Smoking and Clinical Hypnotherapy by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

 November 2020

     People come to me for clinical hypnotherapy and counselling  in order to give up smoking and other issues (pain management, sleep issues, speech disorders, eating problems, confidence issues, etc.). Today I want only to talk about smoking and the efficacy of hypnotherapy in the treatment of that. What many people do not realize is that hypnosis cannot make you do anything against your will. If you have no actual intention of giving up smoking, the hypnosis won’t be effective. Hypnosis isn’t magic. It is only an altered state of consciousness where you are in a  trance state, much like the state you enter when you are absorbed into something, like reading, or running, or swimming, or watching a movie. The hypnotherapist is talking to your unconscious and giving you information about smoking that you already know: that it tastes horrible, it’s expensive and is terrible for your health, and that you don’t need to do it. If you really don’t want to smoke, giving up is well within your capacity. Hypnosis, in this case, acts as a trigger to change. No one is compelled to smoke; it is up to a point a choice, even though you may feel it is an addiction to nicotine or something to occupy your hands.

     I’ve known people who had smoked for 50 years and gave it away overnight. One man who told me about  his own experience in this, also said that he cried and cried during that night,  for his smoking had concealed a profound anxiety and depression. And this brings me to a fundamental point. Those who smoke heavily generally do so to deal with emotional and often relational issues that the smoking habit attempts to cover up. At this level, the problem is semi-conscious, that is, it is not something deliberately done, but comes about as a kind of self medication. I’ve be noticing this repeatedly ever since I first trained in this field and then began offering clinical hypnotherapy all those years ago, which is why I now want to emphasize that if you really want hypnotherapy to be successful, you need not only to actually want a given outcome, but to shake off the idea that hypnosis can deal with the problem without your emotional and intentional input and also I suggest that you commit to several sessions of counselling as well as hypnotherapy.

     During counselling you will be heard by someone interested in you.  Connecting to someone (me) about matters that are really important to you are the best ingredients for essential interior change. Hypnosis can beautifully set the landscape up for effective communication. It is relaxing and it feels very good and, with the suggestions presented to you under hypnosis, you have the settings for the beginning of enduring change.  This is not a quick fix, and it has substance.  

      I knew a hypnotherapist who had clients who gave up smoking for a year and then resumed this horrible practice. To my mind that’s not good enough and this is why I continue working for something far more effective.

     Of magic and such, some people expect change without their intention for change, as though with a wave of a wand and sparkles in the air, essential change can happen – whatever your mind set. Such an approach doesn’t work on stage, and it certainly doesn’t work in the clinical setting either.  Hypnosis isn’t magic and change usually cannot be achieved in a small number of sessions. Anyone who claims otherwise is delusional. You really will have to commit to several sessions and, with me, do the actual work to  shift  your relationship with nicotine.  

      Of smoking as an addiction. All the study, conversations and research I’ve done into addiction says the same thing: ‘the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection’ (Johann Hari). When we start connecting through meaningful communication we start to heal. This is why I’m urging potential clients who want to be free of smoking, or anything else, to consider coming to see me and get down to the real work and not just a seek magical removal of symptoms.

 

 

 

Choosing to Smoke, or Not by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD, Dip Clin Hypnotherapy

Sept 2013 

     It isn’t good to inhale ash  and chemicals of any kind, but that said, we have the capacity to choose. Or do we? 

     Smoke tobacco, if you wish and actually enjoy it, but don’t if you smoke just because you identify yourself as a “smoker”. Smoke from choice; don’t smoke from habit. Is it, though, that simple? Before I untangle that question, I’ll just diverge a little. 

      On television relatively recently the writer, Clive James, being interviewed by Kerry O’Brien, said of stories that  it isn’t the story that is interesting, per se, but the story of the story. This resonates with me strongly for what we identify about ourselves drives much of our behaviour. Thus calling oneself a smoker, or a binge eater, or a booze artist, facilitates a routine for indulging in these follies, because we can then say, well I’m a smoker, binge eater, booze artist, and that’s what I am, as opposed to what I sometimes do. It’s a story of a story, and being so, can just as easily be changed to something else. 

      Let me be clear here, I am not a smoker, binge eater nor boozer, but I do know the making of stories about oneself. I have stories about me that drive me to some extent. I am a swimmer. As such this story is as much a story about what I do, and what I identify myself as, as a person who defines herself as “a smoker”. My story keeps me healthy, for I love swimming, but I am no more to be defined as a swimmer than as one who swims. I choose to swim and know that when I don’t swim I get irritable. Perhaps, and I feel it to be inconceivable, I could channel my love into some other pastime, but being a healthy pastime, I see no reason to. I do have other stories of stories that drive me and they aren’t healthy, but that’s another topic to be explored on another day.

Smoking isn’t a healthy pastime. It’s an indulgence in a toxic activity. Toxic and addictive, and therein lies the difficulty of what constitutes a choice. 

      Nicotine is the tobacco plant’s natural protection against being eaten by insects. It is thus an insecticide. Interestingly, though, nicotine mimics the brain’s neurotransmitter acetylcholine that controls the flow of dopamine and over 200 more neuro-chemicals. Dopamine, among other functions, stimulates the brain’s desire for satisfaction, thus nicotine, in playing a dopamine-like role, promotes a desire for more of the same, more satisfaction. It creates a craving. 

      Understanding this doesn’t completely explain it all: why do some people manage to smoke one cigarette only when they feel like it, while others smoke all day, every day? The story of the story fills out the picture, I suggest. 

      A story of a story (a person who identifies themselves as “a smoker”), establishes a neural pathway in their brain by repeating the act of smoking, and enhances the effect of nicotine in the brain, thus accentuating both the intention to smoke and to enable the effect of smoking to increase craving desires. It’s both: story of story and chemical dependence (illustrating a mind-body connection in the act of smoking) that drives the habit (apart from the social dimensions of doing what your friends do, etc).

       Others, who enjoy a smoke occasionally, but who don’t identify themselves as  a “smoker”, choose when to smoke, as opposed to smoking because they see themselves as a “smoker” (who smokes because that’s what smokers do). This is a state I prefer to encourage in clients who come to see me for clinical hypnotherapy. Yes, ideally, it would be good if they gave up smoking entirely, but why not consider the idea that it’s possible to choose to smoke just for enjoyment, as opposed to craving a smoke because of an addiction? Abstinence may, or may not, be ideal for many people, and for those who have smoked many years, such an ideal state may be difficult to attain, for the act of smoking comes with multiple social and sometimes creative situations that are less easy to drop. I know of one man who smokes as a way into conversation with women. I know another who smokes to enhance cognitive acuity (focus).  Nicotine, like dopamine which it imitates, stimulates cognitive acuity as well as craving.

      How much better it is to achieve the ability to choose what one does, as opposed to doing things just because you feel compelled to. My interest as a psychotherapist/clinical hypnotherapist is in enhancing a person’s choicefulness so that they can choose what they want, as opposed to just doing what they’ve been doing out of habit and hating themselves for it. The capacity to choose what we enjoy best of all is what makes my job wonderful. I get to see people who have chosen a life they love, freed from addictive, self-perpetuating self-destructive behaviours.  If smoking continues to be what they choose to do, then so be it. But let it be a conscious choice and not just continuing a story about a story of themselves. 

Copyright @ 2013 Dr Elizabeth McCardell