Effective treatment for phobias (overcoming phobias)
at the Huddersfield and Manchester Hypnotherapy Clinic

Phobias are persistent, irrational fears of certain objects or situations. Phobias are generally divided into three types;

• Social Phobias.
• Specific Phobias.
• Generalised Phobias.

"Social Phobias" are based on a fear of embarrassment in a public setting and "Specific Phobias" are fears associated with a particular object or situation. To some phobics, these fears do not seem irrational and to others, although they know it's irrational, they cannot control themselves and prevent the feelings that the phobic stimulus creates in them. Details of these two types of phobias are given below.

Social Phobia (Social Anxiety)

Social phobia (also known as social anxiety) is based about fears of what might happen in public situations such as fearing humiliation and embarrassment. Symptoms that may be experienced by people who are socially phobic include;

• Stuttering and stammering.
• Blushing and sweating.
• Nervousness in public situations.
• Fear of public speaking (glossophobia).
• Worry about self image and how people "see you".
• Shy bladder (Paruresis).
• Performance anxieties around sex such as premature ejaculation and impotence.
• Shyness accompanied by anxiety.
• Hair pulling (trichotillomania).
• Feelings that other people are far more competent that you are.

This fear and feelings of anxiety are often based on feelings of inferiority and concerns about how the sufferer is seen by others. People suffering from social phobias find that normal life situation are hampered at best, and in the worse cases made unbearable. Common pleasurable activities like eating out, going to the cinema, and even going to work can become torture.

To make matters worse, sufferers may develop symptoms like stutters and stammers or blushing which will compound the existing fears of being judges and being embarrasses and/or humiliated in public. This can lead such a person to withdraw from society and life in general.

Specific Phobias

Specific phobias are when we experience high levels of anxiety in response to a specific object or situation. One of the most common specific phobias is spiders (arachnophobia), and yet in this country at least, spiders are tiny little harmless creatures that should logically cause us any fear at all.

Generalised Phobias

Generalised phobias are phobias that relate to a range of objects or situations. For example, people suffering from climacophobia will experience difficulties may find it very difficult (or find it impossible because of such high levels of fear) to climb stairs of any type, even find it impossible to ascend on anything that resembles stairs.

Phobias treated by Hypnotherapy include;

• Aichmophobia - the fear of needles/ pins/ pointed objects.
• Arachnophobia - the fear of spiders.
• Social phobia - the fear of embarrassment and humiliation in public places.
• Acrophobia - the fear of heights.
• Aerophobia (aviophobia, aviatophobia) - the fear of flying.
• Agoraphobia - fear of open spaces.
• Emetophobia - the fear of vomit/throwing up.
• Carcinophobia - the fear of cancer.
• Claustrophobia - the fear of enclosed spaces.
• Coprophobia - the fear of going to the toilet/ of faeces/ number 2's.
• Demophobia - the fear of crowds.
• Brontophobia - the fear thunder and lightening.
• Glossophobia - the fear of public speaking.
• Hydrophobia - the fear of water.
• Necrophobia - the fear of death or dead things.
• Dentophobia - the fear of going to the dentists.

As phobias can develop in response to any object or situation, there are many that are known and now recognised. View our alphabetical list of all known phobias.

All phobias have anxiety at their root

People who suffer from a phobia, or phobias, share a great deal in common with other people who are phobic, not in the stimulus that creates this fear, but in the actual feelings of the panic and fear. These feelings of panic and fear that are experienced by people varies from person to person. Some people will have full blown panic attacks and freeze with fear upon being presented with the phobic stimulus (such as a spider in Arachnophobia), whereas others will just strongly dislike spiders but may have the courage to slip it under a jar with a piece of paper and take it outside (or vacuum it up!).

Phobics also differ in how the stimulus creates the increase in anxiety. For example, some people who are scared of open spaces may well only be very fearful when they're in open spaces, whereas others may become highly anxious even if they think about open spaces.

Signs of being phobic when presented with an object or situation are;

• a feeling of anxiety that increases - which in turn makes us more anxious - creating a feedback loop of anxiety that becomes out of control.
  
• gasping for air/ shortness of breath/ hyperventilation.
• chest pain.
• light headedness.
• trembling and shaking.
  
• a feeling that the world is collapsing in on them.
  
• a feeling of being trapped with nowhere to go.
• an over stimulation of our nervous and hormonal systems which causes heightened levels of anxiety.
  
• increased or irregular heartbeat.
  
• sweating.
  
• a feeling of shear dread.
• a feeling of going crazy and losing control.
• tunnel vision.
• loss of cognitive abilities (being unable to listen)..
• loud internal dialogue.
• chills.
• exhaustion.

These symptoms are in fact exactly the same as what is known as a panic attack. Panic attacks, although being the same to what phobics experience, equate to being phobic but without a stimulus to be scared of.

In some ways, we create phobias to lessen the overall harshness of the feelings we experience when having a "panic attack", as we can attribute the feelings of this internal anxiety as "being scared of spiders", or "being scared of flying", it gives the unknown a sense of being known.

Effective treatment for phobias - overcoming phobias

At the Huddersfield and Manchester Hypnotherapy Clinic (UK) I am able to efficiently help you permanently overcome any phobias - indeed a fear of anything or any situation. Please contact me to arrange a free consultation with no obligation so that we can discuss your specific needs.