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You have the power
Local hypnotist will help you clean up your life, overcome your fears
Ulster Chamber of Commerce Newsletter
 Frayda
Kafka considers herself a teacher. That’s her background.
That’s her passion. That’s what led her to her current
career—an unusual one, though it is.
Kafka is a hypnotist, who’s been responsible for helping
thousands in Ulster County lead fuller, happier and healthier lives.
For 30 years, she’s watched chain smokers quit their habit and
helped countless overweight people shed pounds. She’s even given
confidence to people with stage fright.
Call the Hypnotist may be one of the Chamber of Commerce’s most
unique members, and Kafka believes that business people, in
particular, can benefit from her work.
“With them, it’s mainly health issues like smoking,
phobias, panic attacks, accumulated stress and insomnia,” said
the Brooklyn-born Kafka.
“(Business) people also have this belief that if they calm down,
they won’t get the job done. They’re afraid they’ll
lose the edge. What they need to learn is that it’s the opposite.”
That’s where Kafka can help. She believes her self-devised
“guided meditation” can help them conquer fears and reverse
poor lifestyle choices.
But first, she’d like to clear the air about hypnotism. What
it’s not, she insists, is swinging a pendulum before a
vulnerable person’s eyes.
“The myths are you go to sleep, and people have this fear that
they’re going to talk in their sleep while they’re in this
hypnotic trance. They can rest assured that I have no idea how to get
everybody to act like chickens,” Kafka laughed.
“Hypnosis is really a state that people go into all the time.
It’s like a daydream state. It’s a focused state of
relaxation, and people are completely aware and awake when
they’re in their hypnotic trance.”
That’s where her teaching skills shine. In fact, she said she
teaches people to hypnotize themselves.
“It gives them a control over their minds, and it’s so easy
to do. People think it’s so hard....but if they have an IQ of a
minimum of 100, in 15 minutes, I will teach them a technique that
will take them only 10 seconds to do wherever they are...that will
help them concentrate, calm down, lower their blood pressure or give
them confidence.”
Kafka usually does it all in one session and with great success. A
lot of it involves a technique known as positive affirmation.
“Once you learn how to do self-hypnosis, you can do it anywhere.
It can be done while exercising or walking. When you’re walking,
you’re feeling the rhythm of your step. You can give yourself a
suggestion, which is something like an affirmation.
“It’s a positive statement that whatever you say is going
to happen is going to happen. You can say, for example, ‘I am
skinny’ to the beat of your walk. It’s like a mantra, and
there’s a part of you that’s hearing it in someway.”
Kafka has no formal training in the art. Rather, it’s something
she came upon by chance and with a bit of experimentation in the 1960s.
She and her husband formed an organization called Group Laboratories,
where they saw hundreds of people on the upper west side of New York City.
“It was kind of short-term, exciting 60’s therapy,”
she said.
When she had children, the couple moved to Woodstock, and that’s
when Kafka started learning about meditation.
Through that, she put together a smoking-cessation program, which led
to hypnosis experimentation.
“Those who attended came back the next week, and more than 80
percent of them had stopped smoking. I was dumbfounded. I didn’t
know anything about hypnosis. That’s when I began serious study
and came upon a technique of my own that was working for people,”
said Kafka, a former nursery school teacher.
She often encourages her clients to think in terms of color, which
she insists has power over the subconscious.
“I teach people to use ....something symbolic. You can say,
‘Yellow bikini, bikini, bikini’ if you want to lose weight,
for example. Yellow is a color that is very energizing and uplifting.
It’s like the sun,” she said.
To the naysayers, Kafka insists it works, and she has a trail of
success all over the county to prove it.
There was the four-pack-a-day smoker, who came to her in desperation
three years ago.
“He said, ‘I tried everything. There’s no way
you’re going to stop me from smoking.’”
But she did, and not only was the man overjoyed, but he quickly
spread the word.
“I started getting calls from people, who said, ‘Look, if
you stopped him from smoking, you can help me.’”
There was also the client who dropped 100 pounds and the woman, who
was deathly afraid of public speaking.
Both overcame their troubles with Kafka’s help.
“It’s wonderful to see it,” said Kafka. “It’s
really what I live for.”
Most of her sessions are done at her Lake Katrine home, but she
sometimes holds group sessions like the one coming up May 6 at the
Saugerties Howard Johnson’s. One of the sessions is geared
toward quitting smoking and the other, losing weight.
Kafka also provides services over the phone, but she said she’d
prefer to meet her clients face-to-face.
Whatever the method, expect to see her only once. She’s that
sure you’ll be cured of whatever is holding you back.
“I don’t really know how it works, but I know I’m good
at what I do,” she said.
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