Kay Thompson, DDS
Kay Thompson, DDS, was the first woman student in the University of Pittsburgh Dental School, the first woman president of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and the first of everything else that she decided to try. As a young dentist, she wanted to study hypnosis to help the numbers of people who had dental phobias and went to Milton Erickson for her first weekend of training in hypnosis. The following Monday morning, a woman about to deliver her baby was rushed into her office with a lacerated jaw. Because she was about to deliver, Kay could not give her anesthesia, and said, in her Pittsburgh drawl, “I just took a class from some guy in hypnosis, do you want to try it?” The woman moaned, “I’ll try anything.” Kay did what Dr. Erickson taught her. The woman went into a deep trance and came out totally relaxed and comfortable. Kay said, “I was sold.” She went on to do pioneer work doing hypnosis with hemophiliacs who learned how to stop their bleeding without the use of medication.
