Arlene Thompson Clinical Hypnotherapist
HYPNOTHERAPY:
ITS USE IN TREATING FEARS & PHOBIAS
WHAT IS HYPNOSIS? Hypnosis is a method of total mind and body relaxation, which allows you greater access to your subconscious. The subconscious is like a vast computer that stores everything you’ve experienced in life, including your beliefs and thought patterns.
To change your life on any long-term or permanent basis (such as treating your fears and phobias), those beliefs and thought patterns in your subconscious have to be reprogrammed. The best way to do this is through hypnosis, when the subconscious is open to positive suggestions for change and growth.
THE CAUSES OF FEARS & PHOBIAS. Regardless of the specific stimulus that produces your fear, the majority of phobias are generated from one of the following causes:
- Your fear may be the product of accumulated stress. This stress may have eventually surfaced as irrational fear, possibly even in an unrelated (displaced) area.
- Your phobia may be the product of a fear of fear. You may believe that as you go over a certain threshold of stress, you will panic. By anticipating panic, you raise your stress level, and the fear of fear turns into a destructive cycle.
- Your fear may have been transmitted to you by another person, who was perhaps a role model for you.
- Your fear may be the result of a past trauma. An example would be claustrophobia caused by having been locked in a closet at any early age. Sometimes the original cause is remembered, or sometimes it is buried in the subconscious. In any case, hypnotherapy that uses an age regression can often be helpful in visualizing past events and severing your emotional ties with them.
HYPNOSIS CAN HELP! Regardless of the cause or type of your fear, hypnotherapy can help you to:
- Learn stress reduction and relaxation techniques.
- Increase your self-confidence, in order to deal with your fear from a stronger, more self-confident place.
- Confront your fear in a safe, non-threatening environment.
- Reprogram your subconscious, using positive post-hypnotic suggestions related to your specific fear. All habits, including the habit of fearful or phobic responses, respond well to hypnotherapy, since the cure requires new learning. Hypnotherapy allows the practice of the newly learned behavior through frequent repetition.
- Release false beliefs and negative thought patterns that may be contributing to your fear or panic.
So, allow me to help you empower yourself to make the changes you desire in your life!
A.T.