Hypnotherapist Trying to Get Duffers’ Mental State Up to Par : Golf: Rancho Palos Verdes’ Stockwell enters a new field, helping golfers improve their game through self-hypnosis.

Kneeling next to an inclined bed in her Rancho Palos Verdes home, hypnotherapist Shelley Lessin Stockwell bobbed her head to the melodic strains of a song entitled “Great Golf.”

“Peaceful, isn’t it?” said Stockwell as a visitor on the bed awakened from what she calls a 30-second zap, a self-hypnosis technique she designed for athletes and performers.

Stockwell, a noted local hypnotist, is branching out into sports. A self-described “kind of a character,” has joined with John Goode, a South Bay dentist and avid golfer to teach golfers how to improve their game through self-hypnosis. The golf song, which she wrote and composed, is part of the training.

“The concept here is that people who play excellent golf, the guys on the (PGA) tour, have all talked about the different ways they do well,” Goode said. “They write their books, make their videos and go on television, and the common theme that runs through all of them is that the mental side of the game is the most important to them.

“How to hold the club and how to stand are important, but the question is how do you get into your subconscious so you can play better golf?”

Under hypnosis, insists Stockwell, who is also working with dart players and swimmers, the subconscious mind takes over, adding as much as 75% more of the type of information your body needs to stay focused on a task.

“If you use the power of suggestion with the subconscious mind, you are better able to link up with the central nervous system and that in turn will get you a better reaction,” she said.

The merger between hypnosis and athletics is not new. Numerous books have been written about the subject and several well-known athletes have experimented with it. In 1983, the Chicago White Sox hired a team hypnotist. By 1988, according to The Wall Street Journal, more than 15,000 “health professionals” were practicing hypnosis. That is 50% more than had practiced it a decade before.

Hypnotists such as Peter Siegel of Marina del Rey claim more than 100 professional athletes as clients, according to The Journal.

“We intensify the feelings of speed, confidence, command dominance and instant mobilization,” he said.

Stockwell and Goode have written and designed a seminar titled “Now You Can Play Great Golf.” It is being produced by Creativity Unlimited, a company founded 13 years ago by Stockwell, a 1962 graduate of South Torrance High.

Until recently, Stockwell has only dealt with clients seeking to lose weight, stop smoking or drinking or trying to deal with personal problems. And the question remains, can a sports novice such as Stockwell, who trained at the Hypnosis Institute, achieve success when she crosses over into athletics?

Goode thinks so. A six-handicap golfer, he was experimenting with a homemade version of self-hypnosis to improve his game when he heard one of Stockwell’s lectures. Last year, after attending several of her lectures and poetry readings, he proposed that they collaborate on a golf project.

“It was my script and her ideas,” Goode said.

The great golf program takes the reader through a series of steps designed to improve motivation, concentration and self-worth. It defines the “10 Secrets of Great Golf,” including setting clear goals, visualization of an event before it takes place and conditioning of the mind to play better.

An adjoining audiotape is designed to be listened to in the car on the way to the course and again just before teeing off. Side A, which includes the song, is designed to relax golfers and start them thinking about the upcoming game. The song contains subliminal messages that only the subconscious mind can hear. These “Great Golf Affirmations” include statements like “I feel terrific. So glad to be alive,” and “My subconscious mind controls my swing.”

Side B enables golfers to use self-hypnosis to prepare for a round. Once on the course, Stockwell says golfers are encouraged to close their eyes and take deep breaths or use the 30-second zap before hitting crucial shots.

According to the workbook: “Self-hypnosis works by letting you find how the fears are created and by replacing them with new neuro-pathways. Self-hypnosis allows you to avoid the negative distractors (of) fear, anger, self doubt, the jitters, lack of concentration, insecurity (and) self abuse.”

Stockwell said: “So much of what we do physically relates to the condition of the mind.”

But just to be on the safe side, Stockwell and Goode recommend one golf lesson a month to refresh the physical part of the game.

Bill Doherty of Hermosa Beach said that he has already benefited from Stockwell’s hypnosis techniques. Recently, he recorded three birdies during a four-day tournament.

“If you have a really bad hole, it’s not going to kill you,” Doherty said. “Because you feel like every time you bring that club up and back, you feel you can come back and do it.”

Stockwell wasn’t always so mentally tough. In a book of poetry she has written titled, “Sex and Other Touchy Subjects,” she tells of being a shy little girl who came from a troubled home. One of the poems is titled “South High Class of ‘62,” and it refers to frustrating times growing up while attending South Torrance High.

“My parents always told me that I was stupid,” she said. “They would always tell me that girls were dumber than boys.”

Still, Stockwell went on to study sociology in the mid-1960s at Cal State Long Beach. While in college a friend invited her to a performance by a stage hypnotist. It was Stockwell whom the hypnotist picked from the audience to be his subject.

“From that point on, I had to know how it was done,” she said.

Stockwell later attended UCLA where she studied speech and drama. She visited a hypnotist infrequently. Later, as a flight attendant for Trans World Airlines, she became concerned about the affects of time changes and stress among flight crews who fly long distances on a daily basis.

In 1978, Stockwell began hypnosis training. In 1982 she designed and conducted motivational workshops for airline employees.

Soon she was creating self-help hypnosis tapes ranging from financial planning to personal relationships.

But Stockwell said she needed to come to grips with her troubled childhood. She used hypnosis to erase what she called “the weeds” in her mind, imprints that all humans retain and which guide much of our reasoning and actions.

Once successful at eliminating those imprints, Stockwell said, she was able to dive into life with a flourish, writing poetry and songs. She was ordained as a minister of the American Fellowship Church of Washington. Last year she began hosting a cable television talk show available on public access channels in the South Bay.

Stockwell has never played golf, but Goode said he wouldn’t be surprised that when she finally does, the extent of her mind control will earn her “much better results the first time out than someone who hasn’t practiced mentally.” He said he plans to take Stockwell out for a round soon.

Stockwell visualizes her first time on a tee. Before approaching the ball she will shake her arms and legs and begin talking to her body. She might go into the 30-second zap. Then, as she addresses the ball, she’ll pause, close her eyes and try to visualize the swing she is about to take.

But, she concedes, only after she takes that first swing will she realize, like so many duffers, what the game is all about.