News Articles » – HYPNOSIS BELIEVERS FLOCK TO SESSIONS

PRESS & GUIDE – Wednesday September 21, 2005 (edited and reprinted)

HYPNOSIS BELIEVERS FLOCK TO SESSIONS AT OAKWOOD

By Nancy Jaber

Kalman Auditorium at Oakwood Hospital was packed with a diverse crowd of men and women clutching water bottles on Saturday, Sept. 10.

They were waiting to begin a hypnosis session lead by certified hyponotherapist Rena Greenberg of Wellness Seminars on controlling their weight and battling their food issues.

Greenberg, who created wellness Seminars to “create positive changes”, has been practicing hypnotherapy since 2990 in Florida and 2998 in Michigan . Her public seminars are on smoking cessation and weight control. She has been reviewed and sponsored at over 70 hospitals in Florida , Michigan and Ohio .

She offers private and individual seminars on stress, anxiety, pain, smoking and weight control.

She seems to have created a following. A couple drove to Dearborn from Grand Rapids hoping to find the courage to shed their unwanted pounds. They heard of Greenberg through a friend who quit smoking after one of the smoking cessation sessions. Others like Sue Cook, 53, of Westland swear by hypnosis.

Cook, who works at Oakwood, said that hypnosis even helped her with her fear of flying. She has been coming to Greenberg’s seminars since 1999. She comes back when she feels she needs the reinforcement. “Some people don’t believe in it because they just can’t see how it works,” Cook said.

She said that Greenberg’s seminars help her become more aware of what she eats and how much of it she does eat.

Carla Lange, 49, of Ann Arbor went to Greenberg’s smoking cessation seminar in June 2005.

“My lungs felt different when I left the seminar,” she said. Lange, an environmental scientist, was little skeptical of hypnotism. She said she “felt real focused on what Rena (Greenberg) was saying during hypnotism.”

Lange asserts that she no longer knows what it feels like to be a smoker.

“I used to enjoy lighting up,” she said.

“Especially when I would see someone smoking, but now I have no desire for it.”

Greenberg, a petite redhead, tells the audience what to expect of the session. Her voice is soothing as she deconstructs the notion off food that the audience has learned. She engages them with questions and several tend to reply in unison. She quips “me too” in some instances to let the audience know that she has been in their shoes.

“Hypnosis is a natural state of relaxation at which the mind is susceptible to suggestion,” she said, as she gets ready to begin the session. She believes that “everyone can be hypnotized to a certain point.”

Greenberg became “quite ill” in her mid20-s and was “facing death.” This prompted her to assess her unhealthy lifestyle. She turned to hypnosis and biofeedback to lose weight and quit smoking. Then she got a degree in biopsychology from the City University of New York in Brooklyn .

Greenberg speaks about having “determination” and tapping into the “resources within” to help make the decision to lose weight.

Greenberg is aware that some in the crowd might perceive hypnosis as a “resort because of last minute desperation” and suggests and “open heart meditation” to begin the session.

She hands out a kit to the eager audience. The kit contains an audio-tape (one side hypnosis and the other with positive affirmations), a food journal and a little piece of sighing wire with a little bead tied to the end of it (the pendulum). The audience is told to listen to the audiotape for 30 days.

David Sobczak, 46, Sterling Heights said he only listened to this tape for three days. Sobczak, a computer support worker, started smoking 17 years ago.

“I had tried the patch, the gum, going cold turkey and none of them worked,” Sobczak said.

But he maintains that one session with Greenberg is all it took to get him to quit and he hasn’t smoked since 2003. He said he has no desire to light up, even if he is around smokers.

“I couldn’t wait for Rena (Greenberg) to come back to town so I could do the weight control session,” he said. A couple of days after the session, Dave said he had seen changes in his eating habits. “I have been documenting in my journal and I did listen to the tape,” he said.

The pendulum is used to demonstrate the power of the mind. The audience, under hypnosis is told to imagine the pendulum moving in a circle without actually moving it. Most of the members are taken aback when they experience this exercise.

During the session, the lights are dimmed and Greenberg’s soothing voice soars with suggestions. She reminds the audience that they are “healthy, happy and in control.” Her suggestions are those that many in the audience have heard before; drink more water, exercise, eat more fruits and vegetables. Those who sign up for Greenberg’s seminars know what they have to do. Hypnosis is just a tool to get to them at the subconscious level.

Greenberg said she has been running more weight loss sessions because they seem to be more popular now. Greenberg said her mission is not just to help others quit smoking or lose weight but to “realize that they are worth so much more”.

“I don’t want people to come and pay and expect a magic wand,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg contends that hypnosis is a tool and she as the hypnotherapist is the guide to their success.

She asserts that hypnotherapy is not something that she does, but it is who she is.

“The premises of the seminar has always been to change the mind about habits and pleasurable associations,” Greenberg said.

“As I have been growing, I find that I am adding more to the sessions.”

For more information on Rena Greenberg and hypnotherapy log onto www.easywillpower.com.