Prevar is a hypnotherapist who practices in Old Town Alexandria. How would you define hypnotherapy?
It’s a state of focused awareness during which the mind is concentrated on a specific topic.
So you don’t put people to sleep and make them do silly things on command?
It’s not like the movies; people go in and out of it all the time. People can do it by themselves. You can hear everything being said to you. The whole time your mind is very active. It’s saying this isn’t going to work, and then ya know what? It does.
What types of cases do you mostly deal with?
Public speaking, and there’s a lot of stress and weight management. Fear of public speaking is the number one fear in the United States. People are unable to sleep at night because they have a speech coming up. They know how to write the speech, but they just can’t say the words. Many might be stress eating. Your mind gets very specific about what it wants. A lot of people eat ice cream at night, for example. We sit down and exchange information. It’s like ordinary therapy. They talk about what they want to stop and why they want to change.
Are your clients skeptical about hypnotherapy?
A lot of them are skeptical. I’m the last person they come and see. They’ve tried everything else; they’re coming to see me and say, ‘Well, this is a last ditch kind of thing.’ It’s more difficult for older people because our minds become more set and rigid. I just had a lady of 80 who quit smoking. People make amazing advances. It’s just taking away that layer of negative chatter. Once you take the first step with something, then you’re on that journey.
Most importantly, are they lying on a couch?
I have a reclining chair.
— Brian Hughes
