Help With Phobias

Someone once came to see me with a phobia of animals. That was any animal - live animals as well as dead ones and pictures of them in books. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to have a phobia like that?

In that particular person’s case, she would be afraid of seeing an animal in the street and was unfortunate enough to work in a place where one of the employees brought his dog to work. Her phobia was a day in and day out trial for her.

Let’s explore what a phobia is. A phobia is a strong fear that usually leads to the sufferer attempting to avoid the feared thing at all costs. In the cold light of day, the person will think their fear excessive and yet be unable to help themselves. A phobic fear triggers the most primitive part of our minds designed to keep us safe. In other words, the fight/flight mechanism is kicked into action.

The phobia described above is what is called a ‘simple phobia’, in other words the trigger is very specific. Other phobias where the trigger is less specific might include agoraphobia or social phobia. There are different causes to phobias. Sometimes their roots are found in an incident that was very scary for the person. Children putting insects down another child’s clothes are a not uncommon cause of insect phobias.

In the case of my client with the animal phobia, her mother had told her of an incident that had happened with a dog as a very small child but my client had no memory of it herself. With the technique I use, it isn’t necessary to know what the causative incident was.

Sometimes, the phobia is learnt from a parent. The child witnesses a parent being fearful around something and assumes that it is imperative to treat that thing with caution. For this reason, I have had people come to me to resolve a phobia so they do not pass it on to their children.

You can be phobic about almost anything. Some common ones are spiders, mice, flying, heights, water, dental treatment. Others are of clowns, buttons, being sick in public, getting pregnant.

Simple phobias are relatively easy to treat, you may be surprised to hear. Gone are the days when you must confront the object of your phobia and stay in its presence until your terror has abated.

With the use of hypnosis, we break the conditioned response between the object and the fear and create a new one of comfort in the presence of the previously feared thing. The state of hypnosis allows you to reach a deeply relaxed state which enables this reconditioning to take place. Through a guided process, we scramble the fear so that it loses its grip and can no longer operate in the same way.

Very often a simple phobia can be resolved in one or two sessions. In the case of the person with the all-pervading fear of animals, three sessions were enough. This is what she said in an email:

“just a quick positive note regarding our work. I am now able to stay close to animals in the same room without freaking out.”

That’s quite a change.

Non-specific phobias such as agoraphobia need a different approach that includes de-conditioning as well as general anxiety relief and gradual exposure to the problem situation such as leaving the house.

There is no need to live with a phobia. There is no need to be embarrassed about it either. In a short period of time, you can be free of it.