We Irish have a reputation for our casual use of profanity. One international tourist guide even went so far as to reassure international travellers to Ireland that none of this is meant personally, writing that the Irish use foul language more for emphasis than for insult.
Whether or not that trait is charming or distasteful depends on your point of view. But there was certainly some colourful language on the national airwaves this afternoon, and from an unexpected quarter. Dreadful language, altogether. Fierce stuff, as Mrs Doyle would say. And of course, the F-word … The bad F-word. Worse then Feck. You know the one I mean.
The exchange took place between Liveline caller, Joan, and well-known master hypnotist and mentalist, Keith Barry.
“The language was seriously bad. He told us a numerous occasions, particularly in the afternoon, about squeezing our fingers together, your thumb and your first two fingers, curl up your toes, and to tell the urge to “f*** off”. Now, I don’t think that’s proper talk. I just don’t like it.”
The urge Joan was talking about was the urge to smoke. And as somebody who has been smoking since her youth, and currently going through 20 cigarettes a day, she has tried on many occasions to kick the habit.
On December 3rd, Joan attended a Keith Barry One-Day Seminar at Carton House, in Maynooth, which was attended by around 200 people. Participants were urged to bring a sleeping bag and pillow to the seminar, which involved a total of four sessions over the course of a day, beginning at 9:45 AM, ending at 5:30 PM. The aim, Joan understood, was quite simple: to get people off cigarettes.
“His psychological approach was very poor. For instance, he sent a very mixed message … about the four cigarettes. When it came to the fourth cigarette, which we were to smoke in the late-afternoon, we were told to “imagine” we had smoked it. I was getting bored at this stage and I was looking forward to a cigarette.”
Participants were invited to lie on the floor in the seminar room during the first of four sessions and their cigarettes were collected in a plastic bag. All but four of them, which were to be smoked (or not, as the case may be) throughout the day.
Joan was decidedly unimpressed with the event. She hasn’t stopped smoking, for a start. But it was the methodology she really had a problem with, particularly what she described as a regular use of foul language.
Keith Barry was insistent that he has developed these methods over the last 15 years, delivering many of them in private session. He teaches people to “how to self-hypnotise” using a variety of psychological approaches. Keith's aim is to “give people the tools” that will enable them to help themselves give up smoking.
Nevertheless, he concedes, he cannot guarantee anything, in relation to getting people to kick the habit. And he had this to say about the profanity used throughout the session.
“With regard to any bad language used on the day, I accept that momentarily, here and there, there may have been a very small amount of bad language. But there was no massive amount. Every smoker is an addict. So if you are going to go to a hypnotist or a therapist of any kind, and expect them to just sit down and soothingly talk you out of smoking, that may work for some people, but it is not what I find works best.”
Shock therapy, you could call it. And if you’re shocked by the F word (the bad F-word … worse than Feck), maybe avoid the clip up above.
But if you’re okay with that sort of thing, and you’d like to hear the full interview, click here.