You won't find many more confirmed smokers than News Shopper's deputy editor, Jean May. But she's determined to stop. So, could hypnotism help her kick the habit? LAURA-JANE FILOTRANI finds out

According to John Gruzelier, a psychologist at Imperial College, London, hypnosis measurably changes how the brain works.

Using functional brain imaging he says his research shows hypnosis significantly affects the activity in a part of the brain responsible for detecting and responding to errors.

This is the first time a biological mechanism has been suggested for underpinning the experience of hypnosis and, if true, would account for the 60 per cent of people trying to give up smoking citing it as the method which worked best for them.

Last year there was the case of 46-year-old Pippa Plaisted who went through a 45-minute breast cancer operation under hypnosis alone.

The operation would normally have needed a general anaesthetic but instead, hypnotherapist Charles Montigue stood at the operating table, his thumb resting on Plaisted's forehead, monitoring the hypnotic trance he had put her in minutes before the operation began.

Eyes closed but awake, Plaisted could hear the surgeon calmly telling her, at each stage of the operation, what was going to happen next.

This is nothing new. The hypnotic state can be traced back to the middle of the 18th Century, although the reasons for the trance of an individual were then linked to supernatural intervention.

The hypnotic experience combines concentration with relaxation. The consciousness of the individual concerned separates into two streams the conscious and the unconscious.

Daydreaming is considered a form of self-hypnosis.

Hypnotherapy is well suited to the treatment of anxiety and, since anxiety takes an array of forms, hypnosis can be usefully applied to a wide variety of conditions.

Smoking and overeating are the commonest ways of trying to alleviate feelings of anxiety, so it is not surprising hypnotherapy is best known for its effectiveness in these areas.

But does it really work? It's all very well reading scientific research but until you have witnessed it first hand it is difficult not to be sceptical.

So, with this in mind, we sent News Shopper's deputy editor, Jean May, a smoker for a number of decades, to find out.

She is a perfect candidate determined this time to break the habit and stub out her last fag.

By her own admission she has failed at least half a dozen times, so why, I have to ask, will this time be different?

Jean said: "I feel physically terrible. It is now or never.

"I am going to die if I don't. I wake up in the middle of the night worried about smoking and I have pains in my back.

"Shortness of breath is becoming more of a problem and it has become so anti-social in the past couple of years."

She feels, like many, that hypnosis might provide the support she needs. "I think of myself as having an addictive personality and I am hoping hypnosis will override the impulse to light up so I will be able to break the habit."

After a preliminary session with hypnotist Alan Crisp, a clinical hypnotherapist with a practice in Beckenham, when details such as how much she smokes, how her health is and how much she drinks were discussed, Jean was given a relaxation CD to listen to for homework and told to try and fight the urge to smoke three times a day in preparation for the giving up day.

Well, that day has arrived. Jean has reached D-day. The hypnotist awaits.

We shall be monitoring the situation to decide whether hypnosis really works and, if it does, how.

After Jean's session we will report back on how she is feeling and hopefully on how she has become a non-smoker.