Dr. Shawn McQuilkin is a Board Certified Internal Medicine physician who has received specialized training in medical hypnosis. In addition to his regular practice of medicine, he has devoted over ten years assisting people in losing weight and quitting cigarettes using the very powerful technique of medical hypnosis.

He currently resides in Ogden, Utah, a city nestled  in the Wasatch Mountains just north of Salt Lake. Both Dr. Shawn and his wife Karen are originally from Chicago and were transplanted to Utah as part of a Federal Government Scholarship program of providing doctors to areas in need.

 He and his wife and two teenage boys have fallen in love with the southwest and enjoy hiking and exploring the mountains of  the enchanted southwest.

Dr. Shawn knew that he had a talent for hypnosis. At his first training seminar a nurse said to him, "You must come to work for us. You are a natural. That doctor you were working with in the demonstration went very deep. In fact, so did I and half the people in the room!"

His first experience with using hypnosis to help his patients occurred the Monday after his medical hypnosis training. His patient was a young woman who had received a second degree burn from cooking oil. The area of burn was on her abdomen and was the size of a man's fist. The pain was so intense that she was wailing in the waiting room.

The staff in the reception area couldn't believe it was the same woman who left: she was laughing and joking on the way out 30 minutes later, pain free. No pain medicine was given. The patient responded dramatically to medical hypnosis and healed much quicker than expected over the next week.  Dr. Shawn points to the work of Dabney Ewing MD, out of Tulane who has helped hundreds of serious burn victims over the years using hypnosis.

The next dramatic event opened his eyes to the true power of medical hypnosis when he realized that the physician could actually carry on a dialogue with a patients unconscious mind, without the patient being aware of it! This technique had been pioneered by a group of physicians and psychologists over the years and is referred to as ideomotor signaling.

For example: a young woman who was suffering from depression stated (out of hypnosis) that she was miserable and that nothing could ever help her. Dr. Shawn said, "If there is a part a you, a very strong part of you that believes otherwise, your left index finger will lift up." Much to the disbelief of the patient, her left index finger dutifully lifted! Over time, she made a dramatic recovery and came to understand her latent strength.

Dr. Shawn is the first to admit that it all seems a bit strange but then he came to realize that rather than speaking to the patients thinking mind, he was speaking to her unconscious mind. He also came to realize that people are more "multi-layered" than you might guess on the surface. For example, your main identity may be that of a business executive, but also a mother to children, and at the same time a daughter, a wife, a lover, and at times, an emotional child.

Still a bit puzzled and intimidated by the depth of the human psyche, Dr. Shawn met a most remarkable man who served as his mentor: George Ritchie, Jr., MD. Dr. Ritchie used medical hypnosis as a psychiatrist for many years in a kind and wonderful way. For example, Dr. Ritchie has documented successfully treating over twelve men who were about to be sent to prison to serve long terms  on account of exposing themselves to women in public.

These men were clean cut young individuals who the average person would never expect to do such an antisocial thing. No one seemed able to help them until Dr. Ritchie used medical hypnosis to gently make them aware of forgotten trauma (usually sexual). All but one man was healed and never committed the crime again.

But more importantly, Dr. Ritchie helped Dr. Shawn understand that helping people using a controversial technique was the way our Creator has intended. God intends for people to relate to others with a loving heart and to use the power of our minds (both our thinking mind and our unconscious minds) and our creativity to help others become healthy and whole.

What was Dr. Ritchie's experience: As a young serviceman in World War II, Dr. Ritchie had died, was pronounced dead for over twenty minutes, and yet miraculously came back to life. His life-altering story is wonderfully described in his remarkable book, "Return From Tomorrow." Dr. Ritchie's challenge to us all as a result his experience can be summarized (in my words): To open our hearts to the depth of Love that your Creator has for you, YES YOU!, and search the eyes of your fellow man, especially the least of these, for God's Light.

The next quantum leap for Dr. Shawn was to use this knowledge to assist people in an extremely powerful way: prevent disease before it begins. If you examine the ten leading causes of death, you find that the average American is headed toward premature suffering and death. We eat too many calories, don't get enough exercise, and have other unhealthy habits such as smoking and drink too much alcohol. How could such untold suffering, sure to follow, be prevented?

The answer: allow people the opportunity to discover the God given strength within and help them to very gently uncover and heal any hurts that drive them to unhealthy behaviors.

This is why Dr. Shawn's approach to self hypnosis has been so successful. People become aware of a strength and joy and happiness that they were barely aware of, and find that it was theirs for the taking. Every day is a brand new opportunity for success and accomplishment, for making a solid contribution to society, and for assisting those in need.

If this message seems to ring true for you, perhaps your inner strength is urging you on. If so, perhaps you should do what Shakespeare urged, "To thine own self, be true."

Thank you and may God bless you!

Dr. Shawn