"A phobia is an overwhelming and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal." - nhs.UK

Hypnotherapy for Phobias

Phobias can are also be described as irrational fears. When encountered, the source of the phobia results in a severe anxiety response or panic which causes us to flee from the situation or avoid activities where we think it may be possible to come into contact with the fear stimuli. A phobia is much more powerful than just "not liking" something.

In some cases it may be rare for us to come across the thing we are afraid of so the phobia has little impact on day to day life, however when the source of our fear is commonly around, phobias can have a significant impact on quality of life. We might find ourselves avoiding places, situations, journeys, even significant work or family events because of a fear of having a phobic response. In extreme situations it can also impact our health if our phobia results in avoidance of healthcare situations such as going to the doctor, hospital or dentist.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is a very gentle and effective treatment for phobias, breaking the mental fear template and helping you to replace it with a more useful response so that you can react how you want to in the situation instead of panicking, allowing you to do more of what you want to.

Phobias are categorised as either "specific" or "complex" and the approach we use in therapy  will depend on the type of phobia and general (non-phobia related) anxiety levels to achieve the best and most sustainable results.

For example, someone with a very specific fear, such as flying or spiders, and experiencing low levels of anxiety in their day to day life will need fewer sessions than someone with a complex phobia, such as a fear of sickness (emetophobia) or open spaces (agoraphobia) that can impact may aspects of life and are likely to contribute to higher general anxiety.

Phobias are by definition irrational but that doesn't make them silly or any less impactful.

If you have a phobia or irrational fear and are interested in hypnotherapy to help resolve it, please get in touch for a chat and I can advise on the hypnotherapy approach that would be best for you.

If you have a phobia or irrational fear and have questions, please get in touch by phone, email or via my FaceBook or Linked In pages and I'd be happy to help.