Dispatch Article - Hypnotherapy by JT

By Lindsay Hocker

lhocker@qconline.com

JT Harms credits hypnotherapy with changing his life by healing an ulcer, which is why he became a hypnotherapist 15 years ago.

“One session with hypnosis, and the ton of weight I’d put on my shoulders was removed. I knew at that moment I had to do hypnosis," Mr.

Harms said.

Mr. Harms said a psychiatrist believed the ulcer he struggled with for three years was about a divorce. After one session with a hypnotherapist, he said the ulcer almost immediately started healing.

At Hypnotherapy by JT in Davenport, Mr. Harms offers hypnotherapy sessions for avariety of things, including weight loss, smoking cessation, study habits and anxiety.

Mr. Harms said people are often surprised about how hypnosis works. Mr. Harms simply speaks to clients while they listen to soft music through headphones.

“However a hypnotherapist relaxes a person is their own technique, but they relax the conscious mind into letting go" of fears and other things holding them back, he said.

During a session, Mr. Harms discusses the issue the client hopes to change and then works through it with them. He said it’s about getting to the “root cause of smoking, biting your fingernails, whatever.”

Mr. Harms said, during hypnosis, clients are taken to the instance when the problem began, which allows them to begin correcting the issue. “We do no diagnosing. You know what's wrong," Mr. Harms said. "The client Knows. We just get rid of that pesky conscious mind." While local hypnotherapists said they have good satisfaction rates and told stories of hypnosis success. not everyone views it as a cure all.

Dr. Phillip Kent, medical director for Genesis Psychology Associates, said research he’s seen shows there’s “very little lasting effect” when it comes to hypnosis treatment for issues such as weight loss and smoking cessation.

He believes hypnosis can be good for relaxation and stress management. He also said it can be used in psychotherapy, but added he thought there is a strong placebo effect.

Mr. Harms is certain that hypnosis makes a difference, however. His motto is “your key to success is unlocked through hypnosis.”

Sylvia Runkle, a hypnotherapist at Positive Changes in Bettendorf‘, said the business offers “straight hypnosis" instead of hypnotherapy, so the hypnotherapist doesn’t ask questions once the session starts.

“We don't have to get them as involved," Ms. Runkle said.

Positive Changes offers hypnosis for things such as weight loss, smoking cessation, sales and Sports mastery and pain management. Its “Mind Over Cancer" program is designed to help people through the process of fighting the disease.

“I have always been fascinated by how the mind works,” said Ms. Runkle. “'That’s been a passion of mine since I was a child."

Helping someone solve a problem is about creating new behavior patterns, she said, which takes multiple sessions.

Ms. Runkle sees what she does as relaxing a person and distracting their conscious mind. Once that mind is distracted, she said, people are suggestible. “The unconscious mind is going to accept suggestions uncritically,” she said, adding that it's unlike the conscious mind, which says “Yes, but to 'suggestions.

Hypnotherapist Mark Carleton, of Milan, offers in-home hypnotherapy.

“With hypnosis, all you need is a voice and an ear, a willing ear; I should say" he said.

Like Mr. Harms, Mr. Carleton got his start in the business after he was hypnotized successfully several years ago. Before that. he said he was a skeptic. But, after running out of options for losing weight, he decided to try hypnotherapy.

***** ‘We do no diagnosing. You know what's wrong. We just get rid of that pesky conscious mind.’

JT Harms, Davenport hypnotherapist *****************

“I lost 30 pounds in 6 months, and I didn't even realize it was happening,“ he said.

Mr Harms said people have a lot of misconceptions about hypnotherapists: “that we're going to steal their soul, that we're going to have them do something that's against their core beliefs."

During hypnotherapy, he said people are aware of what‘s going on, so they don’t have to worry about doing something they don't want.

Mr. Carleton’s message to those worried about clucking like a chicken or acting strangely after hearing a bell is simple: “If that were to hap-

pen, that wouldn’t be in my office," he said. “That would be at a comedy club somewhere."