Mention hypnosis and people think of sleazy stage shows, of fob watches swinging, and of old movie villains who tell their victims they are “feeeling sleeepy”. But a former teacher who has used the technique to counsel anxious children at a north London comprehensive believes it is the key to reducing stress in schools.

Val Walters was head of art at Rush Croft school in Waltham Forest when she began studying psychology. “I’ve always tried to make sense of people,” she says. “It sounds a cliche, but every teacher has to be a psychologist.” For Ms Walters, though, psychology was to become the day job. With her course complete and the necessary qualifications under her belt, she gave up teaching and became the school’s counselling psychologist. It was, she quickly discovered, a full-time job.

Children were coming to her with every kind of problem, from exam anxiety, to a fear of bullying, to full-blown post-traumatic stress syndrome, and when she organised group relaxation sessions (“School can be a very anxious time for children,” she says) the demand was overwhelming.

Meanwhile, Ms Walters was studying for a masters degree in applied hypnosis, and the more she learned about the technique the more she realised it could be a powerful adjunct to her counselling work at Rush Croft. “The head was very receptive to anything that could be done for the children,” she says. “She asked me to hypnotise her so she could see what it was like, and found that it wasn’t strange but a nice, pleasant feeling.”

And so, with the head’s backing and parental approval in every case (she frequently hypnotised children and parents together, “so that it would be a shared experience”), Ms Walters began using hypnosis.

She compares hypnosis with the sort of trance a person might be in if they are engrossed in a book and cannot hear their name being called. “When you induce hypnosis, you are asking people to focus their attention inwardly and become less bothered by what’s going on around them. It happens with sports people, particularly lone runners or swimmers. Time seems to go quickly, and it is generally accepted that trance increases our receptivity to helpful suggestions.”

It is the helpfulness of the suggestions, and the extent to which they come from within, that holds the key to success, says Ms Walters. “Those suggestions can only be taken on if they are acceptable to the person, so you do a lot of work beforehand to help them find ways forward. Then you take it further in hypnosis. But you know by then what sort of changes that person is likely to be able to make.”

In the case of a child who has been mugged for a mobile phone, for instance, she might use hypnosis to take the victim back to the incident and see it in a different light. And because hypnotic trance enables somebody to experience a suggested situation in a way that seems utterly real, it can help students to overcome anxiety, to see themselves confronting frightening situations, or coping without harmful props such as cigarettes or drink.

By imagining themselves travelling forward in time, children who regularly stay up too late and consequently attend school feeling jet-lagged, can “see” a better, healthier lifestyle. And, by regressing into their past, children with an irrational fear of attending school, say, might identify the source of that fear and come to terms with it.

Ms Walters now works at University College London, where she is programme co-ordinator for the masters and diploma courses in applied hypnosis. She also teaches self-hypnosis to undergraduates as part of a stress management programme. Many of the students she sees are medics whose clinical exams are particular stressful. “They say that self-hypnosis helps them to focus on the task in hand, to be calm and in control.”

But she fears that the mystique surrounding hypnosis prevents its wider use, particularly in schools. “Unfortunately, as soon as you mention the word ‘hypnosis’ in education, people think it’s bizarre. We are still living with misconceptions that have been around for hundreds of years, and things like stage hypnosis are damaging what is actually a very useful tool and a very natural way of helping people.”

That’s a view borne out by David Byron, senior educational psychologist with Hampshire County Council. Until he began using hypnosis, he felt powerless to help many of the children who came to him suffering from debilitating levels of anxiety. But with the help of a grant from the standards fund, he now sets aside one day a week to treat severe cases. “I have been shocked to see how many children might previously have been passed by who needed this support,” he says. “In the most extreme cases, the emotional stresses on the child’s home are horrendous.” With hypnosis, he says, “you are showing someone how to do something rather than doing things to someone. It’s very empowering for children, and once you give them the techniques, they can continue to use them for the rest of their lives.”

Anyone interested in hypnosis training should contact Pam la Rose (secretary), Hypnosis unit, Psychology department (Torrington Place), UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT. Tel: 020 7679 1714 or email: p.rose@ucl.ac.ukUCL is the only university in the UK to offer qualifications in applied hypnosis, and it runs a variety of short courses, workshops and diplomas as well as an MSc programme