We got lost on our way to the hypnotist. It was 5:08 p.m. on a Thursday, and I was sitting in a car ““ one of thousands on the choked-up 405 ““ on my way to Marina Del Rey to see whether hypnosis was capable of therapy.
It all started on one fine day when I walked into the Daily Bruin office and was jokingly shown an ad in the paper. It basically guaranteed to hypnotize students into achieving better grades. The advertiser, Anthony Greenberg, has been a licensed hypnotherapist for six years.
Unlike a composed therapist, what we are used to is the stage hypnotist: the man who has selected audience members cluck.
My guinea pig was Richard Hart, a fifth-year astrophysics student, who ““ like most Bruins ““ gets a little nervous during tests and can’t always remember everything.
When we finally arrived on the scene, our hypnotherapist, who looks a little bit like Sigmund Freud, was standing outside. The part about actually going to a professional’s house was bizarre, but when questioned about it, he said, “I am selective about my clients.” All right, this was obviously his style and the house was so nice that both Ricky and I felt relaxed.
My first reaction on seeing Greenberg was to turn around to Ricky and remark that he looked too normal to be a hypnotist. Like everyone else, I was raised on a healthy dose of cartoon stereotypes. When I thought of a hypnotist, I imagined a bizarrely creepy individual with a spinning yo-yo muttering something about being very sleepy. Greenberg did not quite fit the profile.
“I am a clinical hypnotherapist, not a stage hypnotist,” he said, immediately drawing the line between the two very different facets of hypnotism.
While hypnotism sounds like something you once heard in an ancient movie, it’s becoming more prevalent in the scientific world ““ prevalent, but not 100 percent credited.
According to the Los Angeles Times, hypnotherapy is not really accepted by those in the medical field because the results are not consistent. For every patient that feels the magic, several are left in the background grumbling.
“All hypnosis is self-hypnosis,” Greenberg said, explaining his take on his occupation as we all sat on his ultra-cushioned couch.
“I help you unlock your subconscious which can remember everything you have ever heard, read or seen.”
His plan was basically to help Ricky relax enough to remember what he had studied. He sounded really convincing, but if this was so effective, why wasn’t the population of the free world falling over itself to get hypnotized?
Soon enough, Greenberg took Ricky into his office and left me. While I took notes downstairs, Greenberg was upstairs telling Ricky to imagine that his hand was becoming weightless, as if he had tied helium balloons to it.
“The thing is, my hand actually started rising to my face,” said Ricky, sounding surprised at his own reaction. “He told me that as soon as my hand touched my face I would be in my suggested state. I was aware of what was going on the whole time, and I felt like I was in complete control, but I just didn’t care enough to go against what he was saying.”
When I was invited upstairs for a brief viewing, Ricky was reclining in a leather chair.
“He made me visualize myself in a forest and then look into a pond to picture myself after I had taken the test, to see how amazed everyone was at how well I had done,” he said.
Speaking of his trade, Greenberg declared that hypnotherapy works best on those who aren’t too cynical about it and those who really want to help themselves.
“It is not hocus-pocus if it is done right,” he said.
Interestingly enough, however, even though he has treated everyone from professional racers to nervous attorneys, he has yet to treat a college student for midterms and finals.
When asked why, he answered, “It may be because of the cost ($175 for one session and $250 for two), but I think there is also a stigma against hypnotism.”
The first time I heard about this, I wondered if it was just going to be smoke and mirrors.
But when I called Ricky after he had been tested by his professor, one of the first things he said to me was, “I think it might have worked.”
“I am helping my professor with research and I forget the procedures every week,” he explained, “but today I feel like I remembered everything.” However, when he took his test, there was no great difference in the pre and post-Greenberg scores. The test was administered in an artificial setting so there might not have been enough pressure, but he also said that, “I didn’t feel any different when I was taking the test than I usually do.”
Exactly how unlocked a subconscious can get is hard to measure, but it seems like the session did have some positive effects on Ricky even if they weren’t too quantifiable. Who knows how it may work on anyone else?
E-mail rjoshi@media.ucla.edu if you arrrre getting sleepy. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.