Speaker Reviews

“Dr. Holly Hunt’s presentations, based on her new book, Emotional Exorcism, offer a powerful explanation as to why people don’t measure-up and companies under-perform. She provides human resource managers and senior leaders with vital information on how to help their employees overcome the demons in their lives and become top performers. By utilizing her model and practical strategies, you’ll save your business big bucks by reducing absenteeism, lowering employee turnover, and dealing with job-related stress. They’re just that good!”

—Thomas Hinton
President & CEO, American Consumer Council

“…Thank you for speaking at our Kiwanis club of Carlsbad meeting. As a community service group we come from a diverse background, but we all benefited from your techniques to label and conquer our inner demons.

“I especially appreciated your presentation as a business professional. As the founder and president of North County Home Loans, Inc. for more than a decade, I had the opportunity to personally meet and work with the top speakers, trainers and coaches in my industry. I can honestly say that I would put you in that elite class of professionals. I hope I can convince you to talk to a real estate group before your schedule would no longer allow for it. Please feel free to use me as a reference as I truly see the benefit of your presentation to any group.”

—Gary Kawano
President, Kiwanis Club of Carlsbad

“…Our membership really enjoyed putting your theories into practice experiencing your “Self Relaxation” exercise and developing a “Reprogramming Record”.  It was refreshing to walk away with several real practical tools and techniques to lower stress and anxieties brought on by today’s demons and demanding fast paced business world.”

—Deborah Dimery
President, San Diego Recreation & Benefits Association

“Again, thank you for the wonderful presentation. You will see by the reviews that it was a hit. I have had six employees compliment the tape- and two are discussing a “book club” to digest and implement the Reprogramming Record and Demon Disrupting Diary…

[Employees’ comments:] “I enjoyed the content the most, Knowledgeable and excellent presentation, Time well spent! Holly is very engaging and interactive, Very useful info that will be interesting to apply to life, Good walk-through of how to apply info/ideas, Very timely for me personally, The demon model is different than others- making it more effective for changing behavior; I can expel and not make it be my bad stuff”.

—Donna S. Olson, R.N.
Director of Professional Care Services, Avalon Hospice & Palliative Care

“Thank you for speaking at the La Jolla Golden Triangle Rotary Club. Your presentation was very well organized. The relaxing technique was a wonderful initial exercise. The handouts and audience participation made for a stimulating and enjoyable presentation. All the tools presented were a refreshing way to help us conquer our inner demons.”

—Dr. Lisa Galstian
Member, La Jolla Golden Triangle Rotary Club

“Dr. Holly Hunt spoke to our community service group of about 50 including guests at the first breakfast meeting of the New Year.  As President of my organization, I have been working on improving the positive atmosphere of our club. Her talk could not have been more timely.

“Her talk was perfectly timed and well presented with handouts, interactive and fun activities. What I like most compared to other authors who do speaking, is the sincerity of her presentation. She wasn’t just there to sell books – but to present her well researched ideas that can help others immediately. She’s a bright and smiling example of what she presents.”

—Lori Butler
President, Kiwanis Club of Sunrise Vista

“Dr. Holly Hunt spoke to our community service group of about 25 professional women at a busy breakfast meeting. She was the epitome of professionalism, having prepared ahead of time to learn about our organization and bringing brief handouts to help us understand her message.

“From her extensive research, we learned about the emotional demons that we all carry, which work to undermine our success. Dr. Hunt used examples to which our members could relate and the audience members were rapt. She led us in a brief exercise to help us combat the negative influences of our demons. One member commented later that it was refreshing to have a speaker who freely gave us a tool that we could walk away with and use immediately.

“Dr. Hunt is engaging, genuine and enthusiastic about her work in helping others. Our club really enjoyed her presentation and only wished we had more time to delve into the topic a bit deeper. And as a final note, one member asked for her help with some information at the end of the meeting. Dr. Hunt happily agreed to check into the situation and was back to her with all the information requested before the end of the day!”

—Lisa Lindgren
Member, Soroptimist International of La Jolla

“Thank you for totally engaging our members with your presentation. You have such a fresh approach to those things that cause blocks and breakdowns in our lives.

“Our members loved your passion, which I know comes from your experience. What it did was get them involved so that they were willing to share and go on using the practical take away for future breakthroughs. We all wish you great success!”

—Barbara Eldridge
Director, North San Diego For You Network

“In these times of job and personal insecurity, Dr. Holly A. Hunt’s message was very timely and to the point – many of the demons we face are within ourselves. The good news is that by recognizing and facing these demons, each of us is better able to conquer them and rid ourselves of self-sabotaging patterns that often limit our personal and professional success.

“Her unique concept is based on thorough research and was delivered in a professional and engaging manner. By the end, her audience felt connected with one another, empowered by the information and techniques she shared. The San Carlos Friends of the Library would certainly recommend Dr. Hunt as a speaker for any organization or business.”

—Judy McCarty
President, San Carlos Friends of the Library

“Dr. Holly Hunt gave a 30 minute presentation at our SI Poway program meeting to a group of about 20 members. Her presentation on dealing with the emotional demons that undermine our success was very well received. Our soroptimist club sponsors and mentors women that are victims of domestic violence and Dr. Hunt’s insights were very beneficial in helping us better understand ourselves, co-workers, families and the abused women that we so much want to help.

“These are some of the comments by our members regarding Dr. Hunt’s presentation “well prepared, knows her subject, the brief relaxation session was a good intro to her ideas, held the interest of the group, insightful, looking forward to using her reprogramming handouts”.

“Our club highly recommends Dr. Hunt’s presentation to any group seeking tools for self improvement and working successfully with others.”

—Idelma Ozarski
President-Elect, Soroptimist International of Poway

“The members of our ministry found Dr. Holly Hunt’s work insightful, helpful and energizing. Holly has keen insight into the inner challenges that confront people in our time. Her use of language empowers and encourages others to look deep within themselves at the obstacles that prevent them from claiming the life their heart has called them to live. As a Pastor, I found her work refreshing, insightful and helpful in clarifying the often overlooked relationship between evil and the self-destructive patterns of our lives that leave us with regret and guilt.

“Thank you Holly for this courageous approach to the complexities of self-awareness and for believing in the power within us to claim victory over those forces that prevent us from being all we were meant to be.”

—David L. Davis, D.Min.
Senior Pastor, Hamilton Mill UMC

“How can you learn to conquer the demons that keep you from having a full life, and do it with humor and graciousness? Invite Dr. Holly Hunt to speak.

“In just a few minutes, she will have you relaxed and focused, and able to appreciate the simplicity of her message and the easy to use tools that she offers. All the members of our club were able to take away valuable information.”

—Maxine Levaren
President-Elect, Soroptimist International of La Mesa

“Hamilton Mill MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group had the distinct honor and pleasure of listening to Holly A. Hunt Ph.D. present on her book titled Emotional Exorcism: Expelling the Four Psychological Demons That Make Us Backslide. Her speech was very well received and generated much interest in her new concept of identifying and naming one’s harmful self beliefs that were instilled early in life, in order to release or expel them so that true and lasting healing is achieved.

“Dr. Hunt began her speech with a refreshing ten minute relaxation exercise. After the exercise, one of our mothers commented on how very rare it was to spend even just ten minutes in such a quiet, still place. Next, she began to layout her “demon model” by giving us examples of the core negative beliefs that most of us carry around with us in some aspect of our lives, such as ‘we are not good enough’, ‘we don’t deserve’, ‘we could never achieve’, ‘nothing can help me’, etc.

“Holly then introduced the four emotional “demons”, and by naming them was able to separate our harmful feelings and actions from who we were as a person. They became not a part of, but an actual thing that was attacking us that we could then enable ourselves to fight against. Through very innovative and creative journaling we could then start to reprogram our thinking of who we were, our self value, and our love of self. This journaling provides actual tangible proof that we are worthy, we are good, and we do deserve. After her speech we were just left with this incredible realization and relief that the part of us that we feel is “bad” is not who we are, but just a “demon” that we can equip ourselves to expel.

“I highly recommend Dr. Holly Hunt as a speaker. What a wonderful message she was able to deliver, and what a powerful tool this book will be to our group. We feel so privileged that Holly chose to share her message with us.”

—Jennifer Skidmore
Coordinator, HM MOPS

“Thank you so much for such a wonderful and thought provoking presentation From Sabotage to Success at our 4th Annual Women’s Day event. As you are aware, the needs for high risk continuation high school young women often go unaddressed as an underserved population. Your presentation was exceptional and addressed their needs to redirect and think about life’s possibilities. I would highly recommend your presentation to all high school students but particularly for high risk and at risk students. Many of the young women came away with concrete ideas and ways to address the “if you keep doing what you’re doing you will keep getting what you’re getting” to change learned habits to more positive outcomes. You were able to speak to the students on a level that allowed them to explore a change of habit and discuss the approach and redirection for change.

“…To quote a few of our students, “What I liked about Holly was the way she told us the differences between our demons around us, I liked learning tools to help with coping, I liked starting with the guided meditation”. Many of the students kept their Model and Reprogramming Record for continued use and have asked for more copies. So I know they are using them! …”

—Cathy Kosich
Education Specialist, S.A.F.E. Coordinator, Abraxas Continuation High School

Emotional Exorcism Reviews

“An intriguing approach to helping people once again enjoy fulfilling and productive lives. Engaging, stimulating, captivating – an insightful “hands on” approach, developed over years of clinical experience.”

—Pat DeLeon Ph.D., J.D., M.P.H.
Former President, American Psychological Association

“Professionals and non-professionals will find Dr. Hunt’s book enormously helpful in their work and in their lives. Dr. Hunt provides a template for identifying and expelling the negative internal forces, and their idiosyncratic patterns, that both sabotage and stall personal growth and fulfillment. This practical template for change comes with real-life examples and applicable strategies drawing on evidenced-based theories that show the way to personal empowerment, to reclaim and live your true potential.”

—Concepcion Barrio, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of Southern California School of Social Work

“Dr. Holly Hunt, a respected psychologist has used her clinical acumen and experience to construct a bold new way to combat the negative thoughts and behavior that plague many. Her use of appealing metaphors such as “master demons” and “soldier demons” and categorizing them in ways patients or clients can easily identify offers a fresh approach that should prove to work well especially with those who have tried and failed to stop their self defeating behavior utilizing other methods.

“Taking responsibility for bettering the way in which we cope with life’s travails is what we can and must do and Hunt sets out to help guide the path. Providing examples from her own cases informs on her therapeutic methods. In so doing, she enlivens her work and instills an optimistic outlook. Her use of two separate journals in a structured manner may well reinforce progress because it gives clients something concrete to hold on to.”

—Sandra L. Ceren, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, Diplomate, American Board
of Family Psychology, Fellow, Academy of Family Psychology and Author of
Essentials of Premarital Counseling www.DrSandraLevyCeren.com

“Dr. Holly Hunt observes in her latest book EMOTIONAL EXORCISM that most of the world’s major religions have often viewed human emotional problems as caused by a person being possessed or controlled by demons or evil spirits. In turn, religions have developed a variety of methods to cast out or exorcise these demons and thus return people to a state of health or happiness. An essential part of returning people to a state of health, in this view, is for a priest or shaman to use some powerful ritual to drive out the demons or spirits controlling a person thereby rendering them happy or healthy again. Often these rituals involve a person performing an act or specific activity designed to rid them of the possessions forever.

“Dr. Hunt uses this process in a parallel manner to help her clients or patients describe their self-defeating patterns of lapsing and relapsing behavior as “demons.” She has developed a descriptive fiction or hierarchy of demons from the insidious Big One to less obvious ones that can be named by her clients as internal forces preventing desirable permanent positive cognitive or behavioral changes in their therapy. The relapses we often see when working with our clients that result in a return to their initial presenting problematic behavior can be conjointly viewed by the client and therapist as caused by demons that need to be named and exorcised. This process is no different than that of describing problematic human behavior in diagnostic metaphors. Dr. Hunt provides several examples of how acceptable this demon naming process is to her clients and how it leads to quick recognition of self-defeating relapse behavior.

“Nowhere in this novel approach is the real existence of demons advocated, instead Dr. Hunt has developed some humorous and not so humorous names to describe essential aspects of the self-defeating relapse process to her clients. This process is insightful to her clients and forms pragmatic relapse prevention behavior specific to each client.

“The type of therapy described by Dr. Hunt in her counseling will sound and look familiar as it is cognitive and behavioral in orientation. However, by Dr. Hunt naming the self-defeating patterns for each client as a “demon” that seeks the return of initial patterns of problematic behavior then the ability of her client to stop the relapse process is increased. Naming the relapse process as a “demon” working against the hard earned self change in a client’s behavior helps them to internally organize a unique prevention process.

“Kudos to Dr. Hunt for showing how collaboratively naming a process we all see in our clients which sabotages their “hard won” changes in behavior as a “demon” that can be exorcised in the process of counseling.

“This book is highly recommended for both beginning and seasoned therapists. It provides a novel renaming and rethinking of the frustrating process we encounter in our clients as they struggle to maintain the positive changes they have made in their counseling journey.”

—Douglas O. Brady, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist in Oklahoma and Texas
Fellow, American Psychological Association

“In this self-help book for general readers, Hunt, a psychologist, author, and speaker based in Southern California, offers a new way to overcome depression, anxiety, anger, and addictive behaviors. She shows how earlier life experiences can create a core of negative belief she calls the Master Demon, as well as self-sabotaging thoughts and behavior patterns called the Four Soldier Demons. She then provides an original, user-friendly model to change those self-sabotaging thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. Through a variety of tools, including a Demon Disrupting Diary and a Reprogramming Record, she empowers readers to separate from, stop feeding, and exorcize psychological demons. Real-life case studies illustrate concepts. An extensive bibliography includes relevant research studies, books, and reference texts for further information.”

–Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Reference & Research Book News, November 2009