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Book Reviews
In this excellent book and companion set of CDs, Dr Brian Alman, PhD, discusses the foundation and techniques of self-hypnosis used to achieve and sustain weight loss. Dr Alman has taught this material to obese patients at The Kaiser Permanente Positive Choice Wellness Center in San Diego. He now shares with us these self-hypnosis skills, which he learned as a student from his beloved teacher, the psychiatrist Milton Erickson. As we have found in treating 24,000 obese patients in San Diego, weight gain is usually not the problem but is instead the solution to underlying problems rooted in the past. Overeating is usually caused not by physical appetite but by emotional need. As a normal response in childhood, people learn to associate food with comfort and protection. To successfully lose weight and keep it off, a person often must get to the root of his or her underlying problems; the relapse rate after fad dieting is so high because of dieters' inability to address their repressed feelings. Permanent change in body weight often depends on successfully addressing these unconscious memories and understanding how they became part of our life. This success is followed naturally--and permanently--by success in keeping the weight off. Dr Alman's premise is that the simple secret to losing weight and keeping it off is achieved through a person's respecting, caring for, and loving himself or herself unconditionally, without restrictions or requirements. Once that is accomplished and the person accepts all his or her strengths and weaknesses--including obesity--that person will begin to take better care of mind, body, and soul. The author teaches self-hypnosis to accomplish this task. Part One of the book teaches the fundamentals of self-hypnosis and how readers can find within themselves the powerful solution to losing weight and keeping it off. This instruction helps readers to relate their unconscious past problems to their conscious present situation. The accompanying CDs reinforce these principles through effective, self-paced exercises and techniques. After learning the basic skills of self-hypnosis, readers can proceed to the Keep It Off-Weight Loss Program presented in the next part of the book. Part Two of the book enables readers to master the Keep It Off-Weight Loss Program and is based on a four-phase plan that uses the self-hypnosis skills presented in Part I. This four-phase plan is represented by the acronym AAER, which stands for Awareness, Acceptance, Expression, and Resolution. In Phase One, a person becomes aware of body, mind, feelings, and self. In Phase Two, the person learns to accept his or her body and self as they really are. Phase Three helps learners to express themselves positively, easily, safely, and comfortably. In Phase Four, unfinished personal issues are resolved once and for all. Dr Alman has given us a useful tool, both a stepwise approach for people with weight problems as well as a primer for therapists on how to effectively help people lose weight and keep it off. Dr Alman supplies the part missing from most weight programs: a way to help patients cope with the emotional underpinnings of obesity.
Albert Ray, MD, is a family physician practicing with Kaiser Permanente in San Diego and is an elected Board Member of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group.
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