We hear a lot today about “Zero Tolerance”. Frankly some of it makes no sense. A six year old boy either comes to school with a 1 ¼ inch plastic toy gun on a key chain or draws a picture of a gun and he is expelled from school. That doesn’t slightly approach common sense. But zero tolerance for harmful foods in weight loss makes a lot of sense.

Most diets last less than seventy two hours. Much less. Conventional diets continue to allow the dieter to eat foods that not only are responsible for the weight the individual gained in the first place, but actually trigger the dieter to want to eat and eat and eat – not only those foods, but other foods as well.

If one chooses to read the book Wheat Belly written by cardiologist William Davis, MD or Grain Brain written by neurologist David Perlmutter, MD, one can understand why some foods are not only harmful, but access the same neuro receptors that hard drugs do, making them want to eat more. I often make probably an overgeneralization to those that I treat for weight loss and that is, if it comes out of a bag, box or vending machine – its delays and impedes not only losing weight, but keeping it off permanently.zorb ball

So what’s the answer? The answer is don’t eat what made you heavy in the first place which was generally processed carbohydrates. They impede weight loss and one will gain back any unwanted weight. Make your credo to being slim and healthy, zero tolerance to processed carbohydrates.

I know when someone that I’m working with just doesn’t get it when they say “I just can’t wait to get down to ____weight, because then I can eat a ______. Why repeat behavior that made one heavy in the first place?

It’s a counterproductive cycle that must and can be stopped. Individuals that I work with notice that after discontinuing processed carbohydrates for generally four days – their appetite not only drops, but their desire for these foods disappears. But… if one does not have a Zero Tolerance for eliminating them from one’s diet, their desire for them will immediately return.

The bad news is that it’s next to impossible to achieve zero tolerance with the will power and discipline of the conscious mind. Zero tolerance using will power and discipline alone lasts most often under an hour. The good news is that obtaining zero tolerance with hypnosis makes it a no brainer! Why? Zero tolerance is readily achievable in the subconscious mind because hypnosis is the bridge to the subconscious. Hypnosis will enable one to go through the process of losing weight and keeping it off with zero tolerance.

My name is Bob Crow. I’m a behavioral therapist board certified in both clinical and medical hypnosis. If you would like to enlist your subconscious mind, that’s the part of your mind that’s 90% stronger than the conscious mind that you’ve been using to try to lose weight with, call me at 404.277.1827 for a no cost consultation. You can then determine if you want to lose weight the proven way with hypnosis as shown on Dr. Oz.

We hear a lot today about “Zero Tolerance”. Frankly some of it makes no sense. A six year old boy either comes to school with a 1 ¼ plastic toy gun on a key chain or draws a picture of a gun and he is expelled from school. That doesn’t slightly approach common sense. But zero tolerance for harmful foods in weight loss makes a lot of sense.

Most diets last less than seventy two hours. Much less. Conventional diets continue to allow the dieter to eat foods that not only are responsible for the weight the individual gained in the first place, but actually trigger the dieter to want to eat and eat and eat – not only those foods, but other foods as well.

If one chooses to read the book Wheat Belly written by cardiologist William Davis, MD or Grain Brain written by neurologist David Perlmutter, MD, one can understand why some foods are not only harmful, but access the same neuro receptors that hard drugs do, making them want to eat more. I often make probably an overgeneralization to those that I treat for weight loss and that is, if it comes out of a bag, box or vending machine – its delays and impedes not only losing weight, but keeping it off permanently.

So what’s the answer? The answer is don’t eat what made you heavy in the first place which was generally processed carbohydrates. They impede weight loss and one will gain back any unwanted weight. Make your credo to being slim and healthy, zero tolerance to processed carbohydrates.

I know when someone that I’m working with just doesn’t get it when they say “I just can’t wait to get down to ____weight, because then I can eat a ______. Why repeat behavior that made one heavy in the first place?

It’s a counterproductive cycle that must and can be stopped. Individuals that I work with notice that after discontinuing processed carbohydrates for generally four days – their appetite not only drops, but their desire for these foods disappears. But… if one does not have a Zero Tolerance for eliminating them from one’s diet, their desire for them will immediately return.

The bad news is that it’s next to impossible to achieve zero tolerance with the will power and discipline of the conscious mind. Zero tolerance using will power and discipline alone lasts most often under an hour. The good news is that obtaining zero tolerance with hypnosis makes it a no brainner! Why? Zero tolerance is readily achievable in the subconscious mind because hypnosis is the bridge to the subconscious. Hypnosis will enable one to go through the process of losing weight and keeping it off with zero tolerance.

My name is Bob Crow. I’m a behavioral therapist board certified in both clinical and medical hypnosis. If you would like to enlist your subconscious mind, that’s the part of your mind that’s 90% stronger than the conscious mind that you’ve been using to try to lose weight with, call me at 404.277.1827 for a no cost consultation. You can then determine if you want to lose weight the proven way with hypnosis as shown on Dr. Oz.

No matter how long it takes or how far one has to travel, if one doesn’t go the distance… the whole way… if one quits too soon, it just doesn’t matter. To win in life, one must go the distance, falling short is never acceptable.

My name is Bob Crow and I’m a behavioral therapist board certified in both clinical and medical hypnosis. As I’ve traveled North America, it’s the stories of the struggles of people overcoming obstacles that inspire me – not those that had the good life handed to them. One of the speeches that I give that’s been requested over and over again is one called Going The Distance. I’ve delivered it hundreds of times in over a quarter of a century of speaking to all kinds of organizations from civic to corporate to medical. Let me tell you about a man that inspired part of that speech. A man that despite getting off to a difficult start went the distance.

The future looked bright and promising to the college bound high school senior. But getting a girl a pregnant in the summer before he was to enter college altered his life path significantly. He went from student government to fueling trucks at a truck stop. He went from activities with his friends to stocking shelves at a grocery store. He went from mowing the grass at his parent’s home to emptying bed pans in a hospital, He and his pregnant wife lived with his parent’s while he worked one job full time and two part time jobs while going to college fulltime. His work load was so great that at the end of his first semester, he went from honor roll to academic probation.

Eventually he was able to move his family out his parent’s home and into government housing. A chance meeting with a famous individual opened some doors, but competition was tough, and he had to prove himself and his abilities. He had to acquire skills and do things that he had never done before. It was a lot of hard work, but he chose opportunity rather than security. Everything that he tried didn’t work. But he kept at it and made things happen. Many individuals though, have opportunities open to them that they never seize.

His goal in life was to make enough money so that money would never again be a consideration! It was never a matter of buying toys and keeping up with the Jones, but to be able to provide a comfortable, rewarding and an exciting life for himself and his loved ones. As his income grew, he and his family were able to move out of the apartment and into their first home.  With a greatly enlarged income he was able to get rid of the junk car and buy a new Ford. He criss-crossed the country by air and by car in those early years, and he would routinely drive a 100,000 miles a year. As his income increased, they were able to drive the cars of their choice, were able to live in larger and more comfortable homes, and were able to provide educations for their children and to travel to some exotic locations. He didn’t view his achievements as extraordinary, he just did what he needed to do. To keep on keeping on! To go the distance.

It wasn’t easy. There was a debilitating sporting accident. There were businesses setbacks with a resulting bankruptcy. One can’t acquire the knowledge and learn the needed lessons, if things always work out as desired on the first attempt. And then at the age of fifty one, he began to further educate himself and earned advanced degrees in a new field.

Today he’s considered to be an expert in that field. He’s a sought after public speaker in demand to address corporations, civic groups and sports organization throughout country. So you might ask, was the price too high? The price of success in the long run is less than the price of failure. It’s always been and will continue to be that way It’s always too early to quit.

Are you on the verge of quitting? Of throwing in the towel? Why not call Bob Crow at 404.277.1827 for a no cost consultation and examine ways to kick start your career? To move into the next chapter of your life? To reinvent yourself? The story above is just one of thousands that happen every day in this great country.

What if… at any step of the way he would have quit? What if you quit?

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My name is Bob Crow. I’m a behavioral therapist that is board certified in both clinical and medical hypnotherapy. I work with individuals for a wide variety of presenting issues including alcoholism.

My 9:00 appointment that Monday morning was a woman that immediately after sitting down said “I don’t want you to think that I’m a drunk or an alcoholic or anything like that but I might have a little drinking problem.” Next, I had a weight loss patient that had lost sixty one and a half pounds so far, but my 11:00 was like my 9:00. She started with “I’m not an alcoholic, but I feel that I might drink a little too much.” After my 1:00 marriage counseling patient, another individual sat down and she said “I’m not an alcoholic, but I can’t seem to stop drinking and I’m thinking that I might have a little drinking problem.”

Do you see a trend here? These people did not want to admit to being an alcoholic, probably because they thought that I might think less of them. I won’t. Part of the reason is, that almost all of the individuals that come in for a drinking issue, believe that an alcoholic is someone that is a falling down drunk or can’t hold down a job. Not true. Most alcoholics are functional alcoholics and perform reasonably well on their job every day! An alcoholic is an individual that pure and simple, can’t stop drinking! That in and of itself does not make them a bad person, but if they do have a bad problem, that problem needs to be dealt with.

Of the three women that presented that morning, all drank at least a bottle of wine every night, some more. Drinking to excess is a symptom that something is going on in their life that’s making them feel badly. They all insisted that they weren’t alcoholics. Many confided that they don’t play tennis with their friends, without a significant amount of alcohol in them.

Remember the first time that you had a drink? You didn’t even like the taste. You had to acquire it! You found that if you drank, maybe life felt a little better. You also found that when life wasn’t going the way you desired, alcohol might have made it seem bearable. You don’t need that… trust me!

I’m often asked “how do you know when you’re drinking too much?” My reply is “if you are drinking in order to change the way you feel, you’re drinking too much…”

My wife and I occasionally will have a five ounce glass of wine with a meal. We use it almost as a seasoning to bring out the flavor of the entrée. We take about 45 minutes to consume it. We will not finish the last quarter inch in the glass, and may not have another glass for a month or more.

If you suspect that you’re drinking too much, even though you have periods when you are able stop for a period of time, but then start up again, or you binge drink, why not give me a call and schedule a complimentary consultation. If it’s something that you would like to overcome, we can do that together. Call me!

Regardless of the stage hypnosis shows that you’ve attended or seen on TV, hypnosis is not something that someone does to someone. Hypnosis is a dissociative state that one freely enters. One can’t be hypnotized against one’s will, nor can one be hypnotized into doing something that one does not want to do. Period. No exceptions.

I work with teenagers that have an interest in excelling in sports including tennis. They are able to ratchet up their game through their hypnotherapy sessions with me. But several times I’ve had fathers or mothers ask me “can you hypnotize him or her into cleaning up their room?” I answer ‘no.” They ask “why not?” I reply, “It’s for the simple reason that if the child doesn’t want to clean up their room, they can’t be hypnotized into doing it”.

When an individual comes in to my practice and asks me if I can help them to lose weight or quit smoking, I always ask them “do you want to quit smoking, or do you want to lose weight,” whichever the case may be. If they indicate that their spouse wants them to lose weight or to stop smoking, I reply “whether they want you to lose or stop smoking is not relevant.” “Do you?” If they themselves don’t want to make behavioral change, it won’t work. One cannot be hypnotized to do something that is against their will.

What is the simplest explanation of hypnosis? Hypnosis is controlled daydreaming. If you are reading this article, you’re reading it in your conscious or critical mind. It is called the Beta state. It’s where we execute math and verbal skills and linear thinking. Your subconscious mind is made up in descending order of Alpha – the lightest level of the subconscious, Theta – a much deeper level of the subconscious and Delta which is deep sleepWater Obstacle.

We analyze in Beta, but solve problems in Alpha and Theta – the subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind is where we find our moods, our habits, our personality, our cognitive maps (kind of like an auto pilot) and our only two problems solvers – our imagination and out creativity.

Our subconscious mind is the only place where we can make permanent behavioral change – like stopping smoking and losing weight or lose our fear of public speaking or meeting people. Hypnosis is the only way that one can access their subconscious mind on deliberately. That is why hypnosis is called the bridge to the subconscious mind.

Is there an area in your life in which you would like have an improvement and you would like to make behavioral change? If so please contact me for a complimentary consultation.

Every year at this time people begin to ponder the parts of their life they wish to change.  Usually by January 1^st they have come up with a list of those changes.  They commit to change on New Year’s Eve after a few glasses of champagne.  For some that’s it.  They might not even remember them the next day, but most will bring them forward to the first week of the New Year.   They may even write them down.  These are their resolutions for the next year. Now here is the problem.  Goals, at least ones that will make a difference in your life, are hard.  People go back to work, credit card bills from the holidays and family issues and all their good intentions fly out the window.  If you have a life, then one worthwhile goal at a time is probably all you can handle.  However, most resolutions are not in the form of well written goals.  They are usually short, general and lacking any real detail.  In order to make a change and have that change become reality you must have a clear vision. Begin by choosing one goal.  Since you are going to focus on just one it should be important to you, the kind of goal that can change your life.  For example let’s say you want to lose 50 pounds. To write out this goal it is important to know more than just a number dong fang qi mo.  I like to use SMART goals as a template. Specific: I want to lose 50 pounds. Measurable: I want to lose 50 pounds in 1 year at a rate of approximately 4 lbs. per month. Achievable:  The goal is an achievable and accepted weight loss goal and should not be difficult.  I will keep track of current calories consumed and cut 500 calories per day from my current diet and that will equal one pound of weight loss per week.  At that rate I should lose approximately 50 pounds in 1 year. Realistic:  I will adjust calories if I plateau so that the weight loss continues at 1 pound per week rate. This goal becomes even more realistic by developing a daily exercise habit.  I will be realistic and start with 20 minutes of walking 6 days per week.   I will add to this as my fitness level increases.  I will also check into a gym or home equipment so that the weather and boredom does not become an obstacle. Timed: 1 year is the time allotted to this goal.  Because this goal is SMART, all I need to do is stick to the plan. When you read back over this goal now, you can see that it fits all the SMART criteria and makes sense in a way that the original resolution did not.  When you use a structure to write your goals they become a viable goal with a plan implicit and that will make all the difference.

My name is Bob Crow. I’m a behavioral therapist. I am board certified in both clinical and medical hypnosis. I practice in Atlanta, Georgia at the Atlanta Center for Behavioral Change.

I would like to address this to the Secret Smokers. Those individuals that don’t want others to think less of them because they smoke. Well… it doesn’t really matter what others think, but it does matter what you are doing to either shorten your life or make your life less enjoyable to live, or both!

Many say that smoking relaxes them. It doesn’t! Period! They may think and believe that it does, but it doesn’t. It’s easy to prove that it doesn’t. When we monitor an individual’s blood pressure and pulse when they are smoking, the blood pressure and pulse both show an alarming increase. No one is relaxed when their blood pressure is up. High blood pressure can cause one to stroke. Plus… when anyone smokes – they become both a blood clotting machine and the smoking constricts the blood vessels in their brain by 40%. That’s 40%! May I have a show of hands of those that wouldn’t mind it if they had a stroke? Right!

In addition to running the very real risk of having a stroke, a smoker is asking to have severe eye problems like glaucoma and macular degeneration. Do you really want to watch television in your advancing years by sitting sideways in front of the TV and only a foot from it in order to make out anything at all on the screen?

Maybe individuals that come to see me come for another reason – they suffer from panic attacks. Did you realize that if you smoke and contract emphysema you run the very real risk of having big time panic attacks? You see as emphysema advances, the patient struggles mightily for each and every breath, and they never really get a good full breath. And as soon as they get that partial breath, they have to begin the struggle all over again to get another partial one. Would you really like to be a burden on your grandkids by having them have to push you through the mall in a wheel chair while you are sucking on a little green bottle of oxygen? And hoping you don’t run out?

Did I mention that not only does smoking put you at risk for lung cancer, but colon cancer, bladder cancer, breast cancer, testicular cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer and any place that your blood flows?

When you smoke, the carcinogenic agents and poisons in the smoke flow to your heart and attack the heart muscles – weakening them. Your heart doesn’t like that.

Let me tell you what the experience will be like if you come and allow me to enable you to become a non smoker.

• You won’t want to smoke anymore! In fact… most individuals have zero desire to smoke after the very first session. You will need to come to the next two sessions and listen to the CDs of those sessions for reinforcement.
• You will not be climbing the walls.
• You will not be anxious.
• You will not crave cigarettes or smokeless tobacco products.
• You will wonder why you every smoked in the first place!

I guess it’s decided then. You don’t want to die from smoking. You don’t want the enjoyment of life to be diminished, and you do want to become a non smoker.

Call Bob Crow at 404.277.1827 and make your appointment to become a non smoker!

Many that want to lose their excess weight, think that they can lose it without making behavioral change. Wrong! Since their old behavior allowed them to become heavy, they must make permanent behavioral change or they’ll continue to regain and to be overweight. An overweight person’s behavior allows them to gain three to seven pounds a year, year after year until they are seriously heavy. The behavior that allowed them to become overweight must be changed, if they desire permanent weight loss! Conventional weight loss diets only allow one to lose weight temporarily.

I’m Bob Crow. I’m a behavioral therapist that utilizes hypnosis in my weight loss practice in Atlanta, Georgia. The crux of my program is true behavioral change. Anything else is just another conventional weight loss diet. Doomed to fail. Some cost more than others because they market better, but the theme is the same – you can lose weight effortlessly with this pill or with that diet.

Many are more interested in how easy or effortlessly the program promises to be rather than doing what it takes to lose and stay thin and healthy. One weight loss “system” touts that you can continue to eat “pasta, pizza and pot roast” – and then they show a woman with a very flat stomach that obviously does not eat “pasta, pizza and pot roast”. In the Atlanta market we continually hear radio or TV personalities touting a weight loss program that they are using. Only they are needing to go back on the program again and again because they gained their weight back on a vacation or a trip to Hawaii or through the holidays.  They’re promoting the same program that they used last year, the year before and the year before that. Obviously those programs aren’t about “permanent” weight loss.

And to those individuals whose primary motivation is only event driven weight loss – like to be able to fit into a wedding dress, a formal gown or a sport coat, and then as soon as the event is over, to return to their old eating habits again – I can only say to them “don’t settle for that, you can lose that excess weight and keep it off”. Otherwise they will yo yo throughout their life going from what promises to be one quick fix weight loss fix after another. Like “only eat such and such foods together”. Or “try the Akron or Peoria” diets. (joke). Or “don’t eat foods that begin with the letter ___ on Mondays and Thursday.” Or this pill will burn off fat… effortlessly while you sleep.

We utilize hypnosis in a number of ways to enable an individual to make permanent behavioral change in our weight loss program. If through hypnosis you no longer want to eat certain foods. There’s no downside is there?

Our program is like nothing you’ve ever done before. If you’ve given up. If you want to lose weight, not be hungry, not crave certain food and keep the  weight off permanently –  and not just look okay for the high school reunion, I invite you to call Bob Crow at 404.277.1827 for a complimentary consultation.

Worry is often debilitating. Worry is always about the future. Worry can cause our physical body to react in a negative manner with gastro-intestinal problems, headaches, skin problems and worse. Worry can rob one of sleep. Of peace-of-mind. Of a sense of well being. Worry can cause one to be distracted and unable to concentrate. Worry can cause one to stress – and no one performs at the top of their game when they are stressed. Worry takes the joy out of life.

In an attempt to stop worrying and comfort themselves, many use other distractions. Some use drugs. But in addition to hard drugs and antidepressants, there are many other drugs. We call them drugs of choice. Overeating. Alcohol. Spending money. Sexual addiction. A drug of choice is anything that will distract one from worrying. None of them work long term.

So why worry? How many times have others or you told yourself – “just stop worrying”. Right. Easier said than done. Saying to yourself “stop worrying” is a command to your conscious mind. You’ve tried to stop with the will power and discipline of the conscious mind, many times. It didn’t work. Since worry emanates from the sub conscious mind – that is where one must deal with it.

Our subconscious mind is where we find our personality. Our personality is how we see ourselves relating with others. Our habits, our moods, our memory banks and our emotions reside there. Our subconscious mind daydreams. And when that daydream contains doubt and fear… we worry. To overcome worry, we must access the subconscious mind.

How is one to access the subconscious mind deliberately? How do we get there on purpose? There are many ways that we access the subconscious mind without trying. If we drive past our exit on the interstate, we did it in our subconscious mind. If we get lost in a fiction book, we’ve accessed the Alpha mind – that’s the first level of the subconscious mind. The next level of the subconscious mind is the Theta state. The only way to access the subconscious mind on purpose – is with hypnosis. Hypnosis is the bridge to the subconscious mind.

My name is Bob Crow. I’m a behavioral therapist. I use hypnosis in my practice in Atlanta, Georgia to enable people to deal with problems that have their root cause in their subconscious mind. If you want to defeat and move past worry, I invite you to call me at 404.277.1827.

We’ve all had the experience of being frustrated by a store clerk, a government employee or you name it, at that individual hiding behind the phrase “I’m sorry, but that’s our policy”. Is the individual lazy, are they afraid to use their brain or just plain frightened to use common sense?

There are times when I’m absolutely “blown away” by the rigidity, inflexibility and the fixation to “policy” by some people. Policy is only a guide. It’s not something written in stone that must always be followed! There are times to use good judgment!

My names’ Bob Crow. I’m a behavioral therapist board certified in clinical and medical hypnosis. My practice is in Atlanta Georgia at the Atlanta Center for Behavioral Change.

Case in point. My brother-in-law is on temporary assignment in Arizona. He wanted my wife and I to get the ball rolling for him to buy a house in metro Atlanta. I called an agent my wife knew. My wife had seen a family member of this agent for sales performance, and that family member had also attended our The 10% Edge Seminar. We knew that the husband was in real estate sales, so I called him and gave him a good lead, my brother-in-law! I explained that my brother-in-law had asked us to do some of the leg work before he made a trip back to Atlanta. The agent called my brother-in-law and got the price range and other parameters on the house. Now keep in mind the agent knew my wife and I. We gave him a good lead with no strings attached.

My brother-in-law started the mortgage process, but wanted us to check out some of the houses in advance of him returning to Atlanta to see them for himself. So far so good.

The agent emailed us several houses and we called him back and said that my brother-in-law wanted us to look at the houses before he flew back to Atlanta from Arizona. At this point, sufficient time hadn’t passed (four days) for my brother-in-law to get approved for a mortgage. Are you with me so far?

I called the agent and told him that there was a small window of time on Monday when my wife and I both, weren’t seeing patients or lecturing at Atlanta Hospitals – very rare. I told him we wanted to see four houses. This real estate agent knew that we weren’t buyers of dubious qualification wanting to buy a house that we weren’t qualified to buy, but were well respected behavioral therapists with full time practices. We gave him a well qualified lead, but he absolutely refused to give us the courtesy of letting us preview any houses for my brother-in-law until he was pre approved for a mortgage! Incredible! We didn’t ask him to write a contract, we just wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page.

The agent works for himself, makes his own rules and doesn’t need anyone else’s permission to show us a house without the buyer being approved for a loan first. He told us that it was his policy to not show a house without loan approval first. He wouldn’t budge. He was rigid. We weren’t unknowns asking him to spend weeks showing us houses. He didn’t appreciate the fact that we gave him a customer that he didn’t have to do anything to get. A buyer that he wouldn’t have had without us. We could have given the lead to anyone, but we gave it to him.

There was nothing that I could say. No amount of logic. Nothing. So… he lost a good commission. Why? Why couldn’t this individual distinguish between showing mature professionals, three or four houses for a buyer that they had given him, and taking a young couple out for several weeks to look at houses that they may not have been qualified to buy? You need to know when to flex. He didn’t. And… it cost him several thousand dollars in a real estate commission. In short – he blew it big time. It cost him.

Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. Every day we see individuals hide behind “policy” that doesn’t make sense for every situation. These decisions hurt them! So maybe a question to ask yourself is do you make those kinds of decisions and later wonder “why did I do that?” Quite often it is because the individual just isn’t seeing clearly. Most often their vision is blocked by something that they aren’t aware of it. A trigger from their past. Remember this… the person with the most flexibility in a conflict or a negotiation will win.

The person with the most flexibility in a conflict or negotiation wins

If you make decisions that in retrospect are not good, call Bob Crow at 404.277.1827 for a complimentary consultation to see what’s going on. The idea is to identify what drove you to make an unwise decision and to move beyond it.

Did you know that root canals, childbirth, cystoscopic bladder examinations and colonoscopies can be easily accomplished without the conventional anesthesia that uses chemical agents? Painless child birth? Painless surgery? Painless cystoscopic and colonoscopy examinations? Some new breakthrough? Not at all. In fact the history of using hypnosis as anesthesia is quite interesting.

The roots of hypnosis were in medicine, not entertainment. In fact all of the early practitioners were medical doctors and scientists. In the mid 1800’s, Dr. John Elliotson, Dr. James Esdaile and Dr. James Braid, to name but a few of the early pioneers of Hypnothesia, used hypnosis as their sole anesthesia for surgical procedures.

Dr. John Elliotson who held a chair at the University College in London performed 1853 surgical procedures using hypnosis as the only anesthesia. What kind of operations are we referring to? Appendectomies. Amputations. Bowel resections. Breast removal. Hemorrhoid removal. Prostate surgery. Civil surgeons of both the North and the South performed amputations utilizing hypnosis when ether and laudanum were not available.

Hypnosis was considered to be far safer than laudanum, chloroform and ether, as how much of these agents could safely be used without killing the patient, was yet to be determined. The blood pressure cuff would not be invented for another forty years.

Dr. William S. Kroger was an American doctor cross disciplined and specializing in OB, GYN, general surgery and neuroendocrinology. Dr. Kroger demonstrated the use of hypnosis as the sole anesthesia on the surgical removal of a breast tumor on closed circuit television to several medical schools. Another surgical event was filmed when he removed an enlarged thyroid gland. After the hour long procedure, the patient got off the OR table and asked for a drink of water and then got in her wheel chair for the ride back to her room. She was quoted as saying “I felt no pain. I could only feel pressure and what seemed like a tugging at my throat.” Dr. Kroger used film to capture painless childbirth as well. These films were used as teaching aids for medical schools and hospitals. He also produced the film Hypnosis in Dentistry. His book, Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis became the bench mark text on medical hypnosis. It is still the definitive text on the subject thirty years after its publication. Through his seminars and writings he changed the perception of hypnosis from entertainment to being a respected medical option and therapy.

Dr. Milton Erickson, MD was considered to be the founding father of modern hypnotherapy. He utilized hypnosis in not only his psychiatry practice, but in instructing countless dentists and medical doctors in pain mitigation and painless dentistry.

This writer is far from advancing the premise that all surgeries should be done without the chemical agents used in anesthesia. However, for routine child birth, dental procedures including root canals and extractions, cystoscopic exams and colonoscopies it gives one an incredible alternative to conventional anesthesia. We invite calls from you, your medical doctor and your dentist to see if this might be something for you and your medical professional to consider.

If you have an interest in Hypnothesia, I invite you to call Bob Crow, 404.277.1827 at the Atlanta Center for Behavioral Change to schedule a complimentary consultation.