[originally published in The Suburban, Quebec's largest English-language weekly]

By Walter Joseph Lyng, The Suburban

Can he make you cluck like a chicken?

Knight: Pretty well everybody has been hypnotized in some way.

Professional hypnotherapist Dr. Bryan Knight insists he cannot control the minds of unsuspecting victims, convince them to rob banks or commit murder — nor can any other hypnotherapist.

“Hypnosis can only help you do something that you really want to do,” says the 67-year-old Knight, who points a finger at dubious works of fiction and sensationalism for creating an air of misconception and skepticism around his field.

“Bad movies and bad books have created this idea that the hypnotist controls the client,” he says. “When you’re in hypnosis, you, the client, are in control of yourself.”

Knight, a member of the Canadian community of hypnotherapists, says for the most part, hypnosis is a therapeutic process where the patient is as much involved as the hypnotherapist.

While he admits there have been instances of shady dealings in the world of psychotherapy, Knight is quick to point out that none of these instances include turning helpless patients into minions of crime.

“It’s more among psychotherapists than hypnotherapists that you’ll find abuse,” he says. “One of the things that has caused a lot of controversy was psychotherapists implanting so-called ‘memories’ of abuse in people — things that didn’t happen, especially with children.

“Kids are very eager to please, so if they know the interviewer wanted to hear that they were abused by their mommy or their daddy or whatever, then they’ll provide that information once they [know] what the interviewer wants … That’s not hypnosis, that’s people manipulating little children.”

Knight claims it would be quite difficult for a hypnotherapist to harm a patient without them knowing about it.

“You hear clients accusing hypnotists of rape and they didn’t know what was going on… this is rubbish, because when you’re under hypnosis you’re conscious, you’re awake, you’re aware, so you know what’s going on.”

While Knight has a degree in psychology from Sir George Williams University and a Master’s in social work from McGill, it was for his dissertation Professional Love: The Hypnotic Power of Psychotherapy that he obtained his doctorate from Columbia Pacific University.

Today, Knight works as a consulting hypnotherapist at the West Side Medical Clinic and is the author of several books on the subject.

Last Thursday, Knight celebrated World Hypnotism Day by giving out copies of his e-book Self Hypnosis: Safe, Simple, Superb.

Knight claims self-hypnosis can help a person to change a habit, win a marathon, improve concentration and enhance their sex life, amongst other things. The selling point of self-hypnosis, Knight says, is its simplicity.

“We have a built-in biological orientation to learn hypnosis,” he says. “Hypnosis is like day-dreaming… and pretty much anyone can day dream.”

In his book, Knight explains that relaxation and repetition are key to the process of self-hypnosis, which boils down to replacing certain pre-existing messages of the subconscious.

While relaxation can help a person focus on a specific change, says Knight, repetition of new positive messages can replace the old negative ones.

As it turns out, repetition is a key part of any hypnotic process and, according to Knight, one doesn’t have to look too far to find examples of it occurring everyday.

Knight says it’s a misconception when people think they can resist being hypnotized.

“Pretty well everybody has been hypnotized,” he says. “Every time you watch TV you go into hypnosis. Every time you’re engrossed in a movie or a novel, you’re in hypnosis.

“In a general sense, people are hypnotized by politicians, by car salesmen, by preachers; when you go to a church or synagogue service, what do you think is going on there?”

Knight says there is one exception.

“People who are not very intelligent cannot be hypnotized because they don’t have the imaginative capacity,” he says.

Knight is quick to point out the tangible positive effects hypnosis can have, but concedes his work means he manipulates intangible.

“In reality, there’s no such thing as a subconscious … or the ego or all this crap,” he says. “These are simply metaphorical ways of us communicating.”