Phobias Hypnotherapy & NLP. Experienced Clinical Hypnotherapist.

Phobias Hypnotherapy combined with NLP and when appropriate the powerful medium Havening, EMDR or TFT (EFT) every Phobia I've worked with has improved if not dissolved completely.

It's true that phobias affect millions of people worldwide.  We can become phobic of just about anything.  All it takes is a moment of terror (the feeling when you 'jump') that is then anchored to the object, sound, person, feeling, place - thereafter.

It's actually a good thing.  Our evolution provided us, as with creatures in the animal kingdom, of a way to encode information that will quickly and potentially save our lives.

A Phobia is set up when we experience great fear and the fear signals our brain to trigger the 'fight, flight, freeze' response.  This is designed to 'protect you'!

That takes away from any frontal cortex, critical thinking and activates the most powerful urge to run away, fight the danger or freeze so 'it' can't see you.

A Phobia Response Can Be Seeded By Accident

Some people first 'learn' their phobia from watching their parents.  If a parent figure, who is meant to be fearless and able to protect the child from everything, shows great anxiety and fear, the child will learn this behaviour response.

I've even worked with adults who when a child, had a fear induced because their parent was playing a game by pretending to be afraid.

The symptoms experienced when a phobia is triggered, are painful and frightening and for my clients, they were once incredibly frustrating.

At the end of the day ... no-one ever wants to feel that out of control!

A phobia is not the same as a 'fear' as it's much more powerful and in some situations can be dangerous.

• is the fear irrational - do you know logically that you are safe?
  • whilst some animals and insects can be dangerous, if you react to a 'house spider' the same as you would to a dangerous spider - it is irrational
• if confronted by the phobia trigger, what do you do?
  • if you can remain still and calm around the trigger then it's a fear but if you cannot wait to escape even rush into potential danger eg roads - it's a phobia
• do you avoid activities because of the phobia?
  • people who are afraid of flying, will not book a holiday or trip that requires a plane to get to the destination
• if you had no fear around this trigger, are there things you would now do?
  • often clients haven't considered what they have been avoiding until asked the question - what can you do now that you don't have that phobia anymore?

There are so many different phobias that I've treated - here's a list of some of them:

• spheksophobia - phobia of wasps
• claustrophobia - phobia of lifts, small spaces
• ornithophobia - phobia of birds (sometimes just one type)
• arachnophobia - phobia of spiders
• cynophobia - phobia of dogs
• doraphobia - phobia of all animals with fur
• astraphobia - phobia of storms (thunder and lightning)
• acrophobia - phobia of heights
• agoraphobia - phobia of crowded spaces
• mysophobia - phobia of germs
• aerophobia - fear of flying (affects literally millions of people!)
• trypanophobia - phobia of needles
• hemophobia - phobia of blood
• globophobia - phobia of balloons
• emetophobia - fear of vomiting (or loss of self control)

For a full list of phobias click here:  Phobias List

What I've found interesting about the reasons why my clients finally choose to do something about their phobia - is it takes it to become too painful for them to ignore (not that ignoring a phobia is possible!)

I've been able to help people overcome their irrational fear in some interesting situations.  For example at an airport I witnessed a lady with extreme fear refusing to board the plane.  I offered my help and the staff leapt at the offer as the lady was causing quite a scene.  In 20 minutes she'd calmed, asked if she could sit 'near' me on the plane and remained totally in control throughout.  Suffice to say, the staff took my details 😀 

On another occasion whilst on holiday, I witnessed a young child screaming when his parents attempted to get him into the sea.  

I explained to the parent that he was phobic and they were not going to get him to go in the sea without first helping him to relax his senses.  I taught his parents a few techniques and advised that they not push him to do anything until he was ready.

A couple of days later, a bunch of flowers arrived at my hotel with a note to say the parents succeeded in getting the child to walk into the water by himself, whilst holding their hands.

For some people, they don't realise that there is real help available and it's not going to be painful to do. Knowing that it is possible to recover from a phobia may often happen when a friend refers someone to my practice.  

Being Phobia Free - is not just possible - it really is completely liberating!

Imagine you've collapsed the phobia - which I've helped hundreds of people achieve in my 20+ years of practice ...

What is the first thing you'll enjoy that you didn't enjoy before?

For my clients they report a huge weight being lifted.  A sense of freedom they didn't know they were missing.  For some it opens up many new opportunities such as travel, new experiences, new roles/ jobs etc.

If you are human, you can suffer with a phobia and in fact most of the population does have at least one, many have multiple phobias.

The perception that we can 'avoid' the triggers is usually why people don't deal with it.  But all the phobias above, caused people difficulties that could have been avoided.

It is so true that unless and until you overcome the phobia, you cannot truly know the relief you will feel.

In my Practice I began with only Hypnotherapy and NLP as my main tools to help people overcome phobias.  And that was pretty successful.

Then I met a woman whose fear of animals, in particular dogs, also related to the fear of being attacked.  That had some other historical connections.

Knowing how our brain stores and recovers information - from networks of collections of experiences, I knew that she needed to collapse a trauma to release the phobia.

We then stepped into the model for treating trauma using Havening & EMDR techniques.  This began to dissolve the chemical action that held the 'memory' on the Amygdala.  And ultimately the memory was released and stored in the brain with other memories.

It lost the ability to fire off the fright, fight, freeze response and she was able to spend time with dogs and importantly with friends and family who have dogs.

She had already tried Hypnosis for phobia, NLP techniques and even some EMDR.  Alas the therapists she'd chosen weren't as familiar with the way our brains are wired so gave up.

Dissolve the fear & live your life!

When the phobia no longer controls you - you get to be and do more of what inspires you!