I focused on Bob's towards/away-from metaprogram. His current job was something that came up when he needed a job, not something he wants to do for a living. He bought his current car from friends when his last car broke down. He is not happy with his current relationship but doesn't want to think about separating and raising his child through a divorce. His dominant metaprogram was clearly "away from pain."

I asked him to write down all the pleasure he gets from smoking, and all the pain that he avoids by continuing to smoke. Then I asked him to write down all the pleasure he would get from quitting and all the pain he would suffer if he didn't quit today. I focused on making the last list particularly long and amplifying the pain there. He came up with some very painful reasons for why he had to quit today, such as the disappointment he would feel from his 5-year-old daughter if he didn't quit after he promised her he would.

We then did hypnosis, including a standard quit-smoking script laden with references to the pain he would experience by continuing to smoke. He seemed to respond well to the hypnosis.

This was a one-time session while I was traveling. I spoke with Bob a few weeks later and learned that he had started smoking again after two days. His reason was that he wasn't convinced that he had been hypnotized, and he still felt the cravings.

I probably won't work with this client again, but I learned a few things from his failure to quit:

- The importance of convincers in hypnosis.

- The importance of programs and using more than one session with difficult clients.

- He seemed to me to be strongly influenced by moving away from pain, so I was surprised that even with cravings he hadn't stuck it out. In retrospect, I realize that perhaps I hadn't pushed him hard enough on the pain he would suffer if he didn't quit. Disappointing his daughter had seemed like a strong motivator, although maybe he just had too many other things going against him to follow through after one session. But I made a mistake in assuming that something that sounded extremely painful to me would be painful enough to motivate him. Maybe it wasn't.

- I didn't think about it at the time, but this client illustrates how metaprograms work in tandem with beliefs to shape behavior, and sometimes working with one without working with the other isn't enough. As I elicited his metaprogram, Scott talked about how all the major elements in his life - his job, car, wife - were the result of circumstance rather than moving toward what he wanted. He recognized the pain in this, but for him it was okay, because as he said, God has always provided for him and his family, even when things looked really bad. He has a belief that no matter how painful things might be, it's okay because God will take care of him. Or in other words, God's love equals God's acceptance. So his daughter might hate him, but God will continue to smile down upon them both. I can see now why he didn't quit, and where I would work if I saw him again.