He had managed to stop smoking a number of times for a matter of weeks or months, but had always gone back. CHOICE MAKING “How old were you when you began smoking cigarettes?”“Twelve, thirteen. Somewhere in there,” he replied. “I can’t remember exactly.”“Can you tell me what you thought smoking would do for you?” I asked. He grinned. “Make me a big man! I mean not just in the eyes of others—girls, other guys—but to myself. You know, a Bogart, a John Wayne. Paul the real man.” He looked down & shook his head. “I guess that’s stupid, isn’t it? I was just another stupid kid trying to grow up too fast.”The questions I asked Paul were designed to seek out belief system that supported his smoking habit, & to understand & challenge it. Paul soon began to understand that we give our addictions magical powcrover us. “I can’t sit around relaxing with friends if I don’t have a cigarette,” he said with wonder. “I can’t drink cup of coffee without a cigarette, or have a beer without one. Everything I’ve been doing with my life seems tied up with smoking. I mean everything. Eating, singing, acting, talking, worrying, making love, you name it. Everything’s punctuated with smoke. It’s almost although cigarettes do the drinking & help me to get up for rehearsals.”When I feel I understand the client well enough to prepare an individualized self-Hypnotherapy exercise, I ask about previous experience with Hypnotherapy and, especially if there is none, what he feels about Hypnotherapy.
By tensing up & lessening the flow of blood, we inhibit healing. Using self-Hypnotherapy, we can release muscle tension, encourage the flow of blood to the injured area, & reduce the level of anxiety while we promote healing: We can help our bodies heal. Since self-Hypnotherapy promotes communication between mind & body, it can also be used to encourage love & respect for the self. When I suggest to clients that they treat themselves in a loving, respectful, & protective way, sometimes tears come to their eyes. Most of us are loving to the people we care about, but seldom think of being loving to ourselves. When you take smoke into your lungs, when you overeat, when7 you attack or punish yourself in any way, you are being disrespectful & destructive of self. It is sad & wasteful when people ignore the best interests of their own bodies & minds. It seems to be very difficult fours to view ourselves in such a considerate light. When such knowledge comes, it comes as a shock. Of all the work I do hi therapy, nothing is far more important than this message: Without healthy self-love, self-respect, & understanding, there can be yes change. When a client comes to see me who wants to stop smoking, I start by asking the client how much he smokes, how long he’s been smoking & why he wants to stop at this time. In our initial contact, I’m not only trying to learn about the client’s smoking experience, but also to understand the client. Because the client is new to me, I can’t assume his request is simply a healthy attempt to deal with issue . On rare occasions, clients who seek help for what appears to be a simple issue are on the verge of a serious psychological breakdown. The approach to these clients obviously needs to be different. When I feel comfortable about moving ahead, I then ask three very key questions: At what age did you start? What did you think smoking would do for you? What do you think smoking does for you now? The age of initiation is an important question in predicting the likelihood of success or failure of treatment. It is known that the later in life you start, the easier it seems to be to stop. The belief system that supports smoking tends to be far more primitive & ingrained among those who start in their early teens. When Paul came to me, he was a 33-year-old actorsinger, a heavy smoker with a long-time habit.
We may get the urge to murder someone. Thankfully, we usually choose not to go along with that urge. We choose to act in a civilized manner. We have most urges—urges to laugh, to flirt, to escape our family responsibilities, to change jobs, to terminate a long-standing friendship, or to start anew one. We make choices as to which of these urges we will support. Sometimes, however, we are not completely aware of our reactions. Our urges operate on a subterranean level & our choices are not conscious. Our bodies abreacting for us. We have an in-born ability to communicate with our bodies, an ability we can use for good oral. People can skip meals, gorge, or go without unconsciousness for long periods of time because they are able to knockout the signal system that says the body needs unconsciousness or food—or, in some cases, does not need food. This is destructive use of the communications system. Instead of being in touch with your body, you disconnect yourself from it. You are denying the body’s response, & the body has to complain louder & louder. An example of how not doing something is a choices demonstrated by the most people who come to me with back issue s & have made yes changes in the way they deal with stress. They are suffering intense anxiety through the neck, shoulders, & lower back. Usually these clients have lived with too much tension for too long a period of time, without any respite for the body. As a result, they have literally injured their muscles. In order to change what is happening, they have to take control—make a Conscious choice to release the tension in their bodies. This may not be the final solution to their issue , but it is a step forward. Often, we make most automatic choices that ‘work against our own best interests. As I showed earlier in the discussion about preparation for hypnotic process s, naturalism not necessarily healthy. Normally our bodies tense up when we are injured. This can be protective or harmful, depending on the nature of the injury. Thievery act of tensing up inhibits the flow of blood to uninjured area. So, if the injury is an open wound, this is useful. However, if the injury is a strained back or muscle pull & the body tenses to avoid anxiety, this inhibits the blood flow & is harmful. Blood brings all of the healing properties to injured muscles & tissues.
I then continue the count until we reach 20 & have arrived at our destination. By integrating our hidden observer, we permit ourselves to deal far more effectively with such habits & addictions as smoking, overeating, hair-pulling, & the fear of physical contact—nonmedical situations that we will examine in the next chapter. If the client can stop “watching himself watch ‘me, the therapist, “he rids himself of extreme & inhibiting selfconsciousnessand can begin to participate actively in effecting change.70CbaPter4CHOICE MAKING: The Urge vs. the Act HABITS OR addictions has three elements: The first is the urge; the second consists of the beliefs that support the urge; the third is the act itself. Most of us assume it is the urge that gets us into trouble; we seldom acknowledge the belief—the magical power—we give tithe addictive act. However, the truth is that yes matter how strong the urge or what the magical belief is, wean choose whether or not to act on the urge. Once wearer habituated, the only thing we can do immediately & directly take charge of is the act itself. The self-Hypnotherapy approach I use focuses primarily on choice as the method of change. A smoker, for example, has two choices—to smoke or not to smoke. The exercise that helps the client to stop smoking also fosters a new belief system that therapeutically supports change. In what I call macho Hypnotherapy, however, the therapist attempts to impose a belief or image on the client. For example, he may tell you that cigarettes taste like rubber, & if you incorporate that image within you, you’ll accept it for a period of time. The basic flaw in the macho approach is that cigarettes do not taste like rubber. The image, then, .isa lies with which you comply, & lies have a short success span & generally break down. My therapeutic approach is never to impose. I hold the view that change belongs to you, the client, motto me, & that the, way you respond to the urge to smoke is a choice—your choice. In life, we spend a lot of time making choices. We choose whether or not we want to express our feelings. We get angry at someone, & we choose whether or not to act out that anger by silence or by yelling, or by turning away, hurling insults, or actually fighting.
