A phobia is an extreme and irrational fear of a specific object, situation, or activity. People with phobias may experience intense feelings of fear or anxiety when they are faced with the object of their phobia, or even when they anticipate coming into contact with it.
Phobias can significantly affect a person’s daily life, causing them to avoid situations or activities that they fear. If left untreated, phobias can worsen over time, and lead to other psychological problems such as depression and social isolation. However, phobias are treatable, and appropriate therapy can help alleviate the symptoms and help individuals overcome their fears.
Many of us have fears about particular situations or objects and this is very normal, and it has its purpose. Generally speaking, it keeps us safe and alive. But, sometimes our fears translate into irrational , crippling fear and becomes a phobia that limits our life in different ways..
Unlike general anxiety disorders, a phobia is usually connected to something specific – a fear of heights, despite knowing that you are safe, a fear of spiders, despite knowing they won’t hurt you, or maybe, a fear of going to the dentist, even though it will be painless. When the fear is out of proportion to the danger, it lasts for more than six months, or it has a significant impact on how you live your day-to-day life, it becomes a phobia.
| Common symptoms |
- Sweating, trembling, hot flushes or chills
- Feelings of dread
- Shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, or a choking sensation
- Rapid heartbeat (tachycardia)
- Pain or tightness in the chest
- A sensation of butterflies in the stomach
- Nausea
- Feeling faint or dizzy
- Fear of losing control, fear of fainting
- Fear of dying
| How can Hypnotherapy help |
Phobias work on a subconscious level, meaning that no matter how much we tell ourselves that something isn’t going to harm us, our minds and bodies still react with fear.
Since phobias exist in our subconscious and are learned responses, this makes them particularly easy to address with hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy for phobias can help you unlearn the fear response, build up your exposure to the phobia and in time ease the associated fear.
The aim of hypnotherapy is to communicate with the subconscious and change the way you feel and behave towards your phobia by using a combination of relaxing hypnosis and other techniques to process the instinctive emotional phobia response stored in your subconscious and move it into the conscious mind, which you have control of.
Once the subconscious pattern has been changed and the phobic response reduced, we work together in hypnosis to create new preferred patterns and responses, allowing you to respond calmly to your triggers and overcome your fears.
| Most common phobias and fears |
