Some people develop a phobia following a traumatic event – usually a phobia of something around the circumstances of that event. It then becomes a struggle to walk away from it.
Follow this link to read my full article on the topic.
If you have a phobia, or any other form of anxiety, please Contact Me for a chat to explore what hypnotherapy can do to help. I work from my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire as well as online.
Photo courtesy of Frans van Heerden on Pexels
There are those who are just scared of becoming ill – whether this is an anxiety about coming down with something, or just being anxious about throwing up. It is not as uncommon as you might think. For some, this worry dominates their lives, especially if they have young children.
When someone’s mind is filled with worry about becoming ill, it can become all-consuming. They don’t want to mix with others in case they catch something; they are always hyper-sensitive to every little cough or sneeze. It can dominate their lives, and this can lead to a miserable life for themselves and their family.
Of course, it is quite natural to be wary about disease. It is unpleasant to be ill – we can’t get on with our lives, we get bored staying in bed, and it is generally an uncomfortable experience. Fortunately, our bodies are very resilient and we are usually able to get over most diseases given time.
But some people are so anxious about picking up a bug that it almost overwhelms them. Maybe their parents were over-wary about “germs”; maybe they had a particularly bad experience in their past; or maybe they simply watched the constant reminders about Covid during one of the lockdowns. It doesn’t matter where the anxiety came from – if it is dominating your life you need to do something about it.
One of the common consequences of this is a fear of vomiting (or someone close to them vomiting). This is particularly difficult for parents, as they have to deal with the aftermath of their children throwing up. For some, the anxiety of vomit is completely overwhelming. Fear of vomiting is so common, that it has a name – Emetophobia.
If health anxiety or emetophobia is spoiling your life, you need to do something about it. There are a variety of psychological ways to help. Your doctor will likely suggest CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). For myself, I prefer the hypnotherapy approach.
If you would like to experience hypnotherapy for yourself, for health anxiety, emetophobia or another issue, you might like to consider Contacting Me. I offer hypnotherapy services from my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire as well as online.
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/health-anxiety
Photo by Diva Plavalaguna on Pexels
Some people have restricted lives because of a strong sense of anxiety that comes over them in unfamiliar places. Even the thought of going into a different shop can fill them with anxiety. This can be devastating to their lives, but it is quite possible to overcome it. Hypnotherapy is just one of the possible routes to choose to be able to lead a normal life again.
Many people feel a sense of unease if they have to go to a place which they don’t know. If this feeling is too strong, they may find it easier to restrict where they go to. If it becomes stronger still, the sense of unease may turn into anxiety, fear and panic, and they stop travelling outside of their comfort zone.
I have seen people in my hypnotherapy clinic who feel restricted about where they go. They may, for example, only go to work and to the local shops, but otherwise stay at home. In the worst case scenario, they may find themselves unable to go out of doors.
This sense of unease or fear about going outside of familiar locations is known as agoraphobia. It is not uncommon to have a slight apprehension about going to an unfamiliar place, and as long as this is not restricting what one does in life, it is not a problem.
It is a problem if the anxiety stops someone doing what they really want to. When it starts interfering with life, when they feel restricted about where they can go – that is the time to think about doing something about it.
My clients tell me how the anxiety they feel is irrational – and they are quite right. The anxiety they experience when going away from familiar places comes from a subconscious part of the brain. The subconscious has somehow got things wrong. It is trying to keep them away from places which are, in fact, quite safe, and it does this by generating fear and anxiety.
Hypnotherapy helps change erroneous patterns that are held deep in our subconscious. The anxiety does not disappear overnight, and the hypnotherapy can only help if someone really wants to change.
For some people, even the thought of travelling to a hypnotherapist is overwhelming. However, with modern technology, hypnotherapy can work well by using a video link, such as Zoom, so people can stay at home until they are sufficiently relaxed to be able to attend sessions in person.
Hypnotherapy is not the only way to get over agoraphobia. Other methods, such as CBT can help as well.
If you suffer from anxiety, brought on by agoraphobia or anything else, you can Contact Me. I am a hypnotherapist working in Fleet, Hampshire as well as online. I would be happy to help you regain control of your life.
Photo by Fons Heijnsbroek on Unsplash
George was driving on a motorway and feeling a tension creep into his body, as he noticed a fear starting to rise. As he gripped the steering wheel even more tightly, he felt as if a fog had descended into his mind, and the fear gradually took over. He stayed in his lane, tailing a slow-moving lorry to the next exit, thinking that this would be the last time he would ever drive on a motorway.
George is not a real person, but his experience is not as rare as you might think. There are many people out there who find their lives restricted because of anxiety and fear at the thought of driving on motorways and main roads.
A survey by Aviva in 2023 found that a surprising one-in-seven motorists report having anxiety that affects their driving. These motorists report physical symptoms such as rapid heartbeat, sweating, nausea, chest pains and difficulty breathing. The technical term for this problem is Vehophobia.
Note: If you have anxiety about driving that might affect the safety of yourself, passengers or other road users, the law requires you to inform the DVLA.
When someone is so anxious that they avoid driving on motorways or main roads, or maybe only drive on roads they are familiar with, this restricts what they can do in life. Among my hypnotherapy clients have been people who are too anxious to drive to visit their elderly relatives, who only travel on minor roads, and even those who can no longer drive to work without what seems like a major trauma.
Hypnotherapy engages their subconscious mind to enable it to gradually accept driving as something normal. In my experience, this does not happen overnight; it takes a few weeks of regular hypnotherapy sessions for the subconscious to become calmer about driving. Of course, there are people for whom hypnotherapy is inappropriate, and so there are other options, such as CBT.
Hypnotherapy works by engaging the subconscious, along with taking on tasks that each client chooses with the help of the hypnotherapist.
Imagine the difference it would make to someone’s life, once they are able to drive freely on any motorway and road in a state of relaxed alertness. For many, this can open up the possibilities of their once-restricted lives. It provides a sort of freedom from the restrictions imposed on them by their vehophobia. It opens up their world.
If you feel you need help in overcoming anxiety over driving, you can Contact Me and I will be glad to talk. I operate my hypnotherapy clinic in Fleet Hampshire as well as working online.
https://www.hypnotherapy-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/driving-anxiety-can-hypnotherapy-help
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Before I understood the power of hypnotherapy to regain control of my fears, I had all sorts of things that I was afraid of. I never had a fear of flying, but I had to get my wife to sort out spiders in the house, and the thought of speaking in public made my mouth dry up. Thankfully, that is now all gone.
When you step back and look at these fears, they are not rational. Flying is one of the safest forms of transport, spiders (at least in the UK) are not going to hurt you, and there is no way that speaking in public will kill you. We call these irrational fears Phobias.
Phobias are a learned response. Something that happened in the past or something that I learned from other people embedded these fears into my subconscious. It doesn’t matter what it was, and I never had to identify it. The only thing that concerned me was how it effected my life.
The main problem I had was the embarrassment. As a grown man, I was embarrassed to be scared of such little innocuous things. I tried to hide my fears and pretend they were not real – and that actually made the situation worse.
And so I put up with these fears until I discovered the power of hypnotherapy, and I started to understand that it is simply that my subconscious has learned something inappropriate. Hypnotherapy allowed me to get back to normal again.
Since becoming a hypnotherapist, I have had the privilege of helping may people with fears of public speaking, taking exams, wasps, lifts, driving on motorways, and, of course, flying. It is always a delight for me to see my clients simply calm down and return their lives to normal.
The questions you need to ask yourself are: Is my fear something I am prepared to live with for the rest of my life, or do I want to eliminate it? Is this something that really interferes with me living the life that I want to live? Is it worth the time and money to get rid of it?
If you really want to leave your fears all in the past, then check out https://timmaudehypnotherapy.co.uk/treatments/#phobias and fill in the contact form at the bottom of the page. I help people with fears and anxiety. I run my hypnotherapy clinic in Fleet, Hampshire and also see people online.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels
It is estimated that around 10 million people in the UK has a phobia, that is, more than one person in every seven. Some phobias are simple and some are complex. For some people a phobia is a slight annoyance; for others it dominates every aspect of their lives.
A phobia is an irrational fear of something. Someone with arachnophobia will feel an uncontrollable fear and anxiety when they see a spider. There is no rational reason for this fear; the spider is almost always harmless, but even so, the fear is real.
Some phobias are simple. The simple (albeit irrational) fear that comes over them when they see something: spiders, frogs, cows, birds, clowns, lightening and so on. Other phobias are to do with doing something – a fear of flying, having a vaccination, going to a hospital, talking on a phone, vomiting and so on. And then there are the more complex phobias such as fear of going to somewhere new, or fear of social occasions.
Almost anything can be the subject of phobias. Some unusual ones that have been recorded include a fear of belly buttons, string, mirrors and peanut butter (and almost anything you can think of).
When someone with a phobia encounters the object of their fear, they experience genuine fear – that is, the same fear that you would have if your life was in danger. It is usually a totally irrational fear, and so many phobics are often embarrassed by their reaction. It is embarrassing because it is irrational and because the people around them are not fearful.
Many people like to know where their phobia comes from. Knowing this helps them rationalise why they have the fear, and it helps them explain it to others.
Some phobias are picked up in childhood by the young developing brain as it learns by copying reactions from the parents. If one or both of the parents have a phobia of spiders, say, the child may well pick up on that fear (quite unconsciously) and develop a similar phobia themselves.
Other phobias are developed by a single incident. For example, if a child is by a pond looking at the frogs and falls in, then mother rushes over panicking and drags the child out, then the child picks up on the mother’s fear and associates it with the frog, and so develops a phobia of frogs.
Within the brain, fear is created by the fight-flight-freeze centre – the amygdala. The amygdala is a very primitive part of the brain. It is not clever and is incapable of working out what fears are rational and what are not. Nor is it capable of coming up with a different reaction. All the amygdala does is check what it did last time it the person encountered a spider / frog / needle etc and to repeat it.
The amygdala’s fear response overrides the rational response. The thinking part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) finds it upsetting that it experiences fear when logically there is nothing to fear – and in some people, the prefrontal cortex starts to make up stories to rationalise the fear, even though the story may also be nonsense. For example, someone with a fear of birds could start to believe that the birds are plotting against them.
Like all mental health issues, a phobia is only a problem if it’s a problem. Many phobics live quite normal lives except for an occasional hit of anxiety when they see the object of their fear. If this does not happen often; if they can live with it, then it’s not a problem.
If it’s a small problem, then you could just wait and see if you grow out of it. Older people are less likely to have phobias, telling us that a lot of people with phobias when they were young grew out of them.
If you have a phobia that really effects your life badly (and believe me, some phobias can be devastating), then you should consider therapy. Two common forms of therapy that treat phobias are Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CPD) and Hypnotherapy.
Phobias are quite fixable, and you can get treatment that will lead to the fear going away completely or at least reducing by a point where it become tolerable.
The CPD treatment of a phobia is likely to include gradual exposure to the object of fear. For example, the arachnophobic may first be shown a picture of a spider from a long way off for a brief second. Once they can tolerate that, the picture will be shown for longer and a bit nearer. Once that is tolerated, they move on to watching a video of a spider, and so on. Each time getting closer to being able to tolerate a real live spider in close proximity.
In a hypnotherapy treatment of phobias, the hypnotherapist will spend some time just talking to you – getting to know you and allowing you to get used to them. They may ask you to talk about your phobia, but don’t be surprised if they discuss other things too. Then they will lead you into a relaxing trance and ask you to imagine things. They will ask you to imagine some fantasy – some might say farcical – events involving the object of your fear, in a way that is calm and relaxed – even comical.
If you have a phobia that is dominating your life and you want help dealing with it, you might like to consider contacting me. My hypnotherapy clinic is in Fleet in Hampshire.
Photo by Ayo Ogunseinde on Unsplash