In a nation where two-thirds of the population is overweight or obese, hypnotherapists say they're seeing more patients desperate for a way to control their eating.
"The country is getting fatter and fatter, so different weight-loss methods are getting more attention," says Jean Fain, a psychologist who uses hypnosis at Harvard Medical School's Cambridge Hospital.
In the past five years, Fain says, the number of patients she treats for weight loss has doubled. For many of those patients, hypnosis is a last resort, according to The Associated Press.
Generally, the hypnotic state is defined as a state of focused concentration - a condition akin to being so absorbed in a good book that the outside world seems to fade away, says Guy Montgomery, president of the Society of Psychological Hypnosis, a division of American Psychological Association.
It's during this state that patients become more open to suggestion.
For a stress eater, Montgomery might tell patients to picture themselves in a relaxing place whenever they feel the impulse to overeat.
Whether hypnosis will bring results varies from person to person as in any other treatment, Montgomery says. "We don't view (hypnosis) as a stand-alone therapy, but as an additional technique," he says.
Kevin Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale, says it's probably the range of therapies that aids weight loss, not the hypnosis alone.
