Shirlee Yantz, Clinical Hypnotherapist

  You know how people can have fears, mental blocks or habits that stop them from achieving their goals in life? What I do is help individuals break through whatever that is so that can go on to achieve fantastic results in things that they previously thought or even impossible...... 

 Hypnosis has been around as long as there have been records of human behavior. And has been used to assist people with everything from general anxiety and stress, to assisting a person to quit smoking or loss weight. To be honest, you do all the work, I am just here as your Sherpa on your Journey of Personal Discovery.   

  It's not as weird as you think. Being hypnotized is actually a "shift in attention, during which you are not as aware of things around you," explains David Spiegel, M.D., medical director of the Stanford Center for Integrative Medicine, in Palo Alto, California.

Sound familiar? It should.

   There's very little difference between the hypnotic state you achieve in a hypnotist office and the one you experience when you zone out on the way to work or become engrossed in a book, staying up long past your bedtime.

  While no one is sure exactly how hypnosis works, this much is certain: Once a person has been hypnotized, they are  more susceptible to suggestions, so that a doctor or therapist can give you a way to take control of a physical problem or to change an unhealthy behavior.

Still, being in a trance doesn't mean you'll do things you don't want. to do. You still have the option of rejecting anything that doesn't feel right. Says Dr. Spiegel, "You always maintain some control and awareness."