Yesterday was Tyler’s visit with the hypnotherapist to see if we could help him with the verbal and motor tics he has been experiencing.  You can read the full story up until now here.

All of us were nervous and I wasn’t sure how Tyler would do with her.  To our surprise, he allowed us to leave the room after ten minutes so she could work with him.  Hypnotherapy, at least on a three-year-old, is not at all what I expected.  She didn’t put him in any kind of trance.  We heard him laughing.  We came back in after about ten minutes and she told us that Tyler had learned a technique to make him “switch off” his tics.  She had used the two toys that he had brought with him, Spiderman and a Little Person from Fischer-Price.  When he coughed she held up Spiderman and asked, “Can Spiderman help you stop coughing?”, and it worked!  She said when it worked the first time, Tyler laughed, he was delighted.

She was surprised that he had learned a technique so quickly but she thought that three-year-olds are in a highly suggestible state all of the time!  The thing now will be, will it stay with him?  I have used it a few times and it has worked.  But Tyler told me it was the lady that did it and he can only do it with her.  I said that the lady has taught him the magic now and he can do it without her.  He says he wants to see the lady again.  He really liked her!

The doctor told us that tics and Tourette’s are not a big deal and that children can do very well. She felt that drugs for this specific problem do not work well and come with tremendous side effects.  She also felt that diets and supplements, “miracle cures”, do not work.  She spoke highly of hypnotherapy for it, if not her, because she won’t be around forever, she said, then from someone else.

Here’s my disclaimer:  I would only try this with a licensed hypnotherapist and these are my experiences and opinions.

I am hoping that Tyler’s visit with the Magic Lady will stay with him.  If not we will see her again. She is expensive, our insurance doesn’t cover it, but our child deserves the best start he can get in life, just like any child does.