Helping Fears / Phobias at 1066 Therapy
covering East Sussex, Battle, Hastings, Bexhill, Rye, Heathfield, Hailsham, Eastbourne, Crowborough, Brighton, Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge, Ashford and Kent.
I am often asked for help for all sorts of fears / phobias in my practice just outside of Battle, East Sussex. I have helped many people with these problems using appropriate therapy for the individual.
The two most common fears / phobias I am consulted for are social phobia/anxiety and emetophobia, the fear of sick. I am also consulted by people wanting help with many other fears / phobias. These include arachnophobia, fear of spiders; claustrophobia, fear of enclosed spaces; acrophobia, fear of heights; aerophobia, fear of flying, and many others.
What Causes Fears / Phobias?
Neuroscientific research over recent decades has found that strong fears / phobias have their origin in past experiences which have been overwhelmin and/or, distressing. These experiences dysregulate our nervous system. If we do not get appropriate help at the time to resolve the distress, our system stores the memories of the experiences ‘implicity’, (meaning without words). The events can then traumatise our system. A part of our brain called the limbic system stores the emotional memory of the events. As a result of having little or no support/help with the overwhelm/distress, our nervous system remains dysregulated – often for many years – until we resolve the emotional impact(s) of difficult events.
On occasion, the distressing event(s) may be directly connected to the object of our fear in some way. Most often they are not. For instance, I have yet to help somebody who has a fear of flying who had previously been involved in a life-threatening experience of flying. When there isn’t a direct connection, our system creates the fear / phobia as a ‘frame of reference’. A way of ‘making sense of’ the inner discomfort – that sense of ‘something bad about to happen’ – caused by our upset nervous system. However, most of us are not aware that we have any inner discomfort because the way we feel inside is our ‘normal’ and we will have felt like this for years.
Emotions are not contained
Importantly, if we have a phobia we will tend to lack the ability to contain and self-soothe our emotions – any emotions – so all of our emotions are BIG! For instance, we won’t just feel happy about….whatever….we will probably feel euphoric. We won’t just feel a bit irritated by an everyday setback to our plans, we could be raging. And we tend to experience a difficult situation (non-life theatening, which would ordinarily need a mild response of concern with a low level of adrenaline for us to get through), as high anxiety or even panic. This is because we have difficulty containing/soothing our emotions. This lack of ability to contain our emotions also has its origins in our very early experiences. On occasion, we may have the different issue of our system (relatively) ‘shutting down’ our emotions, although we will often experience anxiety/panic and anger. This (unconscious) behaviour also has its roots in our earliest experiences.
What about panic?
Intense feelings of panic are caused when we are fully ‘triggered’ into our survival response and we are flooded with survival hormones. As a result, our system goes into a fight / flight response when faced with, or anticipating, the object of our fear. Triggers are usually ‘sensory experiences’ (i.e. a sight, sound, smell, taste, action, or bodily sensation) in the present, which somehow remind the limbic system of the past unresolved event(s). In addition, triggers can be diverse, so it can be difficult to pinpoint them although we can work on this. It is fair to say that the vast majority of situations involving our phobias are not directly life-threatening. As a result, we don’t need a survival response. However once triggered, our limbic system will still ‘sound the alarm’ AS IF we are in danger now. We are vulnerable to all sorts of triggers until we properly resolve the emotional conflict or trauma .
Finally, a phobia may be specific where we fear a single object or situation, such as arachnophobia (fear of spiders) or aerophobia (fear of flying). Or a phobia may be more generalised. As a result, we may fear a range of situations, such as emetophobia (fear of vomiting) or claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces). Or perhaps sociophobia (which is broadly a fear of judgement/rejection).
Top Ten Fears / Phobias
The top ten fears and phobias are as follows:
- Arachnophobia ~ Fear of spiders
- Sociophobia ~ (broadly…) we fear judgement / rejection in many situations; social anxiety
- Aerophobia ~ Fear of flying
- Agoraphobia ~ Fear of open spaces
- Claustrophobia ~ Fear of enclosed spaces
- Acrophobia ~ Fear of heights
- Emetophobia ~ Fear of sick/vomit or being sick
- Carcinophobia ~ Fear of cancer
- Brontophobia ~ Fear of thunderstorms
- Necrophobia ~ Fear of death or the dead or dead things.
Typical behaviours
Over time, we tend to start arranging our lives to fit around our fears / phobias. We try to ‘accommodate’ them as far as possible. Subsequently, we may gradually limit our lifestyle to try to avoid situations which may ‘trigger’ our fear or phobia. This is because fears / phobias are basically ‘safety-seeking’ behaviours. We develop them because we feel unsafe internally (because of our upset nervous system). They will resolve once we have resolved the feelings / resolved the distressing event(s).
Therapy help
Some therapies, including Suggestion Hypnotherapy, fast phobia cures, CBT, NLP, EFT (tapping), may sometimes offer some relief by aiming for “symptom control”. This is usually achieved by the input of positive suggestions. Or by re-conditioning typical reactions, and by teaching people coping mechanisms. A good example of this are the courses people can take to overcome their fear of flying. All of these approaches are good news if they prove successful. The difficulty is, these methods don’t usually work with the underlying emotional conflict. As a result, any apparent success may only be temporary. In which case, the original phobia will return. Or the change may seem permanent but a different fear or phobia or anxiety-related problem can develop, usually within a matter of weeks. This is because we have not properly resolved the underlying emotional conflict, or the upset nervous system.
However, it is possible to resolve the underlying causes of fears and phobias permanently using appropriate therapy.
I offer different approaches to help resolve fears / phobias. The choice of which one to take depends on the individual, their circumstances, and their history.
Please browse my site for information on the various therapies / approaches that I practise.
Call or text me now on 07722783490 to book your free 30 minute initial consultation.
