Hypnotherapy & Regression Therapy
e-mail: barbara.burgess@rocketmail.com or call 01626 210330 for an appointment
Fears & Phobias
There are two types of fear. One of them serves a useful purpose - such as the fear of touching a hot pan; as a child, you would have learned that it might burn or hurt you if you touched it. The other type of fear is the excessive, irrational and persistent fear of an object or a situation. This type of fear persists in the subconscious mind where it remains stuck, this is phobia.
One of the most difficult aspects of these irrational fears is that others don’t take them seriously. In social situations you may blush, shake, tremble, sweat, and feel your heart race or your stomach turn. People are often unsympathetic and may tell you to snap out of it, pull yourself together or even laugh.
The Top Ten Phobias
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Arachnophobia – the fear of spiders, many are even scared of pictures of spiders.
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Social phobia – the fear of people & social situations - an extreme fear of being scrutinised by others, or humiliated by one’s own actions.
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Aerophobia – the fear of flying, often paired with claustrophobia or acrophobia.
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Agoraphobia – the fear of inescapable situations (often mistaken for a fear of open spaces), the resulting anxiety and panic attacks can easily become self-perpetuating. Extreme agoraphobes are often confined to their own homes, the only place they consider to be safe.
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Claustrophobia – the fear of confined spaces. Sufferers will stay well away from lifts, trains and tiny cupboards under the stairs. May cause panic attacks if escape is not possible.
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Acrophobia – the fear of heights (often confused with vertigo – which is a dizzy or spinning sensation and not necessarily caused by heights). Sufferers may have panic attacks and put themselves in genuine danger if they can’t get down.
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7.
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Emetophobia – the fear of vomit.
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8.
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Carcinophobia – the fear of cancer
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9.
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Brontophobia (or Astraphobia) – the fear of thunderstorms.
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10.
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Necrophobia – the fear of death, also connected with a fear of being buried alive, coffins and corpses.
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Sufferers will usually suffer four or more of these symptoms:
· Breathlessness
· Heart fluttering (palpitation)
· Chest pain or pressure (often mistaken for a heart attack)
· Sensations of suffocation or drowning
· Dizziness and vertigo
· Sensations of detachment from reality
· Tingling sensations in several parts of the body
· Hot or cold waves
· Sweating
· Dry mouth
· Fainting
· Trembling or shaking
· Fear of dying, losing control or becoming mad
An arachnophobe can become compulsively clean in their home, then they may start to avoid places where they may come across a spider (which is just about everywhere), they then start to have a fear of going out as they see spiders everywhere, they may also become scared of social situations because they have suffered a panic attack in public – so now the poor arachnaphobe is also agoraphobic, social phobic and may be well on the way to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and very likely Depression.
Hypnotherapy & Phobia
Since hypnosis is the most direct access to the subconscious mind, it can also serve as the perfect tool to disarm this irrational fear. The objective in hypnotherapy is to uncover the cause(s) and desensitise the client to the fear. In both situations, hypnotherapy can effectively treat the phobic response in a few sessions.
Phobias & Regression Therapy
The source of a phobia is not always clear. Although a fear of thunderstorms or rats may be learned from a parent and claustrophobia may be the result of being locked in a confined space, often the source is not known. It can go back to very early childhood or even be seemingly not connected – a spider phobia can have a connection with a black gloved hand.
Often when we use Regression to find the source of a phobia the subconscious can take us to a past life. A fear of being buried alive can take us to exactly that situation; a fear of fire can take us to being burnt to death in a previous life. In hypnosis we can transform these situations, by the psychodrama of escape from the situation and the forgiveness and understanding of the spiritual or Higher Consciousness.
Help is at hand. Find out how you can disarm that distressing feeling.
As you can see one phobia can be a symptom of another phobia, each one compounding the problem, these are the complex phobias. A simple phobia may be of dentists, spiders, rats or snakes, people usually deal with these phobias by avoiding the object or situation. Each time they suffer the symptoms, the chemicals released into the brain form a stronger synaptic connection, producing an even stronger emotional attachment for next time, but by avoiding the object the phobia is reinforced because they did not suffer from the symptoms. The subconscious has done its job of protecting you, even though the reason for the fear has been lost in the mists of time.
Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.
Arthur Somers Roche
Arthur Somers Roche