Will Hypnotherapy Help You Quit Smoking?

Tobacco use has been popular since it was first introduced to the UK in the sixteenth century. At the time, of course, it was primarily used in pipes and later in cigars or taken as snuff. But because it was so expensive, only the upper class had access to tobacco. It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that automated machines made mass consumption of tobacco, often in the form a cigarettes, a reality.

From that point on smoking became a national obsession, at least for men. According to reliable statistics, by the end of the Second World War more than eighty per cent of men in the UK smoked tobacco. But as the health risks of the deadly drug became apparent, daily consumption steadily declined for decades.

Today only about a fifth of the male population of the UK smokes, and most of these remaining smokers are desperately trying to quit. How does a person quit smoking ? At one time, when smoking was more prevalent, solutions to the problem were as numerous and as popular as weight loss and diet programmes. There were gums, patches, meditative techniques, acupuncture. Believe it or not, smokers even visited qualified hypnotherapists to help them get over their addiction.

However, from everything we have seen there are limited benefits of hypnotherapy in smoking cessation. Why doesn’t it work? Well, one obvious barrier is that not everyone can be hypnotised. Also, the “treatment” is expensive at about forty to eighty pounds per session.

And while there is a dearth of information on the subject, one study we were able to locate suggested that while hypnosis can provide some early benefits, it often doesn’t last. According to the study, only twenty per cent of those who had had seen a professional hypnotherapist were smoke free within a year of their session.

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