Hypnosis

Vicki Rock remembers how the fight started. When she wanted to go out for a hamburger on a hot July Arkansas night, her husband blocked the door and bounced her off a wall. She also remembers picking up his loaded gun lying next to a beer can on the kitchen table. What happened next, she told police, was a blank. The next thing she remembered was calling for an ambulance as her husband lay dying on the floor, a bullet wound in his chest. To refresh her memory, her lawyer had her hypnotized.

With the first stirrings of spring, so, too, have come the first sightings of extra flesh spilling over the tops of low-slung jeans and jiggling beneath belly-baring cropped tops. If you call that roll of abdominal adiposity a "muffin top," you're in high-falutin' company: Late last month, the Oxford English Dictionary -- arguably the arbiter of the English language -- added the phrase "muffin top" to the list of new figures of speech it recognizes and defines. But next time you look in the mirror and see that distinctive "protuberance of flesh above the waistband of a tight pair of trousers," (to quote the OED)

Hypnosis appears to be more effective for men than women in helping them quit smoking, recent research suggests. Analyzing 18 previous studies on hypnosis involving 5,600 smokers, Joe Green, the study's author, found that 30% of men were able to quit smoking using hypnosis while women had a 23% success rate. The results aren't that surprising, Green said, because men also have a higher success rate than women in nonhypnosis smoking programs.

Children and teens with Tourette syndrome found help for their tics via sessions of self-hypnosis, according to a new study published online Monday in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. The study included 33 participants ages 6 to 19 who had tic disorders. Tourette syndrome is a neurological disorder that can cause involuntary tics such as coughing, yelling, head jerking and blinking. It's typically treated with medication, which can have mild to severe side effects such as anxiety, weight gain and sluggishness, but new non-drug treatments are showing promise.

Re "New Life in Sirhan Defense," Commentary, Jan. 31: As Sirhan Sirhan's attorney, I must correct the record about hypnosis in the Sirhan case. Herbert Spiegel MD, a New York psychiatrist and world-renowned expert on hypnosis who teaches at Columbia University, has concluded that Sirhan was probably programmed through hypnosis to fire a gun in the presence of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy without knowing what he was doing and without being able to recall either...

Children and teens with Tourette syndrome found help for their tics via sessions of self-hypnosis, according to a new study published online Monday in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. The study included 33 participants ages 6 to 19 who had tic disorders. Tourette syndrome is a neurological disorder that can cause involuntary tics such as coughing, yelling, head jerking and blinking. It's typically treated with medication, which can have mild to severe side effects such as anxiety, weight gain and sluggishness, but new non-drug treatments are showing promise.

People who were hypnotized while undergoing surgery without a general anesthetic needed less pain medication, left the operating room sooner and had more stable vital signs than those who were not, according to a study in last week's issue of the medical journal Lancet. The study, led by Dr.

A sharply divided Supreme Court, in a decision that likely will increase the use of hypnosis in court cases, ruled Monday that a criminal defendant whose memory was hypnotically "refreshed" may testify about her enhanced recollections even if their validity is questionable. Without clearly finding whether hypnosis helps someone recall fact or fantasy, the high court said in a 5-4 vote that a defendant's right to testify may not be abridged.

Women who underwent hypnosis before breast cancer surgery needed less anesthesia and had fewer side effects than women who got counseling instead, researchers said Tuesday. "This is a randomized clinical trial of 200 patients that really showed beneficial effects for patients," said Guy Montgomery of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. "It really works well."

On stage and screen, hypnotists make their subjects cluck like chickens, fall in love, rob banks and commit murder -- activities the subjects supposedly can't recall once the trance is broken. But stage acts and creative license aside, hypnosis is simply a state of heightened attention in which suggestions appear to powerfully affect a person's subsequent behavior.

The 8th annual Conscious Life Expo is a three-day examination of personal and global transformation featuring over 65 self-help and new-age speakers, including "Being Here Now" author Ram Dass. Additional activities include live music, panel discussions, workshops on holistic coaching, reincarnation and hypnosis, plus a Sunday night Valentine's salsa dance to show off your new mental moves. LAX Hilton, 5711 W. Century Blvd. Fri. 3 p.m.-9:30 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun. 9 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Day pass $10-$20, workshops $25, keynote speakers $55. www.consciouslifeexpo.

The golden pocket watch drops from the hypnotist's white-gloved hand. The timepiece dangles before the caped mystic swings it like a pendulum in front of the subject's face. "You are getting very sleepy," the hypnotist says, as the audience watches the subject become a human marionette. Will he crawl like a hedgehog or cluck like a chicken? Will a dark secret be revealed?

Women who underwent hypnosis before breast cancer surgery needed less anesthesia and had fewer side effects than women who got counseling instead, researchers said Tuesday. "This is a randomized clinical trial of 200 patients that really showed beneficial effects for patients," said Guy Montgomery of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. "It really works well."

Please investigate hypnosis for weight loss. GWEN H. Compton --- The product: You're getting sleepy. Very sleepy. But are you also getting skinny? Hypnotherapists across the country are staking claim to the multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry. Through websites, newspaper classifieds, radio spots and local TV ads, they pitch waist-reducing therapy sessions and slimming CDs. Some even offer to hypnotize clients over the phone.

On stage and screen, hypnotists make their subjects cluck like chickens, fall in love, rob banks and commit murder -- activities the subjects supposedly can't recall once the trance is broken. But stage acts and creative license aside, hypnosis is simply a state of heightened attention in which suggestions appear to powerfully affect a person's subsequent behavior.

Theodore Barber, 78, a psychologist who became a critic of hypnosis, died Sept. 10 of a ruptured aorta in Framingham, Mass. Through his own studies at the Medfield Foundation, a psychiatric research center in Massachusetts, Barber concluded that the power of suggestion was as effective as hypnosis with its swinging watches and other formal protocols. He found that suggestion alone could induce sleepiness in about 20% of subjects.

Please investigate hypnosis for weight loss. GWEN H. Compton --- The product: You're getting sleepy. Very sleepy. But are you also getting skinny? Hypnotherapists across the country are staking claim to the multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry. Through websites, newspaper classifieds, radio spots and local TV ads, they pitch waist-reducing therapy sessions and slimming CDs. Some even offer to hypnotize clients over the phone.

It first came to her in a dream, the seemingly crazy notion that she was having sex with her therapist while under hypnosis, a former actress testified last week in Van Nuys Municipal Court. "I started thinking and remembering and dreaming in my sleep that certain things were happening," the woman said, crying as she recalled the therapy sessions. "I didn't know if it was my crazy thoughts or what."

Re "New Life in Sirhan Defense," Commentary, Jan. 31: As Sirhan Sirhan's attorney, I must correct the record about hypnosis in the Sirhan case. Herbert Spiegel MD, a New York psychiatrist and world-renowned expert on hypnosis who teaches at Columbia University, has concluded that Sirhan was probably programmed through hypnosis to fire a gun in the presence of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy without knowing what he was doing and without being able to recall either...

He was striking, with dark eyes, a long black ponytail and a stylish suit. He had a large, cheap ring that Olga couldn't stop looking at as he waved his hand repeatedly in front of her face. "He was talking gibberish," she recalled. That he had left his wallet in a taxi. That he was supposed to meet someone at Sheremetyevo Airport. That he couldn't remember where he lived. Olga offered him the 7,000 -- about $250 -- in her purse for a taxi, but he said it wouldn't be enough.