This week has been exciting as I’ve been excited to present to the Australian Hypnotherapists’ Association on Magic for Therapists. Teaching a little bit of sleight of hand and some very achievable tricks to enhance therapeutic work. Especially for working with kids.
I’ve been a magician for a long time and my most recent Fringe show was all about hypnosis and hypnotherapy. I’m now turning that idea on it’s head and rather than looking at hypnotherapy as art, looking at magic as therapy.
It’s something I’ve played with a lot in my nursing life. I’ve been a paediatric nurse since 2014, working in childhood cancer and conflict de-escalation. And I use magic tricks to build rapport and help break kids out of upset states all the time in that work. But I’m interested in going beyond distraction and rapport. Magic is the perfect metaphor for a lot of therapeutic ideas. Ideas of change, growth, and restoration are inherent to both fields.
I think this will resonate most strongly with paediatric clients, but there’s no reason it couldn’t work with adults given the right circumstances.
I’m not giving the talk for over a year, which is good, because I’m also planning to write a very small book (really lecture notes for the presentation, maybe with some personal stories and anecdotes for good measure) to accompany it. Now I just need to motivate myself to write it!
As always, if you’re interested in learning more, you can contact me here, or book an appointment directly here.
