Hypnotic stories are simple stories that work on your unconscious. There is nothing more for you to do than read or listen to the story. Any story, or book that provides you information is hypnotic in suggestion – expanding your mind, your knowledge base and your thinking patterns.
I love stories that send me away thinking about the characters, the plot, the sub text or the social situation of the time. Without doing anything more than reading, I open my mind to receiving information that I never knew about, that I was searching for or that was lying dormant in my subconscious. Often, it is this post thinking process that assists me to integrate a personal issue or solve an internal question that had been badgering me for some time.
A child therapist and an author, one of my favorite therapeutic frameworks is Bibliotherapy. Bibliotherapy is the use of a story to help resolve an issue. Bibliotherapy can be brief (a brochure on drink driving) or long (a self book). Given that children love stories and that often adults are willing to listen to a story rather than having a therapist give them information, I used bibliotherapy in my practice all the time.
Frustrated at how slowly sexual abuse prevention and protective behaviours were filtering through to families homes, I wrote a piece of bibliotherapy in the guise of a children’s fiction, chapter book: Bitss of Caramel Marmalade on Toast. Hugely popular with the mid primary school aged children, the characters of Marmalade the cat and Bitssy the Australian Dingo, allow valuable protective lessons to be integrated in daily household life. Embedded with protective triggers and hypnotic suggestions, the book serves as both a piece of bibliotherapy and a hypnotic story.
The difference between a hypnotic story and bibliotherpy is in the doing. With a hypnotic story, there is nothing for the reader/hearer to do. You simply listen and that’s it. In bibliotherapy, there are several structured steps that turn any story into a piece of bibliotherapy. For more information on these steps, have a look at Are children’s books providing them with enough advise?
When you read, do you make a distinction between reading for pleasure and reading for self development? How do you know the difference?
Do you know what bibliotherapy is?
Click Bitssy’s book, that’s it below, to learn how to use a story to solve a problem.
Buy Bitss of Caramel Marmalade on Toast
A Protective Behaviour chapter book about body ownership. Suitable for ages 8+.
Bitssy is too scared to go outside because the Caramel monster will murder her family. On her first bold venture into the world out front, the monster seizes Bitssy and a dreadful end-of-the-line war erupts. Defeated, and in her final heartbreaking moments, Bitssy heeds a haunting echo to take her body wherever she wants without fear of being hurt.
Stumble It!
Usually for me reading for pleasure and self improvement go hand in hand. Just so sad that most kids now are dropping reading because of other distractions (well I guess the Harry Potter boom interested some kids to pick up reading). Reading is such a subtle form of pleasure, parents really need to instill the love for books in their kids at an early age.