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Fears and Phobias

Phobias are a deep irrational fear. There is a diversity of triggers: anything from spiders, enclosed spaces, or high places.

Phobias are a persistent and irrational fear leading to disturbances due to excessive and maladaptive safety-seeking behaviour toward specific conditions (e.g., heights) or objects (e.g., spiders).

There is a wide range of type of phobias, for example:

  • Animal-related phobias that could be for just about any kind of animal (cats, dogs, snakes, spiders, the list could go on).
  • Medical or injury type phobias like the fear of blood, dentists, needles, surgeries, and such.
  • Natural environment-related phobias that point to natural phenomena like heights, being submerged underwater, and thunder.
  • Situational type phobias that are triggered by specific situations like flying on a plane or riding an elevator.

There are other disorders considered as phobias: Social phobia is commonly called “social anxiety.” It is mainly characterized by overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-consciousness in social situations, such as a fear of speaking in front of an audience.

Life-disturbing symptoms and their devastating consequences are the main difference between a simple fear and phobias. A phobia prevents you from ‘functioning” appropriately and becomes to be debilitating and getting in the way of living a healthy and happy life.

Similar to anxiety, a phobia is a heightened response to an otherwise seemingly moderate stimulus. An unthreatening object or situation can trigger an intense fear of a phobic person. Hence, he/she will avoid that trigger at all costs.

Fear is normal and even healthy. It protects you from many dangers. Problems appear when it’s getting in the way to accomplish things that matter to you; it’s not fear anymore, it’s a phobia. Simply said, a phobia is a fear that is no longer serving you and has a negative life impact.

Fearing to be to stay block in a closed space is perfectly normal. But if it stops you from taking the lift, and you refuse a job because it’s on the 21st floor that’s beginning to be a problem.

Fearing flight is pretty common! But if you miss out on meaningful experiences like traveling just because you have a fear of traveling by plane, it’s time to do something about it.

Do you get it? Fears are ok, and the treatment of phobias don’t imply to get rid of your fears, but hypnotherapy will help you not to be controlled by them.

The good news is hypnotherapy has been found to have particularly good outcomes on issues like fears and phobias.

Protocol

Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy has an excellent track record in removing these irrational fears. Phobias treatment with hypnotherapy is mainly composed of four features :

  1. In the case of phobias and specific fears, exposure hypnotherapy is the primary goal. However, relaxation techniques are a good starting point as it is particularly effective to reduce physiological arousal.
  2. A training on self-hypnosis to build up your sense of calm self-confidence and self-efficacy to cope with the situation you fear.
  3. With the help of your therapist, you will establish a hierarchy of the things you fear, leading to the last and most crucial step.
  4. The final and most crucial step is called systemic desensitisation. Clinical studies demonstrate that Systematic desensitization treatment is an effective protocol on phobias.
    Yes just like some people get desensitised from some allergens.
    The good thing with hypnosis is that instead of physically expose you to your triggers, you do it mentally.
    This technique is powerful at exposing and confronting someone with their feared situation and allows them to rehearse their coping skills in a relaxed setting.
    Under hypnosis and while doing deep relaxation, you will imagine this thing or situation you fear; you will be coached to relax, building up an automatic calm response. You will gradually replace your automatic maladaptive response mentally rehearsing you coping with the situation adequately.
  5. You will expose yourself progressively in real life to In the case of phobias or social anxiety treatment, gradual “in vivo exposure are essential to maintain positive outcomes in the long term.The skills and methods learned in therapy need to be “transfer” into your daily life if you want to maintain the benefits of them in the long term. If a client is affected by a phobia of snakes after hypnotic desensitisation, the client should test and reinforce the improvements made during sessions exposing gradually to the stimuli in real life, allowing him to stop avoiding situations but rather to confront and stay in them. Therefore, you will choose some real-life practice with your therapist. For example, is you have a snake phobia will maybe decide to watch a movie with snakes or go to a pet shop with a snake behind glass or the zoo; it’s up to you. It is a central point.

Treatment's length

How long is the treatment?

The thing about those “fast phobia cures” that lasts just a single session is that the effects don’t stay long.
That’s true that there is a positive effect after one session. However, a three to four sessions treatment program is what you need for a lasting change.
However, If you prefer, you could concentrate all the sessions in a single 3 hours boost session and a follow-up 4 to 6 weeks later.