What is a phobia?
A phobia is an intense and incapacitating fear connected to an object, place, situation, emotion, or creature.
Phobias go beyond regular fears. They are an anxiety disorder where someone has an exaggerated or irrational perception of danger associated with a specific situation or object. This triggers extreme fear or anxiety.
Specific or simple phobias involve an intense, irrational fear of specific objects or situations, often emerging in childhood or adolescence after traumatic experiences.
Examples include animal phobias like dogs, spiders or snakes, environmental phobias such as heights or germs, situational phobias like dental visits or flying, and bodily phobias related to blood, vomit or injections. Severity varies, and avoidance behaviours can disrupt daily life. Over time, these fears may naturally decrease with age.
Complex phobias generally present a higher level of disability compared to simple phobias, typically emerging in adulthood. They are often associated with deep-rooted fears or anxieties about specific situations or circumstances. Agoraphobia, social phobia, fear of driving and fear of vomiting are among the most common. Most phobias can be treated very successfully, including through hypnotherapy.
Phobias impact 10 million individuals in the UK, cutting across age, gender, and social backgrounds
Fear of heights is the most common phobia - more than 1 in 5 Britons say they suffer from acrophobia
Up to 10% of children and young people have a specific phobia that can significantly affect their daily functioning
What causes fears and phobias?
The development of a phobia often lacks a clear, identifiable cause and there can be various contributing factors.
Phobias often stem from past incidents or traumas, shaping individual experiences uniquely. Specific phobias can often be linked to childhood experiences like turbulent flights or scary encounters with dogs. Parental anxiety can impact children, causing them to adopt similar phobias.
Learned responses play a crucial role and emotional reactions to panic or fear are key contributors. A strong reaction can make anxiety worse, especially when others react strongly too. Children may adopt specific phobias from a parent or older sibling. Genetic factors also play a role, with some people being more vulnerable to developing a phobia.
Long-term stress may cause anxiety and depression, which weakens someone’s coping abilities. This chronic stress can evolve into a phobia, intensifying the fear associated with specific situations.
The impact of living with a fear or phobia
Fears and phobias can significantly impact your life. They can affect you physically and emotionally in the moment, as well as having long-term physical and psychological effects.
Emotional reaction
Your fear or phobia may overwhelm you emotionally, making you feel upset or out of control. You may know that there is no rational reason to be afraid yet still be unable to control your reaction. This is often the case for people with phobias. You might feel embarrassed about your phobia and how you react. This might have made you reluctant to tell other people about it or to seek help and support.
Fight or flight
Confronting a fear or phobia can trigger the body’s fight or flight response. This is part of our bodies’ natural survival tactic, preparing us for something we see as a threat. It floods the body with adrenaline, which makes you feel highly alert or ‘on edge’. You may start sweating or feel your heart rate increasing.
Physical reaction
Physical feelings can vary from person to person. Attempting to face your fear or just thinking about a phobia can cause trembling, a dry mouth, dizziness, nausea, chest pain or shortness of breath. Your phobia may trigger panic attacks.
In the long term, living with a fear or phobia has been shown to weaken your immune system. This has the potential to cause cardiovascular damage, gastrointestinal issues and decreased fertility.
Psychological impact
Fear disrupts the brain’s processes responsible for regulating emotions. This can impact your ability to interpret non-verbal cues, reflect before acting or make ethical decisions. This in turn affects your thinking and decision-making. You are more susceptible to intense emotions and impulsive reactions, ultimately leaving you unable to act appropriately.
Chronic fear also impairs your ability to form long-term memories and damages specific brain regions. This can leave you in a perpetual state of anxiety, with the world appearing threatening and your memories reinforcing that perception.
Impact on daily activities
You may avoid situations that risk you coming into contact with the cause of your fear or phobia. You may stop doing certain things or going to specific places. This can have a huge impact on your day-to-day life. For instance, someone with a fear of dogs may avoid taking their children to a park in case someone is walking a dog nearby.
Phobias may make it challenging to do ordinary things, like going shopping. It could impact your ability to do your job well. It might significantly affect your performance, productivity and overall well being. This can cause you additional worries. In the long-term, all of these effects can make you feel isolated, lonely and depressed.
How can it be managed?
Understanding that each phobia is different requires a mindful approach to self-help, as there is no universal solution. You can craft your personalised self-help strategy or seek guidance from a mental health specialist like a psychologist.
Consider embracing a mindful self-help programme with the below techniques.
Lifestyle harmony
Regular exercise, nourishing meals, sufficient sleep, and reducing stimulants can help to alleviate symptoms like panic attacks.
Solution-focused hypnotherapy
Engage in a mindful journey through solution-focused hypnotherapy for phobias, exploring and modifying thought patterns and behaviours related to the phobia.
Mindful connection
Join self-help groups to connect with others facing similar experiences. Share mindful coping strategies in a supportive environment.
Gentle exposure therapy
Embrace exposure therapy, allowing a gradual and mindful confrontation of the fear associated with the phobia.
Holistic mindfulness
Opt for a holistic approach by combining various mindful techniques based on individual needs.
Other techniques include relaxation exercises, visualisation methods, and combining mindfulness with relaxation and breathing exercises. These techniques can help you imagine successful coping strategies for anxiety-inducing situations.
Approaching these practices mindfully fosters a compassionate and individualised journey toward managing and transcending phobias, emphasising a holistic approach to overall well being.
How can hypnotherapy help?
Reducing the impact of a fear or phobia requires proactive strategies. With hypnotherapy for phobias and fear, we recognise how phobias can affect your body, mind, work and overall well being. This helps us to emphasise the importance of addressing and overcoming these fears and phobias.
Phobias rooted in the subconscious challenge our rational assurances that everyday situations pose no genuine threat. Despite our efforts to reassure ourselves, our minds and bodies instinctively react with fear. Hypnotherapy for phobias aims to communicate with the subconscious, reshaping emotional and behavioural responses tied to the phobia.
The process involves inducing a deeply relaxed, hypnotic state, with your hypnotherapist guiding you while ensuring you maintain control. Your therapist uses techniques that gently adjust your response. This often includes a gradual and serene exposure to your phobia.
The goal is to reconfigure your subconscious associations. This will lead you to a more positive outlook and transform your relationship with the phobia.
Our Fears & Phobias Specialists
Benn Baker-Pollard
Sittingbourne
Carmen Harrington
Market Harborough
Caroline Prout
Thrapston
Chris Johannes
Spalding
Claire Noyelle
Maidstone East
Dawn Ibbetson
Chelmsford
Emma Bancroft
Rainham, Kent
Gary Johannes
Peterborough
Jill Whitehouse
Newcastle upon Tyne
Keeley Smith
Southend-on-Sea
Kerry Seymour
Weston-super-Mare
Peter Ely
Islington
Victoria Anderson
Sunderland
Why Choose Inspired To Change
Our solution focused hypnotherapists empower you to better understand your brain, helping to guide you towards solutions and achieve the outcomes you want. We have a team of fully trained hypnotherapists, giving you the choice of who to work with and how you want to work with them. Solution focused hypnotherapy is just as effective in-person or online in the comfort of your own home, so you can find the ideal therapist to help you reach your goals.
Every one of our hypnotherapists is recognised by governing bodies like the National Council for Hypnotherapy, the UK’s leading not-for-profit hypnotherapy professional association. They have all trained with Clifton Practice Hypnotherapy Training, one of the leading hypnotherapy schools in the UK.
