"Therapist offers a remedy of last resorts to those who suffer"
By Vickie Fee
 Staff Writer, Millington Star -Millington, TN 
     The roster of testimonials is impressive; a lifelong smoker who hasn’t picked up a cigarette in three years, a young man who is headache-free after years of debilitating migraines, a woman who suffered from psychological blindness can now see.
    
      These recoveries, described as miracles by his clients, are all in a day’s work for hypnotherapist Dr. Henry Parker.  He is currently spending Mondays in Munford at the Covington Internal Physician’s office at the invitation of Dr. Jesse Cannon.  The other days of the week he maintains an office in Martin, Tenn., at the University of Tennessee.
     
     Parker is about as specialized as specialists come.  “My practice is to cure incurable people.  I don’t take patients unless other doctors have dismissed them,” he said.
     
     Parker also holds a free consultation with prospective clients.  If he doesn’t think he can help then, he won’t take on their case. 
     
     The hypnotherapist, who emphasizes he has a PhD not an MD, believes hypnosis allows people to tap into their hidden potential.  “Hypnosis gives you access to a God-given power that most of us don’t use.  We only use about 10 percent of the potential in our minds,” he said.
     
     While Parker sees a number of clients for weight loss and smoking cessation, he says his major missions now are to help people in chronic pain, as well as alcoholics and those suffering from impotency.
     
     “Hypnosis is not a substitute for traditional medicine.  I believe it can work as a complement where traditional methods have not succeeded,” he said.
      
     A case in point was Parker’s work with a young anorexic woman, who had dropped all the way down to 38 pounds.  Parker was able to help Rudena Howard break the cycle of self-imposed starvation by silencing the voice inside her head.  Both of them were featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, after Winfrey had followed the case for about four months.  Howard, with the help of Parker, had gained more than 12 pounds from the time Winfrey first met the young woman until she appeared on the television show

     Parker said more doctors, like Dr. Cannon, are beginning to incorporate hypnotherapy into their practice- about 15,000 to date.  And a few medical schools, like Stanford and Columbia, teach hypnosis.  “More doctors are beginning to realize we’re made up of body and mind,” said Parker.

     Parker, a native of Memphian, has had a life of varied experiences.  He has taught at universities in Minnesota and Illinois, founded a preschool, and has hosted his own TV show at a station in Iowa for six years.  He even spent three years in a Benedictine monastery in his early adulthood, considering a vocation as a monk or a priest.

     Nowadays Parker, who says his new hobby is his two grandchildren, has a clear mission in life.  “When people have tried everything else, they come to me.  I hate to have anyone live a minute in pain if they don’t have to.

     “I believe the next age will be run by people who can control their minds, because the pressures on people are becoming so great.  We will need to tap into the potential (of the mind) in order to survive,” Parker said.

"Dr. Henry Parker unveils his hypnotic side”
By LYNN FEUERBACH
Staff  Writer, Waterloo Courier -Waterloo, Iowa
     CEDAR FALLS- Dr. Henry H. Parker is “coming out of the closet”- he’s letting the public know he’s a hypnotist.

      Parker, a professor in the modern language department at the University of Northern Iowa, reveled a plan to share his skills with the public at a press conference Wednesday at UNI’s Mauker Union.

          Beginning March 2, Parker will conduct a group of hypnosis sessions at Conway Inne in Waterloo for people who have lived with intense chronic pain for years, those with insomnia, those who have been trying to loose weight most of their lives, and businessmen and women who need to learn how to relax and avoid unnecessary stress.

          Parker may accept people who are interested in hypnosis to help them deal with other problems, but he will decide whether to allow them into the sessions on an individual basis.

          TO PROTECT himself and insure that problems he attempts to treat aren’t organic, Parker will restrict his sessions to people who have exhausted all medical help.

         Those who are under psychological care will not be allowed to participate, and to prevent possible conflict of interest, UNI students will also be ineligible.

         When he began his career as a hypnotist in the late 1960's, Parker says, hypnosis was viewed with suspicion by the public, and he was a controversial figure in the metro area at that time.

         “I didn’t want to deal with the possible criticism,” he says.  “A prophet is no good in his own home town.”

         Now that time has toned down his public image and hypnosis is enjoying a period of popularity and acceptance, Parker says he”can come out of the closet.”

         TO TESTIFY to his abilities, Frances Mills, president of the Waterloo School Board, told reporters how Parker restored the sight of her former daughter-in-law about five years ago.

         Mrs. Mills’ daughter-in-law, Barbara, suffered from psychological blindness.  Before Mrs. Mills asked for Parker’s help, the family had taken her to two opthomologists who could not resolve her problem.

         “She came home with a white cane,” Mrs. Mills says.  When Parker came to the Mills home, the family went to the basement to pray while Barbara was hypnotized upstairs.  A short time later, Parker asked the family to come upstairs.

         When Mrs. Mills came into the room, her daughter-in-law said, “Gee Mom, that’s a pretty green suit you’re wearing.”

         Barbara has had no further problems with her eyesight since then, Mrs. Mills says.

         Parker is offering group hypnosis sessions to give people the chance to try the method without the expense of private sessions.  The fee for group sessions will be $25.

         If participants are good candidates for hypnosis, they may see Parker privately for a fee that will be determined according to their particular problems.

         “Most people live and die and use no more than 10 percent of their brain power,”Parker said.

         “Hypnosis is a way of getting to that God-given power within.  It allows you to do what you can’t do in a conscious state.

"Helping others help themselves"
By KAREN HELGESON
Staff Reporter, Weekly Co. Press
      Dr. Henry Parker of Martin is determined to do what most would consider impossible: “There are curable people among the millions diagnosed as incurable.  I want to find them and rescue as many as I can from their life sentences of pain and suffering.”

        How can you cure the incurable, short of a miracle?  Parker, a medical hypnotherapist, says that the answer lies in each one of us, in power that can be drawn out with a little help from hypnotherapy.

        “The theory is that we use no more than 10 percent of our potential,” said Parker.  “So where’s the other 90?  It’s buried beneath your level of consciousness.  With Hypnotherapy you can access all that potential that can be very powerful in a lot of areas where people need help.”

        Parker’s part-time vocation started with a headache.  “It was an accidental thing,” he remembered.  While in graduate school, “I had a headache, and my friends were hypnotists.  They said that they could get rid of it, and that started my interest.”

        Now Parker, a full-time professor of philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Martin, has over 25 years of impressive accomplishments in medical hypnosis under his belt, working alongside physicians to fill in the gaps where traditional medicine has failed.  Although he treats the occasional patient in Martin, the bulk of Parker’s practice takes place in Munford, where he spends one day each week.  His specialty is chronic pain, especially migraines, though patients have triumphed over a wide range of problems.

        The success stories are dramatic.  In the 70's, Parker restored the sight of an Iowa girl suffering from psychological blindness.  In 1989 he was featured on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” for helping save the life of an anorexic woman who had dropped to a low 38 pounds.  From attention deficit disorders, smoking, and chronic pain to phobias, impotence and frigidity, Parker has treated it all.

        Some stories are closer to home.  Meet Ted Hammond of Martin.  A two-pack-a-day smoker for over 40 years, Hammond was desperate to quit.  “I tried everything- the patch, chewing gum and candy, everything I knew of,” he said.  But nothing worked.

        Then a friend told him about Parker.  After the very first session, Hammond never touched a cigarette again.  “After that, I never wanted one,” he said.  “I don’t know how it works.  I can’t explain it.”  Hammond absolutely recommend Parker.  “If a person wants to quit (smoking), go to Dr. Parker.”

        Then there’s Iris Gewin of Atoka who suffered severe, nonstop pain from a degenerative disease until she came to Parker for treatment early in 2000.  Parker literally helped he recover the will to live.

        “I was totally suicidal, the pain was that bad,” said Gewin in an interview with The Press last week; remembering her life before she visited Parker.  “I was in so much pain, I was willing to try anything.  He taught me ways to deal with it.  He helped me to help myself.”

        Today, the woman who first came to Parker weeping from pain and supported by crutches, a body brace and powerful painkillers can support herself.  “I still have pain, but it’s nothing like what it used to be.”

        Gewin credits her improvement to Parker’s personalized treatment.  “Doctors today are so busy, (a patient is) more like a number than a person.  (Parker) is so gentle, so soothing.  He’s totally absorbed in you.”

        Gewin’s physician, Roger Cicala, M.D., from the Methodist Pain Institute in Memphis, attributes Gewin’s turnaround to Parker’s attention as well.  “She has been seeing Mr. Henry Parker in Munford for hypnotherapy and I attribute the largest part of her improvement to this,” Cicala wrote in a patient report.  “This is, perhaps the best possible therapy that she should be undergoing.”

        Parker is the first to point out that hypnotherapy is no replacement for a physicians’s care.  “Hypnotherapy is a complement to, not a substitute for standard medical practice,” emphasized Parker, who subjects potential patients to a rigorous screening process before agreeing to treat them.

        “I turn away about as many people as I see, because they don’t qualify.”  The idea here is that I work with the doctors not in opposition to them.  People who see me first have to get a release from their doctor.

        “I don’t just take them off the street,” he continued.  “This is a process, it’s not a quick fix.  The patient has to have a will to get better and then we work together to make it happen, but it’s not a magic wand.”

        For Parker, the greatest reward of his work as a hypnotherapist is to help people reveal the strength they don’t know they have.  “We’re trying to educate the people to know that it is something we’re pulling out of you that is a God-given potential and it’s time that you started using it,” he said.  “I’m just giving you the access to what’s inside you to help yourself.”

        I don’t know any worse condition than to sit at home in pain and suffering knowing that there’s nothing else.  It’s a horrible thing.  This is not for everybody, it’s not a panacea, but if I can help just one incurable person, that’s enough.  That’s a great reward.”

        If you would like more information about Parker’s hypnotherapy practice, he can be reached at 587-9008.

"Professor’s hypnotic spell working a wonder on a young woman"
By MELODY PARKER
Staff  Writer, Waterloo Courier -Waterloo, Iowa

  CEDAR FALLS_ When Rudena Howard was 13, she decided she was too heavy. 

        At 5-foot-5 and 165 pounds, she had too much baby fat.  She wanted to be model-thin.  She wanted to be perfect.

        At the end of three months of strenuous dieting, she had lost 50 pounds.  It felt food to be in control.  But when she looked in the mirror, she still saw that chubby-cheeked fat girl.  She decided to stay on the diet.

        Now 25, Rudena Howard is anorexic.  She reached an all-time low weight of 38 pounds.  Doctors said the Chicago woman should have been dead.

        Howard, who now weighs 60 pounds, was a guest on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” Nov. 27.  Joining her was hypnotherapist Henry H. Parker, Ph.D., who she says helped break her cycle of self-imposed starvation.  Winfrey had been following the case for four months.

        Parker, a professor in the modern language department at the university of Northern Iowa and a hypnotherapist for 23 years, began working with Howard six months ago at the request of her physician, Dr. Douglas Gill.

        “Her physician invited me to work with her because he waw frustrated by orthodox forms of treatment,” Parker told Winfrey.

        Howard had been in and out of hospitals, therapy and clinics for 12 years to no avail.  He parents were bankrupted by the medical bills, and both Dr. Gill and Parker donated their time to the case.

        “Dr. Gill felt hypnotherapy might work because it often affects the area where orthodox medicine doesn’t do the job,” said Parker,”especially with low self-esteem and ultimately anorexia is about sel-esteem.”

        Howard, still fragile and skeletal-looking, told Winfrey she felt she never pleased her parents.  “I was never good enough.  No matter how hard I tried I still wasn’t up to par.”

        “Everything else I couldn’t control but that’s the one thing you have under your control is your weight and your diet.

        She said she still felt fat but is feeling stronger with each weight increase.  “I feel the urge to get better.  It’s a constant battle.”

        Howard described to Parker a voice inside her head which exorted her to “stop eating, you’re fat, you’re worthless, you’re no good.”  She could glance at a plate and calculate how many calories the meal contained.

       “The way this girl lived!  In her mind she believed she could never go an ounce below 38 pounds or an ounce beyond 50 pounds,” Parker told the Courier.

        “All those years she’s lived in this twilight zone.  When I met her she weighted about 40 pounds.  I began treatment with her and within six months her physician had seen her make more progress than she had in the last 12 years.”

        Parker hypnotized Howard daily this summer, making positive suggestions to her subconscious mind that influenced her conscious decisions.  Howard says the treatment gave her strength to change her behavior and to go public with her story.

        He also has had success working with sufferers of migraine headaches and chronic pain, heavy smokers, people with eating disorders or chemical dependencies and alcoholics.  In 1982 he logged a sensational success when he restored a Waterloo woman’s eyesight.  She had suffered from psychological blindness.

        Parker works only for clients who have exhausted all medical treatments.  Medical hypnosis is a legitimate science taught and practiced in prestigious medical schools, clinics and hospitals throughout the United States.

        “There are some kinds of problems that require more than words to solve.  Traditional therapy is words.  People know they’re not doing what they should but they feel they don’t have the power to change,” Parker comments.

        People also tent to look for external rather than internal cures for their problems.  They often end up feeling helpless, impotent , and depressed.”

        Hypnotherapy, as in Howard’s case, can help some people break the problem cycle.  “I look at it as a vehicle for gaining access to your inner light, getting in touch with the power within you.”

        “Medical science tells us we only use about 10 percent of our potential.  With hypnotherapy you can gain access to the other 90 percent.  You’re in touch with your God-given power.  Once you reach that point, you can do some things that may be considered impossible, he explains.

        Parker says he was Howard’s last resort.  “Her anorexia is a madness and part of the obsessiveness is a 100 percent preoccupation with calories, with body image, with control and with that voice always telling her that she is no good.  It’s overwhelming.”

        Hypnotherapy silenced the “anorexic voice” by providing a barrier to that destructive noise, the hypnotist maintains.

        “It’s dealing directly with the subconscious mind.  The unfortunate thing about our daily lives is that we’re only dealing with conscious things.  Yet most of our motivation is subconscious.

        “Sometimes we just don’t know why we do the things that we do.”

        Parker admits he learned something about himself through his professional involvement with Howard.

        “I am a much wiser person.  There is a little of Rudena Howard in all of us.  She simply internalized her feelings, which became destructive.”

        “What she was doing was making her death visible.  Most of us ca internalize problems and get by.  We allow ourselves to slowly die inside.  But it’s death- the death of our spirits is just as lethal.”