Hypnotherapy Gets More Concentration

The Yellow Pages ads beckon.

“Hypnotherapy as a career.” “Become a certified hypnotherapist.”

A form of behavior modification that involves deep relaxation and intense concentration, hypnotherapy is riding the wave of increased acceptance among alternative forms of health care, health-care experts say.

And as the number of potential clients increases, so does the number of people who find such ads, and the training programs behind them, alluring.

Some San Fernando Valley area practitioners who have taken up the calling say the field--long considered by many to be more parlor trick than science--is showing increasing promise as a viable vocation that can generate up to six-figure incomes.

So far, only a few studies vouch for the efficacy of hypnotherapy--and most of those focused on its use in conjunction with more traditional forms of medicine, said Shri K. Mishra, who heads the Complementary/Alternative Medicine program at the University of Southern California.

Still, the number of believers on both sides of the recliner is growing, with some estimates asserting there are more than 20,000 “certified hypnotherapists” nationwide, double what it was 10 years ago.

The discipline took a big leap toward respectability late last year when Blue Cross of California, the second-largest health insurer in the state, included hypnotherapists in its network of “alternative medicine and wellness resources” for many of its members.

But even as insiders celebrate what some are calling a “watershed event,” they question some of the internal workings in the industry, asking, for instance, whether more government oversight is needed for the virtually unregulated field.

And in one local case involving hypnotherapy training, the clash between expectation and career experience has led to a lawsuit.

Insiders say it’s an industry in transition, with no clear game plan on which way to go.

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Most hypnotherapists make a distinction between their practice, which involves use of hypnotic techniques to bring about a health or behavior-related outcome, and stage hypnotism, where you may end up squawking like a chicken.

Confusion in the public’s mind between the two contributes to a lingering huckster image, some hypnotherapists say. And trying to change that image is just one of the challenges hypnotherapists say they face. Filling the hours of the day with paying clients is often another.

For about a year after Tarzana-based hypnotherapist Lupe Zuniga began her private practice in 1989, she had to hold down two other jobs to make ends meet.

But even during the lean times, she said she never questioned whether she could make it work.

“I just felt this pull,” said Zuniga, adding that she earned at least $75,000 annually once the practice took off. “It never entered my mind that I wouldn’t be a success. It all depends on the effort you put into it.”

Steven LaMar Peterson, on the other hand, is grateful for a spouse with a steady income. As a full-time hypnotherapist in Valencia, his income has been a bit spotty.

“It would be much more of a struggle if I didn’t have a wife who had a good job,” said Peterson, who received his training in hypnotherapy about six years ago, after becoming disillusioned with his work in computers.

“It was substantially rougher than I thought it was going to be.”

Both Peterson and Zuniga got their training at Tarzana-based Hypnosis Motivation Institute, founded in 1968 as a family run business by psychotherapist John George Kappas.

The school also counts as one of its graduates actress Florence Henderson of “The Brady Bunch” fame. Henderson is married to John Kappas. And it boasts of being the only hypnotherapy school in the country to be accredited by the Accrediting Council for Continuing Education & Training.

But now it’s facing a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in April by three HMI graduates who claim, in part, that the school “misleads potential students about the prospects for earning a living as a hypnotherapist after graduation,” according to the complaint.

Jeffrey Higley, one of the three plaintiffs and a 1998 HMI graduate, said he believes the school does not disclose “the tremendous difficulty people have in setting up their career. It’s a lot tougher than you’re led to believe.”

While generally positive about his experience at the school, Peterson, who is not a plaintiff in the suit, also said the school did not prepare him for the hard knocks he encountered in the early years of his practice.

“If a student really knew what their odds were of having a full-time practice, they’d probably have fewer students,” Peterson said.

But George Kappas, son of the founder and director of the school, said HMI graduates are making a living in the field, noting that many practitioners in the Blue Cross program got their start at HMI.

“One thing that it does require is that you have to maintain a realistic perspective,” said Kappas, whose school graduates about 170 students per year, roughly 60% of whom plan to pursue a career in hypnotherapy. “It’s not going to happen overnight.”

Kappas declined to go into detail about the pending legal action, which he labeled a “harassment lawsuit.”

But he was effusive in his discussion on the impact of the Blue Cross program, which was expanded last month to include all Blue Cross members.

In Los Angeles County alone, 74 hypnotherapists, including more than 50 based in the Valley, have agreed to join the Blue Cross Healthy Extensions program, offering Blue Cross members discounts averaging from 10% to 25%.

Some Valley hypnotherapists said they’ve already seen inquiries increase as a result of the program, described by many as a first for a major health-care company.

“It’s the most significant step to ever happen in the field,” George Kappas said. “Just having the Blue Cross name with hypnotherapy makes a major perception difference in the general public.”

Kappas sees the Blue Cross involvement as the first step on a path that will ultimately lead to state registration or even licensing for hypnotherapists, something his organization has pushed.

Currently the state gives 20 hypnotherapy schools in California approval to operate and attempts to verify that the schools are delivering on the education they promise. But the state does not weigh in on the widely varying curricula--ranging from one weekend for a few hundred dollars at one school, to more than one year and a $9,000 price tag at another.

And despite the fact that several schools, including HMI, describe themselves as “state-licensed,” the state does not license schools or students.

Most practitioners describe themselves as either a “certified hypnotherapist” or “certified clinical hypnotherapist.” Neither is regulated by the state. Instead, many schools, including the leading ones in the Los Angeles area, establish separate arms to certify their graduates.

At HMI, students are certified by the Hypnotherapists Union, Local 472, a group George Kappas heads and that includes mostly HMI grads.

“You have to create a certification agency because there isn’t any,” Kappas said. “What we would like to see is state standards.”

The suit facing HMI challenges a past practice in which students were required to join the union as a condition of completing the training. The practice was halted after one of the plaintiffs complained.

At the Hypnotism Training Institute of Los Angeles, which is in Glendale, students are certified by the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners, which was established by the school’s founder, Gil Boyne.

And at the Irvine-based American Institute of Hypnotherapy, where one can become certified after a weekend of classes and some at-home study, certification is handled by the American Board of Hypnotherapy. The board is headquartered in the offices of the institute and was established, in part, by the institute’s founder, A.M. Krasner.

Bob Strouse, an administrator at the American Institute, said his school also has been pushing for state regulation, a move he and others say will do even more to increase the public’s confidence in this still mysterious field.

“We are hopeful,” Strouse said. “Hopefully, that’s the direction we’ll be able to go.”

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Valley @ Work runs each Tuesday. Karen Robinson-Jacobs can be reached at Karen.Robinson@latimes.com.