A Psychoanalytic Approach to Smoking Cessation: The Cigarette as a Transitional Object

A Psychoanalytic Approach to Smoking Cessation: The Cigarette as a Transitional Object provides an accessible understanding to the unconscious motive behind smoking addiction using Winnicotts concept of the transitional object. It outlines the conscious motives for smoking from a psychological perspective and uses psychoanalytically informed cross-disciplinary literature to assess the unconscious motives. The author introduces Winnicotts view on smoking addiction and highlights the benefits of the Free Association Narrative Interview method in accessing the unconscious and embedded emotional experiences.

Format: Hardback
Length: 174 pages
Publication date: 18 December 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

A Psychoanalytic Approach to Smoking Cessation: The Cigarette as a Transitional Object offers a comprehensive understanding of the unconscious drive behind smoking addiction by utilizing Winnicott's concept of the transitional object. The book is organized thematically into six chapters. Ko begins by exploring the conscious motivations for smoking from a psychological standpoint and examining commercial research conducted by the tobacco industry. She then employs psychoanalytically informed cross-disciplinary literature to assess the unconscious motives for smoking. Ko expertly introduces Winnicott's perspective on smoking addiction, utilizing his concept of the transitional object, and highlights the effectiveness of the Free Association Narrative Interview method in accessing the unconscious and embedded emotional experiences. Through clinical examples, she illustrates the benefits of this method as a tool to elicit free associations from research respondents. She also details the parallels between the individual respondents' smoking experiences, as well as their relationship with cigarettes, and the seven qualities of transitional objects outlined by Winnicott in his landmark 1953 paper. Ko concludes by emphasizing the significance and implications of this thesis for smokers and public health policy, as well as the smoking cessation approach and proposed directions for future research.

This book is a vital resource for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists working in smoking cessation organizations, as well as those in addiction services.

Weight: 510g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032358673