21 Point for Stop Smoking
21 tips to help your clients stop smoking
In 1992, the New Scientist magazine reported research by scientists at Iowa University who analysed the results of 600 studies of nearly 72,000 people in Europe and the USA who had used different methods to quit smoking. They found that hypnotherapy is consistently the most successful way to become a non-smoker. Among those exsmokers who had successfully quit the habit, 30 percent had done so through hypnotherapy, compared with 25 percent through aversion therapy, 24 percent through acupuncture, ten percent through nicotine gum, nine percent through books and mail order advice, and six percent through willpower.1 The hypnotherapist, then, has at his or her disposal an extraordinarily powerful method for helping people stop smoking, one that has astounding potential for benefiting the millions of people now smoking who now want to quit the habit. Yet despite this proven success - and superiority to other commonly-used methods - hypnotherapy still does not enjoy approval as a smoking cessation method by “officialdom”, in the form of government and the medical profession. Many members of the public, too, remain sceptical of its capacity to help them become non-smokers. Why should this be? I believe that it is because of a lack of a consensus as to what constitutes “best practice” in enabling clients to stop smoking – and stay stopped – via hypnotherapy. This is in some ways quite remarkable. In most occupations, whether they call themselves industries, crafts, trades, professions, sciences, arts or whatever, many years of experience have led to the creation of recognised “bench-marks”. A bench-mark is a recognised standard “best practice” way of carrying out some task, known and practised by everyone in that field. An engineer, an accountant, an insurance assessor, a dentist, a car mechanic, a plumber, an osteopath – all these have a standard “best practice” way of doing something, which remains standard until a particular
In 1992, the New Scientist magazine reported research by scientists at Iowa University who analysed the results of 600 studies of nearly 72,000 people in Europe and the USA who had used different methods to quit smoking. They found that hypnotherapy is consistently the most successful way to become a non-smoker. Among those exsmokers who had successfully quit the habit, 30 percent had done so through hypnotherapy, compared with 25 percent through aversion therapy, 24 percent through acupuncture, ten percent through nicotine gum, nine percent through books and mail order advice, and six percent through willpower.1 The hypnotherapist, then, has at his or her disposal an extraordinarily powerful method for helping people stop smoking, one that has astounding potential for benefiting the millions of people now smoking who now want to quit the habit. Yet despite this proven success - and superiority to other commonly-used methods - hypnotherapy still does not enjoy approval as a smoking cessation method by “officialdom”, in the form of government and the medical profession. Many members of the public, too, remain sceptical of its capacity to help them become non-smokers. Why should this be? I believe that it is because of a lack of a consensus as to what constitutes “best practice” in enabling clients to stop smoking – and stay stopped – via hypnotherapy. This is in some ways quite remarkable. In most occupations, whether they call themselves industries, crafts, trades, professions, sciences, arts or whatever, many years of experience have led to the creation of recognised “bench-marks”. A bench-mark is a recognised standard “best practice” way of carrying out some task, known and practised by everyone in that field. An engineer, an accountant, an insurance assessor, a dentist, a car mechanic, a plumber, an osteopath – all these have a standard “best practice” way of doing something, which remains standard until a particular