Readers respond to Scott Sandland blog

I've never met Scott Sandland but a friend of mine just graduated from his school.  From what I've heard and seen from her, that is one demanding program.  She studied her ass off almost every week for a year.  I'm talkin 20 hours of work minimum every week.  She was stressed about finals for most of the classes.  they had live class two or three times a week on top of the 7-10 hours of recorded video and the books they had to read and assignments (papers, videos, etc).

At one point I asked her what kind of certificaiton she was gonna get for all her hard work.  She told me the school taught her that all the titles in the hypnosis industry are bullshit and so she wasn't doing it for letters after her name.  

I trust her opinion and she says scott and richard clark are working their asses off to help them, even after they've graduated.  They helped all the students get internships with hypnotists, psychologists, counselors, and probably a few other things I don't know about.  I've never heard of a hypnosis school doing this, and now I wish I had done the program with her because she got all that on a partial scholarship for like a thousand bucks.  I paid $800 for a week long class that didn't teach a thing and had back of the room sales.   

So like I said I don't know Scott, but I am a hypnotist who has benefited from hypnothoughts.com and know people who have benefited from his school.  I've never seen him promote or endorse a PhD.  It's pretty unfair of you to blame him because other people are assholes.  

I guess I should have just made this one sentence long though:  Yeah, you are being too hard on Scott Sandland.

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 Scott Sandland is perpetuating the use of fake doctorates in hypnosis. Just look at the most current ad by Roy Hunter for his workshop in Iceland (displayed on the right hand side of HypnoThoughts). Click on it and it will take you to Roy Hunter's page where he proudly boasts his non-accredited fake PhD.

If Sandland actually cracked down on this and stood by his ethical word, these folks wouldn't be able to con others with fake doctorates, and use, his HypnoThoughts blog to do it. He is absolutely guilty by association. He's inviting these loons to present at his conference.

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Hmm, holding someone responsible for the actions of someone else is kind of a grey area. It's sort of like holding godaddy responsible for hosting phony websites (i.e. sites by the people who claim to have fake PhDs).

Though it's true he might be viewed as an accessory to fraud, is he a fraudster himself? Do you want to take your site in the direction of pointing the finger at everyone involved in perpetuating a single, disreputable person's actions? It seems to me the list of accessories would be never ending (and 6 degrees of separation might actually start hitting close to home).

I have no clue who Scott Sandland is, so I really don't care about the outcome either way. But I do wonder if the people called out on your blog are providing good content on Scott's site. If so, I can understand Scott not wanting to start calling these people out on his own site. It's almost a catch-22 situation for him:

If he calls them out, his site may start to lose credibility (making it known he has scammers on his site). 

If he doesn't, you will continue discrediting him, with the same results.

Unless he, himself, is claiming fake credentials, I lean towards letting some of the pressure off of him. If he really does support your missing, then exposing those individuals that are somehow associated with him will all work itself out in the long run.

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Thank you for your efforts in exposing all these fake doctors of hypnotherapy.

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I wonder what it's like for Scott to know that there is a website having people basically vote on his quality of character.  I don't know how I would react if people who never met me got to decide if I was ethical or not.  What a weird concept.

thanks again for doing all the work

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I'm writing in response to your request.  I think that person who said Scott is a good guy is right on the money.  Like I said before to you in a previous email, he is the reason I stopped using my unaccredited PhD.  He was calm and respectful in his conversation with me about them.  Some of us will learn better from him than from you.  You make it a fight, he makes it an education.  I'm not here to tell you if one is better than the other.

You can't fault him for knowing people who do something you disagree with.  That's like hating one politician because another one lied.  His website has no standards and is free for anyone to use.  Every single hypnosis conference in America has presenters with fake PhDs.  That's a problem with hypnosis, not Scott.  

Whoever wrote that email to you has a lot of good points.  

You are telling people you don't like the way they run their businesses.  Scott told you he didn't like the way you run your business.  The only difference is he was brave enough to use his real name and had enough respect to tell you directly.  Scott's biggest problem is he keeps expecting other people to act with the same level of respect and integrity that he does/has.  Your treatment of him is a perfect example of that.  

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The person who's email you just published is absolutely right.  You've misrepresented Scott to an amazing degree.  Very few hypnotists have worked harder to build more bridges with the licensed health care practitioners.  The guy is barely 30 years old and he's taking pay cuts to help people older than his parents build their businesses.  Who else in this field brings in other hypnotists to meet doctors and dentists in clinics?  Who else has presented at Medical schools?  Who else is turning down money to do what he thinks is right?  If he was in it for the money, do you really think his school would cost $2,000 for a full year that he gives away 50% of before expenses?

Scott could have sold out and made big bucks a couple times.   He's trying to work with the decision makers and industry leaders instead of fighting with them.  You have chosen controversy and fighting.  Your tactics are based on hiding your true identity and scaring people to change.  Scott is the opposite of you.  He's being an example of a person willing to put his name on things and build people up.  He encourages people to be better.  I'm sure he isn't perfect and if you dig you can find mistakes in anyones past, but guilt by association is the best you've really been able to do with him.  

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