‘Gastric Mind Band’: Hypnotic Weight Loss
Original article can be found on this link with videos and photos
(ABCNEWS.com)
As Marianna Zega lies on a gurney minutes away from the start of her gastric-band “surgery,” she can smell the anesthetic, hear the operating staff shuffle about and even feel doctors put the band around her stomach.
It’s an operation that happens tens of thousands times a year. But what makes this procedure unique is that none of it is real. It’s all in Zega’s mind.
The procedure, or lack thereof, is called “gastric mind-band” and it’s done through hypnosis. The treatment is the brainchild of hypnotherapists Martin and Marion Shirran, who run a clinic in Spain. The married couple got the idea, they said, from a neighbor.
“She said, ‘My next door neighbor’s just been in the hospital and paid a lot of money and had a gastric band fitted. And I just thought maybe if I came to see you, you could hypnotize me to make me think I’ve had it done,'” Martin Shirran said.
The idea is to fight obesity mentally. An intense four-day program also includes behavioral therapy to help patients learn to resist temptation, and culminates in the gastric-band hypnosis session.
“We create smells in the room and have background noises, because the more senses that are involved in the whole process, the stronger the suggestion is,” Marion Shirran said. “It’s got to come from the person themselves.”
The relatively radical approach appealed to Zega, who was 325 pounds when she sought out Hazel Newsom, the only hypnotherapist in the United States trained by the Shirrans in the gastric mind-band. Newsom is a partner in the Elite Clinics in Olympia, Wash.
“My weight controlled my life,” Zega, 47, said. “I was more a homebody. It probably prevented me from dating a lot and just doing everyday things.”
After the fake surgery about 10 months ago, Zega said she feels as though she actually has a band around her stomach.
“Immediately after I left, I felt different,” she said. “[The weight] felt like it melted off my body overnight. Yesterday was 10 months and I’ve lost 120 pounds. … My mind controls what goes into my body.”
Patient Feels Like a New Woman
Their European clinic has been so successful that the Shirrans are set to offer their $3,000 therapy in New York at The Benestar Centre. Martin Shirran said the health benefits can justify the cost.
“Diabetes is also very, very expensive on your health,” he said. “I don’t actually know whether you can compare, if you can put a price on it, what someone’s getting.
“Over the course of the last four years, we’ve treated just over 400 people with this treatment. The success rate has been very, very high — over 74 percent,” he added.
Zega said her own experience was proof enough and, with help from a makeover at Licari Salon in New York City, she now has a new life to go with her new body.
“I’m dating. I go out a lot more. I’m more confident,” she said. “I feel like I’m living my life now.”
Comment & Contributions
macca124
9:56 AM EDT
Sep 29, 2010
The Hypno-Band is the world leader in this type of therapy and is available in 14 countries including the US. It is a fraction of the cost and is safe and without side-effects.
parma hts gary
7:08 AM EDT
Sep 29, 2010
I’m not sure this would work with everyone, but working on the mind in obesity, makes a lot more sense than the surgical method. I’ve seen a lot of this in the last few years through family, friends, and aquaintances, and I see it as the next class action lawsuit. You, or more likely your insurance companies, pay thousands, which I’m sure adds up to billions to the medical community, to disfigure your stomach, so that you get sick when you eat, lose the nutritional value of food, so that you need to take loads of vitamins, which most people can’t afford, or figure are useless, then for the majority of people I see, you initially lose various amounts of weight, but train yourself to eat some of the same foods that made you obese in the first place, or equally bad substitutes, and the growing starts back up, maybe not going to the same extreme, but gaining a good percentage of the weight back. You can’t take NSAIDS for pain, which is great for recovering alcoholics, or drug users, which considering the addictive nature of overeaters, there are a lot of people who share the addictions, or find others.
healwithin
2:00 PM EDT
Sep 28, 2010
Thank you for your incredible segment on Hypnosis and the powers of the mind. As a clinical hypnotherapist, I use hypnosis to help people with a variety of health issues. Many of my clients have had positive results with weight loss through hypnotherapy. We are having a workshop on Hypnosis LapBand at our center and your segment is the best validation for practictioners that use modalities as such to help people in need. Of course clients have to understand magic does not occur in One session yet, with changing their mind set about their own body and self, they can accomplish anything. Kudos to you for reporting an “out of the box” form of healing! In Wellness, Liza Boubari, Glendal, CA
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