Learning to stop smoking

Childhood memories are very powerful. This metaphor takes the smoker back to a time when they were learning and changing, when changing was easy and normal. The blackboard metaphor links into that feeling of being in a place where you are learning things, where you are changing, and where you will be leaving to move on as you mature.

The metaphor can be used on its own, or inserted into some other stop smoking script. It suggests going back in time to a familiar schoolroom, chalking something on the blackboard, and then wiping it off. The smoker is encouraged to make a really good job of wiping away those memories of smoking. And then the smoker leaves the classroom, closes the door and locks it.

EXTRACT FROM STOP SMOKING BLACKBOARD METAPHOR SCRIPT

Target	Suggestion		Comment
	Take a deep breath now... and just allow your mind to clear...
Memory	I wonder if you can remember a time when you were much younger...		regression
	Maybe a teenager... when you were at school... and there was a class room....
Memory	Can you remember a particular class room?... a classroom that’s got a blackboard in it... something to write on...	M
Memory	I want you to think of a time when you were in that classroom on your own... maybe it was summer time or maybe there was some other reason you were on your own... and you go to that black board....		dissociation
Memory	And at that blackboard you think about all the cigarettes you’ve smoked... and all the times that you have hated it... and all the times that you didn’t want to do it...		priming
	And can put a mark on that blackboard for every time you smoked and wanted to give up... every time you felt bad for not giving it up...	=
	- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
	The rest of this script is in the collection
	- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

STOP SMOKING BLACKBOARD METAPHOR

Wipe away the desire to smoke

Learning to stop smoking

EXTRACT FROM STOP SMOKING BLACKBOARD METAPHOR SCRIPT

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