“CURING” PHOBIAS THROUGH HYPNOTHERAPY

Imagine you’re in your bedroom and you have turned the light off. You realise that you have forgotten to close the curtains as the moonlight is streaming through the window.

Then you freeze in absolute terror. What is the demon in the chair at the end of the bed ready to pounce on you? For an hour you keep very still so it won’t move toward you. You hardly dare to breathe. Another hour passes and you haven’t slept a wink.

Now you are becoming desperate. You can’t keep this up all night “something” will have to be done. With microscopic movements you move your hand towards the light switch on the cord of the bedside lamp. Painfully slow but the thing doesn’t respond to such slow motion.

You feel the switch and flood the room with light. There on the back of your chair is the jacket you put on it earlier and then completely forgot about in your terror.

A far fetched example? No, because it is possible to have phobias about absolutely anything and this applies to clothing too. While it is hard to understand if you don’t have the phobia for people who do it is all too real.

It is a basic principle of hypnotherapy that the therapist helps to deal with problems but does not cure them as such. The closest one can come to a cure is when dealing with phobias.

It is possible for phobias to disappear when treated appropriately but the note of caution is that the person has to be aware that it can return. The idea then is to give permanent techniques to deal with phobias rather than aiming for a “cure” as such.

Social phobia

Social phobia is a condition that goes beyond shyness as such. It can, at its most intense, completely immobilise a person so that they can’t speak, or they appear very cold and off-putting, or they can just refuse to put themselves into situations that most people would find quite normal to be in.

So, for example, they would never go to parties or even to places where there are crowds of people such as cinemas, sports grounds, evening classes, concerts, etc.

This has a very limiting effect on their life and causes feelings of isolation and loneliness.

In dealing with this through hypnosis it is necessary to use systematic desensitisation which is described below in relation to paruresis or “pee shyness”.

There are two levels at which I treat phobias. One is the verbal level and the other is the visual level.

The verbal level involves giving suggestions of increased calmness, relaxation and confidence in situations which are currently feared. Through repetition, usually through self hypnosis or the use of a tailored made tape, it is to get it deeper into the person’s mind that they can increasingly deal with situations and people in a more calm and relaxed way.

A typical suggestion would be:
“Always respond to anxiety and panic symptoms by approach rather than avoidance”.

At the visual level a technique called the New Behaviour Generator is used. Find out how hypnotherapy helps behavioural change. This is a simple technique of practising in one’s mind what one wants to do if one was doing the best possible in that situation.

This involves seeing the situation first as if directing a film. After practising then it is to step inside the image of oneself in one’s own mind and try to make it as real as possible and to see how far this has brought the feelings under control.

It is practised in different scenes and with different people until the feelings of control spread to more and more situations.

Shyness

In contrast to this it is quite normal to be shy. Shyness, when it is fairly mild, is even helpful as it makes a person pull back from a situation and assess it.

If the person is acting normally then he/she assesses how they should be themselves in the situation. If it is something that doesn’t suit them then they don’t get into it but if it is something that does suit them then they do get into it.

Shyness is not the same as introversion or low sociability. There are actually shy extroverts who perform well socially, but experience painful thoughts and feelings because they analyse too much afterwards how it went.

Likewise a loner may not be shy but prefer his/her own company to that of other people a lot of the time.

So people can be either shy and/or introverted, extroverted, shy introvert, shy extrovert or a loner.

A person who is totally pushy can be a real nuisance such as Colin, in the TV comedy, “The Fast Show”, which was popular some years ago.

Social phobia, shyness and systematic desensitisation

A lot of research has been done on shyness and one of the main researchers is Philip Zimbardo, a well known American psychologist.

He runs a shyness clinic in the USA and he has a website on shyness which gives information on his clinic and the appropriate treatment for those who are very shy as well as research information.

He recommends the classical method of systematic desensitisation for the problem. This involves the person working on their feared situations from the more manageable ones up to the most feared ones.

Paruresis (bashful bladder syndrome)

A problem, by example, to illustrate a form of social phobia, but of a special kind, is paruresis.

I base the following example on a number of people who have the problem which is also referred to as BBS (bashful bladder syndrome), pee phobia, pee shyness, etc.

It is the fear some men have of urinating in a public toilet. It seems to be much more of a male problem.

It is even possible to experience a blackout from holding on to the urine in the bladder to the point where it goes beyond just discomfort or even pain and that this leads to the phobia getting even worse.

Typically it is more of a problem in a crowded toilet but even an empty one can cause a problem as the person is afraid that someone could walk in.

Imagination is at work here because it is quite possible too that no one will walk in. This is not the point, however, as it is a question of attitude.

The thought is that it would be “awful” if someone did walk in and then “I can’t go to the toilet”.

It is clear that the problem is linked strongly with a lack of self-confidence and even, in some cases, low self-esteem.

In this case the first step should be to use hypnotherapy to bolster the person’s confidence and self-esteem.

Self-containment and personal space

A further problem is caused in some toilets where there are no dividers between bowls.

Related to this is the problem of proximity of another person peeing in the next bowl.

Of course some “normal” people may have a problem in the latter situation, especially if the other person has the disturbing habit of looking sideways as some of them do have.

It is a problem of “self-containment”.

It is for the person to be able to concentrate on what he/she is doing, preferably to the complete exclusion of everything else.

In that case the person would not feel self conscious.

The aim through hypnosis would be to get as close to complete self-containment as possible.

This means the person feels that their personal space is not being invaded.

Thus if the person can focus on what he/she is doing then the problem would probably disappear.

Again hypnosis is good for concentrating the mind so with practice, through a tape and self-hypnosis the problem can be more and more dealt with through “self-containment”.

Exposure and mental rehearsal

Ultimately the best treatment is for the person to expose themselves to the situations they have difficulty with.

When hypnosis is used then the person practices first in their imagination how they want to look, sound and feel in a particular situation.

After they have calmed and relaxed themselves, then, through self-hypnosis, they see themselves first as in a film, where they are talking and acting in the way they want to.

What they want and what they can see is happening in a dissociated state.

This means they are not involving their emotions and feelings in what they see.

They see things from the outside much as a film director would when taking scenes for a film.

The number of “takes” depends on what looks and sounds right and this is the same for the person who is practising in his/her mind.

The number of “takes” they need to get it exactly right is up to them.

When they feel reasonably satisfied with what they see then this makes it easier to feel confident when in the real situation.

So, whatever the person practices in their mind is then checked to see how it feels in their own mind and body.

This involves being in the situation in one’s mind so that the person is no longer dissociated but feels as if he/she is there.

This involves making the experience as vivid as possible in the person’s mind.

When the feelings have been reduced to a level that feels under the person’s control then it is necessary to practice in reality.

Putting things off until “the time is right” doesn’t work. It just delays dealing with the problem.

Normally though it is better to practice the things which are more manageable first and become even more comfortable with them.

One of my clients for paruresis was doing this with motorway station toilets, where it is possible to get practice with crowded and uncrowded toilets depending on the time of day one is there.

In addition, he found it easier to deal with the proximity problem as there are dividers between the toilets.

The range of phobias

Different phobias, in general, are treated in the same way and they are numerous.

They range from A to Z; from agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) to xenophobia/zenophobia (fear of any foreigners).

About 16% of the population is thought to have some form of phobia and the percentage could be higher than this.

Fear, anxiety and discomfort scale

Below shows the scale which the person uses for practice.

In the problem of paruresis a typical ten would be at a urinal with someone next to the person and there being no dividers between the toilets or a continuous trough arrangement.

A typical zero could be peeing while the person’s partner is there although in some severe cases the client needs the partner to be out of the room and out of hearing distance too.

Overcoming fear, anxiety, discomfort

Fear, anxiety or discomfort	Rating of fear, anxiety or discomfort	Rating of fear, anxiety or discomfort after treatment
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

Diary

A diary can be kept which records social anxiety, negative thoughts and emotions in situations in which shyness, blushing and / or social phobia occur.

Challenging and reducing the frequency of negative thoughts can be a very effective method.

Although coping statements may reduce social anxiety, nonetheless, they may interfere with attending to the social task at hand leading to insufficient concentration on the situation.

So it may be better to programme the coping statements into the subconscious mind so that they work more naturally rather than consciously.

Conclusion

Generally there are a number of ways of dealing with phobias and people have to find out what is suitable for them.

Each person is an individual, an experiment of one.

This means there is no overall method for everyone as unfortunate as this may sound.

It could be practising in the person’s imagination in a constructive way and in a reasonably calm, relaxed, confident way to see the feared situations working out as desired.

This has already been mentioned in relation to using hypnosis.

It could be simulated exposures in group sessions which involve practice with a sympathetic group where the others have the same problem.

This is called group therapy, as opposed to one to one therapy, and it is a much less expensive way of obtaining treatment.

For people who like to keep their problems confidential then one to one is a better form of therapy.

Increasingly another way to deal with phobias, especially social phobia, is through the Internet.

When it is done in this way the person is not seen.

One challenge of the Internet is that though it may give the person more courage to communicate, it doesn’t necessarily then lead to more confidence in seeing people face to face.

In real life the person must try out what they have practised in the above safe ways.

If rapport has been established first then that has to be very helpful.

Needless to say, like all things in life, it can lead to disappointment too.

Although an unusual phobia has been discussed in this chapter it is important to remember that there hundreds of different types of phobias so that it would be impossible to discuss even a small percentage of them.

They range from A to Z and some of them would seem very strange to someone who does not suffer from phobias at all.

Examples would be autophobia (fear of oneself), genuphobia (knees); pediophobia (children); atelophobia (fear of even a slight imperfection on the body such as a barely noticeable mark or spot on the face).

Whatever the fear though it is true that the only way ultimately to deal with it is to be exposed to the fear.

Avoidance leads to the imagination making it even worst.

Having said that it is still the case that treatment has to take into account what the person is ready to do.

If it is done too rapidly then it is quite possible for the person to go backwards in relation to the phobia rather than make progress.

Hypnosis has the advantage that it allows the person to practice in their own mind before going out there and doing it.

The same applies to the Internet that it does enable people to introduce themselves to each other without having initially to be face to face.

It should be mentioned too that there are organisations and websites which are devoted to giving information on and help with phobias.

Phobias
Anxiety UK:
http://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/
info@anxietyuk.org.uk
Anxiety Uk, Zion Community Resource Centre, 339 Stretford Road, Hulme, Manchester, M15 4ZY
03444 775 77