So does thinking you have a gastric band really work as well as actually having a gastric band?

Last summer, Marion Corns, a 35 year old woman from Britain, was treated with Gastric mind Band (GmB) therapy at the Elite Clinic in Marbella Spain. After being hypnotized into thinking a gastric band was placed around her stomach, she started losing up to 3 pounds a week. She says, as bizarre as it seems she remembers every part of the “procedure” and now feels full if she eats any more than a small portion of food. So far, the treatment has helped her lose 55 pounds.

Marian Corn said she decided to try the GmB therapy after trying every other diet and exercise plan and failing to lose weight. The treatment developed by Elite Clinic uses a combination of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Hypnotherapy, and guided imagery. She paid $1,580 for five sessions with a specialist hypnotherapist.

While it is easy to be skeptical, the use of hypnotherapy has been shown to be effective when applied to a wide range of other conditions. Hypnotherapy, which aims to alter a persons subconscious thoughts and attitudes in order to change behavioral patterns, has been used to treat anxiety, pain management, smoking cessation, fear of flying, anger management, insomnia, relationship problems, eating disorders, drug and alcohol addiction, and stress management.

The mind is known to affect outcomes in many medical situations, even without hypnosis. When going through cancer treatment, patients with positive outlooks do better. In a recent study on the effectiveness of antidepressant drugs, it was concluded that 50% of all therapeutic benefits came from the placebo effect, not the medications. Even with weight loss surgery, behavioral therapy is an important aspect of overcoming unhealthy eating patterns.

The benefits of weight loss surgery cannot be dismissed, as it is currently the only treatment that has been proven to bring about substantial and lasting weight loss in morbidly obese patients. In some patients, however, weight loss surgery is not always successful and there are risks involved.

Could hypnotherapy really help with weight loss without the risks of surgery? If it does, it is still important for patients to be given correct dietary advice and to eat a healthy diet. As for Marion Corn, her story shows that there is an aspect of weight loss that depends on changing the way one thinks about food and eating to bring about behavioral change and weight loss.