Title: Hypnosis for Smoking Cessation: The Step-by-Step
Guide to Doing Hypnosis for Tobacco Users
Author: Richard Nongard
Format: webinar/video on demand
Source: Subliminal Science Website
Price: $99
Rating: Good (four stars out of five)
Helping people quit smoking is one of the two most popular
and well-known uses for hypnosis. In fact, it seems that no matter what I
advertise hypnosis for, smokers call me. I suspect that I could walk into a
room full of desperate 40-year-old virgins and say, "With hypnosis, I will
teach you how to get laid," and one of them would say, "Yes, but can
you help me stop smoking?"
In short, it behooves you as a hypnotist to get good at
smoking cessation and have several different approaches at your fingertips. Of
course, you'll most likely take the best from this strategy or that, but you're
still going to want to look at a lot of great ways to do that. So this week,
I'm reviewing Richard Nongard's webinar series, Hypnosis for Smoking Cessation:
The Step-by-Step Guide to Doing Hypnosis for Tobacco Users.
Everyone agrees that online learning is the wave of the
future—but most of us seem pretty unsure of exactly how to make it work well.
At first, the idea of a bunch of people meeting online to learn together was
new and shiny; until we learned that video conferencing with a dozen or more
people can become awkward and boring, easily bogged down as the instructor
reads questions from the chat window. On the far end of the scale are the
teleseminars that are impersonal and lack that individual attention we enjoy in
a live classroom.
In Nongard's various webinar series, he seems to have hit on
a formula that has the best of both worlds. The bulk of the instruction is
pre-recorded, so it's professionally-shot, well-organized, and
carefully-planned—no more staring at an instructor through his webcam while he
tries to keep the cat out of the shot. At the same time, Nongard provides
individual attention by answering questions in the chatbox during the webinar.
At the end of each meeting, he comes on live webcam for about fifteen minutes
to address any more complex questions his students may have. Of course, each
webinar is supported by the ICBCH forum, where students can ask questions and
find resources even months after the webinar ends—and the video is available on
demand during and after the webinar, so you can even watch multiple times.
Of course, that information applies to any of Nongard's
webinars, but we're here to talk about the Smoking Cessation edition.
Nongard's approach is deceptively simple—based on Acceptance
and Commitment Theory, this technique is based on using mindfulness to handle
cravings and suggestion to strengthen your client's commitment. Interwoven into
that structure is an amazing amount of NLP and indirect suggestion that falls
out of Nongard's mouth so naturally that it's easy to miss; I tend to think of
him as a very direct operator. The approach does involve some regression, but
not in the usual "regress-to-cause" sense; there is no quest for a
mysterious Initial Sensitizing Event. Many attendees commented on how good it
feels to be freed of that burden.
Likewise, there's no exhaustive effort to break every single
trigger the smoker has; as Nongard points out, if you've been smoking for fifty
years, life is a trigger. Nonetheless, Nongard does provide a number of usefull
direct suggestions to counter cravings, along with several techniques for
handling them if they do occur. (After all, even with suggestion, some of your
smokers will have cravings, and it's just self-serving ego to refuse to prepare
them.)
In the four weeks of videos, Nongard walk you through the
whole process, from marketing and pre-talk to induction, formal suggestions,
and follow-up sessions. Though of course you can use any induction you like,
Nongard teaches his skill-building induction, which is based on the idea that
the induction is part of the remedy, not merely something the hypnotist has to
get through before the good stuff.
Likewise, he spells out his three-session structure,
including how to handle each possibility that can arise: What do you do if the
client comes back and is still smoking? What do you do if the client doesn't
come to a follow-up? He also covers how to look at the intake questionaires
(which he provides for you on the forum) and customize your strategies and
suggestions to the individual. He provides a script along with a strategy to
use in case you decide to read from it verbatim.
(Personally, I never read verbatim from a script in session;
but the important thing is to use the script effectively as a tool, reading it
the way a newscaster reads the news, not the way a scared third-grader reads a
school assignment aloud.)
In addition to telling you how to market your smoking
cessation, Nongard also covers how market and perform group smoking cessation
for corporations—a money maker that can quickly cover your investment in the
course.
Perhaps one of the best things about this webinar is that
Nongard gives you two example sessions. One is ably role-played to show you how
a typical session might go. The other is provided as a bonus video, and it's
footage of Nongard helping an actual smoker let go of the habit. I know the
former smoker in question, by the way, and several years later, he is still
smoke-free.
Is there any downside to Nongard's webinars? It may well be
that if you watch enough of them, you will begin to finish the teacher's
sentences for him; Nongard sees no reason to re-invent the wheel, so his
methods often overlap between applications. Still, there are worse things to
internalize.
All in all, the Nongard webinars are a good investment. If
you may have to deal with a smoker at some point, Hypnosis for Smoking
Cessation will give you a great foundation. If you can't wait for the webinar
to roll around, that's all right—catch the replay.
Full Disclosure: Richard Nongard is a friend and mentor who
has shown a lot of generosity toward me in the past. He did allow me to attend
the webinar for review purposes. The link at the beginning of this review is NOT an affiliate link.
