Drug on market
Sir: In my capacity as President of the Professional Hypnotherapists Centre I have enabled hundreds of people to permanently stop smok- ing. May I suggest that the Royal College of Physicians' report on smoking misses the main point, i.e., the majority of smokers already know that cigarettes are harmful and a large number of them would be very happy to stop smoking.
The real problem for many peo- ple is that they find they cannot stop smoking, since they have be- come addicted to the nicotine. I am very surprised, therefore, that more emphasis is not given to treatment to help people to stop smoking. Also, the few attempts that are made to help in this respect, e.g., the Smokers Clinics, apply bad psy- chology in their attempts, by using films showing the horrors of lung cancer, etc. This is negative, since it only causes increased anxiety and fear which again leads to a vicious circle of needing more cigarettes.
On several occasions the Smokers Clinic has sent to me smokers who they were unable to help, in spite of the fact that the doctor had in- formed these people that they 'would die if they would not stop smoking very quickly'. On every occasion, by using Hypnotherapy, they were soon able to give up smoking completely.
If only the prejudice that seems to exist against Hypnotherapy was eliminated, then more publicity and direct help could be given by such methods as the above to enable a large number of people to stop smoking and thus save many lives. P. J. Millin Pres: Prof. Hypnotherapists Centre. Social Sell/ices Centre
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