Is Using Hypnosis to Stop Smoking a Waste of Money?

Will hypnosis burn your money?

I saw this headline the other day and having a background in hypnotherapy was intrigued enough to read it.

The author explained why he thought everything else but hypnosis works and you shouldn’t spend any money on hypnosis for quitting cigarettes because it won’t work for you.

The author didn’t promote himself as an authority on the subject and likely is a smoker or they mingle with other smokers.

Hypnosis was probably tried to help either them or a friend quit smoking but it didn’t work for whomever, and so the reasonable conclusion is why would you expect it work for others.

Now you can certainly argue with this logic as its sort of like saying chemotherapy didn’t work for my friend with cancer because she died, and so you shouldn’t try chemotherapy if you have cancer because it won’t work for you. An extreme I know but similar logic.

But the thought of “is using hypnosis to stop smoking a waste of money” is an interesting and valid question and one I’ll explore today?

Now let’s be honest here, some people do try hypnosis to stop smoking and it doesn’t work for them. I’d be the first to admit it. Hypnosis doesn’t work for everybody for a variety of reasons. Sometimes because of the client and other times the hypnotherapist is at fault.

For the client it could be they didn’t really want to quit, or they’ve other stressful stuff in their life going on, and giving up smoking is really secondary to what needs to be fixed.  Or just plain simple, hypnosis isn’t the method that’ll do it for them.

For a hypnotherapist, they may not be right for the client, for example, no rapport with the client, or experience in smoking cessation, among other challenges.

This is one of the reasons why I always advocate to people to choose a hypnotherapist the same way you’d choose a doctor or dentist. Interview them and ask questions and get comfortable with them based on the answers they provide you about their experience and how they can help you. I’ve generally found smokers tend to gloss over this process and spend more time shopping around for a hypnotherapist based on their view of what it should cost. Bad idea.

For hypnotherapists smokers present a difficult challenge. They come to hypnosis usually as a last resort, and don’t want to spend much money to get rid of their expensive habit, so multi-sessions to rid them of cigarettes are out of the question – even if for many, multiple sessions are needed.

But the toughest challenge for hypnotherapists with smokers is that most are looking for a magic pill. They’re at the end of the road and just want somebody to take over responsibility for their habit and eradicate it from their life. As a hypnotherapist friend says they’re attitude is “please take out my brain and scrub it clean of this habit for me.”

But hypnosis doesn’t work that way.

As the author noted the hypnotherapist is there to guide you to leverage tools you already have but don’t know how to access or use. The skill of the hypnotherapist is in understanding your unique situation and identifying the tools and techniques most appropriate to help you quit. Yes, there is work for the smoker to do to become smoke free. If it was easy you could do it yourself, right?

Another bone of contention with the author was cost. He compared it to patches and gum and even electronic cigarettes and said at $300 – $800 it was the most expensive alternative stop smoking method. On the surface this may be true if hypnosis didn’t work long-term.

But patches and gum are also expensive and don’t have a larger success rate long-term compared to hypnosis, and electronic cigarettes still have health risks. Most hypnotherapists that still do smoking cessation – many don’t anymore because of the clientele challenges – offer a free follow-up session. As far as I know pharmacists won’t provide you a free course of nicotine patches if the first course didn’t work for you.

I’ll repeat here again hypnosis to quit smoking doesn’t work for everybody, but there are many independent studies that show hypnosis has a higher success rate than any other method.

The subconscious mind is a powerful tool as evidence by the placebo effect. The medical body is recognizing that hypnosis accesses this wonderful tool of the subconscious mind the best, and it can help with managing the impact life-saving procedures such as chemotherapy has on patients with pain management, and coping with after-effects of the treatment.

Engaging hypnotherapy to quit smoking isn’t necessarily a “home run” blast for everybody, but for many of those needing help to stop smoking it can be.

Becca Scott
Staff Writer
Free At Last Hypnosis