Chapter 1 -The nature of hypnosis
Chapter 2 - The nature of smoking
Chapter 3 - Health and smoking
Chapter 4 - How hypnosis compares with other methods
Chapter 5 - How hypnosis works to make a smoker into a non-smoker
Chapter 6 - Dealing with weight increase and other problems to make the hypnotherapy for non-smoking succeed
Chapter 7 - Conclusions

Chapter 1 - The nature of hypnosis

What is hypnosis and what is it really meant to do?

Hypnosis is now so well known and popular that we tend to take it for granted. The likes of Paul McKenna have popularised it through TV but also now it is the subject of much research in universities and research departments of major hospitals. Exactly how it works is not known which is the reason for the research in the first place. It is even argued by experts as to whether it exists or not!

Let's assume it does exist and define it. My definition is that it involves being in a state somewhere between awake and asleep. When very effective it is a feeling of deep relaxation and mental calmness. It can involve a feeling of altered awareness even heightened awareness, a sort of guided daydreaming. The person is aware of everything taking place, but is also able to concentrate on what is happening in the hypnosis session.

I tell my clients that it is a state of making no effort. You do the same as when you go, successfully into a deep comfortable sleep, you just allow your body to relax and unwind from the cares of the day and calm your mind by visualizing, if you can, a very relaxing, calming, beautiful, warm scene. What you visualise is up to you. It could even be being in bed, or a certain person or a pet that makes you feel this way. But it is not just this which is under your control, but also the whole process of hypnosis. Most research shows that any hypnosis is self-hypnosis. You have total freedom to accept or reject suggestions but you and the therapist form a partnership in which any suggestions given have first been agreed to. As you are in charge of the hypnotic session you can leave the hypnotic state at any time just as easily as you entered it. Because of this it means there are no dangers as long as the sessions of hypnosis are carried out by a professional person.

How hypnosis works as shown by the hypnotic treatment for smoking

To give you an idea how individual the responses to hypnosis are let me tell you two brief stories. One involves a woman who went to a hypnotherapist to stop smoking. The session was a great success and she found that she couldn't smoke after it. Unfortunately, she now decided that she wanted to smoke because she was missing it too much. She went back to the hypnotherapist to have the suggestions removed from her mind. This was successful too and several years later she is still smoking. There are several things to be learnt from this. First, that hypnosis can be very powerful. Secondly, that ultimately the person has the control and can make their own decisions about what they want to happen.

Another brief story illustrates this. A man was given the suggestion under hypnosis that if he ever had a cigarette in his hand without thinking he would crumple it up. He actually left feeling the session hadn't worked and reached into the unfinished pack of cigarettes that he kept in case the session was unsuccessful. As soon as he reached into the pack and took a cigarette he found himself crumpling it up. He tried with another one and the same thing happened again! All the remaining cigarettes from that pack met the same fate so he bought another pack thinking that the power of the suggestion he was given would wear off. It didn't and all those cigarettes met the same fate.

He was puzzled so he went back to the hypnotherapist who explained that what was working here was his subconscious mind which had accepted the suggestion and was making him crumple up the cigarettes. When the man realized the power of his own subconscious mind and that the hypnosis had worked even if his conscious mind hadn't accepted the fact then he continued to allow the suggestions to work and he didn't smoke.

The mind is divided into the conscious and subconscious. This division is not a very firm one as what is not in our conscious mind can easily come in if it is important for it to do so. For most things we do depend on our not being conscious of them such as driving, walking, cycling, eating. If we had to be conscious of everything we do we would be wasting an enormous amount of energy. Usually this is the situation when we have to learn to do something such as the above activities. Even eating involves learning the function of knives, forks, soup spoons, tea spoons, cutlery in general which we take for granted but as a infant, nonetheless, had to learn how to use them properly before the actions could go into the subconscious.

The same applies to smoking. At first it is a conscious activity which involves thinking about each cigarette we have (or pipeful or cigar). This is especially true when you may have felt sick when you first started. However, especially with cigarettes, you start to be automatic in when you smoke them and during the day quite a few are smoked without being aware of them. This is especially true for a chain smoker. So a lot of it is habit rather than plain addiction. This means that most of the smoking behaviour is controlled by the subconscious mind. The addiction too is controlled by the subconscious mind because it can't be true that people actually want to be consciously addicted.

This is where hypnosis is particularly powerful because it communicates with the subconscious mind. The idea is to make the behaviour of the smoker into that of a non-smoker and this has to be learnt over a period of time by most people. The behaviours have to go into the subconscious mind and start to work from there. The main proof that it is happening is through our feelings and behaviour. A good example is the one I give about myself in Chapter 2 when I was in New York City and the USA for a month in 1990 and I felt no urge to go into a shop and buy a cigar even though consciously I still thought I could have one if I wanted. I knew at that point that the behaviour of being a non-smoker had gone into my subconscious mind. In fact I don't even remember thinking about going into a shop.

Another point is that the hypnotherapist is really talking to your subconscious mind so you don't consciously know whether the suggestions are being accepted and worked on. If there is any underlying resistance to them working then this will be shown in a negative reaction to the suggestions. The idea of hypnosis is to reduce the need for conscious willpower in something like becoming a non-smoker, in weight loss, drinking, etc. It is obvious that only a positive feeling will indicate that the suggestions are working.

The inner strength exercise and smoking.

Since hypnosis works on the subconscious mind then I emphasize that that is the source of mental strength, power and energy. It can communicate these resources through symbols, flashes of inspiration, feelings of motivation and commitment. When the subconscious mind is a 100% behind what you are doing then nothing...but nothing, will stop you from doing it. It has so much potential power that if we could use all of it then probably the brain would short circuit and we would have a brain seizure. However, under normal circumstances we use just a small part of the power of the subconscious mind and usually this is enough. If for some reason it is against what we consciously want then this make it much more difficult and we have the feelings and thoughts of, "I want a fag.". I encourage the clients who come to me to develop some sort of sign or symbol in their own mind which will reinforce the idea that they are a non-smoker. Of course the non-smoking sign is such a symbol but I encourage them to develop their own. They usually come up with symbols such as clean ashtrays, but often too the symbol can be abstract such as a triangle, star, etc. However, a lot of people just see themselves in the future as a non-smoker looking more healthy, calm, relaxed, happier than they ever were when they smoked.

If the symbol is appropriate then it acts to motivate in the same way as say a national flag with its abstract pattern which is meant to stir national feelings. The subconscious mind does respond to symbols and in dreams it creates its own symbols and metaphors. The symbol also conditions the mind to become accustomed to linking the goal of becoming a non-smoker with the required motivation to do it.

If you feel there is a clash in the mind, especially at a deep level, then what is happening is that there is a battle between the part of your mind that is responsible for your health and survival and really does not want you to smoke, and the part of the mind that enjoys a cigarette because of the addiction. This part of the mind works in the short term and thinks the most important thing in the world is to have a quick fix. The other part of the mind is concerned with the long term. It is what you can call our survival instinct or the source of our inner strength. Although the survival instinct is strong in most people for some reason in some people it is weak. Smokers who are afraid of the prospect of poor health use excuses such as, "I could be run down by a bus tomorrow". They don't want to look into the long term even if the consequences of not doing so could be grim. When the mind puts short term pleasure of a quick fix in place of the real pleasure of long term good health then it will be difficult to become a non-smoker.

Conclusion

To conclude this chapter it should be pointed out that although many books have been written about stopping smoking/giving up smoking usually if hypnosis is mentioned it is very briefly or not at all. For example, in Allen Carr's excellent book, "The easy way to stop smoking.", he gives a paragraph only to hypnosis as a method to become a non-smoker. Given that hypnotherapy is shown in the next chapter to be the most effective way of becoming a non-smoker then it is surprising that this is the case.

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