Banish That Phobia Now!

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Patricia_A_McBride]Patricia A McBride
Emotional Resilience is a big issue for business at the moment because having the feeling of emotional strength and the ability to bounce back from setbacks is obviously an important ability at work as well as at home.
One such setback is developing a phobia. It is estimated that as many as 20% of the population have a phobia which can be defined as an irrational fear. Part of my role is as a hypnotherapist and I regularly see clients with phobias and, believe me, they know their fears are irrational. They always say 'I know this is stupid but...' and my reply is always 'actually it's not stupid'. It's thought that phobias happen when the brain perceives a threat and attempts to protect us from that threat. It sets up a pathway that says 'Recognise this (plane/bridge/ spider/whatever) as a threat and avoid it at all costs'. Unfortunately the protective mechanism is too strong so that instead of a practical cautiousness, a phobia is born.
It sometimes happens that phobic people can't identify the reason for their phobia, perhaps because they've had it so long the memory is lost. Others have clear explanations - 'I'm phobic about flying because I was on a plane where there was really terrible turbulence and I thought I was going to die.'
People can be phobic about anything, even apparently irrational things such as buttons. This type of phobia could happen, perhaps, because a loud noise made the person jump just as they were looking at a button and there brain added two and two and made five. But we have to represent that phobic fear to ourselves in some way. Some people see a picture in their mind of a plane crashing, or a bird flying very close to them, or themselves in a car crash or whatever their phobic topic is. Others sense their phobia by a crippling sense of fear. Yet others 'hear' something - the flapping of a bird's wings, a sudden loud noise, a car horn.
My job as a hypnotherapist who also uses neuro linguistic programming is to change the way the person experiences their phobia and thus neutralise it. We start a session by fully exploring how they 'do' their phobia and then we set to work to eliminate it. This might involve them changing the picture for example, making it smaller, moving it, turning it upside down, having it blow away. Or it may be that we need to change a sound, make it quieten down, or sound completely different. Or we may even change the feeling the person experiences when they see or think of their phobic object to a feeling of calm or enthusiasm or whatever feeling they would like instead of the fear response.
There are a wide range of techniques to achieve these altered states of awareness of the phobic response and the trick is to find the technique that works best for the person concerned. What I love so much about working with phobias is that they are usually so quick to fix. Often one session of 1.5 hours is all that's needed. Although one person who had a flying phobia did come back for a second session because 'I'm worried that I'm not worried about flying'! We worked on that and she flew to Australia happily and has recommended several people see me since.
Patricia McBride
Product Director
Cerentas Ltd, Specialists in Employee Wellbeing http://www.cerentas.co.uk
 [mailto:info@cerentas.co.uk]info@cerentas.co.uk
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Banish-That-Phobia-Now!&id=6562390] Banish That Phobia Now!