Anxiety

Anxiety; if you have it, you know it. You weren't born with it, so a part of you knows how to be without it. If a part of you knows "this is not me", we can help you find release and relief. Given the right opportunity, the mind is very open to new and more comfortable ways of being.

Anxiety disorders are very common, affecting more than 13% of the adult population, and falling into five main types:

• Panic Disorder

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

• General Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

• Phobias (including Social Phobia, or Social Anxiety Disorder)

Anxiety can range from general feelings of anxiousness or nervousness, to a full-blown panic or anxiety attack, the symptoms of which can involve palpitations, feeling short of breath, tingling, feeling light.

Fears and Phobias

A fear is an unpleasant reaction we feel when confronted with real danger. It is an essential built-in 'fight or flight' instinct, which makes us prepare to either run away from that danger, or stick around and fight it out.

A phobia on the other hand, while still a very strong and unpleasant reaction, is an irrational fear which has been ‘symbolically attached’ to an object, or situation, which causes little or no real danger. There will usually be strong avoidance behaviour connected with the phobia, which will run alongside intense feelings of anxiety, loss of control and panic. Sometimes, confrontation with the phobia, can even lead to fainting, but this is usually only associated with blood, injury, or needle-type phobias.

What causes phobias?

Phobias can often be traced back to childhood, where the child experiences a real fear, but the mind manages to detach or repress the feeling of terror from the situation that caused it. This leaves the mind with a strong fear, and nothing to attach it to. Later in life this may result in the mind symbolically attaching this fear to a real object or situation that it does know about, be it a spider, an enclosed space or a lift. Subsequently, whenever the person comes into contact with the object or situation, they feel the fear that the subconscious mind has associated with it, resulting in a ‘phobia’.

Phobias can also develop after experiencing something. The initial sensitising event, or triggering incident, may vary from witnessing an accident, visiting the dentist or even just hearing about terrible disasters.

Furthermore, phobias can develop through a child modelling their behaviour on a role model (such as a parent) who has a phobia in their own right, and as a result, this can cause the child to become phobic as well. An example of this would be a child who became terrified of using an elevator, simply because a parent was frightened of them and acted in a terrified manner when using one. The child picks up on the parent's fear, absorbs and forms a learned behaviour pattern, and thus develops a conditioned response.

Social Phobia

One of the most common forms of anxiety is social anxiety, also known as social phobia. This is one of the most common phobias, manifesting either in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood and like other anxiety conditions, social phobias are often very responsive to hypnotherapy. Social phobia revolves around a fear of how others might see you, what they think of you, and feeling that whatever you are doing is getting noticed and judged. Social phobia can affect one’s ability to function in a range of situations such as a night out, going shopping, meeting people, functioning optimally at work, parties, or even a complete inability to use public toilets (shy bladder), as well as many other situations where people come into contact with others. 

The fear of speaking in public, or a work environment is a common, yet debilitating manifestation of a social phobia. We have worked with people from all walks of life to help them let go of their fears and enable them to express themselves naturally; from barristers to baristers, captains of industry to students. If you identify with any of this, don't be shy about doing something about it. We are very confident about being able to help you.

People who experience any kind of phobia may arrange their whole life to avoid the possibility where specific situations or interactions may occur. This stratergy may seem to be effective for some in the short term, but often, fears tend to generalise to embrace anything which (to the subconscious mind) is similar.

Hypnotherapy for Anxiety and Phobias

Working with people with anxiety and phobias is very rewarding. Using a combination of hypnotherapy, NLP and other reprocessing and desensitising techniques, relief is often swift and profound. Obviously everyone is different, and people experience and respond to their individual difficulties in unique ways. More often than not, a knowledge or understanding of the “initial sensitising event” is not required to experience relief from the symptoms.

Suprise yourself!

Hypnosis and hypnotherapy for anxiety, panic attacks and phobias can be very beneficial, and can give satisfying and lasting results. If you would like to discuss your particular situation and find out how we can help you, simply contact us for a confidential chat.