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Andrea Barrist Stern 11/10/2005 Want to stop smoking?Hypnotist offers group session in conjunction with smoke-out
In the late 1970s, Kingston area hypnotherapist Frayda Kafka taught a smoking cessation class in Florida while spending the winter there. The class was to have included eight sessions but, after the first session, her students had largely stopped smoking. Kafka has since refined her method to a two-hour course that includes instruction for a ten-second, self-hypnosis procedure that involves three breaths and a word or two with positive connotations for the individual. Kafka says she has since taught the method to "thousands of students" and she plans to teach it again from 7-9 p.m. on Thursday, November 17 at the Howard Johnson Inn on Route 32 in Saugerties. The cost is $20 by credit card by Wednesday, November 16, or $30 at the door. The American Cancer society has dedicated this day, one week before Thanksgiving, to ask smokers to give up the habit for one day. The national organization suggests a variety of aids to help one quit, including hypnosis. Certified as a hypnosis therapist with the National Guild of Hypnotists, Kafka believes hypnosis is useful as an aid when stopping smoking because it "helps people relax and gives them suggestions in a positive and supportive way." A former three-pack-a-day Camels smoker who has been smoke-free since 1976, Kafka says, "Smokers need something to do for immediate gratification when they are stressed. That's what I spend a lot of time on; I give them tools that don't take a long time to put into effect." When Kafka stopped smoking in 1976, she says she did so "cold turkey" and "suffered terribly." Her work with smokers became the impetus for her study of hypnosis. Notes Kafka, "I truly empathize with the folks who are struggling to stop and I make myself available to talk to them any time of the day or night after the sessions. One might think I would be bored with it after all these years but every time I get a call from someone who needs help to stop smoking, I am totally involved. Call it a mission, or a passion? I don't know but I definitely do care." Kafka believes that "almost anyone of average intelligence can be hypnotized" and, once they realize that they are not only awake and aware but also still in control during the hypnosis, they "find the experience quite enjoyable." She adds special suggestions during the hypnosis to help individuals from gaining weight. "Hypnosis is a form of highly focused attention, an induced state of mind that enables people to alter the way they perceive and process reality," says Kafka. "This focus on a problem distinguishes hypnosis from more passive states, like meditation." A smoking survey of residents in Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, Putnam, Westchester Suffolk and Nassau counties that was coordinated by a group of anti-smoking coalitions during July and August, 2005 and funded with state money, found that while the vast majority (80 percent) of Ulster County residents do not smoke at all, Ulster and Orange counties had a higher incidence of smoking (21 percent) than the other counties surveyed, according to Ellen Reinhard of the tobacco Free Action Coalition of Ulster County. Age and economic play a roll in these figures, she says. An average of 500 individuals in each of the counties were selected at random and interviewed by phone. Ulster County, tied with Orange County, has the highest percentage of reported daily smokers (16 percent) and smokers overall (21 per cent) of the counties surveyed, according to Reinhard. This is still lower than the national rate of 25 percent found by the Gallup organization in its July 2005 national poll, she notes. Respondents over 65 years old (six percent) are least likely to smoke overall, whereas 37 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds smoke on at least some days of the week, according to Reinhard. Economics are also a key factor in the incidence of smoking in Ulster County. Those making less than $30,000 are far more likely to smoke (34 percent) than those making more than $30,000 (13 percent). Additionally, 25 percent of respondents with children at home report smoking at least some days. Although most of Kafka's focus has been on individual hypnosis, she has taught self-hypnosis at Mount Sinai and Benedictine hospitals, the Northern Dutchess Hospital Birthing Center, the Mental Health Associations of Ulster and Dutchess counties, Hospice, and other public and private institutions. For more information about Kafka's hypnosis session, call her at 336-4646 or email her at info@callthehypnotist.com, her web site. Individuals can pay online at the web site.
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