This blog post is dedicated to my younger colleagues.
I’ve been in business of various forms for a number of years. Over 20 to be precise. And while I knew not every customer was a wonderful one. I, for the most part, felt that people were ethical and good and that competitors would play (generally) pretty ethically. Of course that doesn’t mean one cannot undercut someone in prices or move to be more directly competing, but the most recent issues seem to be something completely new or perhaps it is just related to this field or the changing ways of the world.
One of the ban of many businesses’ existence are not only negative review but fake reviews or false charges which are left by competitors. Did you know that fake reviews are a thing that happens? I didn’t. Sometimes they are contractors and other times they are the businesses directly. I would not put false reviews to a competitor. It hurts my heart to even put a negative review to someone as I do not want to affect their livelihood. While many people never expect it to happen to them (assuming that they even know about this phenomena), the fact is it can happen to every business, whether or not you are in a traditional field like a restaurant for example or mental health.
With the average ego of the average hypnotist and the constantly need for marketing to constantly refresh a client base and so many competing certifying organizations, hypnosis and hypnotherapy is a particularly nasty field for this. It has apparently always been cutthroat. Not only are there fake negative reviews, but fake investigations as well. Many of it caused by either jealousy or simply not wanting the competition especially if you are in a small area.
We at After Hours Hypnotherapy are used to jealousy and dealing with competitors. When we opened our doors in December 2016, a new hypnotist moved in just a few miles away. Within six months, he filed so many fake investigations into the competing hypnotherapists in the area that three in Augusta shut down and one in Aiken burned out. Having spoken to some of the hypnotists who left (who were all nice enough people), all evidence was suggesting this other hypnotist had something to do with it. Four false charges were brought against After Hours Hypnotherapy leading to state level investigations, all of which turned up nothing as we play ethically and by the letter of the law, finally we asked the investigators to investigate the person doing the complaints as we suspected it was a competitor. In Fall of 2017, we were notified it was, in fact, the competing hypnotist.
Two months after this, we had an issue with one of his friends who threatened to sue us because we post research on the state of hypnosis here on this blog and that includes the occasional dangerous side of hypnosis such as the ability to create multiple personalities under hypnosis.
Most recently, we had a situation just last week. With what is now the third member of the National Guild of Hypnotists (as the other two have been), filing false information.
This young man, from Iowa, was yet another street hypnotist turned hypnotherapist (as were the two prior) although he was forthright about that when he contacted me privately, and outside of the practice about what I require to do a very particular technique. I personally know an extensive amount of very controversial practices in hypnosis, however, because I am a scientist first and a hypnotherapist second, I told him that because I do know things outside of standard hypnotherapy (including reiki and “shamanic” work), I have different standards and for the thing he required, my policy is to ask for a psychological referral before I performed this technique (which he requested) on him and that I required this for anyone who requests it and that it was nothing personal, but was something my malpractice required which is accurate. For this, he put false and inflammatory reviews on three of the four websites we use, as well as reported us to our certifying agency (Hypnotherapist’s Union Local 472), Hypnosis Motivation Institute, and the Better Business Bureau for unprofessional behaviour because we would not violate a policy for a member of the National Guild, which is a competing agency, who appears to really have psychiatric problems.
When Ms. Weaver who had no information about this asked him for more information about the session, so she could find him in our records (which he was not in as he wasn’t a client), he refused to provide it and instead filed a list of challenges and false charges such as claiming my license (which I renewed just a few months ago) was not valid as well as giving again a huge amount of abuse. When I reported his false review plus what was ongoing to other staff to the various websites, they did their own investigation, and removed the negative and incorrect reviews which Ms. Weaver commented on.
Truthfully, I am not a fan of the National Guild for a variety of reasons, some of which is personal and some of which is professional and I am under no obligation to help them, give them free sessions when it is my own license and insurance on the line. I find it very curious that every hypnotist that has been harassing me and filed false charges has been a member of the NGH. I suspect they are unable to handle the competition. Meanwhile, I shall continue being ethical and allowing my ethics and real reviews to speak for themselves.
Melvin S. Marsh is a certified hypnotherapist with offices in Augusta (GA), Blairsville (GA), and Cary (NC) and performs house calls throughout the metro Atlanta area. He performs hypnotherapy appointments both in person and worldwide virtually. He can be reached at www.afterhyourshypnotherapy.com .
