Phobias and Hypnotherapy

All phobias, regardless of what they may be, are all caused by inner emotion. That is to say that a phobia is a “ symbolic representation of an internal subconscious anxiety." Phobias are a specific type of fear or anxiety that is triggered off when coming into contact with an external stimulus. In order for your mind to ‘ rationalise’ this anxiety,
it has to attach the anxiety onto a specific object or situation. Every
time a sufferer comes into contact with their specific stimulus, the anxiety will trigger and a phobic reaction occurs. It is therefore inevitable, that a sufferer will do absolutely ANYTHING to avoid a situation that contains this stimulus.

Where do phobias come from?

Phobias and hypnotherapy at Wirral Hypnotherapy Clinic near Chester and LIverpool

The cause of all phobias almost always stem from your early years. When we are growing up and are faced with experiences that create intense emotion, our relatively inexperienced mind efficiently ‘ bottles up ‘ this emotion and effectively stores it in the sub conscious.

A phobia can then develop as a warning to us, not to get into that situation again. The emotion simply tries to release itself, via an external stimulus, creating those dreaded phobic symptoms such as trembling, panic attacks, palpitations and intense anxiety. One has no conscious awareness of the emotions that are driving the phobia.

Why do I have my phobia if I can't remember being scared 'of that'?
This is because ALL phobias are a SYMBOLIC representation of your inner anxiety. For example, somebody who suffers with a flying phobia, but has never actually had a bad experience with flying, MUST be projecting an already existing emotion ( the ones that we have bottled up) on to a symbol, in this case, a plane. In actual fact what they are really fearing is a’ loss of control,’ which their mind very efficiently symbolises and projects onto the plane. Any situation or object that will trigger this feeling of ‘ being out of control ‘ will create a phobic reaction. This is true of all phobias.

Some common phobias:

Aviatopophobia ( a fear of flying)
Agoraphobia ( fear of open spaces)
Claustrophobia ( fear of enclosed spaces)
Odontophobia ( fear of the dentist)
Acrophobia ( fear of heights)
Emetophobia ( fear of being sick)
Scopophobia ( fear of being looked at / judged)
Arachnophobia ( fear of spiders)
Glossophobia ( fear of public speaking)

All of these phobias usually symbolise a situation where the person feels 'out of control'. Other very common phobias that I have treated include:

Emetophobia often affects more women than mean and is a fear of choking or gagging or a fear of being sick. The sufferer tends to be a bit obsessed about food and what they eat, catching germs etc. and associated fears included seeing someone else be sick, or catching an illness.

Social Anxiety (also known as Social Phobia) is where the person is afraid of being judged (by
someone else), or terrified of being put on the spot. Associated symptoms include a fear of public speaking, blushing, feeling hot and bothered, stuttering, stammering, shy bladder (in men). It is the most common phobia.

Coprophobia is surprisingly common and is a fear of anything related to shit/shitting, toilets, public toilets, being heard going to the toilet, feeling unclean or dirty generally. Symptoms/behaviours include:

• Finding it difficult to use a public loo
• Always searching for toilets and panicking if there isn't one around
• Being frightened of losing bowel control in public and messing oneself / pants
• Going to the loo many times before leaving the house - just in case
• Sometimes people use lots of medication such as Immodium to stop themselves going to the loo
• Sufferers often carry spare underwear - 'just in case'
• Worried about being judged / feeling dirty / being embarrassed
• Sufferers often have precise routines that they adhere to - and know the whereabouts of every toilet in their area

Why hypno-analysis is the MOST successful therapy for treating phobias

As phobias are caused by bottling up strong emotions, it stands to reason that in order to eliminate the phobia, these emotions must be released. Hypnotherapy and analysis is an effective therapy to help seek out these emotions and release them. We are simply removing the cause through hypnotherapy, therefore the phobia can disappear. * See Disclaimer

Sometimes other therapies are simply unable to gain access to these stored emotions and thus are only able to treat the symptom, not the cause. Analytical Therapy, works with the cause curing the underlying fear.* See Disclaimer

Please contact myself for a free initial consultation over the phone or face to face with one of our expert therapists who will advise you on the best way forward. No phobia is too silly to consult with.* See Disclaimer

Rest assured there will be a specific name for it.

See also hypno-analysis