Hypnotherapy: John Teleska

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In my experience...
With enough motivation, people can learn what they need to in order to be a non-smoker in from four to six sessions spaced a week or more apart. Because each person is different, there’s a lot of variation in this: a few people accomplish quitting after only one session; most require more. For those who don’t appear likely to quit, a mutual decision to stop sessions is made.

What studies say
In the many studies of the effectiveness of using hypnosis to help people be non-smokers, 1 or 2 of every 5 participants successfully become non-smokers. The 1-out-of-5 success rate is similar to other methods of quitting smoking that do not use hypnosis. The 2-out-of-5 success rate was achieved in a study that paid participants to come to sessions—an incentive that doesn’t exist in real life. The number of sessions in these studies varied from 1 to 8 or more.

Hypnosis isn’t magic: it cannot make you do what you don’t want to do
Hypnosis won’t make you wad up a pack of cigarettes and throw them in the trash as you’re leaving a session. Hypnosis won’t make you suddenly, and without forethought, quit smoking one morning. You may think it unfortunate that hypnosis cannot make you want to quit or make you actually quit; however, with sufficient motivation, when you are ready, stopping is possible.

Hypnosis is support for what you are ready to do
Here’s what hypnosis can do: It can provide support for what you are ready to do—in the same way that training wheels on a bicycle are support for learning to balance on only two wheels when you are ready for that learning.

Motivation is the key
If you want to be made to quit, I have found that hypnotherapy probably won’t help you much: it can’t manipulate you into doing what you aren’t ready to do. If you are ready to make the effort involved in becoming a non-smoker, hypnosis can be useful.

Get rid of smoking while keeping what’s useful
If you’ve been smoking for years, chances are good that smoking has become associated with things that you value. For instance, some people take short breaks at work to go outside and smoke a cigarette. Taking short breaks throughout the day may have become a useful part of their work style. After a break of a few minutes, they find they come back to the task at hand feeling a little fresher. In becoming a non-smoker, this person might want to develop some other way to take a break—maybe going for a short walk.

Some smokers respond to anxious-making situations by having a cigarette. Smoking may have become a strategy for coping with anxiousness. In becoming a non-smoker, this person would want to learn other strategies for coping with anxiety.

One person I worked with had always kept her pack of cigarettes in the same spot on the breakfast table. She thought of them as her breakfast companion. After she quit, at breakfast, without thinking, she would reach for them—and find them not there, and then she would want a cigarette. She began keeping a vase with a fresh cut rose on the spot where the cigarettes had been. Now, at breakfast, she would see the rose, and with every passing week she could smell it more clearly. She felt good about this, because it reminded her every morning that she was accomplishing being a non-smoker.

So, part of the learning of quitting smoking is learning how to keep what you value that you have come to associate with cigarettes and smoking, while getting rid of the smoking.

Hypnotherapy in support of becoming a non-smoker
A competent hypnotherapist asks questions about your personal history, your experience smoking and your experience trying to stop smoking, and your reasons for wanting to quit. The therapist tailors the interaction to your learning style and in a way that engages and supports your particular motivations for becoming a non-smoker. The therapist also uses your experience between sessions to refine the work you do together.