Dr. Dwight Damon, president of NGH regarded  this letter favorably with a personal phone call to Mr. Preite. So read on.....

The business of hypnosis
--------------------

Viewed as a tool and not a profession, licensed and unlicensed
practitioners proliferate

BY KATHLEEN KERR
STAFF WRITER

September 13, 2005

Hypnotist Keith Harrington fiddles with a pair of oversized black
eyeglasses as the tiny red lights attached to the lenses blink away.

For $1,499, Harrington says, cancer patients can find relief from
stress or pain by using the flickering glasses to help achieve a hypnotic
state during 18 sessions at the Positive Changes hypnosis center he
manages in Garden City.

Positive Changes - part of a national chain - also promises help in
losing weight and quitting smoking. A huge Positive Changes banner,
stretched across the side of the Citibank building where the center has
offices, beckons to passersby who have the potential to become customers.

Across New York State, hundreds of hypnosis businesses have cropped up.
These businesses are not regulated, and professional licensing is not
required as it is for massage therapists, acupuncturists and interior
designers.

Hypnosis is viewed as a tool, not a profession.

And while some hypnotists - certain psychologists or social workers,
for example - undergo rigorous hypnosis training in addition to
professional schooling, many have have no health care background at all.

Psychologist Ed Schechtman, of Commack, president of the New York
Society of Clinical Hypnosis, said many people seek hypnosis because of
health-related issues.

"You need more training than merely putting people in a trance,"
Schechtman says. "I would never treat a pain patient without having access to
the rest of his medical team."

One of the four hypnotists at Positive Changes is a social worker,
Harrington says. Harrington says the in-house training his hypnotists
receive is high quality, giving them the background needed to deal with a
variety of problems.

Harrington - a former credit-card fraud investigator - said he received
his hypnosis training from Positive Changes when he opened the Long
Island affiliate four years ago.

Harrington has since sold the business to Harsimran Singh Sabharwal, an
Upper Brookville real estate investor.

At Positive Changes, employees receive six months of on-site hypnosis
training before they can teach customers self-hypnosis methods, which
include relaxation techniques and use of the special glasses. Some of the
six months could be spent working at the front desk or studying at
home.

Of his push into the cancer market, Harrington says: "A lot of our
business is weight loss, and we're interested in getting into other areas
of the business."

Harrington says he hopes to partner with Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center in Manhattan - supplying flickering eyeglasses for use by
patients there. In return, he says, he expects Sloan-Kettering to refer
cancer patients to him.

That's news to Sloan-Kettering, which, like some other hospitals,
offers its own hypnosis services in an elegant, spa-like facility - the
Bendheim Integrative Medicine Center - in an old bank building on First
Avenue. Hospital officials say they don't know Harrington.

The Bendheim center charges $85 per session for hypnosis and other
services such as yoga training and massage and doesn't require patients to
buy packages. Light wood and abstract paintings provide a soothing
atmosphere.

Patricia Vroom, a psychologist at the Bendheim center, was certified as
a hypnotist after studying for a year at Manhattan's New York Milton H.
Erickson Society for Psychotherapy and Hypnosis, chartered by the New
York State Board of Regents.

Students at the society either have master's degrees or doctorates in
the health professions or will soon receive them. Rita Sherr, the
society's director of training, says hypnosis is risky in the wrong hands.

"[Patients] can have a very bad experience," Sherr says. "They can go
in to stop smoking and can be regressed to an earlier age, or unpleasant
memories can come up."

"My recommendation is if you want to find a hypnotist, go to a licensed
mental health worker and in addition to that, they should have some
hypnosis training," says Vroom, who works one-on-one with patients to
teach them self-hypnosis to deal with the stress of chemotherapy and to
help diminish pain.

The $1,499 Positive Changes package includes four meetings with a
hypnotist. The blinking eyeglasses can be purchased for an additional $159.

Patrick Porter, the chain's founder, says patients also meet nine times
in a small theater-like room - five to 10 in a group - using the
glasses, headphones and a 20-minute recording of Porter's voice to achieve a
hypnotic state.

There are also meetings with "coaches" - employees who are still
training and might be working at the front desk. When asked what the coaches
do, Porter said they are "just information-gatherers."

Porter, who sports a neatly trimmed beard, has a PhD in Christian
counseling from Baptist Christian University in Shreveport, La., and says he
has received extensive hypnosis training through a number of courses
and educational programs over the years. He says Positive Changes does
its own hypnosis training because qualified hypnotists are hard to find.

"You can't find qualified hypnotists off the street," Porter says.
"They're not going to come to a Positive Changes center."

Porter uses the word "miracle" frequently. He says he does not offer
false hope to patients but notes: "If we can teach them how to get into
balance, I do believe in miracles."

Porter points to Tony Perino, a client at a Positive Changes center in
Virginia Beach, Va., as a success story.

Perino, who had bladder cancer, was interested in opening a Positive
Changes franchise but one wasn't available nearby, he says. He also
signed up for a combination weight loss-cancer hypnosis program.

Perino says surgery staved off his early-stage cancer and what the
program did was help him lose weight - he had no cancer pain to deal with.

"I think it also gave me a much more positive attitude about how to
deal with cancer," Perino says.

Porter says patients like Perino are evidence that Positive Changes
works. He says: "We are the best in the business."

Copyright (c) 2005, Newsday, Inc.