Healing Hypnosis asthma metaphor therapy

This hypnotic script shows how to use a metaphor to give a child the resources to deal with asthma. The script carefully sets up expectations that a child can understand. Then puts the child into a stressful situation and then shows how the child can overcome all the problems. Each problem has a relevance to the symptoms of the child's asthma. Using this indirect method teaches the child how to cope with the symptoms and prevent them becoming a problem.
The script shows how the healing metaphor is created so that you can adapt it to other stress related health problems.

A metaphor for asthma: The Snake Charmer

Target	Metaphor Dialogue	Comments
	I wonder if you know that I used to live in India?	Set up magical place
	India is an amazing place. There are monkeys in the trees and elephants walking down the streets.	Emphasis strangeness
	And in the streets and you can watch people juggling with swords and eating fire and spitting out big flames and getting tied up in chains and padlocks and escaping and everyone applauds and throws them money.	Metaphor for strange abilities
	And there are snake charmers. They have a great big cobra, a real live snake, in a basket, right there in the street. And when the man takes the lid off the basket the snake wakes up and it rises out of the basket standing there angry and hissing and flicking its forked tongue… ready to bite anybody and all the people move back… but the snake charmer plays a thing like a flute… and snake hears the music and with just the music the man makes it dance… this huge poisonous snake with two big fangs … sways from side to side while the man plays the music and when the music stops it goes to sleep again.	Set up the story situation – a dangerous thing controlled by magic
	Metaphor of the problem
Identity	I used to know this boy who was there.	Main character
	He was about your age and one day he was there and he didn’t notice that the snake charmer took the lid off the basket and the snake came out right next to the boy.	Problem starts
	And the boy got such a fright he became afraid to go into the street and every time he had to go there he got this feeling of panic and a feeling in his chest like he couldn’t breathe.	Match the boy's problem
	And he always worried that he might have to go there again. Even just thinking that maybe he would have to go there again made him feel breathless sometimes.	Similar anxiety = metaphor
	And just thinking about the snake he always imagined it as cold and slimy and fierce and huge and he got really afraid to go into that street anymore.	Similar Helplessness
	Metaphor for the cycle
	Well the snake charmer heard about this and he wanted to help the boy.	New resource = therapist
Behaviour	He got the boy to come into the street and he showed him that the lid was on the basket so the boy could relax.	Safe to look at the problem
	Then the man surprised him - he lifted the lid for just a second – and put it back on again. The boy saw the big snake sleeping inside but it was so quick that the snake did not have time to even move.	Graduated exposure
	The man did this many times – lift, look, close – until the boy felt comfortable about it.
Capability	And then the boy got really brave. He asked the man if he could lift the lid himself.	Finding resource
Capability	And the snake charmer looked at him and said ‘Yes: you are old enough now to be able to do that’.	Indirect suggestion
Behaviour	So he copied what the man did – lift, look, close. And soon he was quite relaxed about it.
	In fact he got quite too casual about it, and started showing off, and left the lid off too long and the snake rose right up in front of the boy.	Sudden panic
	And the boy was so frightened that he felt his chest close up and it was hard to breathe and felt he might die of fright.	Reminder of asthma
	Metaphor for the resources
Rule	But the snake charmer wouldn’t let that happen.	Reassurance
	He took his flute and started playing again and the snake began to sway and then it went back into the basket.	Demonstrate control
	And then the man said to the boy – Can you keep a secret?	Resource
	And the boy said he would never tell the secret.	Resource

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	[The rest of this script is available in the Healing Hypnosis Scripts collection]
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	And when he grew up the snake got really old and it was too old to dance and too old to frighten anybody as well but they didn’t say that... so the boy and the man took it out to the countryside one day... and let it go. And it's retired now.	Let the problem go into extinction.

Healing Hypnosis Asthma Metaphor Script

hypnotherapy asthma stress health problems

Healing Hypnosis asthma metaphor therapy

A metaphor for asthma: The Snake Charmer

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