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Business & Tech

Milford Hypnotist Wants to Help Solve Problems

"Anyone with a normal IQ can be hypnotized."

Joann Dunsing says hypnosis works, especially as a tool for weight loss, smoking cessation and stress reduction.

Those are the three main reasons people come to her Milford office for help from Dunsing, a Connecticut certified hypnotist.

She said hypnosis quiets the "critical brain" and puts a person into a relaxed state where they are open to suggestion. When in this state, people remain completely aware of their surroundings.

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A good example is so-called "highway hypnosis," when a driver on the highway zones out and absent-mindedly drives right past his exit. Dunsing said it happens to everyone. "That’s just an excellent example. We’re constantly doing it." But it doesn’t mean you couldn’t react to a traffic situation.

Dunsing’s web site reports statistics for the effectiveness of hypnosis, including an over-80 percent success rate for smoking cessation. It says hypnosis subjects lost more weight and kept it off than people who dieted without hypnosis.

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"We don’t do therapy. We are not therapists," Dunsing said. Certified hypnotists in Connecticut don’t call themselves hypno-therapists. Instead, they describe what they do as motivating people to change unwanted behaviors.

"I wouldn’t work with someone who had a mental illness, because I am not a therapist," she said.

Dunsing said hypnosis for weight loss is especially effective when used in conjunction with a structured weight loss program like Weight Watchers. "I believe with weight loss there’s more to it than just what’s going on inside their heads," she said.

Dunsing grew up in Shelton. She got married, had children, got divorced and now lives in West Haven. She learned the art of hypnosis in 2009 from Barbara Herr, a National Guild of Hypnotists certified instructor in Guilford.

The type of hypnosis services she provides differs from the show business version. Those hypnotists must put people in a suggested state quickly, so observant members of the audience may notice that some of the participants aren’t really hypnotized at all. They’re just playing along, doing silly things to get a laugh.

But Dunsing said she believes everyone can be hypnotized, although some might go into a deeper relaxed state than others.

"Anyone with a normal IQ can be hypnotized," she said.

Lately, she is providing a new service as a certified 'Fertility by Hypnosis Consultant.' Some unexplained infertility is caused by stress, and in that case hypnosis might help, she said.

"I love the work," she said, "because people really get results. People say, ‘You know Joann, I find I’m more relaxed or more considerate.’"

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