Quit smoking: The dogma of willingness

[betlamed]

Hi,

okay the title may be a bit strong... :-)

Anyway. I doubt that you can't help anyone quit smoking if they don't really really utterly eagerly want to.

From my own experience: I quit smoking purely by self-hypnosis last march right BECAUSE I didn't really want to. I was being experimental and open to any outcome, and I really think that attitude was a huge part of the success. I simply wanted to check out whether self-hypnosis is any good. Well, I haven't touched a cigarette ever since then, so I can say it is now... ;-)

betlamed

[skip]

I am just curious if you see the contradition in this?

"I quit smoking purely by self-hypnosis last march right BECAUSE I didn't really want to."

Now maybe you didnt do self hypnosis with the intent to stop smoking.

And maybe you just wanted to see if self hypnosis could work for stopping smoking even tho the smoking wasnt an issue for you. Do you have your answer yet?

But, "I did it because I didnt want to."

Right, and I havent responded to this post because I thought it too silly to even consider.

skip

[Terry (existing)]

Come now Skip, you are doing it again (G) keeping the poster in the dark and feeding him bul,,,t. He really isn't a mushroom you know (EG)......
OK poster, I do understand what you are trying to say, so let me put it a little more clearly so that others can understand what happened.....
If I or anyone else is to be successful in helping a client remove an addiction from their life, we need to find a trigger, and by that I don't reffer to the sort of trigger used in hypnosis to speed progress.....I mean a trigger that helps the client to replace the needs that are being satisfied by the addiction with something more important to THEM........It need not be something the therapist sees as important though. I have used this successfully on myself, and on many clients who came to me to quit smoking, and it works every time without the client needing to Really Really want to quit.......You saw the need to prove "self hypnosis" as being more important than smoking to YOU....So for you it worked, I had a client who didn't want to quit also, but was too embarassed to tell me the real problem, so they asked to quit smoking, and only after they had quit did they have the courage to tell me what they really wanted, but by then they were a non smoker as well.... When I was involved in research, I got many volunteers to quit smoking who really didn't want to, but did want to prove that hypnosis worked, because deep within, they had real problems they might want to use hypnosis for, and wanted to see how it might help them in the future...
The only one of these volunteers who quit for good though, was a new mother, and I am so glad she volunteered because I was able to help give a baby a very good start in life, with a mother who was an ex smoker. Now you know why the practitioner is so valuable, he or she needs to know WHY as well as HOW, and get results under a variety of circumstances that the normal person would not see as important......

[betlamed]

skip, perhaps you just want me to project all my bad feelings on you? :-) Well, I'm sure I didn't communicate this clearly; and you're right, it IS contradictory. Many things are in hypnosis.

So. Reformulation in the light of Terry's posting which really helped me understand it a lot better:

Especially the following quote: "You saw the need to prove "self hypnosis" as being more important than smoking to YOU...." sounds very true and really explains it to me.

I did almost exactly what you were talking about -- I took smoking as just one example, something that wasn't that important to me at this time, because I was too shy or afraid to go for the "real topics".

It seems to me this is a great attitude in hypnosis, generally (not the being shy, but being experimental). Only it gets kind of hard to achieve once you realize what you can theoretically do and once you start attaching hope and fear and pressure to it.

I still feel, however, that all that talk about how "you really really have to really really want to quit" just drives people away from trying. And maybe it also is a good excuse for bad therapists?

bl

[Jack]

Hello Betlamed,

I will repeat: You cannot quit smoking unless you really want to.

The reasons why anyone smokes are buried in the subconscious. The reasons why they might want to quit are also in the same place.

Ask yourself, what made you feel like being 'experimental' in the first place? Also ask yourself why you wanted to check out if hypnosis was any good at the same time as giving up smoking.

I don't disbelieve what you think you believe but my belief is that your wish to quit came from the same place that your desire to smoke did. If that is the case then your belief that you didn't want to quit was conscious and as such overidden by the subconscious impulse to quit. But if you prefer to believe otherwise then you are of course entitled to do so.

Oh, and congratulations!

Jack

[betlamed]

Jack,

thanks! I'm very happy to have quit.

Quite probably I unconsciously wanted to quit smoking - no, actually I'm 100% certain of that. But, since the unconscious is just that, unconscious, it follows that the individual doesn't know what he or she unconsciously wants. It follows that no one can decide beforehand whether hypnotherapy will work for a specific issue.

Therefore, the statement "you can't quit smoking unless you really want it" is still pretty useless, regardless of whether it's true or not, because with an unconscious entity in my head I have no means of finding out what I really want before i give it a try.

Hehe.

It's just the metaphysical nature of the concept of the unconscious mind, really. Replace it with "god", "the universe", or "bobo". You don't know god's will, either.

bl

[skip]

"But, since the unconscious is just that, unconscious, it follows that the individual doesn't know what he or she unconsciously wants."

Now there is a belief worth losing!

[Unregistered]

surely quitting is as easy as not buying any more smokes... think i'd go down that route instead of over complicating things for both the client and hypnotist.

[Unregistered]

Hi all

Just a little something I think applies quite generally...when you take the stress of wanting succes out of the equation (in whatever outcome you are going for), succes just comes easier.

Real-ease