Phobia is a derivative of the Greek word “phobos”, meaning fear. It does seem however, to have two different definitions. Here are a couple of examples: a) an extremely intense and overwhelming sense of fear with regard to a specific stimulus or b) an intense dislike or hatred of something.

Here are a couple of examples: Arachnophobia is an intense fear of spiders. I know a few people that have this particular phobia and I find it quite disturbing to watch just how they react upon sighting one. This reaction can even present itself when they view a picture of one or see one on TV. It’s obvious that spiders cause them a great deal of discomfort.

Homophobia is a fear of homosexuals. Here we see a different interpretation of the word phobia. In this case it means an intense dislike or hatred toward homosexuals rather than an intense and overwhelming fear that would invoke terror in the heart of the homophobic.

So, what is the difference between a phobia and a fear? Most people have fears of one kind or another. Fears of: examinations, speaking in public, etc. etc. In fact, I have a fear of public speaking. A couple of times in my life, I’ve been asked to stand up in front of a crowded room and give a talk on a specific subject. As I recall, just prior to walking out onto the stage, my hands started to sweat, I felt anxious and my legs turned almost to jelly. These feelings are normal and, once I got out there and into my stride, I started to feel good and, as I did, the anxiety along with my sweaty hands and jelly legs disappeared. Now, if I had a phobia about speaking in public, then, wild horses wouldn’t have got me onto that stage in front of all those people.

How do I know this? Well, I was agoraphobic for twenty odd years and I have first-hand experience of what it feels like to have a phobia. To give a very brief definition, agoraphobia is a fear of panic attacks. Having experienced several panic episodes whilst travelling, I eventually gave up going outside altogether and became housebound.

Until quite recently, phobias were incurable. The only relief that could be offered was in the form of medication but, under normal circumstances, this would only be administered if the phobia were such that it restricted the sufferer’s life. However, nowadays there is a system that will allow a person to overcome their phobias and take back control of their life once more. I used this system to say goodbye to my panic attacks and agoraphobia for good.

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Different Types of Fears and Overcoming Them

As much as there are several potential triggers to your fear, there are also as many types of fears. However, they can be categorized into three basic fears: external, internal, or subconscious. Among the three, the subconscious and internal type of fear are most difficult to find treatment to because the person must take the initiative to recognize the source of fear and take necessary steps to overcome it. Recognizing the category in which your fears fit into will help you know how to deal with it.

External Fear

Among the types of fear, this one is the easiest to diagnose and manage. It is similar to phobias wherein an outside source elicit a degree of internal fear or any manageable level of anxiety. For example, fear of spiders or fear of heights are among the most common phobias that several people share. A feeling of fear, anxiety or discomfort is experienced by the person with that particular fear when the situation confronts them with those triggers. Since the source of fear is easier to identify, then one can easily look for alternative ways in which to confront that trigger and overcome fear.

Since external fears are often caused by negative experiences in the past involving those external sources of fears, you can adapt some techniques that will help you understand the reality of the situation. Hypnosis or some other psychological methods are employed in order to erase any previous negative associations with these objects or creatures that elicit fear.

Internal Fear

This type of fear is closely associated with low levels of self esteem or confidence. But like with external fear, the triggers are coming from an outside source and yet it produces a negative emotion. This trigger will then produce internal reactions or fears such as self doubt or questioning one's capability to do something. Most often, when people begin to question their own abilities, failure is inevitable. This type of fear often impacts one's ability to interact with the social environment.

If you want to conquer internal types of fear, you often have to go back at your childhood years wherein character development is at its peak. This is the stage in people's lives wherein they build characters and develop fears. Some people seek professional help that enables them to adapt a new perspective in life and change any behaviors that produce such insecurities and fears.

Subconscious Fear

This type of fear is produced by accepted beliefs in your mind that serve to limit your potentials and worse, could end up in self sabotage. This one is somewhat associated with the internal type of fear wherein you have the tendency to question your capacity to achieve something. Thus, the tendency for self doubt and negative self talk. This one requires you to take active steps towards reversing those beliefs and enable you to maximize your potential.

Goals to Overcome Your Fears

One of the many reasons why people neglect the need to overcome their fears is the lack of motivation. Therefore, setting goals will help increase the desire to manage and overcome your fears. Aside from that, this will enable you to take careful methods toward your goal and provide a sense of direction. One benefit you can get from it is that aside from getting rid of your fears, it offers more focused direction in your everyday living as opposed to not having a clear idea of what you want to do in life.

Setting goals as motivation to overcoming your fears will also enable you to have a bigger grasp at the need to fight your fears as an opportunity to grow and delimit yourself.

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Symptoms
Once the fear has been triggered the physical reaction can lead to a cycle of distress. The body responds to any naturally stressful situation by tensing up. This helps the person perform better. However if the reaction is misinterpreted and excessive this can lead to unnecessarily high levels of tension.

Although a sufferer may realise that the muscular pain and breathing difficulties they are experiencing are merely a response to stress if the bodily reaction is extreme enough it may give rise to a fear of the symptoms of phobia: a fear of the fear. Anticipation of this discomfort, the fear of chest pain or hyperventilation can produce the stress that triggers these symptoms.

Some of the physical symptoms of phobia include:

shaking/trembling

sweating excessively

nausea

dizziness

hyperventilation

chest pain

freezing

As fear levels increase, the mental processes intensify and distort. A phobic person will overestimate the danger they are in and underestimate their ability to cope. For example someone with a fear of driving will overestimate the dangers of road travel while underestimating their own driving ability. In this way they may lose all sense of perspective. They expect disaster to be the only outcome. This is called catastrophising.

Some of the common mental processes associated with phobia include:

catastrophising

ignoring the positive

exaggerating

over generalizing

looking for disaster

thinking in all or nothing terms.

As for psychological treatment, among the most effective are CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and CGBT (Cognitive Group Behavioural Therapy). In supportive environments, social phobics can learn to address their fears and can steadily overcome them.

With the help of a therapist, they can develop strategies for coping and find a more constructive way of viewing their fears. The advantage of group therapy is that they can meet and interact with fellow sufferers, which will help them to realise that they are not facing their problems alone.

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DEFINITION AND SYMPTOMS OF PHOBIAS:
A phobia can be defined as an illogical fear or dread. When a person experiences a panic attack, they get panicky feelings; their breathing and heart rates increase; they may experience feeling choked up like their heart is in their throat; their palms often get sweaty; they may experience a ringing in their ears; and they often find that they are unable to take part in an activity. These feelings motivate the individual to try to avoid the situations and places that cause them.

EXAMPLES OF COMMON PHOBIAS:
For example, if someone has an irrational fear of driving, they would exhibit these symptoms at the time they endeavor to drive, or perhaps even when they think about driving. Or a terror attack may happen only when driving in specific places like across railroad tracks.

The fear of talking in front of a group of people is a comparatively widespread phobia. The frightened feelings appear when the sufferer begins to talk in front of a person that they are frightened by, or they might perhaps experience frightened feelings only when in front of a group of other people. The size of the assembly will vary. This phobia can be set off by fears of inadequacy, or a lack of self-esteem.

Those who suffer from a social phobia can get horrifically nervous just being around other folks, even people they recognize. It's a fear that they will be criticized or evaluated by others. This fear can be set off by any kind of social relations. A person could be waiting on line at a supermarket and get stressful feelings as they imagine having to talk to the cashier while they checkout.

The fear of taking a test (which is universally known as test anxiety) is quite a common phobia. A phobia to taking tests is rooted in comparing yourself to other folks, and is deeply rooted in a fear of failing.

People have experienced irrational fears to every sort of experience and environment under the sun. For example: Snakes; bugs; relationships; flying; small enclosed places; animals; high places; death; and even the great outdoors.

Agoraphobia is generally thought to be a fear of open spaces. However, this definition is extremely confusing because Agoraphobics are really afraid of having a panic attack, wherever and whenever. This phobia is developed when a person begins to avoid places or situations they have associated with anxiety. For example, they could have a panic attack at home, church, or in a supermarket.

For people who suffer with phobias, once their panic attacks have begun, they begin to anticipate them to happen. And this anticipation actually causes them to occur with increasing frequency. Other folks experience fearful feelings on a continuous basis. These feelings cause an overall discomfort, rather than panic.

FORMS OF TREATMENT THAT ARE AVAILABLE

DRUGS:
Some physicians care for their patients using sedatives, which can make the condition worse over prolonged treatment. Sedatives do not treat the underlying cause of a phobia; they only camouflage some of the symptoms.

TALK THERAPY:
Some schools of therapy prescribe "Talk Therapy." Talk therapy is only talking about what is bothering you. Unfortunately, talking about or even thinking about the situation or environment that sets off a phobia can trigger a panic attack!

HYPNOTHERAPY:
Traditional hypnosis has been used to treat phobias, but with only meager success. Traditional hypnotic therapy is accomplished when the therapist guides the subject into a relaxed state of self hypnosis and gives the client post-hypnotic commands or suggestions. Since most people in this generation question and resist direct suggestions, they also reject the idea that they will be more relaxed and at ease when they encounter the situation or environment that triggers their panic attacks.

SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION:
Systematic Desensitization is the process of slowly desensitizing a phobic person to the environment or circumstances that sets off a panic attack. For example, if a woman wants to dive from a high board but she fears it, she is asked to first dive from a height that she feels confident about. She dives in and realizes that she did not get hurt and that she is secure.

Next she is asked to dive in from the bottom step of the ladder going up to the high diving board. Again, she dives in and realizes that she wasn't hurt and that she is again safe and secure.

Over a period of time the subject is asked to dive in from progressively higher steps on the ladder. Each time she dives in and realizes that nothing bad happened and that she is safe and secure, she is able to move up to the next rung on the ladder. If she experiences the sensation of fear, then she is asked to move back down one rung on the ladder and dive from there until she feels complete comfort and security. In the end she makes it to the top of the ladder and dives in from the high board itself.

SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION WHILE IN THE STATE OF HYPNOSIS:
Systematic Desensitization can be done virtually while in a hypnotic state with as good as or even better results. While in a relaxed state of hypnosis, the woman would be asked to envision herself diving in from each step on the ladder. She would be asked to visualize herself feeling relaxed and confident as she dives in. Since she is in fact disassociated while picturing herself, she is unable to trigger a phobic attack.

Next she is asked to associate, or put the camera inside of her head so she would be seeing what she would see through her own eyes if she was actually diving in from each step of the ladder. She is asked to imagine feeling safe and relaxed as she dives in.

Just as in a live (in vivo) systematic desensitization, if she feels any panic she is asked to go back to the previous lower step on the ladder and visualize diving in from there.

She might be taught to create a kinesthetic (feeling or touch) "anchor" of feelings of security and safety. She could then trigger that anchor while imagining that she is diving, and the feelings of safety and security could be subjectively transferred to the act of diving.

Systematic Desensitization while in a hypnotic state can be very useful and totally successful, but is can also be slow and take several hypnotic sessions to bring about a cure.

NLP V/K DISASSOCIATION:
Neuro-Linguistic Programming is fundamentally the study and practice of how we create our reality. The V/K stands for visual / kinesthetic. The V/K Disassociation is a technique that allows a trained NLP Practitioner to guide a subject through specific visual imagery that quickly and in many cases instantly disconnects or disassociates the feelings of freight from the trigger or phobia that causes them. The V/K Disassociation is known as the "One session phobia cure" in Neuro-Linguistic Programming circles, and with good reason.

CONCLUSION:
Irrational fears are common in our culture. They are fears that are not based in reality. There are many ways of treating phobias, but thus far in my view, the best finest available are Systematic Desensitization while hypnotized, and the Neuro-Linguistic Programming V/K Disassociation technique.

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The big question is "Can hypnosis cure phobias?".

When the hypnotist you are asking answers with a resounding "yes", the next thought is usually along the lines of "yeah, right".

But you'd be amazed at the high success rate that hypnosis has with phobias.

Top athletes regularly use hypnosis in all areas of their career. One of these areas that they may not be quite as public about is a fear of flying. After all, how can something as common place as flying be something to be afraid of? Surely almost every plane that takes off lands again safely?

Yet fear of flying is a biggie.

Hypnosis to the rescue!

By getting to the core of the fear, hypnosis can turn round the fear of flying and let you face an airport without turning into a quivering wreck.

The same goes for any other fear or phobia you've got.

For instance, if you've been afraid of heights since childhood, you can listen to a hypnosis MP3 and watch the fear melt away. This won't mean that you will lose the natural fear that kicks in when you are about to do something stupid from a height. But it will mean that you can climb a tower or tall building and admire the view, without your knuckles turning white while they are gripping the nearest safe object.

Public speaking is another very common fear. Truth be known, most of the audience probably don't care what you are saying in your presentation. They're just glad that it's you who drew the short straw rather than them. You can use hypnosis to boost your confidence in public speaking so that you don't break out into a cold sweat the next time you are asked to speak in public.