Phobias can stem from a traumatic incident (often one forgotten by the conscious mind but still stored and causing ripples in the subconscious) as in the article here or it could be a learned behaviour that developed in response to watching someone else react with fear. This is very common in families, where a young child does not have the ability to rationalise about his or her parent’s response to a small insect or a bird, for example. On a survival level, it makes perfect sense to do this because when we are so young and know so little, we rely on those around us to alert us to dangers. The problem is that this gets over-generalised and the subconscious mind lays down the pattern: ‘insect = danger’.
Sometimes a phobia is really a combination of phobias, as in the article above. A fear of flying can be a combination of claustrophobia and vertigo, for example, and a fear of preparing and making presentations could arise from atychiphobia (fear of failure) and decidophobia (a fear of making decisions). In this case, it would make sense to work on each of the individual components before finally collapsing the entire fear.
Often the subconscious mind knows instinctively when it is appropriate to let go of ‘childish’ phobias and most children eventually move past things like a fear of the dark without much conscious effort. However, some phobias remain because they somehow serve a useful function. I knew a man once who developed an intense fear of lifts when he began working in a tall office block. Through hypnosis we discovered the extent of his loathing for his job and that the phobia had been an effort to get him to listen and realise how much he disliked travelling to his office every day (the subconscious mind can be very literal and persistent if it feels we are not getting our needs met!). We persuaded his subconscious mind that if it let go of this phobia, he would take steps to find a job he enjoyed. A few months later he found a job that he preferred and the phobia disappeared, its job done.
In my experience, phobias often get worse as people get older, unless they get help. This, I believe, is because we generally develop more generalised anxieties and these can attach themselves to an existing phobia, like iron filings to a magnet (if you recall that old physics lab experiment…).
I invariably help clients manage their anxiety levels first and it is a real pleasure to see how that alone can make a significant difference to a phobic response even before work on desensitisation – removing the emotional response to the trigger – and teaching new beneficial responses that can become a habit to replace the old phobic response habit. Hypnotherapy treatment of phobias is fast and effective and has the very pleasant side-effect, through the deep relaxation and self-managment tools, of developing a real ability to relax and enjoy life much more.
Just for fun, I have included a list of phobias here – see if you recognise any of them!
All the best,
Fiona
Tags: anxiety, fear, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, phobia
