Hypnosis for Smoking
Cessation: An NLP and Hypnotherapy Practitioner’s Manual by
David Botsford
Crown
House Publishing Limited, Copyright 2007
Reviewed
by Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D.
Whether you
are a newly-trained hypnotherapist, or a seasoned
practitioner who has conducted smoking cessation programs
for years, Hypnosis for Smoking Cessation, by David
Botsford, has something for you. This book is the
comprehensive manual for practitioners who want to become
expert at helping people stop smoking and remain smoke-free.
According to
the Centers for Disease Control, there are approximately
50,000 smokers in the U.S. alone. For every smoker who
quits, another person is lighting up for the first time.
Hypnosis has been shown to be more effective than many other
smoking cessation methods such as nicotine gum or the
nicotine patch. Smokers represent a lucrative market for
practitioners, and smoking cessation can be a worthwhile
skill.
Botsford
gives the nuts and bolts on the clinical side as well as the
business side. Following the advice of Milton Erickson, he
encourages readers to tailor the hypnosis experience for
every client; to utilize the client’s achievements and
successes as anchors for resourceful states, and to call on
the client’s values, beliefs, and spiritual development as
motivating factors for quitting.
He shows how
to enhance the client’s resolve. He asks the client to see
himself as a non-smoker and intensifies the submodalities of
the image to make it compelling. He aligns his suggestions
with the client’s model of the world, having each client
choose meaningful symbols, metaphors, words and images that
can be woven into the hypnotic session. Botsford provides
transcripts of his sessions as examples that tell readers
exactly what he says and how he says it.
The book
discusses several therapeutic strategies for working with
smokers, such as reframing the need to smoke, educating the
client about the effects of nicotine, utilizing the client’s
previous successes in quitting, eliciting the client’s
smoking strategy, asking about how the client finds ways to
relax or meditate, and clearly establishing the client’s
outcome. Then Botsford demonstrates how all these aspects
are covered in hypnosis to convince the client to stop
smoking.
He devotes
an entire chapter to teaching the client self-hypnosis as a
means to control urges and to prevent relapse, minimize
weight gain, and cope with stress. He also teaches his
clients how to anchor a positive, resourceful state, in
relation to the satisfaction of being a non-smoker.
For
practitioners who work one-on-one in smoking cessation,
Chapter 7 is the highlight of the book. This chapter
contains a transcript of a complete hypnotherapy session.
The approach combines Ericksonian utilization (via
revivification of resourceful memories) and direct
suggestions. It covers various methods of induction, as
well as how to bring about a learning set, suggestions for
forgetting about the need to smoke, deepening, methods to
promote abstinence, ego-strengthening, future pacing, and
reorientation—even what to say and do after the hypnosis is
done. What I found particularly useful is the information on
how to help the client prevent relapse.
The author
addresses the managerial aspects of a smoking cessation
practice: how to set the fee, structure the client-therapist
relationship, explain hypnosis to the client, develop a
therapeutic communication style, respond to phone inquiries,
book appointments, schedule the work day, --even how to
dress in a professional manner. The CD that accompanies the
book contains pdf files that the reader can print and begin
using in his or her practice immediately.
As a bonus,
hypnotherapists working with groups and in corporate smoking
cessation programs will find much value in Botsford’s
description of a complete corporate training seminar—how to
market, conduct, and evaluate the seminar.
Conclusion
I like this
book for its specificity, and also for the flexibility it
gives to the reader in adapting the instructions to one’s
own way of doing business and practicing hypnotherapy. The
tips, scripts, and checklists are very helpful and
instructive. The approach is practical and marketable. Even
as a hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner who has conducted
smoking cessation for over twenty years, I still learned
many things that are new and worthwhile from this book. I
give it a five star recommendation!
Reviewed by:
Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D., is a Licensed
Professional Counselor, free-lance writer, hypnotherapist,
and NLP Trainer/Practitioner with a private practice in
Springfield, Virginia. She is Executive Director for the
National Board of Certified Clinical Hypnotherapists.
Through Crown House Ltd, she has recently published The
Weight, Hypnotherapy, and You Weight Reduction Program: An
NLP and Hypnotherapy Practitioner’s Manual. Her web
site is
www.engagethepower.com.
Be
confident, more relaxed and in control. Be successful in
love, work and so much more! 
