Top 10 Fears and Phobias, Hypnotherapy may be the answer.

In an article in May last year ABC Australia reported on the most common fears that people have.  They are:

1. Social Phobia – which is an anxiety disorder resulting in excessive self-consciousness in social situations.  Fear of being judged resulting in avoiding situations where it might occur e.g. attending a party, a meeting at work or eating in front of others.   This phobia affects 5% of the population.
2. Agoraphobia – usually described as a fear of open spaces but actually more complex.  It’s an anxiety disorder that can keep people housebound at worst or unable to lead a normal life due to the restrictions caused by avoiding specific places.
3. Acrophobia – fear of heights.  This affects some people so badly that escalators trigger vertigo.  Vertigo is different from the phobia itself, it is dizziness that develops as a result.  For others standing near a window in a tall building will cause their legs to buckle and their heads to spin.
4. Pteromerhanophobia  - fear of flying.  This fear is disproportionate to the risk however it is fed by the constant reporting of plane crashes and subsequent dramatisations.  Statistically you’re more likely to be struck lightning than to die in a plane crash.  That statistic isn’t enough to make the fear feel less real though.
5. Claustrophobia – fear of enclosed spaces.  This is often associated with the fear of flying because flying also involves enclosed spaces; it’s often described as a feeling of the walls closing in.
6. Entomphobia – fear of insects.   Some insects and spiders are potentially dangerous; however they will always be a fact of life as they are a crucial link in the food chain.
7. Ophidiophobia – fear of snakes.  This is a very common fear (as is fear of insects). 
8. Cynophobia  - fear of dogs.  This again is a common phobia.  This fear can often be entrenched by a bad experience e.g. having a dog bite or snap at you when young.
9. Astraphobia – fear of storms.  This phobia terrifies people all over the world although the fear is often in relation to the harmless thunder rather than the lightning which itself only has a remote chance of harming someone.
10. Trypanophobia – fear of needles.  This fear is often developed in young children and maintained throughout life.

These fears often have their roots in our ancient survival instincts, they’re from a time when we were more exposed and vulnerable to the elements of nature and so developed fears as a protection mechanism.

Some fears are created by a bad experience e.g. a dog bite, or a vaccination delivered carelessly, a cranky dentist.  These can result in what I describe as an emotional inflammation. It remains close to the surface of your awareness, sensitive to triggers.

It makes sense to take appropriate precautions in life e.g. to check your gardening gloves for spiders or  for a child not to not approach a dog without the owner’s consent and supervision or to not book to fly on an airline that has no service record!

However when fears control us and impact negatively on the quality of our lives, it’s time to do something about them. 

If you suffer from any fear of phobia Hypnotherapy offers a solution that can be delivered in much shorter time than other therapies.  Hypnotherapy for phobia or Hypnotherapy for fear provides a safe, secure experience that will enable you to re-frame your perception and manage your response so that the fight and flight response does not escalate to the extent that your logical thinking goes ‘offline’.  A circuit breaker is built in to prevent the feeling of panic taking over.

If you’re fear or phobia was originally triggered by a bad experience, Hypnotherapy utilises your imagination to reorganise your experience and inactivate emotions attached to things which may have occurred in the past.   The memory will be here but the current emotional impact will not, it will be viewed as a past experience rather than being accompanied by the feeling of impending doom that a fear or phobia represents. 

If your fear of phobia relates more to an over vigilant instinct rather than a specific event, this instinct can be re-calibrated to be more appropriate to the situation being faced.  This re-calibration allows for evidence and probability based thinking rather than the whirlpool of thoughts set in motion by fear.

Fear utilises your imagination to create the feelings of terror, your imagination is incredibly powerful to this end.  Hypnotherapy harnesses the power of your imagination and enables  it to be channelled in to more positive and constructive uses.

A good therapist will counsel you before Hypnotherapy to get a deeper understanding of your fear or phobia and how it is represented in your mind and how it impacts you   This is critical to a successful Hypnotherapy session.  This information is utilised to re-frame your understanding of what it is that is frightening you and provide you with the tools to overcome it. Everybody is unique, so skilled counselling is key to unlocking the secret ingredient that adds the particular flavour to your fear.  Standard one size fit all programs simply won’t work, having someone read you a standard script simply won’t resonate with your sub-conscious and the experiences that have moulded it.   That’s why seeking a properly trained therapist who will treat you as the individual that you are is essential to successful therapy.

As former US president Frankly D Roosevelt said “we have nothing to fear but fear itself”.  I believe we can be suitably cautious in order to keep ourselves safe from potential hazards but we don’t have to live in fear. 

If you’d like help in overcoming your Fear or Phobia give me a call on 0435 923 817.  Or contact me to arrange your appointment using this form
 
Georgina Mitchell is a trained Counsellor, Psychotherapist and Clinical Hypnotherapist located in Mentone, South East Melbourne.  Skype appointments are available.
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*results vary from person to person