Often when I see clients suffering with a particular fear or phobia they tend to be embarrassed and think that they are the only one with this fear, that they aren’t normal, and they wonder how can everyone else be ok with a situation that brings them terror.
The truth, however, is far from that. Many people suffer with fears and phobias. Fear is a normal, and vital response, that has ensured our survival over many thousands of years. However, it can develop into a phobia, or an abnormally extreme response, for certain people. So let’s understand what fear and phobias are.
What is Fear?
We have 2 main areas of the brain that do very different things.
The “intellectual” part of the brain, generally the outer layers of the brain, for example the cortex, deals with rational thinking, decision making, intelligence, language, memory, etc.
The “emotional / primitive” brain, generally deeper within the brain, such as the hippocampus, thalamus, amygdala, etc, deals with, amongst other things, emotions and behaviour, and oversees the flight, fight, freeze response.
When faced with “danger” our fear response is triggered by the emotional part of the brain. It sets us on alert. This is a good thing. Normally, the “danger” is then assessed and determined as no real threat by our intellectual brain.
However, if our stress or fear levels continue to increase then it gets to a point where the intellectual side is blocked as the amygdala takes over. Its sole objective is to protect us from danger. It becomes a matter of survival, triggering the flight/fight/freeze response and ignoring any attempt to rationalise the fear. This is the case even when we are not in actual physical danger. The primitive brain cannot distinguish between these, so we are consumed by irrational fear and we act accordingly.
Fear is a good thing when it is in proportion. It could save our lives. However, when it is not in proportion then our reaction is out of proportion to any actual danger.
We see certain things as dangerous due to our prehistoric history. In primitive times things like being out in the open could expose us to predators, spiders could be poisonous and deadly, dogs could attack us as prey, being in an enclosed space could leave us trapped and vulnerable.
In modern society we have learnt that these things are not so dangerous for us, but some of us are more naturally predisposed towards reacting to these things out of proportion. This may be due to genetics, or to experiences in our past. Past experiences do not need to have been experienced directly even, it may be we witnessed a situation where someone else was for example bitten by a dog, or we see a plane crash on TV. Our genetic predisposition may then exacerbate how materially we react to these threats. Hence a phobia is formed.
If our primitive response to a situation means we survived it the emotional side of the brain does not think in terms of how we felt during the experience (awful) it only recognises that that behaviour meant we successfully survived the experience. It decides to use the same reaction for future instances as it was successful previously. It does not recognise that that behaviour is distressing, stressful, emotionally negative, or hard to deal with.
Negative thinking is great when we are in actual danger. It allows us to see the downsides, and prepare ourselves against them. However, it creates stress. In modern life if we perpetually think in negative terms we don’t turn down our stress levels. Our stress builds up and starts to overwhelm us, causing the flight/fight/freeze response.
What is a Phobia?
A phobia is an intense fear that is out of proportion to the real danger of the object that causes it. It is an extreme response to ordinary conditioning. Ordinary conditioning is what is inbuilt in us, conditioned by genetics and history. Most prominent are phobias of animals/insects, open spaces, crowds, closed spaces, heights, illness and storms. Most fears or phobias can be boiled down to these things. That said we also recognise that it is unlikely that these things are a threat to us in most situations and we don’t then develop an irrational fear or phobia.
A phobia develops either due to exposure to trauma, or to a person’s natural disposition exacerbated by a sense of threat. They come about when an evolutionary prepared object (animal/open space/crowd etc) coincides roughly with danger (pain, fear of death, panic attack, etc). In effect, phobias are a rekindling of our dark, primordial fears.
About half of all cases of phobia are triggered by a traumatic event that is then associated with the object or situation that we develop a phobia about. We are exposed to a trauma in a situation which we might be naturally wary of, which then increases the reaction and fear to it.
For instance Person A is walking in the woods. They are confronted by a dog who appears on the path with blood and feathers around its mouth. Person A is horrified by the blood and develops a phobia of dogs. The dog has shown no aggression towards Person A, but the trauma of seeing a dog with it’s mouth covered in blood creates the phobia.
Phobias are deep rooted, they bypass logic and so logical argument does not dent them. More fundamental treatment is needed.
There are 2 successful treatments to phobias: desensitisation and flooding.
What is Desensitisation?
Desensitisation involves the person being exposed to the phobia whilst in a calm and relaxed state. It can be applied either on a sliding scale or as an immediate facing of the full fear dependent upon the level of fear experienced by the sufferer, and their ability or inclination on how they feel they can deal with facing it.
For example the fear of dogs might start with showing the sufferer a picture of a dog. If that goes ok then the next step might be to watch a video of dogs, so the dog becomes mobile. The next step might be to desensitise the sufferer to the thought of a dog being in the next room, then in the same room, and then sat on their lap, or next to them. It might take several sessions to achieve this position.
The purpose is that ultimately the person learns to associate feeling calm and relaxed in the phobic situation.
What is Flooding?
Flooding is where the person is put into the phobic situation and left there for several hours. This means that their fear fades during the experience and they become immune to the association of fear with the situation. For example putting the person into a room full of dogs for several hours.
Either way the approach is to foster an understanding that the worst won’t happen, to be in the place and see that there is nothing happening.
How can hypnotherapy help?
Hypnotherapy uses desensitisation through imagination and visualisation of the phobic event whilst in a calm and relaxed state. It helps to retrain the brain to react differently, to stop reacting in an overwhelmingly fearful way in order to survive it. Instead to react in a calm and relaxed way in order to survive it, thus teaching the “emotional” brain a new way to deal with the situation.
It is perfectly suited to dealing with phobias and providing successful treatment as it amplifies both the realness of the situation, as well as the feelings of calmness and relaxation. This creates a more powerfully positive experience than simply attempting to invoke the same state outside of hypnosis.
So if you are tired of being afraid of a particular situation or thing, if your phobia is materially affecting your life and happiness, then having help from a hypnotherapist could change all of that for the better. If you are interested in finding out more about how hypnotherapy can help with phobias then please contact me on 07577202702 or via the website contact page.