Why don't you quote your success rate?

This is one I'm often asked. Advertising of any service or product to help smokers to quit is strictly regulated. In many ways, that's as it should be; it protects those wishing to stop and helps them to make educated decisions about the methods most likely to help them.

The Advertising Standards Agency says that they expect advertisers to hold 'robust' and 'rigorous' proof to back up claims made about success rates. This rules out many of the ways hypnotherapists traditionally calculate their success rates.

For example, the A.S.A. say that claims should not be made based on the number of people who do not come to follow up sessions. They also say that the practice of telephoning clients to ask if they have stopped is 'not robust enough to prove definitive success rates' (Dune Hypnotherapy Group, 5 November 2003).

They then go on to say 'Blood tests are likely to be the only way of ascertaining whether people have given up smoking.'

So the answer to the question is, as I can't follow up your therapy with blood tests, I can't legally quote a success rate.

What evidence is there that hypnosis can help smokers to stop?

Although I'm unable to publish personal success rates, there is information in the public domain which gives you an idea of how well hypnotherapy as a method works for some people.

Research comparing many different studies of hypnotherapy has shown that on average smokers are over five times more likely to break the habit with hypnosis than by willpower alone. Hypnotherapy in general is also proven to be more than twice as effective as nicotine gum.

Below are a couple of useful articles I found on a trawl through the Internet in the winter of 2011/12. In case you haven't guessed (!) I didn't personally take part in any of these studies. But I'm including them here as they seem to be well referenced and to come from reputable sources. I've provided links, so you can read the originals, and screen shots in case the originals are taken down. I'll add more studies from time to time.
 

Although these results are very positive, hypnosis wasn't right for everyone who took part. As it says elsewhere on this site, hypnotherapy is not mind control or a magic wand. Choice is always part of the decision to quit smoking and you have to actively make that choice in order for it to be successful for you.

But if you really want to stop smoking, then one session of hypnotherapy could be just the help you need.

To find out about about my four step support programme for those wishing to stop smoking, click HERE.