Rating: 
Summary: Wow!
Review: I was concerned that this might be another boring book about self hypnosis but it was nothing of the kind. This book is new and fresh.
The authors start off by explaining just what hypnosis is. (I was a bit surprised by how common trance is in every day life!)Then they go through many of the common ways that self hypnosis can help people. Memory enhancement, learning, smoking, weight loss, self esteem, pain control. It was all here. This book is much better than most of the stuff you pick up off the shelves that tell you to sit back and relax and veg out for a half hour. I thought the approach to hypnosis was innovative and exciting. Five stars plus!
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Summary: Hogan/Labay Team is a WINNER!
Review: Kevin Hogan and Mary Lee Labay, put the simple, easy to use definative book on self-hypnosis into your hands with a flair that exceeds even their other works. Simply put, this book is the best in it's catagory. As a full time hypnotherapist/teacher,this is a book I fully recommend to not only my students but my clients as well. Congrats, Dr Hogan and Ms. Labay for writing such a masterpeice.
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Summary: An ideal introduction for the non-specialist general reader
Review: Self-hypnosis can be a powerful technique for anyone seeking to overcome phobias, lose weight, stop smoking, ease the pangs of childbirth, or make other significant and lasting changes in their emotional and physical well being. In Through The Open Door: Secrets Of Self-Hypnosis, Kevin Hogan and Mary Lee LaBay offer simple, easy-to-follow guidelines for employing self-hypnosis to achieve and maintain a desired balance in life; dissolve self-sabotaging fears and abolish unwanted habits; make and abide by better decisions; develop an enduring self-confidence; even interpret dreams. Exceptionally well written and an ideal introduction for the non-specialist general reader, Through The Open Door is a unique and invaluable contribution to any self-help, self-improvement reading list or reference collection.
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Summary: Simple, but Lengthy, Inductions for Common Problems
Review: The strength of this book is its ability to help you appreciate the limits of your own mind-set, and to substitute a better one for it. I was reminded of this while having a bad night with recurrent pains that I get sometime. I tried the usual things, and had no success. Then I used an induction here that I had often applied to nonpain problems successfully, and got immediate relief. So there I was suffering, with the knowledge I needed to fix my own problem, but I had not connected the dots before in my mind. Thank you so much! The book explains a little about the basis for hypnosis and ways to successfully access your unconscious mind. Individual sections address procrastination, overcoming fears, improving self-esteem, improving decision-making, attracting the people you need, look better, weight loss, quitting cigarettes, pain relief, easier child birth, having more prosperity, improving learning and memory, and interpreting dreams. My main quibble with this book is that self-hypnosis is a secondary or tertiary approach for a number of these problems. Yet the book tends to treat self-hypnosis like it can do the whole thing. I also think you will get more out of this book if you also read The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, which explains more about how the mind works. I found the self-hypnosis methods proposed in this latter book to be usually easier to perform and more effective than the lengthy inductions in Through the Open Door. After you finish reading and applying this book, I suggest that you write down your beliefs about all areas of your life. Then examine those beliefs in terms of how effective they are for creating the behaviors you know will help you succeed with your goals and in living your values. How can you write new beliefs you feel confident about that encourage you to replace the old ones that discourage or derail you? If the door isn't open, then open it! But be sure to walk through right away.
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Summary: Portal to Change
Review: There are tons of self-help books out there. Hogan and LaBay's contribution is one of the best because it shows how you can change your life and take control across the board. Through simple instruction and inspirational stories, they document and teach the power of the unconscious mind. In straightforward prose, they offer readers guidelines for improving their lives and maintaining those gains. If there are things you want to do differently in your life, start by buying this book. It is a portal to change.
Rating:
Summary: A tranceactional winner
Review: This is Kevin Hogan's best book to date. No doubt his collaboration with co-author MaryLee LaBay added some punch. Hogan has a way of writing about complex things in a very simple way and he has outdone himself here. Chapters on Pain Control, Learning, Childbirth, Self Esteem, Weight Loss are all top drawer. The foundation for self hypnosis laid in the first several chapters is well done and again, easy to understand. This one is a winner.
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Summary: The next level in self hypnosis books
Review: Through the Open Door: Secrets of Self Hypnosis is a passionately written book with two authors who obviously have a broad and deep background in the field.
In general this book works in the ways the authors intended. Clearly this book is not your traditional self hypnosis book...and if you've ever heard the authors speak, you'll be surprised to find over a dozen scripts in the text. Addressing the first point, you find the authors are familiar with and bow to models of hypnosis that have been put forward by Hilgard, Rossi and some of the current researchers of the field. This causes a problem and creates and opportunity. Many of the concepts in the early part of the text are not completely explained. Therefore if you are unfamiliar with current research in hypnosis you may be at a loss in some of the more advanced mind/brain technology involved. On the other hand, what isn't explained early on is adequately dealt with in chapters of the book that don't address typical self hypnosis subjects. The authors seem comfortable tackling issues that you won't find in other self hypnosis books. After a somewhat high brow description of hypnosis the authors wisely put a chapter on overcoming procrastination early in the book. This chapter works and the authors explain how they have overcome procrastination exclusively with self hypnosis. This chapter is among the strongest in the text. Chapter Four is called, Fear No More, and I have some reservations about this chapter. I'm not certain the authors clearly define fear and fright for the non-academic reader. This chapter has good ideas, a wonderful meditation but it doens't work as well as it could have. Self Esteem and Self Confidence is detailed next in a thoroughly brilliant chapter. The authors careful weave real life experience with trance work and this chapter is among the strongest in the book. The meditations in this chapter effective and very enjoyable. Chapter Six is about making better decisions. This is another new breakthrough area for self hypnosis. Once again, I've never seen other authors tackle this subject and the writing duo does the challenge justice. Chapter Seven (Attracting Special People into Your Life) reads passionately and swiftly. The method seems sound and the link with real life exercises to bring the self hypnosis work into real life is appreciated. This chapter was fun and the strongest chapter in the book. Hypnosis for weight loss again combines self hypnosis with some solid real life strategies that blend into a winning combination. The meditation was very nice when I made my tape for this. The chapter about pain relief, written by a colleague of the authors is a delight. Numerous strategies are provided that offer the person who suffers from chronic pain a great deal of hope. Childbirth with hypnosis is something I have never thought of trying! That's discussed in some detail next by another contributor and I found it tantalizing. The confirming stories by other contributors, with their experiences of childbirth while using self hypnosis is compelling. I'd like to learn more about this. The prosperity chapter is one of the most intense reads I've seen in a self hypnosis book. It didn't quite work for me because it requires some additional skills beyond self hypnosis (understanding fairly high level mathematics). Nevertheless, I did the meditation and plan to continue to do so. Chapter Fourteen is about accelerated learning. The authors are obviously devotees of Lozanov and they regularly credit his model of learning. I found this to be a grand summary of learning strategies with trance and I think anyone...of any age would benefit from this chapter making it worth the price of admission. The book closes with numerous contributors from all walks of life sharing about the variety of their self hypnosis experience. What a delight. What a treat. The book is well written, well researched, synthesizes numerous brain based learning models and except for the first two chapters (with no disrespect, they simply weren't as clear as they could have been) is readable by anyone with a high school education. Five Stars
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