This topic comes up quite a bit:
Hypnosis, anyone?
Hypnosis (this thread has links to other threads on the topic)
I've mentioned this previously (on at least one of the linked threads) but I've done the hypnosis thing before and was successful with it in that I lost about 28 lbs - which i gradually put back on before I lost it again. As a recap, this was in 1996; I went from around 175 to 145 during the four months I did it. HOWEVER some caveats are in order:
1) I was actually working with a REAL certified hypnotherapist, not just tapes (I saw the hypnotherapist once or twice a week, and listened to the hypnosis tapes every morning, and I mean EVERY morning). Working one-on-one with a certified hypnotherapist is TOTALLY different from following some generic tapes!
2) They had us on that McDougall Maximum Weight Loss Diet - which is a vegan, very low protein, very low fat plan. If you stick to it, it would be impossible NOT to lose weight on this plan since the calories were so freaking low.
3) "if you stick to it" - most of the other people at the hypnosis center (the private sessions were too pricey for me to do most of the time, so I was in the group sessions which would have from 3-7 people on average) lost little or no weight and had a hard time following the very very strict McDougall plan. Most of the clients were women, BTW, whom I assume had families and all that. I had some distinct advantages in a) I didn't have to cook for a family; b) I had already been following a vegetarian diet for almost 5 years prior to that point; c) I was hitting the gym every single morning (just like my Stanford weight maintenance study, most of the other clients had a hard time doing 30 minutes of exercise 3x a week).
In fact I have to say that other than myself and one other lady no one else lost much weight. I remember being in the elevator with a group of them who were talking about which RESTAURANT they were going to go to after the meeting and what they were going to eat - and it wasn't plain baked potatoes and steamed veggies either - more like enchiladas and steak fajitas at Chevys.
Overall, most of the hypnosis success stories I've heard have had to do with quitting smoking, not weight loss.