You Are Getting Skinny, Skinny

The Trance Diet?

WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Gary D. Vogin, MD

Since the 1950s, a number of psychiatrists, medical doctors, and psychologists have turned to hypnosis as a complementary treatment for ailments from cancer pain to severe phobias. Some hypnotize patients themselves; others refer patients to outside hypnotists. According to the nonprofit Center for the Advancement of Health in Washington, evidence is abundant that hypnotism works to relieve pain and anxiety. But can a heavy person be hypnotized into being skinny?

Some advertisements make pretty hefty claims to help you lose weight fast and effortlessly -- weight that you will keep off "for a lifetime." David Patterson, who's spent many years researching hypnotism with grants from the National Institutes of Health, warns that these programs often don't live up to their claims. Hypnosis cannot be effective as a sole treatment, Patterson says, but rather in combination with a comprehensive weight loss program that teaches proper eating habits and exercise. In this context, he says hypnosis can be "extremely effective."

"Losing weight and keeping it off almost always involves changes in lifestyle," says Patterson, a professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle. "The person who claims that he can hypnotize you to lose weight, with hypnosis as a treatment in itself, is usually a quack."

Hypnosis can be costly, too, averaging more than $1,000 for a program, or from $60 to $80 per hour. And most insurance companies won't cover the treatment unless it's performed by a doctor or another licensed healthcare professional.

Though practitioners claim that losing weight through hypnotism is easy, it's not effortless. A patient has to want to change, and once he or she has made that decision, has to do the exercise and eat the right foods. The role of the hypnotist is to urge the patient to adopt healthful behavior, through the power of suggestion -- the implantation of an idea into a patient's subconscious mind, in hope that it will affect waking behavior after the session. A suggestion may be an exercise scenario, in which the patient, under trance, is asked to visualize himself or herself exercising and feeling good about it.

A suggestion may also be for the purpose of aversion. An overeater with an appetite for doughnuts, for example, might be asked by the hypnotist to visualize the harm that doughnuts do to the body, making them seem unappetizing, and even erasing them from existence for the patient.

"We take [a patient's] negative habits and change them through hypnosis," says Cheryl Beshada, a certified hypnotherapist.

Joy Price, a retired elementary-school teacher, tried hypnosis twice without losing a pound. First, Price tried weekly one-on-one sessions. After a couple of months, she knew it wasn't working and decided to try group-hypnosis therapy. This time around, she lost about 5 pounds only to gain it right back. After giving up hypnosis altogether, Price lost 40 pounds on a more traditional weight loss plan.

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