Fears and Phobias

Many people have a fear, fewer people have a phobia. Hypnotherapy can address the issues that surround your fear or phobia.

Fear or Phobia?

When we are born we have two fears only, fear of the dark, and fear of falling. Everything else is learned by response and experience whether true or false.

What is the difference between a fear and phobia?

Fear is a rational response. If you were in a forest and an elephant charges towards you there is no need even to think about it, your ancestral learning takes over and the fight or flight action occurs. It is a natural action for self-preservation of the species.

Phobias however are a severe irrational or intense reaction to an object or a certain situation. The sufferer may realize that the feelings they have are unreasonable but they cannot control it or change it. They will avoid any possibility of placing themselves in that situation or expose themselves to the phobic object. For many phobia suffers the intensity and anxiety prevents normal living.

Phobias can be divided into two broad groups...

SPECIFIC.

> These include common examples such as flying, spiders, bridges, fur.

> Claustrophobia, fear of enclosed spaces, lifts, tunnels, small rooms, etc.

> Medical, fear of needles, doctors, dentists, blood, medical procedures etc.

SOCIAL PHOBIAS

An intense and irrational fear of any social situation such as a party, public speaking, socialising with the opposite sex. For detailed information SEE HERE.

playground accident A phobia usually develops because of a traumatic event of some sort. That event may have occurred many years ago in childhood, the bodies coping mechanism represses the event to protect you. At some time in the future an event or object can trigger a reaction to the original occurrence, however, the adult person may not recall the event. They may be intensely afraid of a an escalator for instance, but do not recall an accident on a children's slide many years before.

Conditioned Response

Many simple phobias are a result of "conditioning". Let's say your parent is afraid of spiders. Every time they see a spider there is a panic, screaming, and outpouring of fear. You as a small child react by becoming hysterical. After a few incidents of this sort the learned response is that spiders are dangerous, threatening, and have to be avoided at all costs. Your young mind cannot think rationally about the situation, since it does not have anything in its memory bank to consult. So spiders now are destined to become forever a scary thing, something that can develop into a real full blown phobia in the future.

Hypnotherapy can deal with fears and phobias effectively using suggestion, analysis, and various techniques to help you conquer the problem.