Article by Matt Bouton

John Weir, Hypnotherapist

John Weir hypnotizes people. It's his job. He's undergone hundreds of hours of training, and he's been certified by enough organizations to adorn the walls of his office with his credentials. John first became interested in hypnosis when he saw Marshall Silver put John's sister into a trance during a success seminar in Mellon Arena. Since then, he's worked hard to learn the trade, and now he sees clients in his home office, as many as three or four a week.

Weir is an advanced clinical hypnotherapist as well as a full-time student. His office, located in his home at 121 West Oliver Road in Munhall, is a subdued peach color to further ease the relaxation necessary to induce hypnosis.

Weir always conducts a short first hypnosis session with his clients. After explaining the process of hypnosis and what will happen, he uses this session to depth-test the client, and also to determine the type of therapy he'll use.

First of all, Weir must induce the hypnotic trance. To do this, he tells the client to press down on his hand (gently) while the client focuses on his forehead. The split concentration makes it difficult for the client's
conscious mind to filter out Weir's suggestions to relax, and as Weir continually speaks to the client, his suggestions take hold.

After inducing the relaxed state of awareness, Weir can bypass a subject's critical mind, the part that judges and filters input, and make suggestions directly to the subconscious mind. Weir's depth-tests use the Aron step-scale, a six-level classification system that gets deeper as the numbers go up. Stages I and II are eye and arm catalepsy, respectively. When a subject can not open their eyelids despite their best efforts, they are in Stage I hypnosis. John then suggests that the client's arm is rigid, like steel, and cannot be forced down , or if it is, that it will spring back into an outstretched position. If this happens, they have achieved Stage II.

Stages III and IV are amnesia and analgesia/anesthesia, respectively. A client in Stage III hypnosis can be made to forget numbers/letters of the alphabet, and Stage IV clients are unable to feel a light pinch on their arm or hand. They can go even deeper. Stages V and VI, which only a few clients achieve in their first session, are positive and negative somnambulism, respectively. This means that Weir can now suggest that something is there that really isn't (positive), or suggest that something isn't there that really is (negative). In this deepest stage, clients are unable to pick an object from John's hand, because through the power of his suggestion to their subconscious mind, they can't even see it.

Patients who don't achieve Stage VI hypnosis during the first session shouldn't be discouraged, though. Hypnosis is a skill that can be practiced and honed, like meditation.

This might all seem like parlor magic, but there is a practical application of the hypnotic state. As it turns out, the client's subconscious will remember and accept suggestions made to it, even after the trance is broken. Weir can hypnotize a person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, and suggest to them that they won't smoke anymore. His success rate is astonishing; he's even used the technique on himself.

Weir is certified through the National Guild of Hypnotists, the American Board of Hypnotherapy, the International Association of Counselors and Therapists, the International Medical and Dental Hypnotherapy Association, the Action Institute of Well-Being (getting tired yet?), as well as the Washington School of Clinical and Advanced Hypnotherapy. He continually studies new methods of trance induction and suggestion. His current work is on rapid induction, by which he can induce a client's trance in a minute or less, as opposed to the normal ten-minute induction. This leaves him more time for cursory depth-testing and the all-important suggestion phase.

Hypnotic suggestion has been accepted by the American (and British) medical communities since 1958, and is quickly becoming a popular cheap alternative to psychotherapy. The applications range from smoking cessation to phobia elimination to memory improvement to weight management. New and innovative uses include the enhancement of sports performance, chronic pain management, and hypnobirthing (a painless, natural delivery process). Hypnosis is even used in forensics, to pick through witnesses' memories as though they were digital video cameras. The applications are nearly unlimited, and John Weir will continue to master them in order to help his community.