phobia

Agoraphobia is a form of anxiety disorder. An agoraphobic may experience severe panic attacks during situations where they feel trapped, insecure, out of control, or too far from their personal comfort zone. During severe bouts of anxiety, the agoraphobic is confined to their home for long periods of time and they may even become bedbound.

Agoraphobics are often extremely sensitised to their own bodily sensations. For example, the exertion involved in climbing a flight of stairs may be the cause for a full blown panic attack, because it increases the heartbeat and breathing rate, which the agoraphobic interprets as the start of a panic attack instead of a normal fluctuation.

How can hypnotherapy help fear of agoraphobia?

	*Acrophobia* or Altophobia, a morbid and irrational fear of high places is very common. Sufferers can feel anxious at the thought of stepping on to even the first rung of a short ladder. The word originates from the Greek 'akron' meaning 'summit'. Acrophobia can be dangerous in certain situations, as sufferers can sometimes experience panic attacks and become too agitated to get themselves down safely. Some acrophobics also suffer from urges to throw themselves off high places, despite not being suicidal. How can hypnotherapy help fear of heights?

	Social Phobia is an intense feeling of fear, apprehension or worry regarding any or all social situations or public events. It is sometimes known as social trauma. It is also known as social anxiety disorder and is currently the third largest mental health care problem in the world. It is quite common / acceptable for a person have "butterflies" in their stomach or minor nerves before a date, party, or some other event that puts them on public display, but that usually does not prevent them from attending. A true social phobic is someone who has an overwhelming fear, which in extreme cases can keep the sufferer housebound and isolated for long periods of time. The phobic's fear is that of being judged which could subsequently lead to embarrassment in a social situation whether it be at work, school or any other social activity. Those sufferers who have specific social phobias may experience anxiety only in a certain situations such as in cases where they may have to speak at public, address a meeting etc. In extreme cases, social phobics may experience panic attacks. How can hypnotherapy help social phobia?

	Animal / Insect phobia With this type of phobia, there is sometimes a fear of the transmission of disease through the faeces or mucus from that particular animal. Phobics sense danger when danger doesn't exist. For example, there are 40,000 varieties of spider on this planet and only 30 venomous enough to kill a human being. Humans in the Western world are ignorant as to the important role the spider plays because of their isolation from them. In fact spiders eat mosquitoes (who incidentally are responsible either directly or indirectly for the death of more people on this planet than anything else!) - how many people have been to see me with a fear of mosquitos...NONE! How many people have a lion or bear phobia? As you can see, it is therefore NOT a logical process. Something in a person's subconscious learned at a very early age (perhaps from witnessing a parent's reaction to a spider for example) ensures that this particular behaviour continues throughout adulthood. How can hypnotherapy help fear of insects?

	Fear of flying In studies, it has been found that fear of flying is one of the most common phobias. It is said that up to 20% of the population experience anxiety whilst flying. I could tell you that flying is 30 times safer than other forms of travel - it would fall upon deaf ears as that isn't a statistic that would make someone with a fear of flying feel any better. In my experience, fear of flying is not a straight-forward phobia. It can involve the sufferer worrying about the plane crashing, claustrophobia, lack of control, fear of vomiting, fear of others vomiting, fear of wetting or messing yourself. The one reason that is predominant is the feeling of being out of control. If you are driving a car along a bumpy dirt track, you are thrown around more than in the most turbulent of flights BUT you are in control and you can slow down or speed up or even stop if you choose to do so. The reasons for this fear of lack of control lay in a person's childhood experiences. A particular (probably forgotten) incident which maybe has nothing to do with flying is still dominant in the person's subconscious and causes them great anguish when placed in any situation where they do not have full control. How can hypnotherapy help fear of flying?

	Fear of water How can hypnotherapy help fear of water?

	Claustrophobia How can hypnotherapy help claustrophobia?

	*Fear of Snakes* How can hypnotherapy help fear of snakes?

	*Fear of Needles* How can hypnotherapy help fear of needles?

	*Fear of Lifts* How can hypnotherapy help fear of lifts?

	Agoraphobia is a form of anxiety disorder. An agoraphobic may experience severe panic attacks during situations where they feel trapped, insecure, out of control, or too far from their personal comfort zone. During severe bouts of anxiety, the agoraphobic is confined to their home for long periods of time and they may even become bedbound. Agoraphobics are often extremely sensitised to their own bodily sensations. For example, the exertion involved in climbing a flight of stairs may be the cause for a full blown panic attack, because it increases the heartbeat and breathing rate, which the agoraphobic interprets as the start of a panic attack instead of a normal fluctuation. How can hypnotherapy help fear of agoraphobia?

	*Fear of Failure* How can hypnotherapy help fear of failure?

	*Fear of Pain* How can hypnotherapy help fear of pain?