Hypnotherapy in Bristol and Taunton for phobias
Phobias may be overwhelming, they may be life-long, they may even amount to a full-blown panic attack. Still, hypnotherapy is typically so effective that a small number of sessions can cure the phobia completely.
You too can join the many former sufferers who've sat in my hypnosis recliner laughing with amazement as, for the first time in their lives, they calmly and confidently hold in their hand a feather, a spider, a needle or whatever else they used to be so terrified of.
The word "phobia" covers different things.
"True simple phobias," the ones hypnosis works so quickly with, are overwhelmingly strong reactions to very specific stimuli (cats, feathers, spiders, driving, flying). While often devastating these can typically be cured in a small number of sessions with the aid of special hypnosis techniques and cognitive-behavioural self-help.
Other so-called phobias, for example agoraphobia, commitment phobia, social phobia, some types of fear of vomiting, are a different type of issue. They can of course still be helped by hypnotherapy to find the root cause, combined with hypnosis to re-programme the unconscious mind.
Phobias can be embarassasing and many people keep their phobic reaction secret. It may reassure you to know that phobias are very common - 1 in 10 of the population suffers. And simple phobias are typically very easily cured. If you are a sufferer, that may sound unbelieveable; but it is so.
It entirely possible to step right past such fears and leave them behind you as forgotten memories. If you are ready to be amazed by a new-found freedom, just give me a ring directly and make an appointment. 0845-3510604 / 0117-968-7307.
(First aid for phobias, fears and panics; list of phobias; and below on this page:what causes phobias?; have we evolved to be phobic?)
The following are almost always true simple phobias, cured by hypnosis in a small number of sessions:
Phobias often come on when you are a teenager. And unlike childhood fears, they mostly don't just vanish on their own in adult life.
Sufferers often assume that because the emotion in the phobia is so terrible, the cause of a phobia is some overwhelming major event in the past. They are afraid that hypnosis will bring up something terrible. In fact, some people are more afraid of curing the phobia than they are of having it, because of the fear the some terrible memory will arise. This is almost never the case.
In my experience the original event with simple phobias is often surprisingly trivial - a mildly unpleasant injection, a lift whose doors took a minute or so too long to open. Commonly people remember the causal event, but don't think that such a small thing can cause such a disabling fear. Well, it can.
The mind has a capacity to spiral these up into a major fear. Over the years, every time you think of, say, "lifts" then at the very back of the mind there's a tiny niggle that "Umm - lifts - can be a problem, lifts". And that grows and grows like pearl around a grain of sand until you have a full-blown phobia. Once you become consciously aware that you are beginning to get phobic, the fear spirals up even quicker.
In addition, we may actually have evolved to have some phobias (below on this page).
Of course, major traumas certainly do also cause phobias. If you are in a car accident as a child or as an adult, you may understandably be reluctant to drive. Here, phobia is another word for post-traumatic stress. But almost certainly, you will remember the event. The situation where hypnosis brings up a major painful hidden memory does occur, but it is very unlikely in the case of a simple phobia of a specific object, no matter how overwhelming the phobic reaction.
Indeed, there may even be no sensitising event whatever. For example, phobias can originate by imitation in childhood. If one of your parents was afraid of dogs, then you may well be too. Or you may have had the panic first, and the phobia afterwards - in other words, you may have had a random panic attack which happened to come on in, say, a lift, and from that you developed a specific phobia of lifts. This is one of the (simpler) ways that agoraphobia originates; a person has one panic attack, then another, and another, and becomes phobic of the place where each one happened. Eventually they become phobic of every place outside their home - sometimes, even outside their bedroom. [Return to the top]
We have probably evolved to be phobic of certain things. For example, many people in this country are afraid of spiders or snakes. But there are no dangerous spiders or snakes in the UK. And while a baby might have been terrified by a spider running on its face, most people have never even seen a snake outside a zoo. Most likely, we have evolved to be phobic about situations like heights or being trapped, and about animals like snakes and spiders.
Some ingenious research supports this.
Monkeys who have never seen a snake are not afraid of snakes. They view a snake in the cage with idle unconcern. But if you introduce a wild money, who is afraid of snakes, all of the other monkeys instantly and permanently become afraid of snakes. And the fear is very specific. In ingenious experiments, the caged monkeys were shown the the wild monkey on a TV screen. By camera magic, they were made to think that the wild monkey was showing fear not of a snake, but of a bird. Yet the monkeys did not become phobic of birds - but show a snake on the TV screen and again they become phobic. They have a built-in, hard-wired readiness to be afraid of snakes. Most likely, so do you and I.
You too can join the many former phobics who've sat in my recliner laughing with amazement as, for the first time in their lives, they calmly and confidently hold in their hand a feather, a spider, a needle, or whatever else they used to be afraid of. If you are ready to enjoy a new-found freedom, just give me a ring directly and make an appointment.
0845-3510604 / 0117-968-7307
Leave a message, and I'll call you back.
It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in themselves.
Carl Jung
To arrange an appointment, or for more information, ring and speak to me direct. Clinics for hypnotherapy & counselling in Clifton, Bristol, Avon BS9 1JE and in Taunton, Somerset, TA2 7BZ
0845 351 0604 / 0117-968-7307
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