FEARS AND PHOBIAS
by Christine Hargan, BSc (Hons) Psychology
www.psychologicalsolutionsforme.com 
 

Do you, or anyone you know have a phobia? Email over details (via website) and the most unusual one will be treated free - providing you are happy for the treatment to be documented. Client confidentiality will of course be maintained.

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Lets face it, none of us has gone through life without the odd emotional knock or scrape, but for some people life has dealt some real blows, that have knocked their emotions off balance.

In my last article I talked about how memory works and how to improve it, this time we are going to talk about what happens when unresolved emotional events are stored.

So what is the difference between a fear and a phobia?
  • Fear could be described as apprehension that something awful is going to happen. Acute fear generally disappears when the stimuli is avoided or removed. Some fears are chronic and some are complex and have no specific cause.
     
  • A phobia could be described as an unusually intense fear of a certain situation or object. People sometimes suffer from an unusually intense fear in a number of situations.

Both fears and phobias can be monophobic - related to one item or multiphobic - related to a number of items.

One interesting thing about fears and phobias is that the trigger may not have happened to the sufferer. It may be a learned response, for example if a parent had an intense fear, they may pass it on to their child, after all small children observe and imitate. All a small child – or an animal needs is reinforcement / reward for the unwanted behaviour and it becomes set, until action is taken to desensitise the person.

Some fears are fairly logical, such as a fear of bees – the sufferer had probably been stung at some time and the reaction unintentionally reinforced, by the person providing comfort. The individual takes steps to avoid the insect, to avoid being stung in future. That’s nice and clear and obvious – except that the act of avoiding the insect the reaction usually attracts the creature, who is simply being nosy…. The sad thing is that people can go through their whole life being afraid of, something without getting the fear treated. Often with hypnotherapy, or neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) fears and phobias are quickly treated, - usually 3 or 4 sessions for a single phobia and the result of the desensitisation can be life changing - liberating.

A fear of water may result in the sufferer never crossing water – so that may be an inability to use a bridge, a boat, or ship, aircraft, learn to swim etc and resolving the fear positively liberating….. just think about the result of a medically based fear.

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If you’ve ever wondered the word phobia is Greek, that’s the ‘norm’ that most of the names follow, however, new names for phobias are being added all the time and it’s here that inconsistencies creep in because many of the new fears and phobias are being named by the medical profession who work in Latin.

While considering my approach to this article I flicked through my a-z of phobias and decided to incorporate one or two.

In my first week or so here, my partner took me on a drive to explore the countryside, whilst driving along the scenic route to Aguilas. I suffered a mild feeling of panic well actually, if you’ve ever travelled through the narrow, winding mountain roads, admiring the view, rounded a hairpin bend and met an articulated lorry with a slate cliff to one side and a sheer drop to the other you will appreciate my horror I’ll include (Dystychiphobia –accidents).– (Acrophobia - heights)-. (Aeroacrophobia- open high places). (Amaxophobia.- Riding in a car), (Hodophobia road travel), (Xenophobia – Foreigners or strangers), but would justify that by saying only when driving erratically. There was an eagle soaring to our right over the sheer drop, not sure whether s/he was adept at spotting potential accidents, or whether practiced at distracting drivers along that particular road, to facilitate a generous lunch - so I can add Ornithophobia (birds)

We eventually arrived in one piece and parked the car at the port, where I looked out on a choppy sea –(Thalassophobia). After a while we decided to walk (Stasibasiphobia) into the town visiting the fish (Ichthyophobia) market en-route. After exploring the town we decided to lunch at one of the bars along the sea front. The waitress arrived and we placed the order in Spanish (Xenoglossophobia-foreign languages)- and waited and waited (Macrophobia) for our tapas. While enjoying the sunny vista we watched the insects (Acarophobia or Insectophobia), pilfering their lunch and was even a little concerned about being stung (Cnidophobia) and was amused by the dogs (Cynophobia) and cats (Felinophobia, or Gatophobia) antics begging for food, I was a little surprised about the amount of alcohol (Methyphobia) being consumed. Our appetites and thirst being sated we decided after an amble back to the car to take the safer coastal route back past San Juan and Pulpi.
Anyway, I’m sure you get the picture, there is a phobia named after almost every situation you are likely to meet. Next time I’ll talk about approaches to treatment.
 

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Lets look at some different ways of treating fears and phobias.
Do nothing and hope it will go away on its own -. Simple… perhaps, and indeed if you have a mild fear that is not impacting upon your life, that is a real option….. How long have you been suffering from that phobia?
Another method of treatment is counselling, although most counsellors are excellent and highly skilled; resolving a phobia by sitting and talking about it is usually a lengthy process, because the client/counsellor partnership are dealing with the effects of the issues rather than resolving the cause. The client may be unable to find the cause of the original trauma because the human mind locks the origins of trauma away in order to protect the sufferer.
Other methods include Emotional Self Management (ESM) developed by two clinical psychologists and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) a shortened and simplified version. These are relatively new therapies, both work on acupressure points. Their developers claim that the layers of emotion surrounding an issue are unlocked, simply by tapping on accupressure points, and talking through a sequence of phrases accepting and forgiving yourself, rotating your eyes, humming tunes and counting. Other methods include faith healing, meditation and a number of associated therapies.

My favoured approach is with a combination of hypnotherapy and Neuro-linguistic Programming.

Hypnotherapy works with the unconscious mind - the part of the brain that contains all of the memories and motivations that makes you as an individual tick and is focussed on rapid results. The hypnotic state is one that you are familiar with it is simply a state of conscious relaxation. A good parallel is that of driving a familiar route arriving at your destination and not recalling the journey. When hypnotised your brain is in a state of active awareness and will only absorb suggestions that you agree with. You are aware of your surroundings, your companions and everything that is said to you.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming is the practice of understanding how people organise their thinking, feelings, language and behaviour in order to feel, think and learn, the way that they do.
• Neuro (neurological) - The way that individuals process data that is received through all of their senses.
• Linguistic - The meaning that we assign to each piece of data we receive. All of the sensations we experience sound, taste, smell, touch; the feelings we associate are individual, complex and varied, and form our conscious awareness.
• Programming - The behavioural response resulting from the data received and meanings derived from them.
All of my clients have appreciated the use of anchors, simply anchoring a feeling, it could be calmness, and/or confidence for someone suffering panic attacks, a feeling of being full and comfortable for a dieter, etc.
 

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In response to my request for unusual phobias I’m going to talk you through the treatment of a ‘client’ ‘C’ for short. ‘C’ is a healthy, outgoing normal young(ish) adult, in her late 20’s. I explained to her that most phobias take 3-4 sessions, depending upon the complexity of the phobia.
The first session (always gratis) was spent taking a thorough case history and building a rapport with the client. I like to provide a calm anchor early in the session with phobia clients because I know that they will need it when discussing the phobia, it also instils confidence in my ability to help them. So I ask them to go back into their memory and recall a time when they felt really calm and relaxed. When they have recalled the memory I ask them to tell me about it, using all their senses as if it were happening now I ask questions so I can help them bring back the feelings as strongly as if they were experiencing the memory here and now, and once it is maximised I press a finger to anchor the feeling into that finger, if they want to recall the feeling all they have to do is to press the anchor.

The case history was as follows and it was agreed to share the details of treatment in lieu of payment whilst I agreed to protect anonymity – the client also agreed to the content of the article:

‘C’ has had this fear for as long as she can remember it has worsened with age. Now at nearly 30 she is unable to touch a toilet cistern, other than to flush it.
‘C’ is able to use the loo if it has a low level cistern - close coupled is best and she dreads those with a flush pipe. The lid must be firmly in place – if ajar she’s unnerved, if the lid is off – unable to enter the room. High level cisterns are out and although white cisterns present less of a problem she’s still unable to use the loo. In desperation she’s been known to take her partner in with her!

An overflowing cistern (high or low) causes panic as does touching any of the pipework to or from the cistern. The worst combination would be a big black cistern hung high on the wall ‘with an overflow pipe stuck out the front like a nose’. ‘If it were overflowing into the pan you wouldn't see me for dust’.
The second session was spent regressing the patient back to the cause of the phobia, I like to do this through hypnosis, so they have an induction, are taken into a safe place in their mind, where they are returned if they have a panic episode during hypnosis, their calm anchor is reinforced, and I like to briefly scan through the Client’s lifetime a year at a time for the origins of the phobia, I simply count down from their present age to 0 and back up again asking them to raise a finger for any year that they have a memory that caused this problem – I like to be thorough and to ensure that multiple causes for the phobia are not missed. It’s frustrating for me (and distressing for the client) to discover that the issue was not quite resolved. ‘C’ took me back to the age of five. I thanked the client’s subconscious mind under hypnosis for helping me and I terminated the trance. I had a chat with her afterward and assured her that at the next session we would work together to resolve the cause of the fear so that it does not trouble them in the future.

Session 3 – I induced ‘C’ into hypnosis revisited her safe place, reinforced her calm anchor and asked her to go back in her memory to a time when they were five just before the upsetting incident happened. I always stress that they are watching their younger self on a video screen, as I’ve found that it minimises the client’s distress. It turned out that she was in reception class with the teacher and all of her peers, they had all spent quite some time hunting for the class hamster who had escaped. ‘C’ needed to visit the loo so off she skipped. I asked her to describe the loo – it had a high black cistern with an overflow pipe protruding ‘like a big nose’ and it had a long chain. I asked what happened next. When the toilet was flushed she found the hamster he had apparently drowned in the cistern and was flushed into the toilet pan. Her screams alerted teacher and the rest of the class. All of the class was upset apart from one boy who thought it was funny. The teacher comforted the children. There the scene ended. At the point in the video where she flushed the loo ‘C’ became a little distressed so I pressed her calm anchor. When she was calm again and ready to continue. I asked the child ‘C’ if she needed reassurance? She clearly did so I suggested to ‘C’ that the adult ‘C’ knew exactly what was needed to comfort her younger self. When she was ready we rewound the video and replayed it, with each time the video is played it gets faster as the effect it has lessens, this sequence was repeated 4 times until it was really fast. When she appeared ready I asked her to rewind the video and this time to step into the video as if she was there, but as an adult. This time nothing happened no anxiety, fear, butterflies, just a feeling of regret surrounding the whole incident. The next step was to go forward and picture herself – going to a toilet with a high cistern and to see what she feels. The effect was nothing. I thanked her subconscious mind for helping her to resolve the issue and brought her out of hypnosis. We chatted for a short while afterwards and I suggested that she may like to visit the loo? I’d moved the cistern cover slightly so it was on the skew…. She returned chuckling having readjusted it!
Comment from ‘C’ “I had no idea what caused the phobia, but am just so grateful for your help in resolving it. So quickly and painlessly too!
 
Christine Hargan, BSc (Hons) Psychology; Specialises in and treats the causes and effects of emotional disorders, confidence and addiction based issues with hypnotherapy, NLP and psychotherapy.