01-03-2015
A story of a woman Tony has helped to overcome her fear of spiders...
Recently, I helped a client overcome her fear of spiders. The mere sight of a spider, real or in a book or film, would send her running from the room in a panic. Her entire life had become structured around avoiding encountering spiders. This phobia was stopping her from enjoying a happy, healthy, fulfilled life.
People with phobias usually know that there's no real and specific danger to them, they may even feel embarrassed or silly for having their fear but they can't do anything about it. And this brings anxiety. It's easy to see how it can become one big vicious circle.
Phobias are not something you are born with. Most often they are consequence of a traumatic experience earlier in your life. The good news is that because such responses are a learned behaviour, they can be unlearned too.
To release my client from her fear of spiders I used a combination of the Rewind Technique and hypnosis.
The Rewind Technique is a non-intrusive, safe and highly effective psychological method for detraumatising people, which can also be used for removing phobias - such as insect phobias. Besides being safe, quick and painless, the technique has the advantage of being non-voyeuristic so intimate details do not have to be shared with the coach.
The structure of the technique and the language used is precisely designed to hold the person in a specific relationship to the traumatic memory so that it can be re-processed safely by the person’s mind. The technique won't erase the memory, but you'll be left with a more healthy relationship with it.
The technique involves asking the person to imagine they are watching themselves, watching another version of themselves sat in a movie theatre, watching the movie screen. On the screen they watch an old black and white film in which their younger self experiences the traumatic event that installed their phobia/trauma. The film always begins at a point before the traumatic event occurred and ends at a point at which the traumatic is over, and the person feels safe again.
So in my client’s case, she watched a film of the memory of the experience that led to her phobic response to spiders. Having watched the film through from the safe beginning to the safe end, she then imagined floating into her body at the safe end of the film, changing the film to colour and rapidly rewinding the movie to the safe beginning.
The client repeated this playing through and then rewinding of the film until the scenes in the film no longer evoked any negative emotion in her.
The client then experienced hypnosis, during which I asked her to imagine encountering spiders in future and to notice how this future her responded so calmly and rationally now that the fear had been removed.
And so, in just two hours my client had successfully overcome her irrational fear of spiders and her life was about to get a whole lot more enjoyable.
If you have a phobia or traumatic experience that is stopping you from enjoying a happy, healthy, fulfilled life then why not contact me today, to discuss how the Rewind Technique and hypnosis can free you from your fears and other negative emotions.
