ng. Motivation seems to be the biggest cue as to the potential success of a person quitting smoking . And this is only the tip of the counter productive iceberg.One of the other new supposed discoveries in the quit smoking craze has been the idea that smoking is a disease. Now, there are definite pro’s and con’s to viewing smoking in this manner (Smoking Cessation Clinic, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2000). This approach, when taken from s psychological view can be quite helpful as it takes into account some of the social, psychological and medical factors in the difficulty of smoking cessation. The problem that this “diagnosis” causes can counteract some of the effectiveness of this method. First of all, the smoker is lead to believe, with label of disease, that something has happened to them or that they are sick. In a sense, something has happened to them (most likely manipulation into smoking and addiction…) and take a more passive stance towards the idea of quitting. In this case, the quitter can become a patient, expecting a doctor to fix their problem. In this case, the motivation to quit isn’t internal, and without the internal drive to quit, little progress can be made.What about the attitudes of peers, or experts on the psychology of the smoker. If you are a smoker and the majority of your friends are also smokers, then there will be pressure on you to smoke socially around them. If you are a smoker in a group of mostly non smokers, there will be pressure on the individual not to smoke. Depending on the frame of mind of the smoker, either one of these positions may be uncomfortable. In the former, if the smoker is receptive to the idea of quitting, this situation causes stress, as the smoker is pressured by internal drives to smoke (satisfaction, physical addiction, mental addiction, etc…) as well as external drives (social pressure to conform, social mimicry, etc…). Now, take ca...
