“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.