Abstract

PONCIANO-RODRIGUEZ, Guadalupe  and  MORALES-RUIZ, América. Emotional writing as a tool for the psychologic treatment of tobacco smoking. Salud pública Méx [online]. 2007, vol.49, suppl.2, pp.s280-s289. ISSN 0036-3634.

OBJECTIVE: To show the importance and usefulness of emotional writing as a part of the psychological smoking treatment. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The clinical records of all patients who attended the Tobacco Cessation Clinic from 2001 to 2006 were reviewed, ten letters written by the smokers were selected as a way to support intervention to finish with the addiction, the psychologist on charge of the group asked the patients to write this type of letter the day when they have to stop smoking. RESULTS: The content of ten letters written by smokers included in the treatment at the Tobacco Cessation Clinic are shown, these letters were selected based on their representativeness of complexity and deep intensity of the psychological dependence developed by smokers. The content of these letters emphasized the importance of an adequate treatment of this dependence. CONCLUSIONS: The emotional writing has shown to be an important and powerful tool in the psychological treatment of smoking, it allows the expression of smokers' deep, intense and intimate thoughts and beliefs and how they associate smoking with their lives.

Keywords : psychological dependence; smoking treatment; emotional writing; Mexico.