Psychological interventions are powerful tools in weight loss and weight control programs, facilitating enhanced awareness and control of eating behaviors. Research has found that two techniques are the most effective in helping people to lose weight: 1) cognitive/ behavioral strategies and 2) hypnosis/imagery/visualization. Studies on large groups of people find that combining the two techniques is most effective; however some individuals are helped more by one or the other. Dr. Barrett will discuss the use of various techniques with differing individuals.

About Dr. Barrett:
Deirdre Barrett, Ph.D. is a psychologist on the faculty of The Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School’s Behavioral Medicine Program. She is Past President of both the International Association for the Study of Dreams and the American Psychological Association’s Div. 30, The Society for Psychological Hypnosis. Dr. Barrett has written three books: The Committee of Sleep (Random House, 2001); The Pregnant Man and Other Cases from a Hypnotherapist’s Couch (Random House, 1998); and Waistland (Norton, 2007). She is the editor of two additional books, The New Science of Dreaming (Praeger/Greenwood, 2007) and Trauma and Dreams (Harvard University Press, 1996).