Every case in this series is held to one editorial rule: the account must trace to the person's own words — an interview, a memoir, a printed dedication — or to contemporaneous reporting by a named outlet. If a story cannot meet that bar, it does not run here, no matter how widely it circulates online. Every page lists its sources in full, so you can check the record yourself.
Two things these pages are not. They are not endorsements: none of the people profiled has endorsed NGH India or any practitioner — no endorsement is stated or implied — and each case carries a scope note saying exactly that. And they are not case histories of clients: each page pairs the documented public record with a short note on the general clinical mechanism involved — expectancy, focused attention, habit interruption — written by an RCI-registered clinical psychologist.
For the question behind all fourteen — what does the clinical evidence actually support? — start with the full review: Does Hypnotherapy Actually Work? A Clinical Psychologist Reviews the Evidence. Then read the cases.
After three silent years, Rachmaninoff had daily hypnotic-suggestion sessions with Dr. Nikolai Dahl in 1900. The result was Piano Concerto No. 2, dedicated to Dahl. The documented record and the clinical mechanism.
In December 2004 Matt Damon told Jay Leno that hypnosis ended his long smoking habit, calling it amazing and wishing he had done it years earlier. The record, the nuance, and the mechanism.
From age 13, Tiger Woods worked with Dr. Jay Brunza, a Navy psychologist who used hypnosis in his mental training, documented in the Benedict and Keteyian biography and golf press. The record and the mechanism.
On the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast in February 2020, the future Princess of Wales described using hypnobirthing through severe pregnancy sickness and labour. The record and the fear-tension-pain mechanism.
In October 2006 Ellen DeGeneres underwent a hypnosis session with Paul McKenna on her own show to quit smoking. She later credited a book as well. What the footage proves, what it cannot, and the mechanism.
Jennifer Aniston told Travel + Leisure in April 2025 that hypnosis helped her extreme fear of flying, and described dropping the boarding rituals that fed it. The record and the phobia mechanism.
Charlize Theron told Vogue in 2011 she was highly addicted to cigarettes. Local press reported that hypnotist Kerry Gaynor helped her quit. The precisely scoped record and the identity mechanism.
Before swimming the English Channel for Sport Relief in July 2006, David Walliams prepared with hypnotist Paul McKenna, including a time-distortion technique, as reported by The Independent. Record and mechanism.
Bobby Cannavale told AARP The Magazine in 2024 that after three or four hypnosis sessions he never wanted a cigarette again. His own words, and the mechanism of craving extinction.
Two days after Ken Norton upset Muhammad Ali and broke his jaw, an AP wire story ran under the headline 'Hypnotist Aided Norton.' The contemporaneous record, the nuance, and the mechanism of confidence conditioning.
Before beating the unbeaten Chris Eubank in 1995, Steve Collins announced he had been hypnotised to feel no pain, then admitted he exaggerated it to unsettle his opponent. A documented lesson in expectancy.
On episode 731 of his podcast, April 2024, Tim Ferriss was guided through self-hypnosis for back pain by Stanford psychiatry professor Dr. David Spiegel. Why this episode is the modern credibility anchor.
Forbes reported in 2014 how a hypnotherapy session cracked open private-equity investor Vanessa Loder's certainty about her career, and what she built after. The record, the regression nuance, and the mechanism.
CNBC reported in 2019 on business leaders using hypnosis, led by Hollywood producer David Zelon, who calls his practice subconscious goal-setting. The record, the sceptic in the same article, and the mechanism.