Phobia… Hypnotherapy
The DSM IV (Diagnostic & Statistical manual) has 3 categories of phobias:
- Agoraphobia – a fear of public places.
- Social phobias – a fear of potentially embarrassing social situations such as eating in public places or meeting people.
- Specific phobias – e.g. a fear of spiders (arachnophobias) or a fear of flying (aerophobia).
Causes are varied and may occur by conditioning (developing a fear from a parent or relative); an unpleasant event; the genetic inheritance of a tendency towards phobic personality traits.
A person who suffers from a specific phobia will experience extreme, illogical fear of a simple every day situation, or perhaps a harmless object or creature and not know why. The cause of this fear may have occurred due to a traumatic event; the person has been so upset that he or she creates a ‘defence’ response to the harmless situation or object, thus avoiding that experience again.
Some people believe that desensitization behaviour therapy is a good way of dealing with certain phobias – a situation is created in which the client is slowly and by stages brought into contact with their fear.
Hypnosis is a more gentle approach and allows the client to confront, reduce and clear their fear in their own way. At a later stage, suggestions can be used to encourage positive self-belief.
I would be happy to answer any queries concerning a phobic issue.