Phobias
A phobia is a fear that has reached an irrational level and is causing a person to actually change the way they live, in order to avoid coming into contact with the source of the phobia. Fear of snakes or spiders may at one time, when we were still living in a wild natural environment, have been something we needed to survive. If we are actually terrified to go into a room because there is a spider there, even though we are well aware that spiders in 21st century Britain are harmless, then our fear is beginning to push into the area of phobia.
If our fear of intense anxiety in heavy traffic, or being in a restaurant, means that we begin to be afraid to go out of the house to socialise, our fears may be crossing into the area of agoraphobia. In an extreme case someone who is agoraphobic will withdraw socially in order to avoid these types of anxiety.
Some people become intensely self -conscious in even the simplest of interactions with other people. They automatically enter into a spiral of thoughts concerning them being judged and found wanting by whoever they happen to be dealing with, even though they can appreciate that this is not the case in reality. This can mean that the person begins to isolate themselves socially. Being with other people in any context becomes such an unpleasant experience for them, they deliberately avoid it. This is known as Social Phobia.
Hypnotherapy addresses phobias by allowing a person to become progressively desensitized to situations which present the stimulus, first at a low level, then at increasing strength right up to very gently confronting the phobia directly. This is done in trance, so the person can condition him or herself to release very strong feelings of relaxation when in the presence of the phobic stimulus.
If a person is afraid of snakes it might be that the weakest stimulus would be a photograph of a snake. This would then be the first place to get them, in trance, to be able, through experiencing feelings of deep relaxation while looking at the photograph, to find that they are able to remain relaxed. Then to progressively create the same relaxed response through more and more challenging presentations of the stimulus right up to being able to be directly in the phobic situation and remain relaxed.
The unconscious is what really effects change in these cases. Hypnotherapy directly addresses the unconscious.