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Emotional Freedom Starts Here |
Dr. John J. Murphy Psychologist and Hypnotherapist | Beverly Hills, CA |
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I've spent a few years now as a hypnotherapist working with smokers and ex-smokers as well as tracing their progress as a psychologist. In the final analysis, I've found one key criteria that best predicts success with smoking cessation (a fancy term for stops smoking). For people who come in to quit smoking, those who want to quit for their own personal reasons are the ones who are likely to remain non-smokers when I make that follow-up phone call three and six months later.
It's not how long a person's been smoking and it's not how "suggestible" a person is (we cover hypnosis in chapter 3). It's all about the importance the person places in getting over the smoking habit. If a person is pressured into seeing me by either their spouse, significant other, or doctor but has no personal reason to quit, I won't see that person. It'd just be a waste of our time.
Now, don't get me wrong, a person can be torn: many reasons to quit, many reasons to keep smoking. So long as those reasons to quit are strong, personal, and emotional. As you'll soon see, when it comes to hypnosis, emotions are our friends.
So before we move onto chapter 2, stop for a moment and check that your reasons to quit smoking are your own and not someone else’s. Make sure that you're not here simply on behalf of a boss, a friend, or a family member. It just won't work for you unless you have some internal motivation; however, if you really want to quit smoking and at least some of those reasons are selfish (i.e. the good kind: I want to save money, I want to live longer, I don't want to smell like my grandmother), you're all set.