Fears and Phobias

When I talk in this article and mention hypnosis I want to define hypnosis as bypassing the critical factor. In essence that’s what hypnosis does to communicate directly to the subconscious mind.

What is a fear and what is a phobia?

Fear is a distressing negative sensation induced by a perceived threat.

A phobia is defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding.

So a fear is just a small reaction that doesn't last long and a phobia can be debilitating and usually can be very disruptive to everyday life.

When we use the term therapy you would think there is a phd involved. I don’t want to discredit psychologists in any way shape or form they do have their place just as we have ours. The reality is we are not therapists.

We have clients and psychologists have patients. we are more personal and intimate.

Therapists have a long line of schooling to go through and in my personal opinion the phd that comes with that is not something of great value when it comes to great change.

Behavioral psychologists deal with what they learn from a text book. You were not born from a textbook so it would seem unreliable to me to think that everyone is a textbook case.

Just the same thing when it comes to self help books. The problems we face in our day to day life must be in a book somewhere i am sure.

I want to share an example for you I got from listening to Dr. Richard Bandler. He had a woman sent to him because she was afraid of gum chewing. She was going to a psychologist for many years trying to deal with the fear.

One thing we know about fears is they are learned behaviors. When we are born we have two known fears and we keep them for life. The fear of loud noises and the fear of falling.

When we hear a loud bang we immediately shut our eyes as a safety device. Its completely automatic.if you hold a baby and pretend to drop it you can see the fear in its face as it falls. When he stops falling he will start to laugh because its fun. This is why we love amusement parks so much. It gives us a thrill.

In the case of this woman with the gum chewing the hypnotist,Dr Bandler, took her back to when she learned the fear. It turns out she was three or four when she was skiing with her father.

They were on the chairlift about twenty feet from the ground. He was holding her over the edge so she had her eyes shut. She was afraid she was going to fall or be dropped. Just so happened he was also chewing snuff at the time.

So the fear she felt was attached to the gum chewing. Once she found this out the fear was completely rectified.

We don't have to do the math on how much 15 years of therapy can cost compared to the cost of one hypnosis session.

One of the biggest fears most people have now is the fear of public speaking. Its always nerve racking getting up on stage and talking to a bunch of strangers you don’t know about something you don't know about.

Where does this fear come from I wonder. You always get the same advise from everyone saying it will be OK. It doesn’t matter how many times they tell you the fear always wins.

The reason for this is because of that little thing in our heads called the critical factor. He is the all powerful one. No matter what someone says he will always have an opinion. And his opinion will always win out.

So how do you deal with this problem? We cannot remove the stage fright or help you imagine everyone in the audience naked. What we can do with hypnosis is giving you the feeling of success before it even happens.

What we do is give your subconscious mind the reward before you actually get it. it may seem like trickery and it is to some extent. The mind will, in fact, find a way to that desired outcome and do it smoothly and naturally without any conscious thought on your part.

Some of the other fears people have are the fear of flying or the fear of elevators. Not all fears are bad. Like the fear of spiders and snakes I think we can all live with.

Most spiders and snakes are probably not something we want to get too close to. However, sometimes even those fears can be a problem especially if they are hallucinated. This is a huge problem for anyone.

The fears I prefer to deal with are the fears which inhibit success or remove your personal freedom. For example, the fear of flying, escalators, elevators or even heights. A comedian once said,”I am not afraid of heights. I am afraid of widths. “

Some people jump fro m perfectly good airplanes. With no fear at all. Some people cant because of fear. With hypnosis we can remove the fear completely if you so desired.

Its pretty common sense to determine what fears are necessary and the ones you don't really need. That is what the consultation is for.

In conclusion, i want to just add, with hypnosis there is no fear.

The next article will be focused on hypnosis and its uses in the medical field.