We all have fears which affect our decisions and cause us to avoid things from time to time. However, a phobia is when a fear becomes irrational and overwhelming and stops you doing the things you love. Phobias are more pronounced than fears. They develop when a person has an exaggerated or unrealistic sense of danger about a situation or object.
Phobias can be triggered by actual or imagined events, activities or objects, and cause our stress response to be activated. The more times this is triggered, the stronger the phobia gets.
If a phobia becomes very severe, a person may organise their life around avoiding the thing that’s causing them anxiety. As well as restricting their day-to-day life, it can also cause a lot of distress.
Symptoms of Phobias
Symptoms may include unsteadiness, dizziness light-headedness, nausea, sweating, increased heart rate, shortness of breath, trembling or shaking or an upset stomach. Many of these symptoms are a result of our brain overreacting and thinking there is a danger so activating our fight/flight/freeze response.
How can Solution Focused Hypnotherapy help with Phobias?
Before addressing any phobia, we will work on reducing any stress you are experiencing, so you can have intellectual control when thinking about your phobias. Once your ‘stress bucket’ has been emptied, then we can use specific techniques called the Rewind and Reframe. These techniques involve dissociating yourself from the phobia and removing the emotion attached to it. We then create a new template that your brain can refer to in the future when you are confronted with the trigger. This can be completed in 4 sessions, but if you have other anxieties or the phobia is more complex, then we will need further sessions.
Some of the fears and phobias we see most regularly are flying, needles, spiders, being sick (Emetophobia), public speaking. But there are hundreds of different types and if you have a phobia that you think is irrational, please do get in touch as it’s likely Solution Focused Hypnotherapy will be able to help.