There are too many phobias to list, but only you know how being phobic has affected your life. Characteristically all those who suffer from a phobia will go to extreme lengths to avoid coming face to face with their phobia, be it one of the more common phobias of: flying, dentists, injections/needles, blood, fainting, childbirth, heights, birds, spiders, cotton wool, lifts, thunder, dogs, cats or driving. Some phobias are more general in nature and can have even greater consequences within daily life, such as: agoraphobia, claustrophobia and social phobia and it is not unusual to suffer from more than one phobia. It is the feeling that your particular phobia brings about giving feelings of anxiety and terror or even panic attacks. Somewhere inside is the voice of reason that tells you how silly this is, that you are safe, that what you most dread is only in your mind and unlikely to happen but then your heart begins to beat faster, you feel butterflies in your tummy, your breathing becomes shallow you may feel hot, dizzy and sick and you begin to sweat. You want to run, it may be your only option is to run, you must avoid this terror, and so you go out of your way at every opportunity to avoid coming into contact with your phobia. It could be argued that if your phobia is snakes that is actually quite valid and that snakes are dangerous, so who wouldn’t avoid them, this is actually a normal ‘fear’ response, but if your response affects you when watching snakes on television or looking at one in a magazine, or even just thinking about them, then it is a true phobia.

If your particular phobia is to dentists or needles then it can have implications to your general health and comfort resulting in consequences that can be devastating to you as a sufferer. You may have tried various solutions, those you love and trust even helping to provide the external ongoing voice of reason, but this doesn’t help because your reaction is brought about as a result of ‘fight and flight’ something that is outside of conscious control. It is in fact something that comes from your unconscious mind and as such responds very well to the application of clinical hypnosis.

A phobia may begin as the result of a bad experience involving a certain object or situation, often there is no particular experience but it is a ‘learned response’ from a parent or relative. A parent who may have had a fear of the object or situation who in trying to combat their own fear response in front of a child has actually communicated anxiety to that child. For instance the mother who sees her child about to pat a strange dog, the dog may then bark causing the child to jump which if followed by her mother pulling her rapidly away and telling her to stay away from strange dogs because they bite can set up a fear response for that child. As the fear grows the phobia is set.
If a phobia can be learnt so it can be unlearnt and the hypnotherapist will base the session on the goal that has been requested by you. Within the session you are guided to a deep state of relaxation and a form of desensitising to the event then begins so that your unconscious mind realises that you can feel relaxed whilst thinking about that particular event and once this response is learnt so when you come into that situation again your unconscious mind allows you to experience relaxation. The discussion you have with the therapist will help in you understanding your responses and also in deciding your goals, that is those that are achievable for you, at your own pace. As such you may be surprised at how naturally the changes you want can begin to occur, just as you have ‘thought’ them…….and how amazing that feeling is.