Who I Am—and What I’m Asking You to Consider

Now let me tell you who has been speaking to you.

My name is Andrei Efremov. I am a clinical researcher and educator, and I created the Efremov Method.

I graduated from medical school and completed residency training in psychiatry and psychotherapy. My academic qualifications also include clinical psychology, teaching psychology, and child and adolescent psychotherapy. I previously headed a department of hypnosis and hypnotherapy.

I have developed the ideas presented here through my work and published them in scientific papers. At the time of the original lecture, I had 15 published scientific articles, most in English-language journals, with four more accepted and awaiting publication. Acceptance and publication are not the same event; the gap can be months.

I have taught hypnosis and hypnotherapy to thousands of physicians, psychologists, psychotherapists, researchers, and other participants.

And frankly, part of me wishes I hadn't. I now see graduates establish their own groups, invent grand titles, and keep vulnerable clients hooked on elaborate stories about truth, the self, and spiritual attainment. Watching knowledge used that way is one reason I am speaking so directly here.

The U.S. government recognized me under the extraordinary-ability immigration category, and I received an EB-1A green card, category E11. That is permanent residency, distinct from the temporary O-1 visa. I describe my recognition accurately; it is not a government endorsement of this method. My work in the United States is research, writing, and education, not U.S.-licensed medical or psychotherapy practice.

What I have found—and what I am proposing

My central findings are that people live inside hypnosis; that pathological neural networks maintain it; and that positive and negative emotional states alike are organized around fear.

I contend that the feelings and states sustaining these networks can be eliminated. That is not a guarantee of a particular outcome for every person. It is the task the method addresses.

I regard the Efremov Method as natural to the human mind. The approaches are simple enough, in my experience, for a six-year-old to apply to themselves. The simplicity matters: this is not about becoming more intellectually elaborate than the problem.

As the feelings, emotions, and states are removed, you come further out of the hypnosis. In my philosophical account, what is uncovered is the person's underlying nondual nature—truth that can be described as “nothing.”

Within that nothing, possibilities return.

But while the space is occupied by pathological networks, a false teacher offers you a substitute: become “nothing” and watch the reactions.

As long as the networks remain, so does the suffering attached to them. They restrict access to your wisdom, knowledge, and capacities. They keep you from seeing possibilities and from choosing how to respond. The feelings and networks do the choosing, and you call it your own choice.

What is admirable about watching that continue? Is preserving the suffering enlightenment? Is it truth? Is it what love would ask of you?

No.

I approach the philosophical questions through changes people can experience in their actual lives: relief from suffering and changes in symptoms, rather than merely new descriptions of an inner state. Those are the signs I ask you to examine. They are not a promise that every illness will resolve.

Consider what becomes visible when you no longer need a group to sustain your reality. You may recognize how long a teacher has been feeding on your time, loyalty, money, and attention.

The resemblance is exact in my model: the teacher behaves like the pathological network. Each attaches to what is already vulnerable, takes what it can, and presents the arrangement as protection. The group calls it community, an energy field, love—even God.

I find that exploitation appalling.

Stop defending the falsehood that keeps you there. Accept the possibility of release.

Let truth—not another hypnotist—make you free.