I was asked by one of my students about how to work with a client they have, who is suffering from a fear of heights. So this month’s newsletter will be all about working with fears and phobias. Below is an excerpt from my book “Your Perception IS Your Reality – The Truth About Hypnosis” followed by a discussion on an NLP technique known as the “Fast Phobia Cure”.

I know what you're thinking "But Mike, this is a Hypnosis forum, not an NLP forum." Well, since NLP is derived from Hypnosis, it's all one in the same, and NLP techniques, used in conjunction with Hypnosis techniques, are very powerful, so why not include them.

*** Begin Book Excerpt ***

Fears and Phobias - What’s The Difference?

So, what’s the difference between a “fear” and a “phobia”? Well, both are anxiety states we feel in certain situations. The difference is that a “fear” has a known cause and a “phobia” does not. For example, if we get bitten by a dog when we are a child, we may grow up with a “fear” of dogs. We know this is a fear, because we know where the root cause of the anxiety comes from. On the other hand, take a “fear” of flying. If the person experiencing this anxiety was actually in, or almost in, a plane crash or other airplane related accident, then it’s truly a “fear”. Otherwise, it’s a “phobia”.

So, how does a “phobia” form? There could be several causes. Let’s say you are running late for a flight and you don’t have time to stop and eat. So you get on the plane with low blood sugar. Then your body starts to react to the low blood sugar. You start shaking, you develop some disorientation or anxiety and you try to figure out where these feelings are coming from.

With no understanding of the physiological cause of this state you may mistakenly associate these feelings to being in the airplane. If this happens a couple more times (you’re late; you don’t eat; you feel anxious when you get on a plane), pretty soon, just the act of getting on the plane is enough to trigger the anxiety state and now you have a “phobia” an unnatural “fear of flying” with no known root cause.

Working with Fears

When working with a fear, it’s important to get as close as you can to the initial sensitizing event. When did the client first experience these anxiety feelings associated with whatever the fear is? The reason this is important is because “fears” are typically developed in our early years, usually under the age of 10, although they may not manifest themselves as fears until later on in life.

Following are some discussions on how these “initial sensitizing” events can be uncovered, and then how to use them to work with the client to overcome their fear.

Regression Therapy

Regression Therapy is a technique that takes advantage of the subconscious mind’s inability to perceive “linear time” and allows the hypnotist, once the client is in hypnosis, to regress the client to earlier experience in their stored memories to uncover the initial sensitizing event.

Regressions can manifest themselves as “re-vivifications” which are vivid memories in surprisingly intricate detail, but still somewhat dissociated from the client. With a “full regressive state”, the client actually steps into the experience as if they are experiencing it for the first time. They may act as if they are 5 years old again and will be able to describe smells, sounds, colors, and temperatures, all in great detail.

*** Details about how regressions are performed have been omitted for the sake of brevity ***

Do not engage in regressions with your clients until you have gained enough training and experience to be able to deal with the eventualities responsibly and confidently.

Working with Phobias

When working with a phobia, there is no initial sensitizing event, only the feelings associated with the current event, so the approach is different than working with a fear and ultimately easier to work with. The recommended process for working with phobias is to do a “Progressive Desensitization” to change emotions associated with the event.

Progressive Desensitization

“Progressive Desensitization” is where you take the client into hypnosis and then slowly take them through the series of events leading up to and then through the event that causes them anxiety, all the while having them maintain feelings of calm and confidence.

So, here’s how you do it. Take the client into hypnosis and deepen them. You don’t have to deepen them too much, only to the point where you can produce a sustainable state of calm and confidence. You’ll want to get these feelings as strong as you can.

Once you get the client to the proper depth and build up feelings of calm and confidence, then you slowly take them through the processes that lead up to the anxiety trigger. For example, if someone has a (phobia) fear of flying, you might have them imagine packing their bags, feeling calm and confident; then getting into the transport to take them to the airport, feeling calm and confident; then checking in at the terminal, feeling calm and confident; then getting on to the plane, feeling calm and confident; then experiencing the takeoff, feeling calm and confident; then getting through the flight and landing at their destination, feeling calm and confident; then getting off the plane feeling calm and confident.

You build on the fact that two opposing emotions cannot co-exist. They can’t be calm and confident, and scared at the same time, and the more positive emotions will overrule the negative ones. So while you continue to sustain and re-enforce the feelings of calm and confidence, they won’t be able to experience the fear. So, once their subconscious mind can experience the trigger event while experiencing calm and confidence, it will collapse the old association of fear and instill the new associations of calm and confidence.

Now, depending on the level of intensity of the anxiety associated with the event, you may need to run through this process a few times, until you can observe the client going through the event and feeling calm and confident. Then do some future pacing with them, imagining other situations which, in the past would have triggered the anxiety, and observe that they can go through those situations now, with feelings of calm and confidence.

As stated before, regression therapy and even circle therapy are advanced techniques, so get really good and confident with the “lighter” stuff, before venturing into dealing with people’s fears and phobias. Get additional training and certification in these areas before working with real clients. Overall, use common sense when working with clients using hypnosis. Above all else, always keep the client’s safety and comfort your top priority.

*** End Book Excerpt ***

The NLP Fast Phobia Cure

The Fast Phobia Cure is an effective NLP technique for treating phobias. This technique was created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in late 70's. Richard Bandler believes phobias are often created in a “one time learning” experience. You have learned to fear something in one single event.

The Fast Phobia Cure is based on the premises that if we learn to become phobic quickly, then why not treat it quickly, too?

Fast Phobia Cure - The Technique

1. Have the subject find their greatest fear in life. It’s important to be able to elicit a fear response in your subject, in order to tap into the appropriate emotions for this technique to be truly effective.

2. Have them walk into an imaginary movie theater of their mind and sit down in the center of the front row. Throughout this technique, creating multiple levels of dissociation is critical to the success of this technique. Using a movie theater helps to stimulate the subject imagination, because we are already anchored to do so in this context.

3. Have them float up out of their body and gently settle in a comfortable seat in the balcony, so they can watch themselves watching the screen. This creates another level of dissociation.

4. Have them put the very beginning of their greatest fear on the screen in the form of a colored slide. Have them run the movie of their greatest fear all the way to end, as they remain in the balcony watching sitting in the front row watching themselves on the screen. This technique of ‘watching themselves’ in a dissociated state begins to separate them from the emotions anchored to the phobia.

5. At the end of the movie, freeze the frame into a slide. Change the picture to black and white and then re-associate fully into the picture on the screen (walk into the movie). Run the associated movie backwards at triple speed or faster, with circus or cartoon music playing, and have them freeze - frame the image when they get to the beginning of the movie. Changing the image from color to black and white further diminishes the emotions anchored to the phobic response. Running the film backwards allows the subject to experience the event by starting from a flat emotional state.

6. Have them walk out of the still picture and sit back down in the center of the front row of the theater, then have them white out the entire screen.

7. Repeat steps 3-6 as necessary. Test for the phobic response after each time through. All throughout the process use plenty of presuppositions and language patterns to reinforce your change work.

Thanks to Richard Bandler and John Grinder for developing this powerful tool.

Michael C. White, C.Ht.