You can overcome your phobia in 3 to 4 sessions using powerful hypnotic re-patterning.
If you’re suffering from a phobia, you may be able to relate to it as an uncontrollable, irrational, and persistent fear of a specific object, situation, or activity.
There are around 2.5 million phobia sufferers in the UK and around 11.5 million in the USA. That’s a fair percentage of the population.
Interestingly the word ‘phobia’ is perhaps overused when people describe a feeling of discomfort in a particular situation. There is a difference between feeling anxious and fearful of a situation and actually having a phobic response.
A phobia is characterised by a feeling of intense dread due to a situation, object or activity. So much so, the person actively seeks to avoid that environment and remember it’s a persistent fear. To illustrate this you may have a fear of heights which is a natural response to ensure you stay away from cliff edges, but when the fear becomes irrational, to the point you can’t cross bridges and so you take the long route to work, then it has become a phobia (it has impacted on your way of life).
Most individuals understand that they are suffering from an irrational fear, but are powerless to override their initial panic reaction. Logically a person may realise their fear does not make sense. Remember a phobia is a persistent fear of an object or situation which is out of proportion to its danger. In this situation the subconscious mind has mistaken the trigger as dangerous. This may have occurred from a single event whereby a person experienced extreme levels of stress while the trigger was part of the environment or could have been transferred at an early age from parent to child. A common example of this is a fear of spiders whereby a parent would display reactions of stress and panic whenever he/she saw a spider. The child therefore learns this is an extremely dangerous object.
A phobia can become very debilitating and heavily influence one’s behaviour. If a person is suffering from chronic levels of anxiety and this is left untreated, there is potential for further phobias and could culminate in agoraphobia (literally translated to mean ‘fear of the market place’). A sufferer of agoraphobia will stay away from any perceivable threat which usually means they remain at home as they feel this is the only safe environment to them.
Phobias can be simple or complex. A simple phobia is the fear of a single stimulus, while someone suffering a complex phobia, would fear a number of stimuli. Below is a short list to help you differentiate between a simple and complex phobia:
Simple/specific Phobias:
- Fear of spiders (arachnophobia)
- Fear of thunder and lightning (astraphobia)
- Fear of heights (acrophobia)
Complex phobias:
- Fear of leaving home or entering open spaces (agoraphobia)
- Fear of enclosed or crowded places (claustrophobia)
- Fear of social gatherings or attracting attention (social phobia)
Treatment for phobias
A simple phobia can be treated in 3 sessions while a complex phobia may take longer, although please note everyone is unique but this should give you a general guide line of what to expect.
A phobic response is due to the subconcious trying to save you from danger to continue your survival. It mistakenly believes this trigger is a threat to your security. Without ever needing to know why this is so, we can employ powerful techniques to reprogram the subconscious to re-evaluate the situation and create a shift in your perception thereby enabling you to remain calm in those situations you used to find threatening.
As therapy progresses, your mind will fail to pick up on information that used to confirm this situation was of immense danger. What used to make you aware of the threat will no longer do so and remain in the background. A good illustration is to imagine a before and after snapshot of someone suffering arachnophobia (fear of spiders). A person before therapy will walk into a room and immediately spot the spider on the wall and bring this information to the foreground as it immediately notices the threat. After therapy the person walks into the room and notices how tidy it looks (the spider on the wall remains in the background and is not even part of your conscious awareness).
You will also receive a backup Hypnotic CD to help continue therapy while you are at home.
If you have any questions, please get in touch. You can either call today on 0117 942 0200 and book your free consultation, or use this contact form.