STOP SMOKING HYPNOSIS CHICAGO AREA Stop smoking in two hours.  No withdrawal.  No weight gain.  No irritability.  708-383-1700  24/7 CLICK FOR DATE & LOCATION

 

HYPNOSIS TO QUIT SMOKING CHICAGO AREA Stop smoking in two hours.  No withdrawal.  No weight gain.  No irritability.  708-383-1700  24/7 CLICK FOR DATE & LOCATION

          Hypnosis has the highest success rate of the top 15 methods of quitting smoking. The 15 methods were compared in an exhaustive meta-analysis of 633 scientific studies of smoking-cessation programs.
          This was the largest study of its kind ever undertaken and involved 71,806 smokers.
          The results were published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, which is published by the APA, America’s main professional association of psychologists.
 

          This is an extremely extensive and inclusive study.  Chockalingham Viswesvaran and Frank L. Schmidt at the University of Iowa compared the results of 633 scientific studies of the success rates achieved with 15 different methods of quitting smoking.  71,806 smokers were included in these 633 studies, making it the largest study of it's kind ever undertaken. 

 

          Using the techniques of meta-analysis (Hunter and Schmidt, 1990) they calculated the average success rate for each method of quitting smoking.

 

          The methods of quitting smoking that were compared in this analysis include Hypnosis, Acupuncture, Nicotine chewing gum, Medication, Smoke aversion techniques, Other aversive techniques, Educational programs, Physician advice, Physician intervention including more than mere advice, Group-withdrawal clinics, Five-day plans, and Self-care programs, along with various other smoking-cessation methods.

 

          Within each of the methods of quitting smoking, the success rates vary considerably, with some programs having success rates many times as high as the success rates achieved in other programs using the same basic method.

 

          Of all the methods of quitting smoking, hypnosis had the highest success rate according to this exhaustive comparison of 633 scientific studies.

 

          Of the 48 studies of smoking-cessation programs using hypnosis, including the best and worst hypnosis programs analyzed, and involving 6020 smokers, the average success rate was 36%.  Ten percent of the hypnosis programs had success rates greater than 60%.

 

          Wide ranges of variability were found in the success rates for all methods of quitting smoking. 

 

          So regardless of what method  of quitting smoking one chooses, the specific program needs to be selected very carefully. 

 

          The average success rate for all 633 studies with a sample size of 71,806 was 25%.

 

          The category referred to as Group-withdrawal clinics included “the quit-smoking clinics conducted by the American Cancer Society (eight two-hour sessions over a four-week period) and various clinics offered by local chapters of the American Lung Association (e.g., the 8-week group program called UNsmoke.)” 

 

          This category had an average success rate of thirty percent.  The 36% average success rate of hypnosis programs is one-fifth, 20%, higher than the average success rate of the Group-withdrawal category (30%).

 

          The average success rate for hypnosis programs (36%) was twice as high as the average success rate for programs using medication (18%) and more than twice as high as the average success rate for nicotine chewing gum (16%).

 

          By Self-care programs they were referring to programs in which smokers quit by themselves with the help of self-help books or other printed manuals for quitting smoking.  (Cummings, Emont, Jaen, and Sciandra, 1988).  The average success rate for hypnosis programs (36%) was almost two and one half times as high as the average success rate for self-care programs (15%).

 

          One of the findings that most surprised Viswesvaran and Schmidt, the authors of this study, was the low success rate of programs based on physician counseling--only 7%.  The authors speculated that “this finding may merely reflect the fact that physicians typically do far less extensive counseling than other health-care professionals.”

 

          When the subjects were already ill, however, the success rates were higher, presumably because the patients were more highly motivated. 

 

          Programs limited to cardiac patients, for example, had an average success rate of 42%, only slightly higher than the average success rate for hypnosis programs, which had the highest success rate for programs involving people who were not already seriously ill.  A meta-analytic comparison is needed to determine the average success rate achieved in hypnosis programs that are limited to cardiac patients.

 

          Programs limited to patients with lung disease had a higher average success rate than most other programs (34%) but that was lower than the average success rate of hypnosis programs even though the hypnosis programs were for the general public and not limited to people who were already seriously ill.

 

          Viswesvaran and Schmidt concluded that (with the exception of programs that are limited to patients who are already sick) “drug-based and medically sponsored programs appear to be the least effective” having success rates of only 17% and 11% respectively.

 

          This meta-analytic comparison was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, 1992, Volume 77, Number 4, pages 554 through 561.  The Journal of Applied Psychology is published by the American Psychological Association, America’s main professional association of psychologists.

 

 

References

Cummings, K.M., Emont, S.L., Jaen, C., and    Sciandra, R. (1988). Form and quitting instructions as factors influencing the impact of a self-administered quit-smoking program. Health Education Quarterly, 15, 199-216.

Hunter, J.E., & Schmidt, F.L. (1990) Methods  of meta-analysis, Correcting error and bias in research findings. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

 

 

 

 

HYPNOTISTS

& HYPNOSIS,

THE MODERN ERA

 

by Don De Grazia

 

Dr. James Braid (1795-1860), a Scottish neurosurgeon, is sometimes called the father of modern hypnosis, and I believe he deserves this title.  He is the one who originally coined the terms hypnotism, hypnotize, and hypnotist in his 1843 book Neurypnology: or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep. 

He thought at that time that hypnosis was a form of sleep, so he named it after Hypnos, the personification of sleep in Greek mythology. 

Hypnos lived in the pitch-black darkness of a cave that was filled with mist from Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, which flowed through the cave and watered a patch of poppies at the entrance.  He lived there in the misty darkness with his brother Thanatos, the god of death, and with his children, the Oneiroi, the personification of dreams.

Braid later realized that hypnosis is not a form of sleep and tried to change the name to monoideaism, but it was too late because the name hypnotism had already caught on.

I'm glad it was too late for him to change the name.  Otherwise I would have had to spend my life bringing people into a state of monoideaism.  I don't like the sound of it.  I much prefer Hypnos and the mythology that goes along with him.

Braid knew that something important was happening when Mesmer and his fellow believers in animal magnetism were achieving their sometimes dramatic cures, but he recognized quickly that the phenomenon had nothing to do with magnetism.

He believed that staring intensely at a target fatigued some part of the brain which caused the state we know as hypnosis.  This is reminiscent of the modern theory that hypnosis involves inhibition of the cerebral cortex, but there are important differences.

Staring, or eye fixation, is still widely used as a technique for inducing hypnosis.

Ambrose-Auguste Liebault (1823-1904) was a poor country