Essay on A client who is 43 and started smoking as a teenager

 The client is smoking since his teenage, and now he is 43 years old. He somehow has realized the fact that smoking is not good for his health, and he may be facing health issues due to smoking for such a long period of time. It is a fact that there are so many diseases, which are associated with smoking such as mouth cancer, heart diseases, etc. Now, he has come to us for help, and certainly, he wants to quit smoking, but it is not for someone, who has been doing it for more than two decades. It is important to resolve his problem with the help of a change model developed by Prochaska and DiClemente. This transactional change model was developed in the 1970s, which has 6 stages of change (LaMorte, 2019). Let’s look at the possibility of change for the client keeping each stage in the context:

1. Precontemplation: At this stage, the person facing the problem is not ready to change his behavior or acts. It means that no intention is shown by the person, to get changed so that the problem can be handled accordingly. In this case, the client is not relevant to this stage, because he has come to us for help, which means that he has some intention to get changed and leave his bad habit of smoking.

2. Contemplation: At this stage, things are better in the sense that the person starts to show awareness about the problem being faced. The commitment to action may not be shown still at this stage, but at least the person starts to think about the problem. Our client is at this stage, as he is aware of the problem of smoking, and maybe wants some solution, and that’s why he has contacted us for the help.

3.  Preparation: This is a stage, where people are ready to take considerable action in the next few days so that the problem can be resolved. When we talked with our client and asked, whether he wants to leave his bad habit of smoking so that he can avoid any severe disease at this stage of life, then he said, “yes”, I am ready to make any changes in my life, which keeps me away from smoking. He was ready to follow the steps, which we were going to give him to deal with the problem of smoking.

4. Action: This is the stage, where the real action takes place as a person starts to follow steps, which are needed to change the behavior so that the problem is mitigated. We went through with all the stages without the client, and now he is following our guidelines to leave the habit of smoking. First of all, he lowered the amount of smoking, and once he was able to do so, then he left it completely. It was good to see that the client was making changes, which were needed.

5. Maintenance: It is important to mention here that the client was asked to follow certain steps, as well as, he was given certain medication. The good thing is that he followed all the guidelines, and regularly took his medicines, which helped him to get out of the trouble of smoking. He was given complete counseling that how he can maintain this behavior so that issue does not happen again, and he does not go back to any previous stage.

6. Termination: This is the last stage of change model. It is the stage, where they have completed the whole change process. Like, our client reached the final stage; where he left smoking once for all, and he is determined that he will never do it again.

Reference of A client who is 43 and started smoking as a teenager

LaMorte, W. W. (2019). The Transtheoretical Model (Stages of Change). Retrieved December 24, 2019, from http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories6.html