Imagine feeling calm and in control…
A phobia is defined as an excessive, unrelenting or unreasonable fear of a situation, activity, or thing that causes you to want to avoid it. We are born with just two natural fears – the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Any other phobias, fears or anxieties we might experience have been learned through either direct or indirect experience. Somewhere along the line, we have become ‘conditioned’ to respond in a certain way to a particular thing or situation.
Some of the most common phobias include fears of public speaking or other social situations (social phobia or social anxiety disorder) agoraphobia (fear of open spaces / going outside), claustrophobia (fear of closed-in spaces) and specific phobias (fear of particular things or situations such as snakes or lifts).
Other phobias include:) flying (aerophobia), blood, animals (zoophobia), commitment (commitment phobia), driving, spiders (arachnophobia), needles (aichmophobia), snakes (ophidiophobia), heights (acrophobia or altophobia), germs (mysophobia) and having dental work done (dentophobia) and clowns (coulrophobia. Fears of haunted houses, buttons, cotton wool, and feet are just a few of the less common fears/phobias that I have come across and may be considered weird or strange by some but can be just as debilitating as those phobias that are more common.
Phobias are extremely common. Sometimes they start in childhood for no apparent reason; sometimes they emerge after a traumatic event and sometimes they develop from an attempt to make sense of an unexpected and intense anxiety or panic attack (e.g. “I feel fearful, therefore I must be afraid of something”).
We understand that when a person has a phobia, it’s not their fault. It’s not something a person can just snap out of. However, without treatment, phobias can last many years and affect a person’s career, relationships and day-to-day life.It is certainly unfortunate, therefore, that more people do not seek help. Probably because many phobia sufferers find ways to avoid the situations of which they are phobic.
When the phobic person actually encounters, or even anticipates being in the presence of the feared object or situation, they experience immediate anxiety. The physical symptoms of anxiety may include a racing heart, shortness of breath, sweating, chest or abdominal discomfort, trembling, etc. and the emotional component involves an intense fear – of losing control, embarrassing oneself, or passing out.
Commonly the fight or flight response kicks in and people try to escape and then to avoid the feared situation wherever possible. This may be fairly easy if the feared object is rarely encountered (e.g. fear of snakes) and avoidance will not therefore restrict the person’s life very much. At other times (e.g. agoraphobia, social phobia) avoiding the feared situation limits their life severely. Escape and avoidance also make the feared object/situation more frightening.
Phobias can have varying degrees of severity – many people ignore low level phobias, but for other it can become debilitating and it is sensible to look for a solution.
Here at the Wisdom Room, we use a combination of Integrated Hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and the principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to help you overcome your phobia by simultaneously retraining both the conscious and unconscious parts of your mind. As a result you should be left feeling physically more relaxed, mentally calmer and altogether more confident to address whatever fear you may be facing.
Don’t be afraid to take the first step. Remember that facing your fear and making a change is the beginning of the path to wisdom and we are here to give you a helping hand.