scripts enhance the reader's enjoyment and appreciation of hypnotherapy not just by highlighting their distinguishing features but also by identifying intriguing and thought-provoking insights into clinical work with children.

While the annotations enlighten, they do not adhere slavishly to any set pattern and, crucially, they set out to make the reader think and sometimes to provoke.



Authoritative but not stuffy, irreverent but not flippant, instructive but not dogmatic, this text will be helpful for anyone looking for a book that offers practical solution focused interventions.

Created from a combination of dedicated years of training and personal experience in practice, this book demonstrates the author's most excellent understanding of the uniqueness and complexity of each young client and offers the reader a perfectly constructed springboard from which to execute their own individual therapeutic delivery.

The text is liberally salted with beautifully crafted example scripts that evoke the memories and imaginings of childhood so vividly that they may even address those unresolved issues that lurk within each of us as adult readers.

A totally accessible manual, written with an obvious passion and sensitivity for the needs of the child and mercifully avoiding the unnecessary use of technical language wherever possible.



The author states in her preface that “whether you already work with children or are just thinking of doing so, this book is aimed at you”, and I can categorically confirm that she hits her mark with unnerving accuracy. I would also suggest that many therapists (and by extension, their adult clients) are likely to benefit from this book even if they do not routinely work with children and it would consequently make a perfect addition to any practitioner's library.

Scripts & Strategies in Hypnotherapy with Children is a “must-read” for anyone who does hypnotherapy with children. The book is well-written. There are chapters on just about every childhood difficulty a therapist will encounter in working with children. Each of these chapters begins with an excellent summary of the condition involved (like self-esteem or encopresis). The hypnosis scripts are a joy to read since they incorporate hypnotic language usage of the highest order. The concepts of solution-focussed brief therapy illuminate the scripts, as does the use of indirect (and direct where called for) language. Hudson obviously knows children and how to communicate with them. She also knows how to interact with parents to be able to enlist their cooperation and assistance in working with their child. The book is replete with common sense and practical advice for the practitioner. This is the best book of this type I have come across, and I cannot praise it too much. Hudson does not promise “cures,” but rather that the use of hypnosis will assist the child to be more relaxed, more comfortable with themselves, and more functional in his/her world. The scripts are imaginative and clearly designed to intrigue and interest and provide the child with ideas for his/her own progress and happiness. This book will be a resource to be consulted over and over again by all those who use hypnosis with children. Highly recommended.

As a teacher/trainer of hypnotherapy practice for 37 years, I have seen many books which address aspects of the work. There has always been a gap in the available literature concerning the use of Hypnotherapy with Children.

Now, hypnotherapist's Lynda Hudson's new book, Scripts and Strategies in Hypnotherapy with Children supplies the much-needed approaches and techniques for working with children. Written without academic or scientific jargon, the many scripts for a great variety of juvenile problems are precise and useful tools. With the increasing recognition and growing popularity of Hypnotherapy, parents are realizing that medicating their children to modify behaviour is often a mistake. Behaviour is subject to change and hypnotherapy can quickly pinpoint and reshape the form and nature of behaviour. Children respond to hypnosis more easily than many adults and respond to suggestions of change with enthusiasm. This is a book for every hypnotherapist's library, especially those who work with children or would like to learn how to work with them.

This comprehensive handbook for hypnotherapists and other professionals in the health care sector provides an extensive collection of sparkling crystal clear scripts and strategies with a problem~ and age appropriate approach for 5-15 year-old youngsters. Any difficulties children of this age group may encounter on their way to further development whether of a physical, mental, educational, emotional, or behavioural nature is richly provided for by tailor-made solution focused approaches. Lynda Hudson, a very experienced and highly professional therapist and lecturer, stresses repeatedly the importance of 'going with the flow' of information provided by the young clients themselves, speaking their languages, using their learning style and adapting metaphors to their experiences so that the intervention is totally relevant to the child and therefore more powerful.

The book is structured into 13 chapters, the first two of which are of a general nature, with useful summary boxes. Individual problems or major issues are tackled in the next 11 chapters.

These chapters are structured into:
The final section lists most useful references and resources referring to the specific problems dealt with in each of the previous chapters.

• Description, explanation, and/or characteristics of the problem in hand.


• Suitable aim of hypnotic treatment.


• Suitable approaches to the problem.


• Extensive age related, detailed, easy to follow scripts.

This unique handbook will provide professionals with many new, creative insights and suggestions to help relieve difficulties so many youngsters and their immediate environment are experiencing.

This is a thorough, creatively composed and eminently practical book. Ms. Hudson has taken the principles of solution-focused therapy, oriented them skillfully towards the problems of children and adolescents and thereby produced myriad scripts and strategies that both illustrate and instruct. The scripts that form the heart of the book are appropriately nuanced and written flexibly allowing the clinician to adapt them to the individual child across a wide spectrum of clinical presentations. Hudson's enthusiastic, compassionate and affirming voice comes through the text of the scripts. I particularly appreciate the author's persistent emphasis on ego-strengthening and the modeling of permissive and responsive language which is central to hypnosis, particularly with young people. The framing of each set of scripts with an overview of the clinical problems for which they can be used, helpful strategies for engaging the child and parents, as well as extracts of the salient points of each chapter provide a unique depth to this text. Practical points for the parents of children with separation anxiety, the list of dissociation strategies, ego-strengthening guidelines and a host of other useful tips add to the book's value as a desk-side reference. Taken as a whole, this rich volume captures the confident, positive, warm and imaginative spirit that embodies creative hypnosis with young people then distills it into an enjoyable and practical solution. I will use it a lot.

At last, the book our profession has been waiting for, one those of us who know Lynda Hudson have been encouraging her to write for a long time. Lynda is the acknowledged expert on the use of hypnotherapy with children and her many years of experience are shared and reflected in the information, protocols, and creative and inventive scripts contained within this volume. Although aimed at the hypnotherapist, the broad spectrum of Lynda's work found herein will be of immense value to therapists of all disciplines, providing ideas, encouragement and that often sought after source of sensible advice. Although it may seem a cliche to say, Scripts and Strategies in Hypnotherapy with Children really is an essential addition to any therapist's library.

Lynda Hudson is clearly an expert in her field. Here she has provided the hypnotherapist with a much needed comprehensive and practical guide to working with children. This book is an invaluable resource for any therapist and I highly recommend her strategies which I have used with great success in my own practise. This book will now be required reading for all our students of hypnotherapy.

Those who treat children regularly will find this book a valuable addition to their bookshelf. It contains a wealth of useful advice, guidance and information when dealing with children and teenagers. It is clear, well written and comes from the pen of a therapist with great experience and skill in treating young people.

Scripts & Strategies in Hypnotherapy with Children is a valuable resource for clinicians working hypnotically with children. This book will assist anyone who has already achieved an advanced level of training in medicine, nursing, dentistry or mental health with prior training in hypnosis to achieve greater confidence as they incorporate hypnotic skills and metaphors into their practice with children. Ms. Hudson's stories are delightfully imaginative; her language is permissive and she includes ego-strengthening in every script to foster self-esteem and self-efficacy.

The book offers the reader scripts and strategies for a variety of common pediatric problems including anxiety, sleeping problems, habit disorders, enuresis and encopresis. Robots, fairies, treasure hunts and space ships contained in the metaphors will all entertain the child while the carefully crafted therapeutic message is embedded in the story thus cleverly bypassing any resistance to change.



The strategies and scripts offered by Ms. Hudson can be used to enhance a clinician's existing area of expertise. The scripts are developmentally appropriate for the suggested ages and may be used verbatim or adjusted and incorporated into the clinician's own personal style. When working with children, the skilled practitioner must be flexible and open to the child's own creativity and spontaneity. Nearly anyone can learn how to induce a trance and certainly with children it is very easy, but what the skilled and talented clinician does with that trance state is the magic of how to access the child's inherent strengths and resources. The true magic of therapeutic change lies with the child. They possess the creative genius. The success of providing the child the tools to discover the magic and resources within depends in large part on the therapeutic relationship, rapport and alliance between the clinician and the child. Ms Hudson's book gives the clinician warm, caring and developmentally appropriate strategies that help foster rapport and successful hypnotherapeutic interventions with children. Ms. Hudson has provided the hypnosis world with a wonderful resource for working with children.

I have often looked for a book like this on working with children, and this is an excellent volume.

Lynda's easy to read style helps make this both an easy as well as an informative read.



All-in-all a well structured and easy to read book which will form a welcome addition to any hypnosis practitioners reference library.