Please give me your professional feedback on the HypnoBand Certification. I am considering...

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Marc Carlin on September 4, 2010 at 10:14am

Hi Gail,

While I can't give you any personal feedback on the hypnoband process itself, I can give you some feedback on the concept of that process. And I think it is a fabulous way to use weight loss hypnosis. Hypnoband is a trademarked version developed by John Maclane and from what I have heard from others, they thought it a very good way for helping clients achieve weight loss.
I'm currently involved in studying the process of incorporating a virtual gastric band into my weight loss program and have arranged for a trainer from the UK, one of the developers of the virtual gastric band, to come to the states and teach us how she's able to get very high success with her clients.
I have done a preliminary test of the concept and had some of the best responses from clients to a weight loss hypnosis process. I've been doing weight loss hypnosis for over 12 years. I very recently did an interview with this trainer and also have posted a number of feedback videos of people who volunteered to test out the virtual gastric band. I'm really excited about what kind of results I'm getting.

You can check out the interview and videos here: http://virtualgastricbandtraining.com And let me know what you think.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Roy Hunter on September 4, 2010 at 10:21am

I have concerns about any type of suggestion that dis-empowers the client for a couple of reasons:

1. A person with a strong "rebel" button can easily overcome these suggestions, and the hypnotist may never hear about the client's failure because he/she will go elsewhere. (I've seen many such clients over the years after they failed elsewhere.)

2. There could be possible consequences for the , though rare; and the client might blame you for the consequences.

My preference is to use a more positive approach with several sessions. Although I fit the technique to the client (regression for some, parts therapy for others), my starting point is to have the client list his/her personal benefits for achieving the desired goal. Hypnosis is used to progress the client forward in time in order to vividly imagine already enjoying those benefits. Once the client gets emotionally involved in the benefits, the subconscious is more receptive to positive suggestions to make wise choices about health and eating habits.

Some sample suggestions regarding not overeating are:

"Whenever a snack urge occurs, you can satisfy it with water or a non-caloric beverage of your choice. And when you do sit down to eat, you eat SLOWLY ENOUGH to ENJOY the flavor of each bite. This helps you to tune in to your body, which will let you know when you are physically full. Then you can take your thumb or finger and push the plate away, releasing the excess food and releasing the excess pounds, pound by pound, enabling you to reach and maintain your ideal body weight..." etc.

Note that I teach my clients to ALWAYS leave at least one or more bites of food on the plate in order to be aware of whether they are physically full rather than staying in the "clean plate" club. Also, unless you are a trained nutritional consultant (or a medical professional), avoid giving any advice regarding diet or nutrition.

Roy Hunter, PhD, FAPHP
www.royhunter.com

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg Turner on September 4, 2010 at 12:45pm

Gail,
I do not have any personal experience with the program so I can only comment on the concept. I think it is the most ill-conceived, idiotic, ludicrous idea I have ever heard of. Its like hypnotizing a smoker to believe his hand is tied behind his back so he can't smoke. Absolutely ridiculous. Hypnosis should be used to help the person resolve what is eating him up emotionally on the inside, and help the person become attuned to his natural physiological need for food. It is very dis-empowering. People's emotional inner landscapes are usually twisted and tied up in knots enough as it is. Please don't add to that by helping someone to imagining they have a hypnoband. The whole idea is so antithetical to what hypnosis is all about in my opinion.

Greg Turner, CCHt.
http://www.SFBayHypnosis.com

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Marc Carlin on September 4, 2010 at 2:50pm

I agree with all of your beliefs. Hypnosis should be used in an empowering way. And what more empowering way is there for giving your client back their control, than by letting them get in touch with their instinctual response to what it feels like to feel full and what it feels like to feel hungry.

And since you don't know and haven't experienced doing the process the way it's designed, your incorrect assumptions are just that. Incorrectly thinking that there is no work done to satisfy the emotions of your client.

Check out the video responses of my first group that I helped through the virtual gastric band process and you will notice that each one of them is focusing on how they feel better, are inspired, are feeling happy and one of them even mentions that before starting the process they said they were depressed. Their words, not mine. One of them talks about how she's all excited about going to the stores and checking out all the cute girly clothes, and she has that sparkle in her tone. That's not the way any of them started off on this journey. Check it out here:
http://virtualgastricbandtraining.com/results

There's something that I always tell my clients before I do the ritual of hypnosis and they get to sit in my chair. I tell them that if they think that a suggestion that I gave them is not perfect for them that there are two things wrong with that type of response. One thing is that they are making a decision without having the experience.

Greg, I'm sure you could come up with a better way to take this concept of the virtual gastric band and do it so that it works for your clients just the way you would want it to. I know you've been doing this long enough to have acquired the skills to use it effectively and design it around what it is that you believe your clients will need. So use your imagination more effectively. There is nothing in anything that I have read online that indicates that the hypnosis program does not resolve the clients emotion based responses.

I can't wait to take the training in October and then I'll be even better equipped to help my clients with their weight loss goals.

I've also got one of the results videos uploaded on my hypnothoughts page if you don't want to check out the 10 video results that are posted on the website. They are all talking about their feelings not so much their behaviors.


Marc Carlin


Greg Turner said:

Gail,
I do not have any personal experience with the program so I can only comment on the concept. I think it is the most ill-conceived, idiotic, ludicrous idea I have ever heard of. Its like hypnotizing a smoker to believe his hand is tied behind his back so he can't smoke. Absolutely ridiculous. Hypnosis should be used to help the person resolve what is eating him up emotionally on the inside, and help the person become attuned to his natural physiological need for food. It is very dis-empowering. People's emotional inner landscapes are usually twisted and tied up in knots enough as it is. Please don't add to that by helping someone to imagining they have a hypnoband. The whole idea is so antithetical to what hypnosis is all about in my opinion. Greg Turner, CCHt.
http://www.SFBayHypnosis.com

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by GAIL GUEVARA on September 4, 2010 at 3:25pm

Hello Gentlemen ~

Thank you all for your input so far.

In my practice I am also a Certified Life Coach and Personal Trainer. My intention is to do coaching around the emotional issues before I even begin the hypnosis side to weight loss.

After looking into this HypnoBand website, I believe they do not have any intention to do anything "unethical" other than to give "band" the same theroy of suggestions through hypnosis that the medical procedure actually does do physically.. There's where you really need to deepen the learning for the client who opts for this type of medical procedure.

Personally I am not fond of this medical procedure and have known people who have had it performed, and successfully I might add. I know these folks do have counselling on the procedure before its performed.

I feel the name HypnoBand gives out the wrong message to an organic method of helping others, but if it helps others feel better about themselves and you include the deep learning so far I am okay with this.

...But, I haven't even really investigated the HypnoBand information in depth other then the website.

Comments.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tim Box on September 5, 2010 at 12:52am

Hi Gail.

So here's my take on the whole Hypnotic Gastric band thing. I should probably add that I have no personal experience of any particular method for this, only what I have read online.

Before I started hypnotising people I used to make a pretty good living from my plumbing business. Often I would have a customer ring up and say they need a new set of taps or a new shower etc. When I got there to quote for the work it turned out they had a dripping tap/shower and actually only needed a new washer. Being the nice chap that I am I would explain the job is much simpler than they suspected and will cost them a fraction of what their diagnosis would have. In short, I never let the customer decide what needs to happen to fix their problem. That's why I got all that training. So that I can tell them.

When I started reading about the hypnotic gastric band idea it really seemed a lot like the hypnotist was pandering to the client in a similar and unnecessary way. It's as if we are doing something that seems plausible and effective to the customer's conscious (logical) mind. We deal with the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind doesn't need to be taken through a medical procedure to believe the stomach is smaller and fills up faster. It's the conscious mind that needs a reason. To me the conscious mind is that customer with the dripping tap, telling me how to solve the problem and over-complicating things. The sub-conscious mind can happily accept the suggestion that the stomach is the size of a beach ball, or a tennis ball, or even a raisin. Why complicate such a simple suggestion?

Also, my first thought about the procedure was, what if the client with the new hypnotic gastric band goes out and reads a newspaper story about someone having horrendous complications from their actual gastric band. Could there not be a danger the mind might do them a mischief here?

These are just my thoughts and I really want to add that they are extremely uneducated in the actual hypno gastric band process. I am posting here more to get answers to my own doubts and concerns than to start an argument with the champions of this procedure.

But yeah, fascinating idea, and a fantastically marketable product, which judging by the testimonials seems to work very effectively.

Tim

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by GAIL GUEVARA on September 5, 2010 at 6:02am

Tim,

I love your whole analogy. Great metaphors. My father was a plummer as well. I got it!
Great point about what a client may already have heard/read about gastric bands and formed a negative opinion. Double trouble.

It does not resonate with me about the marketale product if its not aligned with the higher good for the clients.

I would like to know what Michael Ellner or Scott take is on this product.

Smiles

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Maclean on September 5, 2010 at 6:52am

Thank you for your opinion Greg which is so far off the mark it is laughable, The Hypno-Band method which I devised is a combination of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Hypnotherapy. Our practitioners go to great lengths in the early stages to deal with the emotional and psychological reasons why the client over-eats, then and only then do we use the "device" of the virtual gastric band to help the client feel full more quickly and therefore eat less. The method has been extremely successfull with hundreds of clients across the world achieving significant weight loss. You obviously have a complete lack of underrstanding of how the process works. This is not a "one session" quick fix as some people seem to think. Just convincing a client that they have a band fitted is not enough in itself (although some therapists have jumped on the bandwagon in this way) but when combined with other methodologies we can successfully help clients who are in the obese weight range who often have tried every other method. Of course there are other successful weight loss methods out there and just because this is fairly new why should it not be effective? As for being antithetical. Well I can only gasp in amazement. Perhaps a little research before you comment would be advisable.

Greg Turner said:

Gail,
I do not have any personal experience with the program so I can only comment on the concept. I think it is the most ill-conceived, idiotic, ludicrous idea I have ever heard of. Its like hypnotizing a smoker to believe his hand is tied behind his back so he can't smoke. Absolutely ridiculous. Hypnosis should be used to help the person resolve what is eating him up emotionally on the inside, and help the person become attuned to his natural physiological need for food. It is very dis-empowering. People's emotional inner landscapes are usually twisted and tied up in knots enough as it is. Please don't add to that by helping someone to imagining they have a hypnoband. The whole idea is so antithetical to what hypnosis is all about in my opinion. Greg Turner, CCHt. http://www.SFBayHypnosis.com

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kelley Woods on September 5, 2010 at 6:55am

Hi Gail,

I'll add my professional experience with HypnoBand here. I began incorporating John's program into my own weight loss program earlier this year and have, to date, a few dozen clients that are or have gone through it. I think it's important to reiterate (John has made this point on HT before) that the process does address emotional influences of overweight. Although his program recommends a minimum 4-session attendance, I often add additional ones if the client and I agree it's appropriate.

There is no doubt of the efficacy of hypnosis in helping a client lose weight. This is constantly reinforced to me when clients attend our second session showing weight loss and then continue, returning to a third session with more weight loss. The cognitive behavior work, along with hypnotic suggestion, emotional release and addressing stress have already started their magic. This is before the HypnoBand is even installed!

I see the hypnotic gastric band as one more tool to help a person heal. But, its secret power is as a catalyst to get the client into my office. Sure, that's a great marketing device, but I can testify that each and every one of my overweight clients were desperately unhappy, sick and tired of being fat. By finding me, they have a second lease on life; they get to experience joy and hope while in the process of changing their physical selves where previously they believed they couldn't be happy until the weight was gone.

Like most specialty techniques, the HypnoBand isn't for everyone. There have been cases that aren't appropriate for the HB and usually the client is the one to decide that. And, there have been a couple of clients for whom it "didn't take", in which case I reframed and they were both able to achieve weight loss without it. But, so far, the numbers look great, with over 90% of my clients experiencing steady and safe weight reduction. At least one has begun to reverse her diabetes and her doctor has taken her off insulin.

I've been asked to present my HypnoBand experiences at next month's Washington State NGH chapter meeting. A lot of hypnotists are interested in this process and open to learning whether it's something they might want to offer their weight loss clients.

Feel free to email me if you desire more details. I'm happy to share...

Best wishes,

Kelley

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Maclean on September 5, 2010 at 6:57am

@ Gail I would be happy to provide you with more information about the Hypno-Band system and can assure you it is completely ethical in all aspects and has indeed resulted in great success for both clients and practitioners. You can message me for info.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Frances Free on September 5, 2010 at 7:18am

I'm in the UK where there has been a lot of interest both in the papers and on TV. As a result I have had quite a lot of enquiries for the Hypnoband system that John devised (and that I got involved with about a year ago). In "marketing" this, I have worked with clients who might not otherwise have presented for hypnotherapy - interestingly enough a lot of my clients have come from a "medical background" many of them working within the NHS and more inclined towards surgery and drugs than counselling and hypnosis. They have, however, embraced all of the analytical work, CBT work, inner child work, etc. addressing emotional needs and I can say that they have all lost weight and changed not only their attitude to food but their eating habits too before we even got to the gastric band fitting stage. Some have commented that they don't care whether the gastric band is working for them or not because everything else that we did up to that time is, and the gastric band is just re-inforcement of all that came before. I was initially concerned about whether this was a short term fix or a plaster on the wound, particularly as I am a person-centred counsellor at heart but having worked with it now for coming up a year, I have changed my mind completely and am more than happy to be associated with John and his hypnoband. .In fact, I have recommended many of my colleagues take up the system and they are also suitably impressed with the package, the back-up forum and the ethical approach. Thanks John!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Marc Carlin on September 5, 2010 at 7:39am

Those are great points Tim. And yes, in my experience the SCM can create any effects we suggest to it when in somnambulism. So there really should be no point to creating a virtual gastric band. And Sheila reveals a bunch of things about the process during the interview (which you can listen to here: http://virtualgastricbandtraining.com ) one of the things she mentions is that she has gotten the same results with or without the bells and whistles. And yes I am promoting Sheila's seminar in October, because I would like to have a network of hypnotists that I can share data with. We already have the funds necessary to pay for Sheila's trip and that's all she was interested in.

I don't know why the results seem to be better with this method than with others that I have used, and that's so far, because I'm still testing. And that's the point. I want to test this for awhile, and I'd like to have others test this process as well.

And since I don't know why it seems to be more effective, I can only speculate as to why. So here's my speculation after testing and observing the results.

1. The conscious mind can over ride any suggestions given to the subconscious. So getting the conscious mind on board in a big way is important, so the conscious and subconscious can work together on a long term solution, developing healthier habits that lead to weight loss. So "pandering" to the conscious mind in this way can lead to a pay off. We "pander" to the conscious mind in our pre talk when we dispel myths and teach our clients what hypnosis is. We explain things so their conscious will accept and not reject suggestions before they are accepted by the SCM.

2. The whole idea of a "virtual gastric band" stimulates the prospective client's imagination and leads them to seek out someone who will perform this virtual surgery in the hopes that they will lose weight. So before they come to see the specialist, they have self identified as having a vivid imagination. Can you see that as being useful for any client sitting in your chair?

3. If the prospective client were to read about the negatives of the real surgery and was that afraid of the virtual one as well, it's unlikely that they would seek us out in the first place. And if they went the virtual route because the fear of the real surgery was a deterrent, their conscious mind already determined that this was a safe way to approach it. Now what if they read an article about a surgery gone wrong after the fact? There are two things in place to protect your client. There's the protective mind already in place to protect them, and during the process that I used, I continually emphasized the successful and positive nature of the whole procedure from beginning to end. Just as I would for any client coming to see me for a pre and post operative session. Am I totally eliminating the possibility of the client taking things in the wrong way? I don't know. The history of hypnosis never hurting someone, or a hypnotist never being successfully sued for hurting someone is why our insurance is one of the lowest in the professions. If medicine took the approach of doing things that had a 100% success without any possibility of injury whatsoever, we probably wouldn't even have bandaids available in the drugstore. I don't think this process is as dangerous as pulling a band aid off an unhealed wound, meaning I don't think it's dangerous at all.

4. It is often stated that only a certain segment of the population is capable of achieving the kind of trance level that leads to a successful hypnosis session. I don't necessarily believe the numbers that are thrown around, but I do recognize that some of my clients start off with me with better imaginations than others. And I believe that I can train them to have better imaginations over time, but hardly anyone comes to see me to improve their imagination, they want to solve a problem. So what if the bells and whistles and the idea of a virtual gastric band enables those clients with a not-so-developed imagination to be able to use their imagination more effectively, quicker than they'd be able to without the assistance of that metaphor? And what if the results are that more people are helped even faster, even if they weren't able to reach the "gold standard" of somnambulism? Would that be a bad thing?

So that's my take on the process so far. I'm looking forward to more testing, and you can test it out as well. Join us.

Marc



Tim Box said:

Hi Gail.
So here's my take on the whole Hypnotic Gastric band thing. I should probably add that I have no personal experience of any particular method for this, only what I have read online.
Before I started hypnotising people I used to make a pretty good living from my plumbing business. Often I would have a customer ring up and say they need a new set of taps or a new shower etc. When I got there to quote for the work it turned out they had a dripping tap/shower and actually only needed a new washer. Being the nice chap that I am I would explain the job is much simpler than they suspected and will cost them a fraction of what their diagnosis would have. In short, I never let the customer decide what needs to happen to fix their problem. That's why I got all that training. So that I can tell them.

When I started reading about the hypnotic gastric band idea it really seemed a lot like the hypnotist was pandering to the client in a similar and unnecessary way. It's as if we are doing something that seems plausible and effective to the customer's conscious (logical) mind. We deal with the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind doesn't need to be taken through a medical procedure to believe the stomach is smaller and fills up faster. It's the conscious mind that needs a reason. To me the conscious mind is that customer with the dripping tap, telling me how to solve the problem and over-complicating things. The sub-conscious mind can happily accept the suggestion that the stomach is the size of a beach ball, or a tennis ball, or even a raisin. Why complicate such a simple suggestion?

Also, my first thought about the procedure was, what if the client with the new hypnotic gastric band goes out and reads a newspaper story about someone having horrendous complications from their actual gastric band. Could there not be a danger the mind might do them a mischief here?

These are just my thoughts and I really want to add that they are extremely uneducated in the actual hypno gastric band process. I am posting here more to get answers to my own doubts and concerns than to start an argument with the champions of this procedure.

But yeah, fascinating idea, and a fantastically marketable product, which judging by the testimonials seems to work very effectively.

Tim

• ▶ Reply

▶ Reply to Discussion

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page