{"id":233,"date":"2012-06-13T21:00:42","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T21:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/?p=233"},"modified":"2012-06-13T21:09:26","modified_gmt":"2012-06-13T21:09:26","slug":"estil-boyd-hypnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/estil-boyd-hypnosis\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Estil Boyd &#8211; Using hypnosis for eating disorder recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--powerpress_player--><div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_9150\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-233-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/emotionaleating.s3.amazonaws.com\/EE-podcast-Estil-Boyd-050312.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/emotionaleating.s3.amazonaws.com\/EE-podcast-Estil-Boyd-050312.mp3\">http:\/\/emotionaleating.s3.amazonaws.com\/EE-podcast-Estil-Boyd-050312.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/emotionaleating.s3.amazonaws.com\/EE-podcast-Estil-Boyd-050312.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/?powerpress_pinw=233-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/emotionaleating.s3.amazonaws.com\/EE-podcast-Estil-Boyd-050312.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"EE-podcast-Estil-Boyd-050312.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p>Morty: Hi. This is Morty Lefkoe with another podcast interview of somebody who has some ideas that might be useful to you on eating disorder recovery.. We\u2019ve had authors and people who run clinics and today we have somebody who\u2019s totally different. We have a hypnotist, a hypnotherapist who\u2019s done some good work in a lot of different areas, including the area of eating disorder recovery,, who might have some really good ideas for you on how hypnosis might be a potential treatment for eating disorders. Estil, is that how you pronounce it?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Estil.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Estil. Okay, it\u2019s Estil Boyd. He\u2019s the graduate of the Ohio Academy of Holistic Health and has been certified as a clinical hypnotherapist in 1998 and has had a private practice in the Oxford Ohio area since 1997. Estil thank you for coming and welcome to our show today.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: It\u2019s a pleasure to be here, Morty.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Good. Could you give us a little bit of background on how you got interested in and started working in the area of emotional eating. \u00a0What is your specific treatment for eating disorders?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Well, being a full service hypnotherapist I have had clients interested in weight management, which is usually the way it\u2019s put to me. It\u2019s always an issue that clients come to me for. \u00a0As far as emotional eating goes\u2013one of the first things that I explain to people is that it makes a lot of sense that eating and emotions are closely tied together and it goes way back usually, to when we\u2019re infants and we only have one way of communication. Once we cry, we get support. We get nurturing. We get physical contact and at the same time we get food.<\/p>\n<p>It makes sense that we would associate the two with each other. So then in later life anytime that you\u2019re feeling down, or depressed, or uncertain of yourself, maybe not feeling as good about yourself as you might like, it makes sense that one would find solace in food. In a lot of cases the emotional issue goes way back and is deeply seated by the time it becomes a problem for an adult.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Very interesting. I have one question based on what you said so far. You said you called it weight management. I like to make a distinction between emotional eating and weight. \u00a0I am actually able to tell people, \u201cI can help you. I can almost guarantee to help you with your emotional eating. I have no idea what\u2019s going to happen to your weight because weight is not only a question of how much you eat but the type of food you eat and exercise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you are eating when you\u2019re not hungry for emotional reasons\u2013because you\u2019re upset, you\u2019re anxious, you\u2019re bored, you feel unlovable, etc., I can figure out a way to help you stop doing that. But if all you eat are high carbs and you eat 5,000 calories a day and never get up from your desk, you\u2019re going to gain weight even if you don\u2019t have an emotional eating problem.\u201d So I try to make a distinction between the two and it sounds as if you\u2019re not making that distinction or are you?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: \u00a0Well, there\u2019s a fair amount of guilt involved. People who eat emotionally never feel good about it. We\u2019re such a visually oriented society these days that the compelling issue \u00a0that usually brings people to me is the way they look, their health, and things like that.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing that I usually do my best to dispel is the whole idea of diet because it just doesn\u2019t work. We\u2019re hardwired, the unconscious mind is hardwired to protect this, to preserve this and if we threaten that unconscious mind with starvation, withholding food, it rebels. Now one can consciously overcome that for a while.<\/p>\n<p>One can go on a diet and lose weight but eventually it comes back. The approach that I put forth is rather than denying yourself food, treat yourself to the proper kinds of food in the proper amounts.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: \u00a0 Okay but do you actually identify something that I call emotional eating, which is people who say, \u201cwhen I have certain negative feelings\u2013I am anxious, I am angry, I am sad, I am depressed, etc.,&#8211; I just find myself going to get food, and I have to use tremendous willpower to stop myself from eating or if I am eating I keep eating and eating even when I am full.\u201d \u00a0I actually distinguish a particular behavior that is eating when you\u2019re not hungry because you\u2019re triggered by an emotion.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Well, my intention is to re-channel that. If my client is feeling down, depressed, a situation where they would ordinarily go for food, well I am going to re-channel that to a more healthy choice. People feel that they have limited options. My job is to convince them that they always have options. In a place where they would have formerly gone for food, they have a walk instead. How about deep breathing? How about the things that are apt to uplift the body rather than drag it down?<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Okay. \u00a0You actually acknowledge that there are emotional triggers to eat and what you do through hypnotherapy is get them to stop eating in response to the trigger and do something healthy in response to the trigger?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Right but I am always going to put that in a positive way.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Got it.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: I am always going to phrase a suggestion positively rather than negatively.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: So how would you do that? What would that sound like?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: I\u2019ll talk about the good things they could do rather than the bad things they want to do. The unconscious mind doesn\u2019t process negative very well. If I were to say, \u201cMorty this is very important and your life depends on this. Whatever you do, don\u2019t think about a blue tree.\u201d Do you understand what it is I ask you not to do, you have to do it. For instance, you will never smoke again is a useless suggestion for a smoker. \u00a0You can now become a non-smoker is a much better suggestion.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Got it.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: So I am always going to phrase things in a positive way. So the suggestion would go like\u2013in those times when you feel a little depressed or a little anxious, you can do this, you can do this. I am not going to talk about what they don\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Got it. What is your experience\u2013I always ask people who call with different techniques&#8211;what is your experience on the success rate of people no longer eating when they feel negative feelings and instead starting to go for a walk or whatever suggestions you make? To what extent, what percentage of the people, would you say are amenable to hypnotherapy as a solution to an eating problem?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Well I think everybody is amenable to hypnotherapy. I have yet to find anyone who couldn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Oh boy. Okay.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: One of the misconceptions because people think that hypnosis is something that a hypnotist does to you. That\u2019s not what it is. Hypnotic trance is something that a person does. I just show them how. It\u2019s not about one person\u2019s control over another. It\u2019s about self-control, taking charge of your own issues. Everybody that I have dealt with, I would say, at least 75% of them have positive results.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Oh boy, great.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: People move around, so it\u2019s hard to keep track of your former clients, but that\u2019s my gut reaction. I think probably 75% had some positive results.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Excellent. Congratulations. That\u2019s exciting.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: It tends to generalize in a person\u2019s life too. Once they have the techniques to deal with this issue, everything else seems better, as far as eating and exercise for instance. Once the person starts eating better and starts eating the proper diet and the proper amount, they\u2019re going to be the one who rises so it\u2019s much easier for them to exercise and they tend to want to.<\/p>\n<p>We have an automatic system for weight management. It\u2019s hardwired into us. It\u2019s called the appetite. Now the problem comes because most Americans\u2019 appetite are buried under about a meal and a half, but your body will tell you when it\u2019s proper to eat. In its own\u2013<\/p>\n<p>Morty: What do you mean buried under a meal and a half?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Well, most people don\u2019t wait till they get hungry. They eat at a regular time of the day when their job or their regular schedule tells them it\u2019s time to eat.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Okay.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: If they waited until they got hungry, their appetite would them when they\u2019re hungry. Since they never let themselves get to that point, their appetite never gets engaged. They never notice it. One of the things that I stress with my weight management clients is it\u2019s always proper to eat when you\u2019re hungry and it\u2019s always proper to stop eating when you\u2019re not hungry anymore.<\/p>\n<p>The appetite works exceptionally well if one pays attention to it and the idea is not to kill the appetite. The idea is to become friends with the appetite and as you go on and become better friends and get to know each other better, your appetite will not only tell you when you\u2019re hungry, it will tell you what your body needs to eat at that time.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: That I agree with totally. My experience in working with clients is that sometimes having to eat before you go to work at 7 o\u2019clock or having to eat at noon time is a problem, but for me that\u2019s not as big a problem as being triggered by negative feelings. It\u2019s not that people eat so much when they\u2019re not hungry because it\u2019s time to eat, it\u2019s that people eat when they\u2019re not hungry because they\u2019re driven to eat in order to cover up some negative feeling.<\/p>\n<p>People have negative feelings all the time, all times of day and night, and in between etc., so that what drives people to the cupboard, or to the refrigerator, or the pantry on a regular basis is feeling lonely, feeling bored, or feeling depressed, or feeling unloved&#8211;so that\u2019s the way they handle it. It\u2019s the way they handle negative feelings, so I agree with you.<\/p>\n<p>For me, we don\u2019t even talk about weight, we just talk about can you stop eating, getting you to stop eating except when you\u2019re hungry, and stop when you\u2019re full. And if you do that and if you eat relatively healthy food and get some modicum of exercise, you\u2019ll be fine. But for me the problem is eating when you\u2019re not hungry because there is an emotional need.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: We\u2019re pretty much on the same page with that. I probably am going to play up the healthy eating and treating yourself to proper nutrition and I am probably going to play down the negative emotions that you might be feeling that trigger it, but other than that I mean our outcome is the same.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: How do you work with people? Do they just call you for a session and how many sessions does it normally take to get somebody to stop eating emotionally and start eating only when they\u2019re hungry?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Well, for most issues I\u2019ve never been into this for long-term therapy. I would normally see a client for weight management probably three times with the initial session being pretty long because I need to learn quite a bit about how they approach the world and what talents they already have for dealing with things. Then usually a couple of weeks later we do reinforcement and then probably 3 months later. Usually, with weight management clients probably 3 sessions over the period of about three and a half to four months.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Okay.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: With most issues, I believe that change happens in a instant. Smoking for instance, I ordinarily see a client twice. Preparation for surgery, once. Now the only thing that is sort of ongoing would be hypnotic preparation for natural childbirth because I won\u2019t be in the delivery room there so it\u2019s necessary for me to teach the client self-hypnosis and to train their coach or partner in helping them deepen their trance.<\/p>\n<p>So I probably see them half a dozen times starting their third trimester up until the birthday but the therapy can work, it\u2019s not magic. It can seem like that sometimes because the power of the unconscious mind, but ordinarily it is short lived, the therapeutic setting.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: That\u2019s amazing to be able to produce that kind of result in a such a short period of time. And you find that hypnosis, I mean I\u2019ve heard that some people are good hypnotic subjects and some people are not. Is that accurate or is everybody a good hypnotic subject?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Everybody is different. The way they come up with the statistics is they\u2019ll fit a hundred college students in a room and deliver a general hypnotic induction to the whole group or something like a systematic relaxation which works on about 80% of the people and that\u2019s how they come up with their statistic, but I have yet to find out anybody that couldn\u2019t do it. It\u2019s just a matter of how a person would prefer to do it. Everybody can do it, it\u2019s just people do it in different ways. I\u2019ve had clients that giggle their way into trance.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: [Laughs]<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Everybody does it differently but everybody can do it. It\u2019s not something that\u2019s strange or weird. It\u2019s something that we all do all the time. People go in and out of trances in different times everyday. It\u2019s not something mystical. It\u2019s a function of the unconscious mind that happens all the time.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: So basically you contend that if you\u2019re working with an individual and you can work with them the way their mind works, you can get anybody into a trance that would enable them to resolve an overeating problem.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Yes.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: That\u2019s exciting. Well, congratulations on that.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: It is indeed. I love what I do.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Most of the people that I\u2019ve read about and have talked to basically say it\u2019s an X number of weeks program or an X number of months program. \u00a0In our case I would say maybe 5 to 8 one-hour sessions, but to be able to do that in 1 or 2 sessions where they supplement an hour or a couple of months later is amazing, so congratulations.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Well, you\u2019re releasing belief systems.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: We\u2019re doing two things, releasing beliefs but also deconditioning triggers. Basically we would say that there is a conditioned response. Just like if you hear a gunshot, there can be a conditioned emotional response, like with PSTD. You can have an automatic response of dropping to the ground or something like that. If every time you have a negative feeling, you just happen to be eating because you eat three times a day, and you notice that there is a kind of a pleasurable distraction. Instead of feeling some negative feeling, you\u2019re feeling good because you\u2019re eating some tasty food. Number 1\u2013it\u2019s pleasurable. Number 2\u2013it\u2019s a distraction.<\/p>\n<p>While you\u2019re eating, you\u2019re not thinking about your boredom or feeling unloved or your anxiety. \u00a0What people get is there is a positive reinforcement to eating and if you do that five times, ten times, or twenty times&#8211;at some point, it gets literally conditioned so that when you have any of these negative feelings, you just feel the desire to eat.<\/p>\n<p>So what we do is we have a process that deconditions and it only takes about 10 minutes, but it actually deconditions each one of those because each one is conditioned separately. Boredom is conditioned separately from feeling unloveable, which is conditioned separately from general anxiety, which is conditioned separately from anger, etc.<\/p>\n<p>We have found about 20 different conditionings, 20 different triggers so the first thing you do is to decondition each of the triggers and then you say, \u201cDo you have any beliefs?\u201d In many household, beliefs can be based on parents who were always on a diet, or say you have to clean your plate whether you\u2019re hungry or not, or you were in a big family where there wasn\u2019t enough food, so if you didn\u2019t get it right away and you waited until the end, there wouldn\u2019t be any food left. So there\u2019s a whole bunch of situations, things your parents might have said or done around food that would result in you having several beliefs around food too.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Right.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: And what we\u2019ve concluded is that if you decondition all the triggers and then eliminate all the beliefs, the emotional eating just stops. There\u2019s no situation where, \u201cOh I feel like eating now.\u201d You just eat when you\u2019re hungry and that\u2019s pretty much it, but that takes as I say, depending on a person, from 4 to 7 one-hour sessions and then yours is even faster. I thought ours was the fastest I know about but yours is even faster. I think everybody ought to\u2013all of our listeners ought to know about this. Could you say where people could get in touch with you? \u00a0Give them a website where they can check you out.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: I have one that\u2019s under construction. It\u2019s not really ready to go yet.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: But if you have a phone number. If any of the people listening on my list are interested in contacting you, what would be the best way to contact you?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: My phone number is area code 513-200-5720.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: So that\u2019s 513-200-5720 and it\u2019s Estil Boyd.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: E-S-T-I-L.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Estil Boyd, yes. And you\u2019re in Ohio, right?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: I see in clients in the Oxford, Ohio area. Yes.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Are people able to work with you on the telephone?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: I\u2019ve never done that. No, I don\u2019t think that would work very well because I\u2013<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Okay.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: I need to see responses. One definition of hypnosis is a listening unconscious responses so I need to be able to see that.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Well, you can see that on Skype which we didn\u2019t have set up today but it costs nothing at all. If you have a computer, you can buy a webcam for $10 and download Skype for free and make as many calls. So basically we work with people in 60 different countries around the world and use the telephone or Skype. Our work is amenable to telephone work but it\u2019s nice to be able to see people so almost all the time now, people are calling in from all over the world on Skype.<\/p>\n<p>So you\u2019re sort of limited, I mean we have people from 60 countries on our mailing list and from all over the United States so the possibility of anybody happening to be near Oxford, Ohio is pretty slim. I mean, maybe there is somebody there but there are probably lots of people from all over the world who might be interested in pursuing this. You might want to consider getting a webcam as I say it\u2019s only about $10-15 for a workable webcam and they\u2019re very easy to set up and if that would enable you to work with people outside of your area, that would open up the entire world for you.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Yes, it\u2019s certainly worth considering. I keep up with all the new things in hypnotherapy but I\u2019ve got to admit I am sort of a technology dinosaur, but there are young people around me I can always ask for help.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: As I said, I\u2019ve given people your phone number 513-200-5720 so if any of you are reading a transcript of this interview or listening to the interview want to call, please call and maybe you\u2019ll convince Estil to hire some local high school or college kid and set Skype up for him because as I say, it costs nothing. It does require no technical skills at all. You just click on the Skype button and then you click on the name of the person you\u2019re trying to call and if you\u2019ve got the webcam attached, they will see you and you will see them.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Okay. Well I\u2019ll look into it, Morty, and thank you very much for your time.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the feedback, it\u2019s great. I am always interested in learning myself about more approaches to helping people with such a widespread problem and it seem to be growing both in the U.S. and around the world. There\u2019s literally tens of millions of people with emotional eating problems and the result of the emotional eating and the weight is significant health problems. It\u2019s wonderful that there are more and more approaches to dealing with it and I thank you so much for your time and as soon as we get this thing up I\u2019ll let you know about it, but we should be able to get this out to everybody some time early next week.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Great. Thank you very much, Morty. Have a great time the rest of your day.<\/p>\n<p>Morty: You too. Take care. Bye-bye.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Boyd: Bye-bye.<br \/>\n<strong id=\"internal-source-marker_0.9577944127377123\"><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/emotionaleating.s3.amazonaws.com\/EE-podcast-Estil-Boyd-050312.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadMorty: Hi. This is Morty Lefkoe with another podcast interview of somebody who has some ideas that might be useful to you on eating disorder recovery.. We\u2019ve had authors and people who run clinics and today we have somebody who\u2019s totally different. We have a hypnotist, a hypnotherapist who\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/estil-boyd-hypnosis\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Interview with Estil Boyd &#8211; Using hypnosis for eating disorder recovery&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}