Many people go through life with their life limited by a phobia. This may be something like a fear of flying which prevents them from going on a holiday. A person with the fear of butterflies can’t go walking in the summer, even though they may desperately want to. The person with a fear of choking would find it difficult to eat many different foods and going out to eat would be a real no-no. The person with the fear of other people breathing wouldn’t be able to use public transport, go to the theatre or cinema and even a school assembly could be too much to bear.
The good news for all phobia sufferers is that hypnotherapy is extremely successful at helping people to conquer their phobia and to start living the life they want to live. The even better news is that generally it is also a very simple process carried out over just two sessions, using a technique called ‘rewind and reframe’.
A phobia is basically caused by the survival part of your brain being triggered, incorrectly, by the thing you are phobic to. Coming into contact with your phobic trigger basically launches you into the fight or flight reaction and you feel the need to get away from there as soon as possible. This is often due to a bad experience in the past and the thought process surrounding this, that your brain has been unable to move on from.
Using the rewind technique whilst you are under a relaxed hypnosis, can help your brain distance itself from those traumatic memories and the memories of your phobic reactions to help you feel much less anxious.
Following a rewind session up with a reframe session, helps to teach your brain a new way of reacting to your old phobic trigger. So for example with a fear of flying, the reframe would use a powerful visualisation, under hypnosis, of you going to the airport and getting on a plane and enjoying the experience. You would see yourself arriving at your holiday destination calm, relaxed and in control – and this would become what your brain then expects to happen. So you can head off to the airport with confidence!
It may sound too simple and too good to be true, but it is well worth trying the rewind and reframe techniques to see if they can help you move on from a phobia which is restricting your life.