I’m a hypnotherapist and psychoanalyst in private practice here at the Surrey Hypnotherapy clinic, in the Woking and Guildford area of Surrey, UK.

School days are fantastic aren’t they ?

“School days are the best days of your life !”

That’s what many adults will say about school days !

Maybe it’s true – and that’s great, for them, if it is true.

But life for a young person, growing up, can be very, very, stressful at times – and that stress can lead to anxiety.

For example, the young person, growing up, might have to deal at times with all sorts of pressures and stress:

• Reports of school shootings in the U.S.
• Pressure from parents, teachers, and themselves, to achieve good examination grades.
• Being teased, bullied and picked on by other students (and teachers, and siblings).
• Feeling that everyone else is better, and more gifted.
• Anxiety caused by Covid, and the pandemic, and having to wear face masks and self isolate.
• Insecurity, self-doubt and fears about being ‘left behind’ their peers with regard to their personal growth and physical development.
• Coping with new, growing, feelings of attraction to the opposite sex.
• Dealing with death and the loss of, say, a grandparent or friend.
• Dealing with, and learning to cope with, new, and unexpected, attention from the opposite sex.
• Working part-time, taking time away from studies and socialising.
• Uncertainity over the possible separation or divorce of their parents or carers.
• Having insufficient money to keep up with peers and the latest fashion trends.
• Not being selected for a school sports team.
• Coping with chronic illnesses and health conditions, for both themselves and their family. e.g. maybe having to have a caring role for their parents.
• Pressure to choose a future career or profession and qualify for that career or profession.

The above list is a long list. It is indicative only. Not every child, teenager, or young person will be troubled by all of the above, or  even any of the above – instead they might be bothered by other things that haven’t been identified on the above list.

But all of the above pressures and stresses on a youung person can at times, be a source of worry, and a cause of anxiety for that young person, and that anxiety can potentially give rise to a wide range of symptoms, such as, for example:

• Social withdrawal
• Low mood and depression
• Tearfulness when under stress or pressure
• Eating disorders
• Episodes of anger/rage
• Sudden, unexplained, changes in mood
• Difficulty concentrating
• Shyness
• Smoking, drinking, and drug use

And those symptoms can, in turn, lead to general unhappiness, misbehaviour, underperformance and under achievement in the young person’s education and examination results.

For many young people the stresses and pressure might lead to a moment of temporary upset, and then it all 'blows over', they deal with, and recover from, the situation, and move on with their lives.

But, sometimes, later, as an adult, they can start to experience anxiety as a result of long forgotten childhood experiences.

The ideal therapy to deal with the problem, as an adult, is Hypnosis Counselling Therapy Treatment.

However, whilst this therapy works well for adults it tends to work less well for children and young teenagers, because there is a certain amount of psychological maturity required which young people, through no fault of their own, simply don't possess. Fortunately, because the children are so much younger, the cause of the problem is less 'entrenched' and so it is a lot easier to provide meaningful help to a child, and a different methodology to that required for an adult can be used.

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