Have A Phobia? - What Causes Them And How You Can Overcome Them With Hypnosis

DEFINITION AND SYMPTOMS OF PHOBIAS: A phobia is defined as an illogical fear or dread. When a person experiences a phobic attack, they get terrified feelings; their respiration and heart rates raise; they may feel choked up like their heart is in their throat; their palms often get sweaty; they may hear a ringing in their ears; and they often find that they are unable to take part in an activity. These feelings motivate the individual to try to avoid the activities and places that trigger them.
SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF COMMON PHOBIAS: For example, if a person has an irrational fear of driving, that individual would show evidence of these symptoms at the time they make an effort to drive their car, or maybe even when they just think about driving. Or a phobic attack may well occur only while driving in specific places like in heavy traffic.
Stage freight is a comparatively widespread phobia. The phobic feelings appear when the individual begins to talk in front of a person that they are afraid of, or they might experience alarmed feelings only in front of a group of people. The size of the assembly may vary. 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 really panicky just being around other folks, even folks they recognize. It's a fear that they will be criticized or evaluated by other people. This fear can be set off by almost any type of social dealings. A person could be waiting on line at a checkout and get stressful feelings as they think about having to talk to the checker as they checkout.
The fear of test taking (frequently known as test anxiety) is a frequent phobia. Testing phobias are rooted in comparing yourself to other folks, and is deeply rooted in a fear of failure.
People have developed phobias to every category of experience under the sun. For example: Snakes; bugs; relationships; flying; small enclosed places; animals; high places; death; and even the great outdoors.
Agoraphobia is generally defined as a fear of open spaces. However, this definition is extremely confusing because Agoraphobics are really afraid of having a panic attack, wherever they may happen to be. This phobia is developed when a person begins to avoid places or situations they have associated with anxiety. For example, they could have a panic attack at church, at home, or at a gas station.
For people who suffer with phobias, once their panic attacks have begun to take place, they begin to anticipate them to happen. And this expectation in reality triggers them with increasing frequency. Other folks experience fearful feelings on a continuous basis. These feelings cause an overall sense of discomfort, rather than panic.
OBTAINABLE FORMS OF TREATMENT
DRUGS: Some physicians treat patients using sedatives, which can make the condition worse over protracted treatment. Sedatives do not take care of the core cause of a phobia; they only mask some of the symptoms.
TALK THERAPY: Some counselors prescribe "Talk Therapy." Talk therapy is simply talking about what is bothering you. Unfortunately, talking about or even thinking about the situation or environment that causes a panic attack can trigger one!
HYPNOSIS CDS: Traditional self hypnosis has been used to treat phobias, but with severely limited success. Traditional hypnotic therapy is accomplished when the therapist places the client in a relaxed state of self-hypnosis and then gives the subject post-hypnotic suggestions or commands. Since most people of our generation question and resist direct suggestions, they also reject the idea that they will be more relaxed and at ease when they encounter the environment or situation that triggers their panic attacks.
SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION: Systematic Desensitization is the practice of progressively desensitizing a person to the environment or condition that causes a phobic attack. For example, if a woman wants to dive from a high diving board but she 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 is to dive from the lowest step of the ladder going up to the diving board. Again, she dives in and realizes that she was not hurt and that she is again safe.
Over a period of time the person is asked to dive in from incrementally higher and higher steps on the ladder going up to the diving board. Each time she dives in and realizes that she didn't get hurt and that she is safe, she is able to move up to the next rung of the ladder. If she experiences fear, then she is asked to move back down one rung on the ladder and dive from there until she feels complete comfort and security. Sooner or later she makes it to the top of the ladder and dives in from the high board itself.
SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION WHILE IN THE STATE OF HYPNOSIS: Systematic Desensitization can be done virtually while in a hypnotic state with as good as or even 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 relaxed and confident as she dives in. Since she is in fact disassociated while visualizing herself, she is unable to experience a panic attack.
Next she is asked to associate, or imagine the camera inside of her head so she would be seeing what she would see through her own eyes if she was actually diving in from each step 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 terror she is told to go back to the previous lower step on the ladder and visualize diving in from there. The phobic might be taught to create a kinesthetic (feeling or touch) "anchor" for feelings of security and safety. She could then trigger that anchor while visualizing that she is 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 especially 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 basically 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 imagery that quickly and in many cases instantly disconnects or disassociates the feelings of terror from the trigger or phobia 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 culture. They are fears that are not founded in reality. There are many ways of treating phobias, but so far in my belief, the best treatments are Systematic Desensitization while in the state of self hypnosis, and the Neuro-Linguistic Programming V/K Disassociation technique.

By: Alan B. Densky, CH

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