CNN is doing a series on New Year Revolution . . . a bit about folks following through with their New Year’s Resolutions and seeing how they end up . . . mindful of unhealthy habits. The hypnosis segment is having mixed response in that the guy is indeed slowing down on his nail biting but he wasn’t really very comfortable with the hypnosis session and isn’t even sure that’s what can be attributed to his partial success (he had more positive comments about the acupuncture sessions).

His next treatment: hynotherapy. Hypnotherapist George Bien explained this option aimed to change Karp’s largely subconscious tendency to bite his nails. "What this does is, it helps create a different reflex," Bien said of hypnotherapy. "It trains the brain, virtually instantly." But Karp was skeptical about his session, saying he was "uncomfortable the whole time." Otherwise, he remained optimistic, saying he was about 80 percent to his goal. "The first time I have to clip my nails with a clipper, and I’m like, ‘Wow, they’re getting too long’ — that, I think, will be the day [to] drink some champagne," Karp said.

That’s pretty mixed. Too bad. Hypnosis can work wonders for nail biting as it’s actually a very simple process for most folks. Some are more difficult but there are some very powerful and straightfoward hypnotic techniques to deal with even the toughest nail biter. Sounds like there may have been a problem with the pretalk, but who’s to say.

George Bien is well known and I’ve heard from others that they respect his trainings so one would assume there’s some other difficulties in the context than the CNN story presents.