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Winter Haven News Chief
Accent/Health

Group uses hypnosis to convince smokers to stop

By Kimberly Leach
Staff Writer
(Edited & Reprinted)

Many smokers associate pleasure with cigarettes and pain with being a non-smoker, according to Rena Greenberg, president of Wellness Seminars, Inc.

She hopes to change that.

Wellness Seminars program uses behavior modification techniques and hypnosis to help the participant stop smoking.

The idea of the hypnosis session is not to wave a magic wand but to block the smoker’s habit and change the positive association with cigarettes, Greenberg noted.

It is expected that after one two-hour session the participant will leave the session as a non-smoker. The session is then reinforced at home with the use of an audiocassette tape and a behavior modification booklet. The one-time fee enables the participant to attend the session as many times as desired at no additional charge.

“We really encourage people to come back. We don’t look on it as a sign of failure, Greenberg noted.

The participant is able to attend the first 45 minutes of the two-hour session at no charge or obligation, Greenberg said. During the orientation, hypnosis is explained as a state of deep concentration and deep relaxation where positive suggestions and images are administered to facilitate the desire change of behavior. The participant is always aware and in control at all times.

“They start to see the cigarette in a new way,” Greenberg said of the session participants. “If it is no longer pleasurable, you don’t want it.”

Greenberg said most of the smokers come in with awareness on the conscious level that smoking is a dirty habit, bad for their health or expensive. On an emotional level, however, smoking is still their friend and they don’t want to be without their cigarettes.

“They wouldn’t come to the seminar if there wasn’t a conflict,” Greenberg said.” Hypnosis helps resolve that conflict. It helps increase and strengthen their desire to be a non-smoker.”

Greenberg feels the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smoke out is a very good thing because it creates awareness – “even if they stop for one day, it’s very positive,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg said a smoker resuming his habit is not looked on as a failure. By the time an individual attends a Wellness Seminar session, he or she has usually tried three to five times to quit in the past.

“The only person who fails is one who quits trying. Like any other area in life – you must keep trying,” she said

Greenberg became involved with Wellness Seminars because she developed health problems at a young age.

“You realize the fragility and value of health,” she said.

She feels strongly about helping people quit their smoking habit, especially in the face of big money advertising, which makes smoking look sleek and fashionable.

“It’s so destructive for the body … Thousands of people are being killed by these cigarettes. It impedes a person; impedes their health,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg is a graduate of City University of New York at Brooklyn College. She also worked as a biofeedback therapist both in private practice and at The Hospital of Joint Diseases in New York City.

For a schedule of seminar dates, call 1-800-848-2822.