ome questions Dr. Realson is frequently asked:

I have started and stopped college classes for the past 3 years. At some point each semester, I'm too anxious to go to class, and start skipping classes and assignments until it is too late and I either fail or withdraw. Can anything can be done to help me?
It sounds like you encounter a time during each semester in which anxiety is triggered. This can be due to many things. We could use hypnotherapy, EMDR, cognitive work, and other tools to discover what fears or concerns are operative and help you to develop techniques to cope with them so that they will no longer cause you to self-sabotage.

My wife was physically abused as a child and has difficulty in relationships. What can help her?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is generally considered the gold standard for trauma of this type. This therapy is very effective for all kinds of trauma, like car accidents, post-traumatic stress, losses, etc. It enables one to disconnect the past memories from present-day events and relationships, removing their effects on how one experiences and reacts to the present.

I've never felt really good about myself or my life. How can therapy help me?
It is important to identify the negative thoughts and beliefs you have about yourself and the way they affect how you live your life. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a process of identifying negative patterns of thinking and the behaviors that they cause, and then systematically changing these patterns into positive ones. Hypno-behavioral therapy seeks out the sources of these patterns and transforms them through hypnosis and therapy so that a positive shift in your self-esteem can occur.

 

I had gastric bypass surgery four years ago, and initially lost a lot of weight, which I have been gaining back over the last year and a half. I attended all of the support groups in my surgeons's practice, but it didn't help me. Is there any hope?
Yes! Although your capacity for food intake has been surgically altered, you haven't addressed the reasons you overeat. Once you learn to make peace with food and understand the reasons you have gone to food when you really needed something else, overeating will stop, and you will respond appropriately to your physical and emotional needs.

I've been on every diet imaginable, and have lost and gained back weight so many times. Is there anything that will work for me?
The truth is, diets don't really work. They are a quick, temporary fix, like a band-aid for a serious wound. Diets fail to address and resolve the underlying problems causing your problematic relationship with food. Learning to respond to your body's natural hunger and satiety signals, and choosing from a wide variety of foods is a good start. It's how people without eating problems eat, and I can teach you how to do this. In addition, I will help you to identify the feelings and triggers not related to physical hunger that drive you to eat, and to learn how to satisfy these needs appropriately. Your relationship with food will change, you will take off weight and keep it off, once and for all.