My client, Peter, is a soldier who is in active duty and has a habit of consistently taking frequent breaks in order to take a smoke. It has been for 2 years and occurs as many as a pack a day. He usually smokes as soon as he gets out of bed in the morning followed by a cigarette every other moment when he gets stressed.
Peter stated that before he started smoking heavily, he turned to food to help him release pressure and stress. Then he turned to smoking, influenced by the team and military colleague. First time, it started with his own pressure and stress that he needed something to release out and, in the military, the smoking was the only way he can release his stress. Eventually he turned into addicted. My client feels pressure from work, and in operations, so he smokes to relax himself. He is on the other hand very aware of the health effects of smoking.
He said during the operations or working out, he feels dizziness, hard to breath and has to stop to catch the breath for multiple times. Nowadays, his supervisor is worried about him and told him to start reducing the frequency of the smoking per day. Peter, himself also wants to quit smoking and change his behavior.Plan 1: Classical conditioning predicts that by repeatedly pairing a motivationally significant stimulus with a particular signal will result in a conditioned response when the signal is encountered. It occurs whenever neutral stimuli are associated with psychologically significant events.
Smoking is one of the most heavily used addictive thing in the world. In my client’s case it is clear that the feeling of stress and pressure is the unconditional response.
