Phobias

A phobia is an intense irrational fear of either an object, animal, creature, situation or scenario. The phobia will

usually originate through having been exposed to a very traumatic experience, usually in childhood (but not

in all cases) which is then typically repressed. When the fear is at its maximum intensity ' imprinting ' takes place,

whereby the person experiencing the intense fear ' learns ' very quickly to feel afraid (conditioned response)

when exposed to that particular stimulus. Avoidance of the stimulus reinforces the fear even further.

There are three categories of phobias i.e. Specific - Social - Agoraphobia

Specific Phobias are characterised by the presence of a very specific stimulus as the trigger e.g. - cats, dogs,

birds, feathers, blood, spiders, flying, vomiting, swallowing, choking, lifts, enclosed spaces etc.

Social Phobia is typified by an inability to function 'normally' in a social situation i.e. unable to eat or drink in public

e.g. restaurants etc, fear of drawing attention to oneself in public, of being exposed in some way.

Agoraphobia is translated literally from the greek language as 'fear of the market place' and is by far the most

complex and involved of all the phobias. There is growing evidence to suggest that the secondary psychological

component of 'imprinting' is caused by an underlying physiological dysfunction in the sensory processing apparatus

of the brain whereby the panic is triggered initially by an overload of visual and auditory sensory stimuli e.g. crowds,

bright lights, loud noise. Typically, agoraphobics will suffer with vestibular apparatus problems (inner ear - balance)

and may also suffer with coordination problems which can be perceived as 'clumsiness'. Agoraphobics will

generally feel threatened or exposed when travelling away from what they consider to be a place of safety

(e.g. home).

Phobias respond very well to Hypnotherapy and treatment consists of decommissioning the conditioned response

(the intense 'fight or flight' symptoms). If you suffer with a phobia and would like some Professional help or advice

please e-mail.

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