Hypnosis for social workers: helping people even better

As a social worker, you perform an important job for society. People may be struggling due to all kinds of problems, then as a social worker you can provide a supportive role.

You check in with people to see how they are doing, and if there are problems that are not easily solved you refer them to the agencies that are relevant to those problems.

Social worker for trauma

You sometimes hear that social workers are deployed to assist victims during disasters. The likelihood of experiencing trauma following a disaster—such as a fire in your home, a murder in your neighborhood, or a serious accident you witnessed or were involved in—is very real.

A social worker then helps with the practical aspects of a disaster, such as finding a new (temporary) home and the like, as well as the psychological aspects.

In such cases, knowledge of NLP and hypnosis can be incredibly helpful in providing support—especially when the effects are still relatively minor at that stage.

The interesting thing is that research shows that hypnosis, combined with cognitive behavioral therapy , can help prevent PTSD in cases of acute stress. This was specifically studied in people who had been in a car accident or who had suddenly been exposed to violence. People with a traumatic past were even specifically excluded from this study[1]. So it really focused on problems that suddenly and acutely arose in people’s lives.

Social worker for relationship problems

Sometimes relationship problems can get so out of hand that the police are called in. In some cases, you may be assigned a social worker to help you get things back to normal.

For example, a social worker can identify what a family's problems are now, causing relationship problems to spiral out of control. Then you can refer them to agencies of interest.

Couples with relationship problems caused by drugs, for example, may be referred to a rehab center or an AA or NA group to help the person with addiction issues, while the victim may be assisted by a practice support specialist or psychologist on how to set healthy boundaries.

The annoying thing about this type of issue is that people in the middle of it are often embarrassed and find it difficult to ask for help. Exposing yourself to a social worker because you are not doing things "how they should be done" is difficult.

That’s why it’s important to build rapport with the people you’re helping, so they feel comfortable with you and feel safe being honest about their problems. Only then can you help them in the best possible way.

Knowledge of hypnosis also helps you build rapport with people so you can help them.

Social worker for stress and depression

Stress and depressive symptoms can lead to their own set of problems. Sometimes others may notice this and then involve a social worker to help you. There are countless issues that can cause stress.

A social worker, on the one hand, can help resolve the practical side of that stress cause, such as help with debt and how to pay it off in an orderly fashion.

On the other hand, you can receive mental health support. Being able to offer smart suggestions to help people dealing with stress and symptoms of depression—so they can move forward on their own—is a valuable skill.

For example, you can give people positive suggestions about their abilities that will restore their confidence that they can overcome their problems.

In addition, you can advise people on how to relax and practice progressive muscle relaxation. For example, you can lead a guided visualization to help people with this.

Research shows that 20 minutes of hypnotherapy already helps people suffer less from stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms[2].

Suicide social worker

If you suffer from thoughts of suicide, call 113.

Whether you are helping people who are near suicide, have made a failed attempt, or survivors of people who have walked out of life, it is impressive.

The annoying thing is that medication for people with suicidal tendencies is not always the solution, because a side effect of antidepressants, for example, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, can be suicidal tendencies.

Then you actually end up from the rain in the drip.

Researchers therefore indicate that hypnosis may be a better way to help people with suicidal ideation than medication[3].

If, as a social worker, you need to acutely help someone who is in the process of choosing to commit suicide, knowledge of hypnosis can help provide the right suggestions that will give people hope again at being able to resolve their problems. The suggestions can help people see problems in a different way. This can reduce the need to take drastic measures.

After a failed suicide attempt, people are often referred to a psychologist or psychiatrist, but due to waiting lists in the healthcare system, a social worker may also be assigned to them.

Even then, knowledge of hypnosis can help people look at their problems in a different way. Knowledge of how to positively reframe issues helps you help these people.

In addition, a social worker can help bereaved family members cope with grief and alleviate any feelings of guilt they may have about not having done enough or not having noticed something. Knowledge of hypnosis is also helpful in this process.

Social worker in illness

For certain medical conditions, you may be assigned a social worker. For example, people under the age of 35 who have been diagnosed with cancer are often assigned a social worker to help them cope with the condition. After all, this is an age at which you would never expect to get cancer, and that can come as quite a shock.

Also, a social worker helps them give the diagnosis a place and not come up with too many awkward "explanations" about why they got the disease.

The social worker then makes several calls and can visit to see how the patient is doing. In addition, the social worker assesses whether more help is needed.

Research on hospital social workers and the use of Ericsson’s model with hypnosis shows that this can help cancer patients experience fewer side effects from treatment and reduced anxiety[4].

Helping people with self-hypnosis

Whatever problem people have, as a social worker you also help people master techniques to solve their problems.

For mental health issues, this might involve people learning some mindfulness or even self-hypnosis.

As a social worker, your role is often small, but if you can help people with mindfulness and self-hypnosis you give them tools to help themselves when you can't be there for them at the time.

In a study of how a social worker could teach people self-hypnosis at a pediatric pulmonary center, a lung center for children, it was found that 80% of those who learned it had an improvement in their condition or even stopped suffering from their symptoms altogether.

The patients who participated in this study had an average age of 11.6 years[5]. Their complaints were anxiety, hyperventilation, asthma, chest pain, coughing, shortness of breath, sighing and vocal cord problems.

Using hypnosis as a social worker

There are a number of ways to use hypnosis as a social worker. In normal conversations, you can use hypnotic language to help people, or you can explain to people that you want to help them with hypnosis and ask if they are open to it.

Indeed, we at Hypnosis Institute Netherlands believe it is very important that people are well informed about hypnosis and that they give clear permission to engage in hypnosis.

So as a social worker, you can indicate that you want to try hypnosis, in addition to the other ways you help clients.

You always explain what hypnosis is, and what people can expect from it.

Next, you use hypnosis to help the client relax. This also helps to induce or deepen the hypnotic state. After that, you can begin using techniques to help people cope with their problems.

Hypnosis can be used for many problems

As you can see, hypnosis can play a role in an awful lot of problems to give people the mental tools to deal with stressful situations. Ideal to have at least the basic knowledge on this as a social worker.

It helps you give calming suggestions and empower people more.

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