Phobias - What Causes Them And How You Can Get Rid Of Them With Hypnosis

DEFINITION AND SYMPTOMS OF PHOBIAS: A phobia is defined as an unfounded fear. When a person has a panic attack, they get panicky feelings; their respiration and heart rates increase; they may experience feeling choked up like their heart is in their throat; their palms very often get sweaty; they may hear the sound of ringing in their ears; and they very often find that they are unable to take part in an activity. These feelings cause the individual to avoid the activities and environments that cause them.

SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF COMMON PHOBIAS: For instance, if someone has an irrational fear of driving, they would show evidence of these symptoms whenever they try to drive their car, or maybe even when they just think about driving. Or a terror attack may well take place simply when driving in specific places like over bridges.

Stage freight is a very common phobia. The panicky feelings appear when the sufferer starts to talk in front of a person that they are afraid of, or they may well experience alarmed feelings only when in front of an assembly of people. The number of people in the group can differ. This irrational fear can be triggered by fears of inadequacy, or a lack of self-confidence.

Those who suffer from a social phobia can get tremendously worried just being around other folks, even people they are familiar with. It is a fear of being criticized or evaluated by others. This fear can be set off by almost any variety of social relations. A person could be standing on line at a checkout and get stressful feelings as they imagine having to talk to the cashier while they checkout.

The fear of taking tests (commonly known as test anxiety) is quite a common phobia. Phobias to taking tests are rooted in comparing yourself to other folks, and is deeply rooted in a fear of failure.

People have experienced irrational fears to every sort of experience under the sun. For instance: High places; animals; small enclosed places; relationships; flying; bugs; snakes; and even the great outdoors.

Agoraphobia is generally defined as a fear of open spaces. However, this definition is extremely misleading because Agoraphobics are really afraid of having a panic attack, wherever they are. Agoraphobia develops when a person begins to avoid places or situations they have associated with anxiety. For example, they could have a panic attack at home, church, or in a gas station.

For many phobics, once the panic attacks have started to occur, they begin to anticipate them to happen. And this anticipation in reality triggers them with increasing frequency. Other folks experience fearful feelings on a continuous basis. These feelings cause an overall discomfort, rather than panic.

AVAILABLE FORMS OF TREATMENT

DRUGS: Some physicians care for their patients using sedatives, which can make the phobia worse over extended treatment. Sedatives don't work on the underlying cause of a phobia; they only disguise some of the symptoms.

TALK THERAPY: Some counselors advocate "Talk Therapy." Talk therapy is merely talking about what is bothering you. Unfortunately, thinking about or talking about a situation or environment that sets off a panic attack can trigger a phobic attack!

HYPNOSIS: Traditional hypnosis has been used to treat phobias, but with severely limited success. Traditional hypnotherapy is accomplished when the therapist places the client in a relaxed state of self-hypnosis and then gives the client post-hypnotic commands or suggestions. Since most people of our generation question and resist direct post-hypnotic suggestions, they also reject the idea that they will be more relaxed and at ease when they encounter the environment or situation that causes their panic attacks.

SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION: Systematic Desensitization is the process of incrementally desensitizing a person to the circumstances or environment that sets off a panic attack. For instance, if a woman wants to dive from a high board but fears it, she is asked to first dive from a height that she feels confident about. She dives in and realizes that nothing bad happened and that she is safe.

The next thing she is asked to do is to dive from the first step of the ladder going up to the diving board. Again, she dives in and realizes that nothing bad happened and that she is again safe and secure.

Over a period of time the woman is asked to dive in from increasingly higher steps on the ladder going up to the board. Each time she dives in and realizes that nothing bad happened and that she is safe and secure, she is able to move up to the next rung. If she experiences fear, then she's asked to step back down one rung on the ladder and dive from there until she feels complete comfort and security. In the end she makes it to the top of the ladder and is able to dive in from the high board itself.

SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION WHILE IN THE STATE OF HYPNOSIS: Systematic Desensitization can be done virtually while in the state of hypnosis with as good as or better results. While in a relaxed hypnotized state, the woman would be asked to visualize herself diving in from each step on the ladder. She would be asked to see herself feeling confident as she dives in. Since she is in a disassociated state while visualizing herself, she is unable to trigger a phobic attack.

Next she's asked to associate, in other words to put the camera inside of her head so she would be seeing what she would see through her eyes if she was actually diving in from each rung of the ladder. She is asked to imagine feeling safe and relaxed as she dives in.

Just as in a live (in vivo) systematic desensitization, if she feels any panic she's asked to go back to the previous lower rung on the ladder and picture diving in from that rung. She might be trained to generate a kinesthetic (feeling or touch) "anchor" for feelings of security and safety. She could then trigger that anchor while imagining that she's diving, and the feelings of security and safety could be subjectively transferred to the act of diving.

Systematic Desensitization while in self-hypnosis can be very useful and successful, but is can also be slow and take several hypnotic sessions to bring about a cure.

NLP V/K DISASSOCIATION: Neuro-Linguistic Programming is fundamentally the study of how we create our reality. The V/K stands for visual / kinesthetic. The V/K Disassociation is a technique that enables a trained NLP Practitioner to guide a subject through specific visual imagery that quickly and in many cases instantly disconnects or disassociates the feelings of freight from the irrational fear that causes them. The V/K Disassociation is known as the "One session phobia cure" in Neuro-Linguistic Programming circles, and with good reason.

CONCLUSION: Phobias are very common in our society. They are fears that aren't founded in reality. There are many techniques for treating phobias, but so far in my belief, the best finest available are Systematic Desensitization while a hypnotic state, and the Neuro-Linguistic Programming V/K Disassociation technique.

 

Alan B. Densky, CH is a certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner who's been in practice since 1978. He can be contacted through his Neuro-VISION Hypnosis ecommerce site which offers NLP CDs for phobias. Visit his hypnosis research library, or download a free MP3.

 

Source: Alan B. Densky, CH