Lose your phobias with Hypnotherapy

Phobias

Flying worries you. Perhaps it makes you so nervous that you worry about it for weeks before the event, and you may even start to feel sick if you just think about it. Perhaps you're so anxious about driving through a tunnel you go miles out of your way to avoid it. If this sounds familiar you may have a phobia. A phobia is defined as something you will actively avoid. Clinical hypnotherapy can help.

A phobia is a persistent fear of an object or a situation. Sometimes this fear can begin to manifest from the fear of something that may have potential danger - flying, some spiders, driving - this can compound and give legitimate foundation to your phobia. With an acute phobia the accompanying fear is a strong desire to avoid what you fear and, in some cases, an inability to function at normal tasks in your job and in social settings.

Phobias can be debilitating. Usually once they have reached the point where you are conscious of them they may be having a marked affect on your life. You may avoid certain situations and cannot explain why you fear them so much.

You may logically know the situation does not warrant the fear but nevertheless experience extreme anxiety. Sometime phobias and panic attacks may present together.

Phobias are among several anxiety disorders, which also include panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obssessive-compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. More than 12 percent of the population experiences a phobia at some point in life

Signs & Symptoms

Treatment of phobias may help you reduce your fears and help you better manage the object or situation that makes you anxious. Specific phobias. These include a fear of enclosed spaces (claustrophobia); animals, particularly spiders, snakes or mice; heights (acrophobia); flying (pterygophobia); water (hydrophobia); storms; dentists; injections; tunnels; bridges; and not being able to get off public transportation quickly enough. There are many other specific phobias.

Social phobia. More than just shyness, social phobia involves a combination of excessive self-consciousness, a fear of public scrutiny or humiliation in common social situations, and a fear of negative evaluation by others.

Fear of open spaces (agoraphobia). Most people who have agoraphobia developed it after having one or more panic attacks. Agoraphobia is a fear of being on your own in a place, such as a mall or an elevator or a room full of people, with no easy means of escape if a panic attack should occur.

Having a phobia may produce the following signs and symptoms:

• •  A persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity or situation
• •  An immediate response of uncontrollable anxiety when exposed to the object of fear
• •  A compelling desire to avoid what you fear and taking unusual measures to stay away from what you fear An impaired ability to function at normal tasks because of the fear
• •  Often, the knowledge that these fears are out of proportion with the stimulus
• •  When facing the object of your phobia, an experience of panicky feelings, such as sweating, rapid heartbeat, avoidance behavior, difficulty breathing and intense anxiety
• •  In some cases, anxious feelings when merely anticipating an encounter with what you fear

Children may develop symptoms of specific phobia as young as age 5, especially phobias related to the natural environment - such as storms or animals - or to bodily injury. Social phobia and situational phobias, such as fear of heights or of closed-in spaces, typically appear by the mid-20s.

Causes

Much is still unknown about phobia causes. However, there may be a strong correlation between your phobias and the phobias of your parents. Children may learn phobias by observing a family member's phobic reaction to an object or a situation. An example of a common learned phobia may be the fear of snakes.

Brain chemicals, genetics and traumatic experiences also appear to influence the development of phobias.

Although some phobias are outgrown, they may become worse if they're not addressed.

How Hypnotherapy helps

As with panic attacks some therapeutic interventions are more suited to a condition than others. Hypnotherapy is also superb with phobias. You perspective may begin to shift in just a session or two. Usually after a few more sessions the phobia may begin to completely recede. Similar to panic attacks hypnotherapy can also support the patient through any underlying phobic causes. Clinical hypnotherapy is an excellent intervention - probably above all else - for this common complaint.

Clinical Hypnotherapy is a powerful, safe and fast tool in the right hands. Look at How Hypnotherapy Works for a jargon free explanation of this process.