How solution-focused hypnotherapy can help manage exam nerves

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I decided to train as a therapist. I was working as a lecturer in a further education college. A student asked me for an extension on an assignment which was due. Why did she need this? She told me she had been to the doctor, and he had “diagnosed her with anxiety”. I gave her the extension, and she did eventually produce sufficient work to pass the course. 

Anxiety and exam nerves in children and young people

This 'diagnosis of anxiety' set me thinking. To what degree is 'anxiety' a pathology? In our lives filled with timetables, appointments, deadlines, and arrangements – and assignments that need to be submitted on time - we need enough anxiety to get us out of bed, or catch the bus, complete our work and cope with the myriad of tasks we need to do each day.  Each deadline, timetable commitment, and individual task is a 'stressor' to which we should respond with the mental energy that we need to function.

Or we don’t. Without anxiety, we lose motivation and drive, and our lives will drift.

On the other hand, too many stressors, resulting in excessive anxiety, are potentially harmful. It can lead to crippling mental paralysis where we are overwhelmed, and we shut down normal responses. We need to walk a narrow path where our brains deliver the right level of anxiety, so we cope and function at our best.

We can see the detrimental effects of being outside this Goldilocks zone, with young people who appear not to be motivated by anything, and who lack drive, apparently content to drift through their lives. We know only too well that no amount of cajoling, bribes or threats results in a change in performance. They often seriously underperform and drive everybody – teachers, family and friends - to distraction. 

On the other side, there are children and young people so overwhelmed that they, in extreme cases, cannot leave their bedrooms. Sometimes, on a school day, they make it to the bus stop, have a panic attack and return home. If they are driven to school, they can’t get out of the car. Anxiety-riven young people may be terrified at even the mention of a test or an exam, or a deadline or being asked questions in class or falling out with their friends, or even at the suggestion they may be parted from their phones. Extreme social anxiety may make it impossible to meet new people or cope in different situations.

Childhood mental health

Over the last few years, the proportion of children diagnosed with a mental health condition has risen from 1 in 9 in 2017, to 1 in 6 in the age group 5-16 in the UK; from 1 in 10, to 1 in 6 in the age group 17-19. This will include problems with sleep, eating disorders, self-harm, depression, suicidal ideation, gender identity and sexual orientation, but a very large proportion are anxiety-based disorders.

It seemed to me that we are experiencing a decline in mental health amongst children and young people that is unprecedented. So what can be done? What therapies are useful for children and young people?

One of the best, and probably the one most likely to produce the fastest positive outcome, is solution-focused hypnotherapy.

What does solution-focused hypnotherapy involve?

A typical solution-focused hypnotherapy session will involve:

Rapport-building

Firstly, exploring the client’s likes and dislikes, establishing the beginnings of a trusting therapeutic relationship. At this point, there is no invitation for them to describe their problems or the issues that have driven them (or their parents/carers) to seek help from a therapist. The goal here is to establish their strengths, the problem-free areas of their life, where they succeed, what parts of their life have been good in the past, and where their interests lie. What do they enjoy? What are they good at? There are no wrong or trivial answers here. 

Best hopes

Secondly, clients are asked for their “best hopes”, something on the lines of:

• What would you really like to happen?
• What differences (or changes) do you want to see?
• What would the best version of yourself look like?
• If tomorrow you were just a little bit happier, what would you be more able to do?
• What does “good enough” look like? 

Frequently, young clients will say that they feel listened to, and what they say is being received as serious and important, without judgment or ridicule. They may say that all they hear from parents and teachers reinforces their negative images of themselves: confusion, feelings of inadequacy, self-loathing, fear of failure, and fear of disappointing. They may feel unlovable or unworthy of love.

The therapist has no agenda other than to help the client make the change in the direction in which the client wants to go. There is no judgment, no advice proffered. 
If the client says they used to dream of being an astronaut when they were younger, the therapist’s response should be on the lines of “wow, if you were, where would you like to go?” Followed by a respectful conversation where the therapist readily acknowledges their own lack of expertise in space travel and really listens to the client’s account. All too often, this kind of statement is met with a predictable knee-jerk put-down, “Well, you’ll need to do better at maths and science!” that they may hear from parents and teachers.

The therapist gives the client the opportunity to talk about their fantasies, the characters they adopt in video games, the Marvel superheroes they aspire to be, their real interests and the deep dives they might make into their specialist areas of expertise. These give insight for the therapist to get to know the client better, but more importantly, it is often a revelation for the client also. 

Educating on anxiety, panic attacks, and how to manage their feelings

Thirdly, there is a strong educational component. Learning how anxiety is generated and how it can be managed, how panic attacks occur, and how to recognise and avoid a “fight or flight response” is very important and, if this is done in an age-appropriate way, even the youngest clients will benefit from knowing how to better manage their feelings. Also, they will understand that anxiety is not a disease but the brain’s way of creating a state of alertness in threatening or dangerous situations.

The above is the solution-focused aspect of the therapy. The hypnosis part of hypnotherapy follows the solution-focused conversation. 

Hypnosis for anxiety, stress, and relaxation 

The hypnotherapist induces a very deep level of relaxation, both physical and mental, best described as an intense, focused awareness. By temporarily removing worry, stress, anxiety, repeated loops of negative overthinking and catastrophising, the brain is given space to arrive at solutions and changes in thinking. These changes are often small but can be very significant and cumulative over time. The goals are the client’s, and there is no hidden “adult” agenda, no possibility of failure.

Young people tend to be more open to the positive language suggestions used in sessions and more able to explore using their imagination than adults, who are likely to be more rigid in their thinking. Their developing brains are more plastic than at any other stage in their lives and are more able to make neural connections. For this reason, good outcomes can often be reached far quicker than in adults, though, of course, this varies from client to client. 

This approach is very useful for young clients who have anxiety over exams. They may have an underlying mental health condition of which exam stress is one of the symptoms, but that need not be the case. Some very capable students underperform because they cannot manage the stress around preparing for an exam and the day of the exam itself.

The hypnotherapist can help them learn to relax, to have the skills to head off a “fight or flight” panic attack, which can come with a bewildering array of unhelpful physical symptoms and be able to use anxiety to improve performance. All this will help make it possible for the young client to approach the exam season without disabling fear, and perform to the best of their ability.  

A hypnotherapist can support your child with tailored techniques to manage exam stress and build confidence.