As his website tells us:

“As you start reading this amazing report on hypnotic breast enhancement, you will discover the amazing power of the mind and how this can be used to enlarge your bust quickly, safely and totally naturally! If you have ever wished that your breasts were, larger, firmer or more attractive and beautiful in shape or touch then this information is for you. Right now you may be feeling than you wish you could increase the size of your breasts quickly and naturally without the need for expensive surgery” – Source: www.tosleep.co.uk

He goes on in that vein, and it’s worth pointing out that in a page of around 2000 words he uses 63 exclamation marks, and only 97 full stops. Sometimes, punctuation alone can alert you to the fact that what you’re reading is bullshit.

Still, apparently there’s some science behind it, as the site attests:

“The absolute fact about hypnosis is that not only is it capable of increasing your bust size it will instruct your busts to grown healthy and perfectly shaped! Studies will soon prove that hypnosis is the fastest and safest way for perfect breast enlargement.”

Ah, so the studies are coming soon? I look forward to reading the methodology and blinding processes, in that case. In fact, the article/sales pitch itself contains a brief synopsis of the studies:

“The British Academy of Hypnosis has recently studied The possibility of hypnosis on natural breast enlargements and found startling results with the majority of women receiving remarkable results! The Journal of Sex Research [I believe that's a pretty respectable journal] reports of an interesting experiment in which the power of suggestion was used to increase the bust size of a group of women. Nineteen women were used for the breast increase experiment. [Obviously 19 is a good enough sample size. Although I suppose each woman had two breasts, so technically that's 38 boobs involved in the study]. The women were divided up into three groups”

1. Phase one control group consisted of 3 women who received no hypnosis.
2. Phase one experimental group consisted of 3 women who received hypnosis for bust enlargement once a week for twelve weeks.
3. Phase two group consisted of the remaining 13 women. These women received no hypnosis for the first three weeks, and then all women received hypnosis once a week for twelve weeks.

So, to be clear, that’s a control group of 3 women (6 breasts, presumably), and then two barely-different groups of women totalling 16 women who are subject to the wonder-bust CD. No detail on whether the control group also received a placebo CD of ineffective hypnotheraputic breast enlargement. Perhaps an tape of the old mantra ‘I must I must increase my bust…’ Still, let’s take a look at the results:

“The results were astounding!

As expected, there was “no change” in the bust size of any of the subjects in the control group. [He's right, that's exactly what I expected]. The women in phase two experienced “no change” in their bust size for the first three weeks in which no hypnosis was used. However, every one of the subjects in the phase one experimental group and all of the women in phase two experienced significant increases in their breast measurements during the twelve weeks of hypnosis. The average increase was almost 2 inches!”

Wow, two whole inches? That’s genuinely quite impressive. I can’t wait until they show us the evidence that proves they’re not just plucking these facts and figures right out of the air…

“The doctor that conducted the experiments said, “hypnosis for breast growth was effective in stimulating breast growth. Further investigation may show this to be a satisfactory alternative method to surgical breast augmentation.” Dr. James Williams”

Ah, so it’s James Williams, is it? James E. Williams, publisher of the 1974 study in the Journal of Sex Research? The very same James E. Williams that doesn’t appear in the Pub Med archives for the Journal of Sex Research, but does appear all over an awful lot of other hypnotic bust-enhancement quackery sites similar to David Knight’s? I’m not saying the study doesn’t exist, I’m just saying if it’s so ground-breaking, and yet over 35 years old, one full report on the findings ought to exist. Suspicious.

So, how does it work? Well, let’s see what David has to say:

“The boobs go through a period during puberty in which they change dramatically. The same process can be reinstated at any time in a woman’s life by using hypnosis”

Interesting stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. Sheer preposterous nonsense, too. So, David, how does hypnosis reinstate the puberty period? What are the mechanisms involved?

“The determining factors appear to be desire and belief. Hypnosis guides your mind into recreating the physical process, your body simply follows along because that is what it is designed to do. Your mind and body are totally linked.”

Ohhhh I see! You just believe hard enough and your boobs will grow. Excellent.

David, who makes the strange claim to be the THE WORLDS FASTEST STAGE HYPNOTIST (whatever that means), doesn’t stop at boob jobs and hay-fever – he offers a whole range of services including past life regression (obviously), boosting the immune system (which as we all know means nothing at all) and ‘general well being’. And all this from a website on which every single page has the title ‘David Knight – Comedy Stage Hypnotist’. Because that’s what you real want from a man dispensing health advice.

As I hinted earlier, there are other wonderful medical claims on David’s website, such as the woo-tastically-titled ‘Quantum Pain Therapy’.

“If you are a professional Hypnotherapist and would like to learn the power of being able to switch off pain any time any where then this is the course for you. Learning the ultimate power of pain relief will become a massive part of your business as you help people become pain free. You can Learn Quantum Pain Therapy for surgical operations, for dental practices or nursing, for helping the elderly or care work. Helping in third world countries or dealing with sports injuries, aches and pains of almost any kind”

Third world countries? Surgical operations? Just to re-iterate, this man is a stage hypnotist.

“Quantum Pain Therapy will allow major surgery without any form of anaesthetic. using the power of Quantum Pain Therapy the patient will be awake during the entire operation. No form of drugs or anaesthetic of any kind will be used. Removing the dangers of anaesthetic means the Therapy is suitable for the weak and elderly without the dangers normally associated with anaesthetic. The relaxed state of the patient means less blood loss and improved the healing of the wound. Through out history hypnosis has been a successful alternative to anaesthetic. Now you can learn it’s secrets.”

Yikes. I really don’t need to go into why telling people hypnotism is a good replacement for anaesthesia is a bad idea, I’m sure. So, instead, I’ll do what the rest of the media have done, and focus not on the dangerous stuff but on the boobs bit…

Mr Knight, who hails from Northallerton in the North East (barely a stone’s through from the birthplace of your’s truly, I may add), quotes an 85 per cent success rate for his boob-jobbery, based on customer feedback (rather than, say, data and statistics and proof and evidence). He’s also so confident of the technique that he offers a money-back guarantee. He said:

“Every lady’s breasts have been grown by the mind. The mind grows it, so the mind can enhance it. Fact.”

Excellent logic. Except for all the bits that aren’t excellent logic. Like, for example, the fact that the mind doesn’t grow the breasts, obviously. Or the fact that the mind can’t just will parts of the physical form to change – a lot of people would be very happy if it was possible to make parts of the body grow or shrink with the power of thought, but I’m afraid it’s not happening. Not me, by the way. Really. so, by ‘Fact’, David actually means ‘I’m just making this up, now’. Cheers Dave.

When his quackery was exposed by the BBC North East team, David told The Sun (who else?):

“They could’ve tried it before saying it categorically didn’t work.”

They could’ve. But here’s a zany idea, David – how about we don’t individually try things out until we know they actually work? And I mean know as in ‘proven in peer-reviewed studies’ rather than ‘hinted to in mysterious 35 year old non-respected journals with no results available’. Because that’s how medicine works. Fact.

Hypnotherapist Cats: A Real Threat

This week I’m going to take you back to my native North East – imagine if you will the taste of fresh stottie, the smell of the River Wear and the lush and verdant scenery of Durham’s forest. And then forget most of that, because it’s in no way relevant to what we’re about to talk about. Which, specifically, is an episode of the BBC One North East show Inside Out. The show this week featured George Jackson’s success in registering with a professional-seeming organisation of hypnotists. Many people might think a little odd, given that George is in fact a cat.

In the show, which took a look at the hypnotherapy industry and the sham claims to legitimacy of many practitioners, presenter Chris Jackson decide to test just how easy it is to set yourself up as an “accredited” hypnotherapist with absolutely no qualifications. Rather than register himself, he decided to try the Ben Goldacre approach and aim for feline registry – and he discovered that using a fake diploma and paying a pretty nominal sum it was alarmingly easy to set his moggy up as a ‘genuine’ hypnotherapist.

The stunt is reminiscent, of course, of Hettie Goldacre’s success in achieving membership of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants (AANC), despite being both a cat and dead. Ben registered his deceased moggy in order to show up the nutritionist and non-doctor Gillian McKeith’s claims to accreditation – reports of the whole affair can be read in full on his excellent Bad Science blog. As I’m sure you knew.

Aside from exposing the sham nature of organisation bodies, elsewhere in the show the claims of George McNaney were examined. McNaney calls himself ‘hypnotist to the stars’ in a blatant appeal to what’s often seen as authority these days – that of celebrity. On top of that, he also lists all of his certificates and accreditations on his website, including:

• Association for Professional Hypnosis and Psychotherapy (APHP)
• Hypnotherapy Society (HS)
• General Hypnotherapy Standards Council (GHSC)
• General Hypnotherapy Register (GHR Reg)
• National Council of Psychotherapists (NCP)
• Accredited by the National Regulatory Register for Hypnotherapy (NRH)
• UK Confederation of Hypnotherapy Organisations (UKCHO)

All impressive-sounding, I’m sure you’ll agree. But must I remind you about the cat? Excellently, George McNaney lists his full name on his website, with all of his qualification-titles too, describing himself as:

George McNaney
Clinical Hypnotherapist – D.Hyp.LNCP.LAPHP.LHS.NRH.GHR.GQHP.UKCHO

How about that for an appeal to authority. By the way, that’s the Sunderland-dwelling human, not the cat, despite them both being called George, which I’ll admit is a bit confusing, but try and keep up. Maybe ‘George’ is quite a hypnotherapisty name? Who knows.

Anyway, man-George claims to be able to help people stop smoking. Cat-George makes no such claims, I hasten to add. Hypnotherapy has been show to be roughly helpful in around 20-35 percent of smokers – which seems to me to be closer to the normal figures for stopping smoking anyway, so how it can be shown to be exclusively the hypnotherapy that’s helping I’m not sure. Still, that’s an academic point, because Man-George claims a success rate of “up to 90 per cent” using hypnotherapy techniques for a one-off payment of £129. Which is high when it comes to in both numbers.

When asked about his success-rate and the vast gulf between what he claims and what can be shown to be true using actual science and evidence, Man-George responded by saying that he’s less interested in clinical tests than what works for his clients. Where have we heard that before? Oh yeah – with every bullshit-peddler going.

After a bit more digging, the Inside Out team discovered that although Mr McNaney has a website offering hypnotherapy services, he isn’t the director of any registered hypnotherapy company. He is, however, the director of an outfit that predicts who’s going to win at the horse racing, for the small fee of over £5000. Apparently, this scam (sorry, scheme!) is no longer in operation and was stopped before he became a hypnotherapist. This makes sense – why make money scamming people when you can make money scamming people in ways they’re less likely to complain about.

At this point, it’s worth noting that despite the existence of several hypnotherapy organisations around the country, the practice is not regulated by law and there are no standard qualifications. Which is good news for Cat-George, and even better news for Man-George. With this in mind, I’ve decided to become a hypnotherapist myself. Cat-George is gonna show miaow.