Paul McKenna

Paul McKenna (born 8 November 1963, in Enfield, London) is an English hypnotist and self-improvement author.

McKenna has written and produced books and multimedia products, hosted self-improvement television shows and presents seminars in hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming, weight loss and motivation.

Paul McKenna started in radio aged 16 at in-store Radio Topshop, and went on to present for stations including Radio Jackie, Radio Caroline, Chiltern Radio, Capital Radio and BBC Radio One.

A hypnotist who guested on his show led to a developing interest in the subject, initially for reasons of self-development, although entertainment was later to play a big part. Whilst still working at Capital, he began experimenting with small hypnotic shows, first for the amusement of friends, then for audiences in pubs and clubs. McKenna then started doing regular Sunday night shows at the Duke of York's Theatre, which was owned at the time by Capital. The success of those shows led to his playing other theatres across the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, the US, Australia and Hong Kong.

After a brief spell at Radio 1 in the early 1990s, McKenna decided to quit radio, which was not his speciality. In 1993, ITV broadcast The Hypnotic World of Paul McKenna, which featured audience members volunteering to be hypnotised to act in comedic ways, the show subsequently being aired in 42 countries. During this time, McKenna continued to study hypnosis, and neuro-linguistic programming with Richard Bandler, the co-creator of NLP.

Many of McKenna's one-to-one hypnotherapy clients are celebrities including Ellen DeGeneres and David Walliams, who used McKenna to help with his swim across the English Channel.

In the 1990s, McKenna presented a number of TV programmes including The Hypnotic World of Paul McKenna (1993–1995), Paul McKenna's Paranormal World (1997) and Hyp the Streets (1999). In January 2008, the Discovery Channel signed a £23 million deal with McKenna to make a series of self-help programmes. To date, the deal is the largest ever for a British TV personality.[6] The first of his I Can Make You Thin programmes aired on TLC, The Learning Channel on 16 March 2008.

In October 2009 he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3.

McKenna attended St Ignatius Secondary School in London. McKenna holds two doctorates; the first from LaSalle University (Louisiana) and the second from the business school International Management Centres Association (IMCA). In 1996, after two years of study on a 70,000-word thesis, McKenna was granted a PhD from LaSalle University. This university was properly licenced by the state of Louisiana, but falsely claimed to be an accredited university. After the principal of LaSalle pleaded guilty to fraud, along with thousands of other students, McKenna was awarded compensation from the U.S. government.

In 2004, McKenna completed an APEL and subsequently gained a doctoral degree DPhil from the business school International Management Centres Association (IMCA),[8] which is accredited by the British Accreditation Council (BAC). The title of his thesis was "The Effects of Fixed Action Patterns and Neuro-Linguistic Programming in Determining Outcomes in Human Behaviour".

In 2006 McKenna successfully sued the Daily Mirror for libel, over claims made by journalist Victor Lewis-Smith that McKenna obtained a "bogus degree" merely for money to deliberately defraud the public (the degree was from LaSalle University (Louisiana)). McKenna won the case and substantial damages. The court stated, "Mr McKenna was not, in my judgment, dishonest and, for that matter, whatever one may think of the academic quality of his work, or of the La Salle degree, it would not be accurate to describe it as 'bogus'." "Desmond Browne, QC, for McKenna, said that 'any perceived lack of academic rigour at La Salle' did not prove that his client was dishonest."

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