A woman has lost nearly three stone since a hypnotist convinced her she’d had a gastric band fitted.
Nichola Prichard, 45, of Sebastapol, Pontypool, said she has slimmed down from 14st 1lb to 11st 13lb since being hypnotised.
She said the treatment was a far better alternative to paying thousands to go under the knife to have a real gastric band fitted.
She said: ‘I was so fed up with being overweight I was ready to go the whole hog and pay £6,000 for a gastric band and go through all that pain.
‘I’ve saved all that time and pain and money going to nice relaxing hypnotherapy sessions instead.’
Nichola said following hypnosis, she has transformed her eating habits. She now craves healthy food instead of sugary snacks and knows when she’s had enough.
She explained: ‘I don’t need to diet. I eat healthily, slowly and taste my food and feel full without eating so much.’
Nichola said her treatment was preferable to paying out for a real gastric band as she was fed up of being a size 18-20
Her hypnotist Simon English, 41, from Cardiff, said there’s a growing appetite for his treatment.
He said he talks clients through every aspect of real-life surgery during his five one-hour hypnotherapy sessions, costing £350. He said it’s a ‘visualisation technique’ that makes people thing they really have had the op.
He explains: ‘I say: “The nurse is here now, she is taking your blood pressure and they are wheeling you out on a trolley. Now you are going into the operating theatre. They are making incisions for the surgery.”‘
‘Then as the music fades in the background I describe them being taken into the recovery room. When it’s over they feel a little tightness, that sort of thing, as if the band has been fitted, but nothing painful.’
Think yourself slim: Hypnotist Simon English convinced Nichola she’d had surgery
As they would be in real life, patients are given dietary sheets and advise on how to change eating habits. They are also given a CD which helps reinforce the hypno-technique over following weeks.
Simon said he allows clients to imagine their own surgeon – who could be anyone from a medic who has previously carried out a successful operation to a fictional character from Harry Potter.
‘It is a question of who a person is comfortable with. You can choose anyone to be your surgeon,’ said Simon, 41, who sees 20 clients a week.
‘We had one lady who was into Harry Potter who chose Professor Snape to be her surgeon. People have different ideas about hypnotism based on what they see on TV or what they have seen some guy do down the pub. But people certainly don’t leave here clucking like chickens,’ he laughs.
Hypnotists use visualisation techniques to make people believe an event has happened (posed by models)
‘Basically it is about relaxation, not control. There are no swinging watches. It is not a state as such it’s a sort of relaxation.’
Nichola said it certainly worked for her. She’s dropped from a dress size 18-20 to 12-14 and can’t wait to show off her new figure this summer.
She said: ‘We are off to the Maldives to celebrate my husband’s 50th birthday in November and I’m going to be wearing that little white bikini on the beach.’