Hypnosis or NLP w/ Mental Retardation

I did a search on here for something about mental retardation and what came up was some about autisim.......I wonder would hypnosis aid in behavior modification for an MR or would NLP help etc...just a inquiry. I have no intent or client at this time who suffers from MR....

Favorite

0 members favorited this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bill Kennedy on September 13, 2011 at 5:22pm

If you look up "Learning Disabled" or "LD", you might find more resources.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Carol Sanders on September 14, 2011 at 5:21pm

Thanks Bill.

I did that search on here also, but again nothing on here or on the internet.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kelley Woods on September 14, 2011 at 5:41pm

Hi Carol,

I did have the opportunity to work with a learning disabled young man. He was the grown son of a home bound client. During the course of our work, they were burglarized and he lost his video game system. His mother told me that the games helped calm him before sleep. As a result, he was anxious and fearful since the theft.

I offered to help him and they both happily accepted. I had him bring up a favorite time and he had no trouble thinking about how fun camp is for him. I let him play there for a while and then guided him to find an anchor for that feeling. He had limited small motor muscle control but found that clasping his hands felt good, along with saying the phrase, "Happy Place!"

I instructed mom to remind him to go to "Happy Place" several times a day and especially before sleeping. This simple exercise helped him move out of the anxious state and back to his natural, playful mode.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Carol Sanders on September 14, 2011 at 8:15pm

Thank you Kelley...I just wasnt sure if an MR would be able to go in to hypnosis and have no clue how the subconscious works in the mind of an MR. I guess those who are considered Mild to Moderate would be suggestible to trance work.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill Kennedy on September 15, 2011 at 9:08am

Carol,

Are you speaking about LD people in general or a specific person? If it is a specific person, then wouldn't you interview them to figure out how hypnosis would work for them? If it is in general, then a good model to follow is that there is a wonderful human being on the inside who has difficulties either taking in information or expressing it (sometimes both). There is no reason why an LD person wouldn't be able to go into hypnosis if you were able to give them understandable instructions.

Bill

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Carol Sanders on September 15, 2011 at 8:32pm

well Bill, Im speaking in general of those diagnosed with mental retardation..... which I think is more than learning disabled. There is NO infomation on the internet as it relates to the use of hypnosis or NLP with clients who are MR or LD as I have yet to find.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill Kennedy on September 16, 2011 at 8:27am

Hi Carol,

This may be cultural. I asked a social worker friend I know about mental retardation. He said that the term isn't used any more here, that there are more precise diagnoses than this older umbrella term that has gathered a lot of negative baggage. Maybe the lack of internet data points to the same situation in the US. I don't know.

Still, I don't think it's an area where thinking in general is helpful. I don't think you can come up with a general solution to a spectrum disorder. You have to work with each client individually. I know at least one person in HypnoThoughts whose learning disability prevented them from graduating from high school, yet they are quite capable of deep trance.

Bill

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Roger Moore on September 17, 2011 at 5:45am

For many years I worked with children and adults with developmental disabilities. In fact, my first uses of hypnosis was with children with profound and severe developmental disabilities. In most cases the intent was for relaxation. One way that was very effective was to have the individual clasp their hands in front of their face and blow on their thumbs. This is an effective way to teach breath control and leads to eye closure and relaxation. Recently, I have on occasion used this technique in my office with a adults experiencing anxiety.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Carol Sanders on September 17, 2011 at 6:47pm

Thanks Roger. Interesting technique..might try that w/ my granddaughter to calm her down when she is upset over getting hurt (slightly).

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jean Hobgood on March 30, 2012 at 3:04pm

I'm getting ready to work with a 51 year old man who probably falls into the category of mildly mentally handicapped (at least that was the term when I retired in '99 as a special education teacher; the terms changed several times during my time as a teacher). I'll let you know what I find out; he is able to read some and has had some actual jobs, but seems unable to stay motivated to do the job. I used guided visualizations with students I was working with in this category. One high school senior responded very well to this technique; he had a "job" helping in the elementary cafeteria next door. He would almost faint when required to pour ketchup into little cups. Problem totally resolved.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Brunhilde (Bruni) Brewin on March 30, 2012 at 8:34pm

My daughter works in Autism. She works in a day center, where they pick up mostly people that are in the 19+ age group from home.

One of her observations is that when there is a holiday (say Easter or Christmas) and the center closes for a few days - it takes some days for these people to get back to functioning in a routine and how they behaved when at the center.

She believes part of the problem is that parents aren't taught how to handle these situations and many don't handle it very well. She feels that more work should be done for the home carers to assist them in this area.

"Who Takes Care of the Carer?"

Those of us that know about "Sleep Talk" can teach carers how to do this. Also the benefits of teaching carers 'self hypnosis' for their own relaxation skills. By working with both the challenged and the carer, we can double the benefit.

Whilst working with a person challenged with autism, I found that they went easily into hypnosis through conversationally talking to them with their eyes closed, using images and metaphor stories and as mentioned above, anchoring pleasant feelings.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Barry Neale on March 31, 2012 at 4:58am

Hi,

I think your beliefs and expectancy that your client can achieve what they set out to are really important regardless of who you are working with. If you as a therapist have limiting beliefs about LD/MR they will affect the outcome.

There was a study done some years ago where a group of teachers were told they had been selected to work for a the next term with "highly intellegent, gifted children" and they would have to really stretch themselves as teachers to teach these kids. At the exam at the end of the year the kids aced their exams are far exceeded their expectations. Then the teachers were told that in fact the kids weren't gifted, they were randomly selected from the school system!

The beliefs of the teachers, that these children were "gifted" and could learn easily affected the results.

So, in my mind the techniques are less important than your beliefs as a therapist regardless of who you work with.

regards

barry