Last week we reported on News Shopper deputy editor Jean May's attempt to give up smoking through hypnosis. She is coming to the end of her second week as a non-smoker. Has the hypnosis worked? Laura-Jane Filotrani finds out.

It's been two weeks since Jean May imagined herself descending a palatial staircase, opening doors of different colours.

It's been two weeks without drawing smoke into her lungs. It's been two weeks of hell for her and for us.

Whether the hypnosis helped or not we will never know but, she has managed to last two weeks and she is managing to fight the urges.

It is precisely in fighting urges where the treatment of hypnosis is supposed to be so successful. During Jean's session with Alan Crisp, a clinical hypnotherapist with a practice in Beckenham, she was submitted to positive suggestions to reprogramme her subconscious mind, to repel cigarettes and to look forward to a healthier, happier, smoke-free life.

Alan said: "The actual habit of smoking is dealt with using suggestion and Neuro-Linguistic-Programming. If this is not done effectively, people will still have this automatic response to pick up a cigarette at the times they would normally have done so, such as while on the phone, at the coffee machine or when stressed."

If done effectively, however, the person will be able to make a conscious choice about whether to smoke rather than habitually following routine.

Hypnotherapy is supposed to empower the person to make their own choice to stop and stay stopped. Whether Jean feels empowered is another matter.

Recalling the hypnotherapy session she said: "Sometimes I felt as if I was just acting' and other times I was falling asleep. Other times I felt I'd been absent somewhere and re-entering the real world."

"Something definitely happened to me I have been under hypnosis even though I suspected my cynicism would make me unlikely to succumb. When I surfaced, I felt the process had taken about 20 minutes, but Alan said it had been 45."

"He took me down a palatial staircase step by step, then through different coloured front doors where each colour had a different quality.

"I was only vaguely aware he had moved onto the subject of smoking and how I would overcome everything to be a non-smoker.

"I am glad I have tried it. I always appreciate new experiences and this is what I view it as. I think I will succeed at stopping smoking (you don't call it giving up as this implies doing without something nice) but think it is quite likely I would stop without any help, as I was determined to stop this time it's staying stopped which I find difficult.

"Alan has given me a help pack with this in mind. I have another CD to play in the early days and information leaflets to both deter me from the evil and reasons to stay motivated.

"On my first evening after quitting I had some additional stress the hypnotherapy session definitely gave me an added incentive to not reach for a cigarette."

Jean is unsure whether being able to choose not to smoke was a direct result of being hypnotised or whether she just didn't want the experience to have gone to waste so quickly.

Either way she managed to turn her back on the urge that night and many subsequent evenings since.

She added: "I don't think I will ever really know if the hypnotherapy contributed to the success though I am sure it hasn't harmed."

We will be following her progress and will let you all know how she is getting on in a couple of months time hopefully still as a non-smoker.

Alan Crisp is a member of the British Institute of Hypnotherapy and can be found on the General Hypnotherapy Register.