(FL) Three Students Die who were hypnotized by Principal

[Ichingcarpenter]

Florida police are investigating a high school principal who hypnotized three students who later died. They say Doctor George Kenney admitted to hypnotizing a 16-year-old boy who committed suicide one day after a private session. Kenney hypnotized two other students who died tragically, one took her own life and another died in a car crash.The doctor didn't immediately admit to having private sessions with the students.But many people at school and in the community knew what he was doing.


One teacher told investigators Kenney insisted on parental permission. A school report found that he continued the practice after three separate orders to stop. Kenney claims the students were happy to be hypnotized. Many were taking part in competitive sports and he said the hypnosis helped them focus. But he also acknowledged his passion for helping may have caused him to use quote "poor judgment."

Kenney hypnotized up to 75 people at the school, including students, parents, staff members and their children. A teacher at the school was also killed in a car crash while driving to work. It is not known whether she was hypnotized by Kenney.


http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/124769169.html

What an odd story even for Florida..... I see a movie
in the making around this story.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TwilightGardener]

2. How do you "hypmotize" someone into crashing their car?

[Javaman]

3. "you're a chicken...you're a chicken..." nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. 'You need to take risks' if you want to be great

in sports or life.....

As the boy passed a car in a no passing zone he remember the command.

Who knows if that's what happened. I'm just giving a scenario.

Like I said.... strange story

[smirkymonkey]

12. Everyone knows that chickens are notorious for drinking and driving. nt

[Javaman]

23. Damn them!

I say take away their drumsticks...their juicy oven baked drumsticks.

[Wilms]

4. That sort of thing was revealed in the US Senate Church Commission back in the 70's.

But if I say more, the thread will get sent to the dungeon.

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. No need for me to repeat the name twice

wink, wink, nod, nod.

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. I think it was the voodoo dolls. n/t

[mopinko]

34. not uncommon method of suicide. np

[damntexdem]

7. Competitive sports: comparative suicide, extreme auto crashing, ...

Does the high school give athletic scholarships to those being hypnotized?

[tblue37]

8. For about 30 years I have practiced hypnosis to help friends

with certain kinds of problems that can be helped with hypnosis. I cannot imagine what the principal could have been doing to cause such an outcome!

I have used hypnosis to help provide pain relief, to help reduce test anxiety, to help people overcome insomnia, and to help people focus on such tasks as studying or completing a dissertation.

Hypnosis is not some weird, scary, magical sort of thought control. It is a form of guided meditation. Some people are better subjects than others (I am a very bad subject), but except for one friend who has trouble breathing because of allergies (which makes it hard for him to do the sort of deep, relaxed breathing he needs to do), I have never had a subject I could not get into at least light trance. Except for that one friend, I am my worst subject. It took me a whole year of nightly practice before sleeping to achieve sufficient relaxation to enter light trance, and I have never gone deeper than light trance.

Now, though, when I do an induction for a friend (which takes about 20 minutes), I always enter light trance myself during the process. I look forward to it, too. It is wonderfully relaxing and re-energizing!

One of my main goals is to give the subject tools to enter a light trance quickly on his/her own (as I do), so that he/she will not need my help in the future.

As someone who practiced hypnosis for decades, I think there is something very odd about this story.

[CreekDog]

26. there can be unintended consequences

if it's a powerful tool, it can do powerful things --those things don't have to be positive ones.

[REP]

49. I don't think he should have been doing it, but I think the 'power' of hypnotherapy is overestimated

Having said that, I can't be put under so I don't have personal experience, but my reading on the subject and anecdotes from those I know who were treated by psychotherapists who used hypnosis leads me to believe it wouldn't induce suicide (or other extreme behavior) in someone not already given to those behaviors.

I do agree it's a terrible idea for amateurs to play therapist.

[CanSocDem]

43. Glad you posted this.

The hysteria this story has generated, seems to come from an ignorance of the nature of hypnosis.

Perhaps that's the point of the story. Not a miracle therapy at all......just a diabolical killing tool.

Sigh.....

.

[tblue37]

45. I am glad you posted this! The first response to my post

suggested that hypnosis is dangerous.

I imagine that a nasty person might gain some sort of unfortunate influence over a very vulnerable subject, but no more of an influence than the sort a strong personality easily gains over a weak one in normal interaction.

I use hypnosis to empower people, and as soon as they can use the tool themselves, I am no longer needed--which is exactly how I prefer it!

[Ilsa]

9. Where is North Point FL? My iPhone Google Map couldn't find it. nt

[DavidDvorkin]

15. Here's some info about the place:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Port,_Florida

[FLAprogressive]

20. North Port is an example of suburbia gone horribly wrong. It's a real shithole.

[MineralMan]

17. Probably because it's North PORT, not North Point.

That would explain it.

[Arugula Latte]

10. Super weird. nt

[MineralMan]

11. What is a high school principal doing hypnotizing students in the

first place. Hypnosis has its place, I'm sure, but that place is not at school. It can be a parlor trick or a serious tool that can be used by trained persons. A high school principal is an educator, not a therapist. A high school principal is an administrator, not an entertainer. No high school principal should be hypnotizing anybody who is subject to his authority. Period.

He should be out of work, immediately.

[Marrah_G]

14. That was my first question also

[MineralMan]

16. I know that the article says that he had parental permission,

but all the same, he has no business hypnotizing students and planting stuff in their subconscious minds. Hypnosis can easily backfire in unexpected ways, and at unexpected times. For example, a strong concept like "Failure is not an option" can be devastating to someone who has an underlying psychological problem. And yet, the concept is a fairly easy one to implant, and is just the sort of thing an amateur hypnotist might try with someone like an athlete.

This whole thing angers me a lot. I don't like people experimenting with people's psyches. It's not a safe thing to do.

[RebelOne]

13. Seems like a witch hunt. n/t

[MineralMan]

18. They've appointed an interim principal to replace this Kenney

person.

http://www.sarasotacountyschools.net/departments/communications/newsroom.aspx?id=28111&blogid=868

"NORTH PORT – Bill Massolio, an assistant principal at North Port High School, has been named interim principal of the school, effective Friday, July 1.

Massolio has served as administrator in charge of NPHS since May 17, when Superintendent Lori White placed Principal George Kenney on administrative leave as the district conducted an investigation of his use of hypnosis with students. "

[FormerDittoHead]

46. nevermind not funny.

Sorry, but this isn't funny. I've got to break myself of that habit...

[FLAprogressive]

19. I live in this area and to me it seems way overblown. students/parents are siding with the principal

[WinkyDink]

25. Two, maybe 3, deaths in ONE school related to this guy and it's "overblown"? Sounds like a CRISIS.

[FLAprogressive]

31. It had been a bad year all around, it started with a popular teacher dying then a student dying in

car wrecks. The entire school was basically on edge....you don't think that that kind of atmosphere might have some kind of effect on a depressed teenager?

[uppityperson]

40. I hope things get better and poorly written articles/headlines like this seem just

sensationalistic crap.

[uppityperson]

39. 3 deaths at the same school with the same principal? OMG! I wonder if they all drank out of the

same water fountain or had the same lunch on rapture day? THAT would prove something also.

and...and...and...maybe the principal is the one who signed off on that lunch?

[CreekDog]

27. you don't see any issue with a principal hypnotising children

i'll remember that for future reference. :eyes:

[FLAprogressive]

32. Not saying what he did was necessarily right, but it was w/ parent permission....

...and there's really no proof to say that the hypnosis caused anything. The article does not tell you that it had been a very bad year for the school and a lot of people were on edge, dealing with the death of a popular teacher and of another student died in a car accident. An atmosphere like that probably pushed some depressed kids over the edge. I don't think the hypnosis made a difference.

[CreekDog]

33. what does permission have to do with an inappropriate practice?

this is a psychological technique/practice (not to mention a controversial one) and you have a *principal* doing it?

why not just have him do your kid's tonsillectomy while he's at it --hey, if you give him persmission, it's all good.

:eyes:

[Goblinmonger]

36. Principal could have been a trained psychologist/counselor.

Maybe he was a former English teacher, too. Who knows.

[Eddie Haskell]

42. They're way too trusting.

At best, his behavior was inappropriate.

[Blue-Jay]

21. .

[Shagbark Hickory]

22. Definitely sounds like a movie

[WinkyDink]

24. I'm betting there's some other behavior going on after this nutcase hypnotizes the kids.

[Blue_Tires]

28. The hypnotizing is weird enough, but I too think it's WAY too much

of a stretch to try and connect the deaths until more solid facts are revealed...

[AngryAmish]

29. Florida...

[Eddie Haskell]

35. Why would any parent authorize this?

Would they send their kids to his office for an operation?

[Quantess]

37. How bizzarre.

Recommended, because this story is so utterly weird.

[uppityperson]

38. Coincidence. He hypnotized 75 people, 3 died. I wonder what the criteria was for who to hypnotize

If they were kids who were depressed, or what. Too little information but lots of assumptions we could jump to.

[Eddie Haskell]

41. It doesn't matter.

It's inappropriate.

[uppityperson]

44. If he did it without permission and/or lied, then yes, it is wrong. Here's another story with more

http://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-high-school-principal-lied-hypnotizing-students-died/story?id=13966704

Mark Zimmerman, who is Kenney's lawyer, said no one has alleged that there is a link between the hypnosis of the three students and their deaths. "Dr. Kenney had no indications that these were students who would take their own lives," he said in reference to Wesley McKinley and Brittany Palumbo.

He had used hypnosis to help the two students with text anxiety, Zimmerman said, and had an individual session with Brittany, with a parent present. "It is a coincidence that of the many students he was working with, two had other things going on in their lives."...(more)

[MrScorpio]

47. So, what parents gave this amateur Svengali permission to hypnotize their kids?

Or was it all his idea?

[AlabamaLibrul]

48. My first thought when a wannabe hypnotist starts talking about passion and poor judgment

in connection with dead kids is that isn't all he was doing.