Questions about using age regression and 5-PATH® with smoking cessation clients.

Answered by Calvin D. Banyan, MA, CI, BCH

The rest of her questions and my answers are integrated in my response:

Hi Tina,

Thanks for you kind comments about my book (coauthored with Jerry Kein), Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy: Basic to Advanced Techniques for the Professional. Regarding the writing style of the book, you are exactly right, since I do a lot of teaching, I wanted to approach it in a very explanatory style which would be easy to digest. I wanted it to be a very practical book! So, thanks again.

Regarding your questions about doing the Informed Child Technique for smoking cessation session, let me first tell you that we approach our work with smokers in two different ways:

1. Regular 5-PATH™ sessions, where we go right to the cause of the inability to quit smoking, and neutralize the emotional components, while using the insights gained to supercharge the direct suggestion work done at the end of each session. This approach is used when it is determined that the smoking problem has a strong emotional factor, i.e., smoking to deal with the emotional factors, both from the past and in the present, presenting in the client's life.

2. A special abbreviated version that takes only two, one to one and half hour sessions. In this case, it has been determined during the previous interview process with the client, usually on the telephone, that the smoking problem is mainly a bad habit in which emotional factors do not play a significant role. To learn more about this approach please read article #4 on this page.

To answer your questions more directly:

1. You asked, "[Should I] regress them back to a time before they smoked the first cigar (or cigarette) and do informed child (let adult talk to child & give the insight)?" When we do the 2-session version, that is exactly what we do, and it works really great, as outlined in the article I mentioned above.

2. Then you asked, "But then, do you take that child thru ISE (adult watching in the background?) making him go thru his 1st smoking experience with the new insight ? Won't it reinforce his desire to smoke in that case?"

   The time when they smoked the first cigar/cigarette is not the ISE, but rather the SPE (Symptom Producing Event). We only use the SPE when doing the 2-session version of the process, and avoid getting into all those emotional factors.

   If we are doing 5-PATH(TM) then we do go to the SPE and the ISE. This is the best way to go, because when we go through the ISE and do the Informed Child Technique, we can remove the cause of the smoking. We will then run the client through both the ISE (with out the erroneous feeling created in the ISE that lead to the decision to smoke later on in life as a way to compensate for the emotional factors caused in the ISE) and the SPE, so that the client can reject the beliefs in the uninformed youth that they once were, who decided to start smoking. We let them go through that event and choose not to smoke. This is coached by both the hypnotist and the adult/client.

3. Then you asked, "Do you also take the child through SSE's ? or You immediately merge the Child with Adult right after doing informed child?" In the 2-session version, we do not take them through SSE's, but we do in the 5-PATH™ versions.

4. Then you asked, "When you move the child thru the SSE's , the child is actually growing. So how do you address that growing child? Another words, if informed child work is done at age 5 & the last SSE we got at age 20, how do you address your child client(growing one) when he is "experiencing last SSE" ?? you call him 5 or 20 ? "

   When doing 5-PATH™, during the age regression part of the process we identify the ages of all of the SSE's and those ages become the client's name when we are addressing those events. For example, I might have just worked the client who was regressed to the age of 5 through the ISE, and now I want to go forward to the most subsequent SSE or the SPE, and I would say something like, "Ok 5, now we are going to move forward in time. I am going to count from one to three and when I get to three, you will be at that time when you were 15 years old and about to have your first cigarette." This would get me to just before the SPE of having the first cigarette where I would do the Informed Child Technique to remove the decision that led them to decide to become a smoker.

5. You asked, "Do you merge the client at last SSE (at age 20) with the Adult client (or) after clearing all SSEs you take him all the way back to age 5 and then merge with Adult?"

   When doing the 2 session version we merge the two (the child and adult) after working through the SPE, having now chosen to be a non-smoker. when doing 5-PATH™ we usually merge them after completing the Informed Child Technique at the ISE.

6. Then you asked, "When you do affect bridge, If you get ISE before birth, How you do the Hypnosis? Can phase-2 help this case ? Do you make the adult (present) client talk to the PAST LIFE one ? Do we have to go for some other method than "informed child" in this case ? Nothing was mentioned about it in the book, also couldn't find any suggested books to clear this doubt."

   There is no difference in doing age regression when the SSE's or ISE take you before birth, except that you should speak in very simple terms. It seems that the part of your client who can relive being the fetus is able to borrow the lexicon of words in the adult's brain in order to communicate, as long as you keep things simple. Then just do the Informed Child Technique as usual.

7. And you wrapped up with this question, "I have one more question and that is to the author of this book. Cal, Do you have any plans to write a 2nd part of this book ? I am really waiting for it. Gone through your website and Articles. Everything impressed me a lot."

Thanks for the question and all of the positive feedback. Right now I am too busy to write the next book. But I do have two wonderful alternatives for you. First, there is the Week of Power Advanced Hypnosis Certification Program, a 7 day course designed for hypnotists who have the fundamentals and now want to become 1%'er and rise to the top of the profession by becoming certified in 5-PATH™ and 7th Path Self-Hypnosis®. You can learn more by going to this Web page, this page. The other way to go is to go through 5-PATH™ training and optional certification by way of distance learning. That can be accomplished by getting and studying our 5-PATH™ DVD course. You can learn more about it by going to, this page.

To the readers of this group who have not read my book, or are not 5-PATH™ trained yet, please read articles #5 and 6, using the link above that takes you to the article page.

Well, that should give you something to "chew on"! Sincerely, I hope that helps you out. By the way, once you have become certified in 5-PATH™ we have a special group exclusively set up for our grads, where these kinds of questions get answered every day. Also, when you become a grad you can subscribe to our weekly online supervision training program, where we go into these topics in depth each week.

You can get a sample of these sessions by going to this page.

Whew! Well, that took a bit of writing. Thanks for giving me advanced permission to post this the Hypnotists Q&A page! I think that some of our visitors will find the information useful.

Here's to your success!
Cal Banyan
www.CalBanyan.com
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