Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy is widely recognised, as a method for aiding smoking cessation, however, conflicting evidence exists regarding its efficacy. In meta analysis hypnosis proved 3 times more effective than nicotine replacement methods, and 15 times more effective than stopping without help (Schmidt and Chockalingham, 1992). Having said this, results are not always clean cut. A number of studies report a mixture of success rates i.e. 90.6% (Barber, 2001), 90% (Klager, 2004), and 80% (Crasilneck, 1990), while others report much lower rates of success at 48% (Elkins and Rajab, 2004) and 25% (Ahijevych, Yerardi and Nedilsky, 2000). Something else to consider is the variety of methods that may be adopted in order to treat smoking cessation with hypnosis, as the efficacy of these methods may also vary (Crasilneck, 1990; Barber, 2001; Spiegel, Frischholz, Fleiss and Spiegel, 1993). However, the constant variable within smoking cessation treatment is the patient. Therefore, treatment tailored towards the individual needs of the smoker needs to be considered when evaluating the best approach to therapy.

This is a non-clinical case study exploring whether multi session tailored treatment may better serve the individual needs of certain smokers. Therefore, hypnotherapeutic techniques are tailored to the patient’s needs in order to achieve optimum success. The patient (D) is a male actor. He lives with his partner who has recently stopped smoking with hypnosis. He is 31 yrs old and has been smoking for 18yrs. This is D’s third attempt at smoking cessation. Initially D attempted to stop smoking without help and was unsuccessful. D’s second attempt involved single session smoking cessation, and failed to achieve lasting results. Therefore a multi ses...

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...to practice relaxation techniques autonomously over a three-day period before his second session of hypnosis. D had showed

Case Study, London.

prolonged abstinence in the past and is living with a significant other (who has now stopped smoking); therefore, it would seem probable that low level of hypnotisability may have been elemental in impeding his progress, initially. Research suggests that high hypnotisability facilitates successful behaviour modification (Frischolz et al, 1993). Therefore, in D’s case, this needed to be addressed before further therapy could commence. However, it has been suggested that abstinence from smoking does not correlate with hypnotisability (Holroyd, 1991). Nevertheless, it could be argued that within this study, low rate of abstinence i.e. 16% may have impeded verification of a relationship between hypnotisability and outcome.