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experience the quality of his or her motivation. This is often expressed as
a reaction to the aversive experience of RS. This conversation is also an
opportunity for assessing the degree of social support the patientmaybe
receiving, as well as an opportunity to intervene, if necessary, in this
area. Primarily, however, this appointment is an opportunity to introduce
hypnotic suggestion to the patient. I explain to the him or her that
hypnotic suggestion is intended to ease the process of withdrawal and
thus ensure greater likelihood of continued success.
The actual language of the therapeutic suggestion might vary widely
across patients, depending upon what is necessary. The theme of the
suggestions is support and encouragement for the freedom the patient
has chosen. The patient’s choice to be free to determine his or her behavior,
rather than to be compelled by smoking addiction, is fundamental to
the therapeutic communication in this intervention. Suggestions that
focus on negative or punitive ideas are wholly avoided. Five hypnotic
suggestions are communicated, in whatever form and with as many repetitions
as I judge to be optimal:
1.
If you have any ambivalence at this time with respect to stopping
smoking, let’s discuss it now and take the opportunity of meeting any
possible objections you may have to stopping. [If any objections are
expressed, they are discussed at that moment.]
2.
You are someone who used to smoke. You no longer smoke and, as
you have told me, there is no reason on earth that is sufficient to justify
your ever picking up a cigarette again.
3.
If your child or someone else you love had for some reason a really
strong craving to eat poison, you wouldn’t let your child eat that poison,
would you? [Following the patient’s presumably negative response:]
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Not even if it tasted very good? [Again, following the patient’s presumably
negative response:] No, of course not. Not even if your child gave
you very good reasons? [Following the patient’s presumably negative
response:] No, of course not. You might be amused or even surprised by
the inventiveness of the reasons, but you would never take the reasons
seriously, would you? [Following the patient’s presumably negative
response:] No, of course not. You can be delighted by the creativity you
may show in developing really interesting rationalizations, but you
won’t take them seriously, will you? [Following the patient’s presumably
negative response:] No, of course not.
4.
You may occasionally have a very brief, very peculiar, but very
interesting experience over the next several hours or days or even weeks.
Every now and then you will see an image of looking back over your
shoulder at the high, white walls of a kind of prison, a prison that once
held you for some reason.Areason perhaps long forgotten, but now you
have liberated yourself. You are no longer a prisoner there. You may be
able to hear or even feel the discomfort of the prisoners who are still
there, and you will probably feel compassion for them, but you can also
enjoy the clear air of your freedom. You can feel really proud of your
decision to become free and to remain free. In fact, you may be surprised
over the next while when you notice sudden feelings—perhaps familiar,
perhaps not—feelings of real pride and well-being, pride that you have
chosen to take care of yourself, pride that you have chosen to stand by
what you know to be right, and you can even feel pride that you have
chosen to let this experience be one that is calmer and more comfortable
than you may have once expected. You are free now. You can enjoy the
process now of learning to live freely and of enjoying the unencumbered
experience of living the way you choose, of making even small, freely
chosen movements simply because you choose to. You no longer have to
do something because someone else once convinced you that you must.
You are now free to choose to care for yourself and to do so freely.
H4 =
5.
I can remind you that this experience of comfort and well
being is your experience, not mine, and the ability to create this experience
is your ability, not mine.You can learnhowto use your ability to create