Manage your Phobias

A phobia is an extreme and irrational fear of something or a situation. Phobias can cause significant distress and interfere with daily life. People with phobias often go to great lengths to avoid the object of their fear, which can impact their ability to function normally. Phobias can develop from a variety of factors, including genetics, traumatic experiences, learned behaviours, or a combination of these.

Types of Phobia

Specific (can be known as simple)

It seems very unfair that these types are labelled ‘simple’ phobias as they are nit simple to the person who is suffering from the phobia. It is a term used to differentiate them from ‘complex’ phobias.

Simple phobias centre around a particular object, animal, situation or activity. They often develop during childhood or adolescence and may become less severe as people get older.

Common examples of simple phobias include:

  • environmental phobias – such as heights, deep water

  • animal phobias – such as dogs, spiders, snakes or rodents

  • situational phobias – such as visiting the dentist or flying

  • bodily phobias – such as blood, vomit or having injections

  • sexual phobias – such as performance anxiety or the fear of getting a sexually transmitted infection

Complex Phobias

Complex phobias are more serious and include more life-limiting fears.

They usually develop during adulthood and are often associated with a deep-rooted fear or anxiety about a particular situation or circumstance.

There are a huge number of complex phobias, but the most common are:

  • agoraphobia

  • social phobia

The easiest way to determine if they are specific or complex is whether you think about them when the trigger is not there? Someone with a fear of vomiting may think about the problem all the time. When they travel, they may think? “Will someone feel ill”.

Dental Phobia

Having worked in dentistry for over 25 years, it continues to distress me to observe the prevalence of dental fear among individuals. According to statistics, 53% of individuals experience fear when it comes to visiting the dentist, and a concerning 17% choose to forgo dental visits despite suffering from toothaches is for this reason I decided to qualify as a hypnotherapist.

Dental phobia, also known as dentophobia or odontophobia, is an irrational fear or anxiety related to visiting the dentist or receiving dental treatment. This fear can be triggered by various factors, such as a negative past experience at the dentist, fear of pain or discomfort, fear of needles or injections, fear of losing control, or even just the sounds and smells associated with dental procedures.

 Sadly for some people, the fear is so intense that it prevents them from seeking necessary dental care, which can lead to serious oral health problems. Dental phobia can range from mild anxiety to severe panic attacks, and it can have a significant impact on a person's quality of life if left untreated.  

Hypnotherapy helps by addressing the dental phobia by targeting the underlying anxiety and fear associated with visiting the dentist or receiving dental treatment.

It induces a state of deep relaxation, which can help individuals with dental phobia feel more comfortable and calmer when faced with dental procedures. Hypnotherapy can help desensitise individuals to the triggers that provoke their dental phobia, such as the sights, sounds, and smells of the dental office. Hypnotherapy can work on restructuring negative thought patterns and beliefs related to dental treatment.

How can hypnotherapy help a Phobia?

Luckily most people respond well to phobia hypnotherapy, and it can take as little as 3 sessions

  • This session is dedicated to our relaxation hypnotherapy. Through solution-focused confidence hypnotherapy, we concentrate on solutions rather than dwelling on past problems. We will envision the life you desire creating a mental landscape of possibilities without these fears & phobias.

    For about 30 in minuets, you will experience deep relaxation, providing respite from incessant overthinking. It is like treating your brain to a massage! During relaxion your entire mind enters an ideal state to absorb the vison of your desired life without those fears and phobias.

  • This Technique was developed to help patients with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). When the brain encounters a traumatic event, the brain doesn’t process it correctly and the memory gets stuck. The event will then be moved from the short-term memory to the long-term memory.

    Then under hypnosis as its very relaxing and calm we ask our clients to visualise a huge screen where they are asked to watch themselves watching the screen. This is a dissociation technique where we then ask them to play the film forwards and backwards until they are dissociated with the traumatic event. This same technique can be used for phobias.

  • During this session we look at the positive future without that fear/phobia. We discuss the ideal outcome and create an ideal scenario.

    Under hypnosis, the mind can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality. It accepts our fairy tale ending as real and will therefore refer to it in the future. When they next encounter that old phobia the brain will remember the last memory pattern.