Dr. Edwin Turner, PhD, was not what Carrie Simpson had been expecting.
When she'd proposed doing a feature story on him for the Springfield Gazette, she'd pictured a grizzled old man with a beard, somebody in the Sigmund Freud tradition. Instead, he was a George Clooney look-alike who appeared to be in his mid-40s. The touch of gray at his temples took nothing away from the youthful vigor that seemed to radiate from him.
"Thank you for coming in so late in the day," he said now, as he ushered her into a large, well-appointed office. "I knew if we did this interview after my receptionist left, we wouldn't have to worry about interruptions."
Carrie took a seat in the unusually comfortable chair that Dr. Turner indicated and glanced around her. Every piece of furniture in the office looked both stylish and expensive, including the impressive desk behind which the psychologist now sat. She noticed, with some surprise, the large television on the wall behind him.
"So, Ms. Simpson, why did the Gazette decide they wanted to do a feature story about my practice?"
"Please, call me Carrie," she replied, flashing him her most winning smile. "It was my idea, actually. I suspect most of our readers don't know much about hypnotherapy. I thought they'd be interested in learning what it's all about."
This was true as far as it went. What had actually sparked the idea for the story, however, were Carrie's conversations with two women who had actually seen Dr. Turner for hypnotherapy.
The first of these women was a friend of a friend Carrie had run into at a post-work happy hour one Friday afternoon. The second was a former colleague who had quit abruptly the previous month. Both women reported that their sessions with Dr. Turner had changed their lives, and they spoke about him with a cult-like admiration. It was the glassy look in their eyes that had left Carrie feeling somewhat uneasy.
When she proposed the story idea to her editor, Carrie had visions of exposing Dr. Turner as a charlatan. On a more realistic level, she was just hoping to break out of the city hall beat she'd been stuck in since joining the Gazette a year earlier at age 24. After months of covering hearings and press conferences, she was longing to write a juicy feature story. She'd been thrilled when her editor agreed to the idea.
"So there's something I should confess from the start, Dr. Turner," Carrie went on now. "I'm a skeptic about hypnosis. It's always seemed like a lot of mumbo-jumbo to me. Is it true that if you don't believe in hypnosis you can't get hypnotized?"
If the psychologist was insulted by what she'd said, he didn't show it. "I appreciate your being up front about your point of view," he said with a smile. "And you're right that some people are not susceptible to hypnosis, particularly people who don't believe in the process."
"Why hypnotize people, anyway?" Carrie asked. "Why not just engage in regular talk therapy with them?"
"That's an excellent question," Dr. Turner replied, and Carrie felt an unexpected surge of pleasure run through her in response to his praise. She was also finding it difficult to tear her gaze away from his large, dark-brown eyes.
"What I discovered early on in my career," he went on, "was that hypnosis allowed me to get past a patient's defenses much more quickly than I could do using traditional talk therapy. In a remarkably short period of time, I could assist patients in breaking down the inhibitions that were holding them back and help them get in touch with their truest, deepest, most uninhibited selves."
There was something about the way Dr. Turner said the word "uninhibited" that triggered a momentary surge of warmth between Carrie's legs, and she looked away, embarrassed. "Get a grip," she told herself. "He's old enough to be your father."
Collecting herself, she glanced back at the psychologist. "So how does it work?" she continued in her best professional voice. ""Do you wave a bright shiny object back and forth in front of a patient's face?"
Dr. Turner laughed. "Nothing like that," he said. "Like people in other fields, hypnotherapists have embraced modern technology. Take a look."
He picked up a remote control and pointed it at the television on the wall behind him. The screen immediately sprang to life, and a huge black-and-white spiral appeared. With another push of the button, the spiral began to spin."
Carrie stared at the swirling spiral for a few seconds, mesmerized, and then quickly looked away. She wasn't sure what had spooked herβa momentary touch of vertigo, perhaps, or the memory of a scary movie. Whatever it was, she felt annoyed with herself for getting rattled.