PA Hypnosis Center Dan Vitchoff Paid for a personalized program -- got prerecorded generic CDs Warrendale Pennsylvania

I wish I had Googled and read reviews for this place before I took my teenage daughter there. It appears as though, at one time, Dan Vitchoff may have actually performed skilled hypnotherapy, but got greedy or lazy or both.

I called to inquire about help for my daughter for anxiety and disordered eating. We went for a consultation, during which Dan explained that he could definitely help my daughter with both issues. On the phone he had told me it would be $899 for 8-10 sessions. In person he said $1399 for 12 sessions. I should have questioned that, but I figured it was a small price to pay for the very specialized treatment she needed for these two issues.

He said that he could do her first session immediately and told me I could wait in the car. So I did. Then my daughter drove 50 minutes each way from her campus for two more appointments in the following weeks. She said she didn't feel like it was working, so I asked her to tell me what she had to do. Then I discovered that Dan wasn't actually doing the hypnosis. Instead he was putting her in a recliner with headphones and a blanket and recorded audio. (Now, Dan would later insist to me that this recorded audio was specifically designed for her, but how could it be when he had just met her that day?) And the CDs he gave her to listen to outside of the sessions were both the same and they were generic "weight loss" CDs. He also gave her a "meal plan" that consisted of Atkins bars, protein shakes and chicken and tuna salad. She has issues with food textures and aversions and we told him that.

I called him with my concerns and he assured me this was a specialized program prepared especially for her and that he would change direction and make sure she started to see some improvement. I asked why he wasn't talking to her before her sessions. At some points she said she didn't even SEE him at all. The receptionist/secretary/front desk person would put her in the room with the headphones. So at the next appointment he did talk to my daughter before her session, but only to ask her if she had been eating her Atkins bars and told her to keep a food journal until her next appointment.

At this point, I didn't trust him at all. So I drove two hours from home to go with her to her next appointment. Once again, he did not stay in the session with her. He did come in for a few minutes, probably because I was there, and spoke into a microphone. He said, "Eat when you're hungry. Stop when you're full" about a half dozen times and then left. He never asked her to see the food journal he told her to keep.

My daughter was frustrated that it wasn't working and I no longer wanted to put her through the drive there for such a waste of time. I called Dan to tell him I wanted a refund and my daughter wanted to discontinue her sessions. He insisted he was personalizing her program, but, as I said, I absolutely know he wasn't. My daughter said the voice on the recordings sounded like a younger version of him, so they may have been made years ago. Because he insisted he personalized them, I asked him to tell me something about my daughter. Anything really. He basically knew nothing about her except some generic questions he asked her at the consultation -- She likes cookies and sweets. Okay, so does 98% of the population. What else ya got? Nothing. Because he literally didn't know anything about her personally.

After numerous phone calls back and forth, sometimes him telling me he couldn't speak to me because my daughter was 18 (even though he had already spoken to me and she had given permission more than once for him to do so) I finally had to threaten legal action. He denies refunds because of the "personalized plan" that he prepared. But I maintain that he is fraudulently representing himself. First, his website says that he is a member in good standing of the National Guild of Hypnotists. He is not. I contacted them. He hasn't been a member in good standing since 2012 and they said they have received numerous complaints about him. I have screenshots of the email if anyone is interested in seeing that. The only thing I could find about him on the NGH website was a session he presented at their conference about making more money in your practice using electronic methods. In other words, I guess, using recorded CDs to crank people through the door without even seeing you. Second, he calls himself a licensed and board certified hypnotherapist. But there is no licensing for hypnosis in the state of PA. And I was unable to find his name as a member of any board in PA. I contacted every one I could find. His website shows pictures of him sitting beside clients, sometimes holding a notepad, so you get the impression that this is one-on-one. I'm not even sure he was in the building during some of my daughter's "sessions."

Long story short -- I got a refund. If I didn't, I was going to file in small claims court. There's plenty of evidence that what he sells you is not what he delivers. It wasn't even about the money. It was the principle of what my daughter had to go through in the name of getting help for her issues and losing faith in the process. There's no amount of money that can correct that. I hope nobody else falls for his scam.