ABSTRACT
Since smoking cessation was first widely recognized as a health measure in the 1960s, many psychological methods have claimed brief success. Cognitive, behavioral, conditioning, educational, persuasive and other techniques are being used, but none can be certified as consistently highly effective. As is so often the case, proliferation of methods occurs when none have worked very well. It is surely most significant that even the 12-Step Program so widely used for addictive substance abuse has offered little for smoking. It would appear that the very nature of smoking and of resistance to recovery from it has eluded us as much as have effective means of treatment. To this we must add that in our present state of knowledge even the most complete statistical comparison will not reveal the operative factors in release of the smoking addiction. Therefore, what follows is neither an extensive survey nor specific recommen-dation on techniques of treatment for smoking addiction, but rather an intensive examinationperhaps from a somewhat heterodox viewpoint-of the smoking process
itself. The scope of this study is to elucidate the general nature of the resistance phenomenon together with its special relationship to smoking and the use of hypnosis: a search for deeper insight into the human nature that creates such addiction and resistance.
