The Press Tribune has a piece on Cindy Schreiber who set her shop up three months ago to deliver hypnosis along with massage (see http://rosevillept.com/detail/169447.html for the full story on hypnosis and massage for weight loss). According to the PT, she hopes to patent the process . . . uh, unless her hypnotic massage process is incredibly unique, that isn’t likely. Trademark, maybe, if she’s a unique and catchy name. Copyright on her script, absolutely. However, patents require primacy and uniqueness and it’s not just whether or not anyone else has ever attempted to patent the process before, it’s whether or not this is something truly unique and whether or not someone else has done this sort of thing before and on that score, someone that new to the business of hypnosis doesn’t have primacy . . . she may have an original approach or may have independently developed an approach that has parallels to others but there have been folks doing this sort of thing for years and when I say years I mean decades. I delivered my first erotic hypnotic massage back as an undergrad in university and suggest that my Eroticatrance students combine the two. As to vanilla or therapeutic approaches, I’ve suggested therapeutic touch of this type to folks for years based upon my acquaintance with certified massage practitioners who also learn hypnosis. Certainly, someone basing their work on Wilhelm Reich’s methods of eliciting full-on psychological abreactions through deep tissue massage would be combining elements of that work with hypnosis to very good effect (well, not that many folks using Reich’s methods anymore but there are entire schools of massage that have grown out of his work, some of them more aware of their origins than others). A nice progressive relaxation deepener goes along great with a massage that works the same muscle groups.

Of course, I don’t know Schreiber’s specific process and her newness to the business has nothing to do with whether or not she’s created a process that is truly unique. If so, she has every right to protect it and to even license it if she wishes. I do know of some amazingly unique processes out there and I have certainly put my name on a few. Unfortunately, there are also some amazingly unoriginal processes out there masquerading as the next big new thing when in fact they are far from new.

Even if her process is not as original as the newspaper reporter seems to assume, the combination of hypnosis with massage is a very very valuable one and Schreiber’s services are probably a very worthwhile service for her community.

Please note this post is less about Schreiber’s interesting business model than it is about originality and marketing, at least that’s likely the subtext driving my posting this particular bit. Recently, we’ve seen a growth in the hypnosis community of last-minute marketing hucksters who have taken a single course or even less than that and then set up a marketing barrage aimed at newcomers who don’t know better on how they can teach them to do really amazing things that are absolutely original and unique and amazingly powerful that are actually the same sort of thing that are done in pretty much every other course and often less. So, when I see news from someone relatively new at this stuff touting a completely new and original process I take a few thousand grains of salt with that news.

All the best,
Brian