As regular readers will know, ethics in hypnotherapy is a passionate topic of mine. I recently wrote about hypnotherapy qualifications in A Cat Registered as a Hypnotherapist. Some therapists claim to provide ‘guaranteed’ results. I believe this claim to be misleading and highly unethical as no one can guarantee human behaviour. Doctors don’t offer guarantees as they can’t predict what will happen after the patient has left the surgery. Hypnotherapy is the same. It’s a wonderful tool for quick change based on psychology and an understanding of the mind, but it’s not supernatural magic or clairvoyance.
The area where guarantees seem to be the most common is Smoking Cessation. I have seen various guarantees offered with unrealistic success rates quoted, but my favourite is the lifetime guarantee of not smoking, which I find totally absurd.
Don’t get me wrong, Smoking Cessation using hypnotherapy is extremely successful. But as with anything in life, there is no guarantee.
People smoke for different reasons and no one can predict what will happen to you in your life. Horrible things may well crop up in the near or distant future. When they do, people can go back to what they feel worked for them in the past and for some people this will be smoking. So how can a therapist offer a lifetime guarantee for smoking cessation? Maybe they can also guarantee that nothing horrible will ever happen to you in life.
Smoking cessation works by removing the desire to smoke, not by changing the future.
The terms of the guarantee may state something like; ‘I will see you as many times as it takes for you to become smoke free’. This may sound attractive at first, but most people’s belief system and confidence will have been damaged by the first unsuccessful session and will therefore be less likely to succeed by the 3rd or 4th session. Not only are these guarantees misleading, they can provide false hope which leads to greater depression further down the line and additional issues they may need to resolve.
Until I develop clairvoyance and an ability to predict the future, I won’t be offering guarantees. But I will be offering simple, effective and ethical techniques that help you move on with your life and achieve what you want.
Regards,
Neil
